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Ninety-Nine

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Well, who would have thought that Apple will one day make a pencil case. As far as I can tell their £29 pencil case was released earlier this month. Before you start wondering how you can use it for your pen collection: It can only hold one pen – the £99 Apple pencil.

Time to turn this into a ‘lucky bag’ blog post [1]An expression I got from Gunther and like.. In the UK the Apple pencil is £99, in the USA it’s $99, so let’s stay with the theme of 99 and look at how to say [2]or how to write it, in the case of Roman Numerals this number in different languages:

90 9 (English)

9+90 (German)

9 10 9 (Mandarin, Japanese, Korean)

4 20 10 9 (French)

10 100 1 10 (Roman Numerals)

 

References

References
↑1 An expression I got from Gunther and like.
↑2 or how to write it, in the case of Roman Numerals

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Billographe

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My father was a joiner. When he used to make plans for customers he always used to label them with this stencil. I think this stencil is one of the earliest things I remember from his workshop. He used it until he retired, when he was in his seventies.

A few years ago I decided to take it with me to the UK. At that time it was still in perfect shape. I kept it in a plastic bag for a few years and I couldn’t believe my eyes when I took it out of the bag recently. The stencil was completely deformed and the surface was very oily. I assume something from the plastic bag somehow interacted with the plastic form the stencil.

What a shame. I put some heavy books on, in the hope that it will help get the stencil at least a little bit back into shape, but I am not too confident that this will work.

The label reads BILLOGRAPHE №4 (bille fine) MINERVA FRANCE

It looks as if these are still being made, at least in some sizes, but they seem to be extremely difficult to get hold of outside France [1]In Germany Standardgraph, which you might know because of their DUX sharpeners, is selling similarly coloured stencils – not only letters, also stencils to make plans of rooms, etc..

 

References

References
↑1 In Germany Standardgraph, which you might know because of their DUX sharpeners, is selling similarly coloured stencils – not only letters, also stencils to make plans of rooms, etc.

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IKEA’s pencil book

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Caroline Weaver’s pencil book has been the big topic in the stationery fandom. As there’s nothing much I can say about this book that hasn’t already been said publicly or privately here’s a look at another pencil book.

You might remember my blog post about Ikea’s huge pencil soft toy (or is it some kind of pillow?) from last year, or my blog post about another item from IKEA – to store Field Notes the Swedish way. Today’s blog post about IKEA again, specifically about a pencil themed children book they sell: Let’s Go Says The Pencil.

Part of a drawing from one of the book’s pages

This was in the IKEA store in Warrington [1]..which was the first IKEA in the UK. They also have a pencil themed area for children to try out their products.

Oh, while you are here anyway, something not IKEA related: I noticed that CultPens is now selling the black Mars Technico 780C I showed in the Insights X blog post.

Staedtler Mars technico

If you want to see more IKEA related stationery blog posts have a look at the ones found at Lexikaliker (in German) or the ones from Pencil Revolution. The Pencil Case Blog even had a three part series about IKEA stationery.

References

References
↑1 ..which was the first IKEA in the UK

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Resistance is futile

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No, this blog post’s title is not a reference to the Start Trek VIII movie poster, but a comment on my stationery purchased. 

I’ve already spent nearly £50 on stationery in the last month. I think I should slow down a bit. Latest acquisitions, except the Paper book by Kurlanski and a book I just ordered after I got to know from it from Gunther, are pictured below. 


The leads are to extend a lead test I’m currently conducting. I’m also still waiting for the Lamy Petrol ink I ordered from Write Here. 

How can I resist. 

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…a Pencil Must Be Lead

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After yesterday’s blog post about Britain’s Northern Pen Show, here’s a blog post about Northern British [1]Stan Laurel grew up in the North of England and in Scotland. As this is his sentence I’m just going to attribute it to him. pencil humour from yesteryear.

Since we’re going to talk about horses: some horse pencils

Pencil Humour in the 1930s

From the 1930 Laurel and Hardy movie Brats: You can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be le(a)d.

Pencil Humour in the 2010s

British pencil humour these days is very different. If you want a taste you can watch episode six of the BBC’s Fleabag. I won’t repeat the pencil joke here as it involves a hamster and is rather explicit [2]The BBC’s warning for this episode reads ‘Contains strong language and some sexual content.’.

Fleabag (image © Two Brothers Pictures / BBC)

Another quote from Fleabag then: People make mistakes. It’s why they put rubbers on the ends of pencils.

David Rees Pencil Humour

Since we are talking about pencils and humour anyway: You might have noticed the link to Lifehacker’s Expert Guide To Sharpening Pencils I put on Bleistift’s Facebook page.

The author knows that David Rees’s pencil sharpening is to some extent comedic but looks at all the claims from the point of view of a botanical illustrator – someone who works with graphite and coloured pencils.

The Three Horse Pencils photo is from a previous blog post.

The screenshot has been taken from Fleabag episode six. I believe that the use of the image shown in this blog post, falls under “fair dealing” as described by the UK Copyright service.

References

References
↑1 Stan Laurel grew up in the North of England and in Scotland. As this is his sentence I’m just going to attribute it to him.
↑2 The BBC’s warning for this episode reads ‘Contains strong language and some sexual content.’

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