Uncategorised Archives - Page 15 of 30

At the Insights X 2016

4 Comments / Uncategorised / 12 October 2016 / Insights-X

I’m back from the Insights X and hope there’ll be enough time in the next few days to write a few short blog posts about the trade fair.

We ^[1]My wife and son went, too. had a great time at the trade fair. Seeing the stationery blogging royalty in real life was great, too.

I was most happy to finally have met Lexikaliker. I have been in contact with him since 2009.

I also met Dries. I have exchanged emails with him since he started blogging in 2013.

Then there were Aziza and Stephen. Aziza has been blogging about stationery since 2010 and Stephen must be the most popular stationery vlogger on YouTube.

I wasn’t the only one from the UK. Tessa was there, too. I just heard her talk on the Pen Addict podcast a few weeks earlier.

I also met Christian and Markus. I remember looking at Christian’s blog post about the posh edition of the Gessner in the past. Very tempting. Markus’ blog is quite unusual as it doesn’t only cover stationery, but lots of lifestyle topics, too.

The view from the press centre. A panorama shot from my phone. Excuse the panorama stitching mistakes.

References[+]

References
↑1	My wife and son went, too.

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2x Staedtler

Leave a Comment / Uncategorised / 8 October 2016 / Insights-X, Nuremberg, Staedtler

Greetings from Nuremberg.

If you follow the Bleistift Facebook page or my Instagram feed you might have noticed that I’m on my way to a stationery trade fair, the Insights X in Nuremberg.

On the way there two exciting things have happened. Out of the blue I saw someone at Manchester Airport with a t-shirt that seemed to feature Staedtler’s Mars logo from fifty years ago – you can see the old logo in this blog post from Lexikaliker. I assume this seeing this Mars head on a t-shirt is a coincidence and not linked to Staedtler, but to the Mars symbol itself …but seeing it in an unexpected place was still exciting.

Then when the second plane was landing in Nuremberg things got even better, we were flying just next to Staedtler’s headquarters I visited earlier this year.

Unfortunately the photo, taken with my mobile, is not that clear but if you look closely you can just make it the Staedtler logo. In reality it was very easy to see.

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Stationery Fever

4 Comments / Uncategorised / 6 October 2016 / Stationery Fever

How exciting, yesterday I got the Stationery Fever book I mentioned previously.

Amazon is quite cheeky. They give you that price guarantee that you pay whatever the lowest price is between you ordering and the book coming out and then they lower the price one or two days after the book is out. When I ordered it on Monday Amazon’s official price was still £24.99, so I ordered from Amazon Marketplace instead, from a seller called Speedyhen ^[1]They seemed to be faster than others, which turned out to be true, I ordered on Monday and got the book on Wednesday., and paid only £16.96. Now that the preorders are fulfilled Amazon UK lowered their price to £19.98 (October 2016). On their Marketplace you can still get it cheaper, but might have to wait a bit longer before the book arrives.

The US release date is still set for 8 November and the price is still $39.95. This is one of these rare occasions where something in the UK is cheaper than in the USA.

The first thing I did was (of course) to read Lexikaliker’s article about the Grenade…

…followed by admiring a picture from Sean’s collection.

The photo of the table of contents will give you an idea about the other things you can find in the book.

I haven’t read more than that so far, but am looking forward to exploring the other pages of the book.

Brownie points: If you read this blog post you can make a connection between Stationery ‘Fever’ and the Pencil Cedar.

I believe that showing a few pages from the Stationery Fever book in this blog post falls under “fair dealing” as described by the UK Copyright service.

References[+]

References
↑1	They seemed to be faster than others, which turned out to be true, I ordered on Monday and got the book on Wednesday.

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Insights-X

7 Comments / Uncategorised / 5 October 2016 / Insights-X, Nuremberg

Exciting news: This weekend I’ll be going to the Insights-X Stationery EXPO in Nuremberg.

Image ©: AlexSchelbert.de / Spielwarenmesse eG

I first read about this trade fair in Lexikaliker’s blog. It’s from the same organiser who runs Nuremberg’s big toy and game trade fair and this year I was lucky enough to have been invited to attend, like several other bloggers.

Exciting: I'm expecting to see lots of Staedtler products — Exciting: I’m expecting to see lots of Staedtler products

It doesn’t come as a surprise that the big pencil manufacturer’s from in and around Nuremberg will be there, but strangely enough Faber-Castell isn’t listed in the pencil category of the trade fair’s directory. I am not sure whether this means that FC will focus on other products at Insights-X or whether this is just a mistake in the directory.

Faber-Castell has a big stand, too. Hindustan pencils is not far, stand A-13.

To my surprise some of the more exotic pencil manufacturers will also be there, for example the Hindustan Pencil company, but others, like Portugal’s Viarco are not present.

Sharpener wise, the only exciting company at Insights-X seems to be KUM.

I’m very much looking forward to visiting the trade fair. I’ve never been to a stationery trade fair or even a pen show before.

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This and that

Leave a Comment / Uncategorised / 27 September 2016 / IKEA, M&G, Prestel, Rocketbook Wave Smart Notebook, Stationery Fever

Work has kept me very busy which explains the lack of new blog posts in the last weeks.

M&G

Just to show that I’m still alive here’s a quick blog post with some small points I want to raise.

I have mentioned M&G several times in the past, but all my M&G pens so far were bought in China. They seem to work on getting a bigger presence outside China and I have now spotted their pens in my local post office. I wonder whether this is the time where we’ll start to see more and more Chinese stationery brands in the West.

IKEA

I’ve seen this IKEA pencil soft toy during a recent trip to the Swedish furniture retailer.

Rocketbook Wave Smart Notebook

Erasable ballpoint pens have been around since the 1970s ^[1]see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasermate and there are numerous reports how these type of pens work – you can for example get erased content back by freezing the notebook. Well, this notebook adds a new idea to the mix.

Stationery Fever

Thanks to Gunther I found out about the new Stationery Fever book. The German version: Schreibwaren has already been released. The UK version will be released on 3rd October and the US version will be released on 8th November.

It looks as if this book contains some very exciting content.

I believe that the use of the cover of the book in this blog post falls under “fair dealing” as described by the UK Copyright service.

References[+]

References
↑1	see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasermate

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