Stationery Fever

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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.

Stationery Fever

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.

Stationery Fever
Gunther’s article

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.

Stationery Fever
A peek at 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

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

Image ©: AlexSchelbert.de / Spielwarenmesse eG
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.
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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Pencil Pot Of The Month – September 2016

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Description: A high tech pencil pot that comes with a 6510 CPU and a colour screen.

Price: I think I paid less than DM 100 (at that time ~$50; €50; £25), but that was more than 15 years ago.

Material: Plastic, glass, metal, silicon and more

The Commodore SX-64 as a pencil pot

Further information: The empty drive bay of the Commodore SX-64 is not only a good place to store your sandwich when you take it out to do some serious computing at your local Starbucks, it’s also suitable for storing pencils and other stationery.

You can see the Wopex / SX-64 combination in this previous blog post.

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This and that

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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.

M&G pens in the local post office
M&G pens in the local post office

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.

IKEA soft toy pencil
IKEA soft toy pencil

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.

The German cover of the Stationery Fever book
The German cover of the Stationery Fever book

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

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Visiting Staedtler’s Nuremberg factory

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While in Germany in August this year I was given the chance to part in a factory tour at Staedtler’s factory in Nuremberg. These factory tours are taking place nearly every day, but the audience seems to be predominantly school children. Unfortunately photography was not allowed for most of the tour, so there aren’t many pictures to show.

Staedtler factory tour

Lead production

Staedtler’s Nuremberg factory is just short of an hour’s drive from my home town. Here in Nuremberg they make the leads for wood cased pencils and coloured pencils, They also make mechanical pencils and lots of other pens, like the Triplus, the Pigment Liner and the Lumocolor, just to name a few.

I was able to see how the leads are made, which was very exciting, but unfortunately I didn’t see the wood cased pencil production, as it takes place in the Staedtler factory in Neumarkt, approximately 50 km (30 miles) South East of Nuremberg.

The leads for all Staedtler pencils are made in the Nuremberg factory. That means that if, for example, you buy a Thai-made Staedtler Minerva the lead is still from Nuremberg. Not all leads are the same though. They all use Bavarian graphite and German clay, but the better ones get, for example, a much longer oil bath.

Seeing how fast the machines make the coloured Triplus (running day and night thanks to the adult colouring boom) compared to t how long it takes to make the leads for the pencils I wonder how it is possible to produce the pencils for such a low price.

By the way, I asked which lead is most popular, after HB. After asking around Mr Rüdel, the tour guide and Staedtler expert, told me that the second most popular lead is 2B. I am not too surprised, since many people seem to like soft leads, but on the other hand some of Staedtler’s pencils are not available in 2B, so you’d think B might be more popular…

Mr Rüdel explaining Staedtler's history in the Staedtler Museum
Mr Rüdel explaining Staedtler’s history in the Staedtler Museum

Eberhard Faber and Neumarkt

The Neumarkt factory used to be the German Eberhard Faber factory [1]which was independent of the American Eberhard Faber company, until Staedtler bought it in the 1970s.

One of the reasons Staedtler sold the rights to the Eberhard Faber company was the fact that consumers associate “Eberhard Faber” with “Faber-Castell”, so in 2009 Staedtler sold the rights to the Eberhard Faber name and trademarks to Faber-Castell, who are now using it to sell their cheaper, lower quality products. Staedtler did however keep the Neumarkt factory and they are making wood cased pencils and leads for mechanical pencils there.

Staedtler factory tour

I am very grateful for the opportunity to have been part of a factory tour and would like to thank Mr Rüdel who showed us around and who answered all my questions patiently, showing great knowledge of all things Staedtler. I would also like to thank Ms Förster who also answered many of my questions, Mr Schindler, who told me about the factory tours, and Mr Hufnagl, who took the time to say hello, despite being so busy.

 

References

References
↑1 which was independent of the American Eberhard Faber company

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