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Sherlock’s pencil

8 Comments / Pencils / 6 January 2014 / BBC, Benedict Cumberbatch, QI, Sherlock

Sherlock - The sign of Three (Image © Hartswood Films / BBC Wales / WGBH) — Sherlock – The Sign of Three (Image © Hartswood Films / BBC Wales / WGBH)

Nice to see Sherlock Holmes using a pencil in “The Sign of Three“, the latest Sherlock episode.

The type of pencil he’s using was quite common in the early 20th century, when “seven daily deliveries of post meant it was perfectly possible to arrange and confirm an appointment in the evening by sending a postcard in the morning” (Lloyd and Mitchinson, 2010, p.303) ^[1]Lloyd, J. and Mitchinson, J., 2010. QI: The Second Book of General Ignorance. London: Faber and Faber..

People secured these pencils to their clothes or belts using the attached chain. This meant they were always ready to write postcards, similar to our use of text messages today. Back then the receiver had to pay the postage, so the sender didn’t need to bother with that detail, which made sending short messages on postcards even easier.

The screenshots in this blog post has been taken from episode 2 “The Sign of Three” of the third season of the BBC’s Sherlock. I believe that the use of the screenshots shown in this blog post falls under “fair dealing” as described by the UK Copyright service.

References[+]

References
↑1	Lloyd, J. and Mitchinson, J., 2010. QI: The Second Book of General Ignorance. London: Faber and Faber.

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Another one bites the dust…

Leave a Comment / Uncategorised / 27 December 2013

Another one bites the dust – well, kind of.

A while ago I wrote about the local pen shop in Preston. Platts closed down its shop on the high street but continues to trade online. The stationery shop Schreibwaren Jäcklein / Hiller Bürobedarf in my old home town, Volkach, suffers a similar fate now. They will close down at the end of this year, but will keep trading online. There’s a closing down sale, all items are 50% off.

I wish them the best of luck for their future.

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Merry Christmas

5 Comments / Graf von Faber-Castell / 25 December 2013 / Christmas, Graf von Faber-Castell, Lindauer

Merry Christmas! I hope that over the holidays you’ll find the time to enjoy some of your favourite pens and pencils.

I was lucky enough to get some pencils for Christmas from my wife (including a Lamy plus pencil, which isn’t easy to get in the UK and some less common Staedtler pencils), but I also got two non-pencil items for Christmas: a bottle of Graf von Faber-Castell’s new ink and a Lindauer fountain pen. In Papier Pfeiffer I was told that Faber-Castell is currently only shipping Hazelnut Brown, Stone Grey and Garnet Red – I assume this is only true for Germany though. Shops in other countries seem to stock different ink colours.

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Goodone’s belted notebook

Leave a Comment / Paper & Notebooks / 12 December 2013 / Goodone, Kickstarter

The good folk from Goodone have contacted me to tell me about their product on Kickstarter: belted notebooks. What I read did sound quite interesting so I thought I mention it in a blog post.

It’s basically a leather notebook that comes with a strap so that you can wear it like a bag. Two of the points I liked most: The leather used is from upholstery left overs and the strap you use to hang it over your shoulders comes with a pen loop.

I was told that any loose sheets of papers you might insert into the belted notebook, called YOU, will be held firmly in place thanks to the notebook’s elastic band.

I wish them good luck and hope they’ll reach their goal on Kickstarter.

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Pelikan Wall Calendar

Leave a Comment / Pelikan / 6 December 2013 / calendar, Pelikan

What a nice surprise when I came home yesterday: I got Pelikan’s huge wall calender for 2014.

October's pen and the calendar sheet on the left (image © Pelikan) — October’s pen and the calendar sheet on the left (image © Pelikan)

You get one for posting a photo on Pelikan’s Facebook page (for more details follow the link at the end of this blog post). I think there are still lots of calendars left. They have 500 to give away, but when I had a look at the submitted pictures this morning there were less than 100. If you want ^[1]You don’t need a Facebook account to take part, my wife took part and she doesn’t have a Facebook account – but you might need someone with a Facebook account to access the page, … Continue reading one of these calendars go to this page.

References[+]

References
↑1	You don’t need a Facebook account to take part, my wife took part and she doesn’t have a Facebook account – but you might need someone with a Facebook account to access the page, I’m not sure about that.

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