Search Results for: korea

The Monami 153 – outside Korean, inside German

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Today: a quick follow-up post about one of the pencils, the Monami 153, from the recent giveaway.

A few weeks ago the Monami was sent to the winner, but before I sent it I had a quick look at the pencil. What to expect from this ‘review’? This blog post is rather short, as I don’t have the pencil anymore to take more photos. It basically just links to the video review and gives some simple information about the 153.

By the way, if the giveaway winner of the Monami 153 reads this: please let me know whether the pencil has arrived. I kept the receipt from Royal Mail, just in case it’s lost.

Monami

Originally the Monami 153 was a humble, cheap plastic ballpoint pen. This mechanical pencil is part of a release of the Monami 153 in ‘posher’ materials. You’ll find a more detailed explanation about this re-release and Monami’a anniversary in the video review.

The previous Monami pencil I reviewed, the MP-4003, was quite bling. The 153 is much more understated and shouldn’t make you feel embarrassed if you bring it to a meeting at work.

By the way, Monami seems to have switched writing their name to upper case on products. The older MP-4003 is labelled in camelCase, not as MONAMI, but as MonAmi. I guess there’s a good chance that it is supposed to be pronounced French, presumably being based on the French Mon Amie (‘My Friend’), but this is just speculation on my part.

The Pencil

The pencil itself is fairly heavy…

…and it is longer than other mechanical pencils I looked at recently.

The ‘posh’ version of the Monami 153 is based on Schmidt’s system mechanism. You can see more details about this in the video review. The system mechanism means that there only needs to be one type body being made which can then be filled with a ballpoint refill or with a mechanical pencil mechanism.

This ‘one body for different types of pens’ idea is not so unusual. Staedtler’s Concrete, their pen with a ‘high performance concrete’ body, is, as far as I know, also using one body with different ‘refills’ depending on whether you buy the ballpoint pen or the mechanical pencil. I might buy myself one for my birthday. If I do I will report back.

 

There’s not much more I can add, especially because I sent the pencil to the giveaway winner. Please have a look at the video review for more information.

Well, not only is this Korean pencil gone from our home. Around the same time, I also used up some nice Korean tea I had. I’ll leave you with this image of two nice items from Korean – until next time.

Korean Pen and Korean Tea

 

 

 

 

Korean pencils in Sweden?

1 Comment / Pencils / By

Another Hairy Bikers blog post. When they were visiting Sweden in their latest series 2.3 million viewers saw David Myers using an “Office Pencil” that looks suspiciously familiar to the Dong-A Office Pencil.

David Myers using the office pencil (Image © BBC)
David Myers using the office pencil (Image © BBC)

As a comparison, here’s the Dong-A Office Pencil. The problem is: they don’t look identical, just similar – so I assume this is a slightly different pencil. The company logo seems different and the ferrule has another colour.

Dong-A Office Pencil (Image © Dong-A)
Dong-A Office Pencil (Image © Dong-A)

I wonder whether any Swedish reader (I seem to get about 30 a month) can tell me which “office pencil” labelled pencil is common in Sweden.

I have been using Dong-A pencils for many years and like them. It’s a shame they are not easily available in the West …or are they available in Sweden?

Dong-A Fable pencils
Dong-A Fable pencils

The screenshots in this blog post has been taken from Episode Six of The Hairy Bikers’ Northern Exposure. I believe that the use of the screenshot shown in this blog post falls under “fair dealing” as described by the UK Copyright service.

The joy of ink

1 Comment / PaperMate, Uncategorised / By

Papermate’s Inkjoy gel pens are really nice. Unfortunately it’s very difficult to get the 0.5mm version in the UK. It’s easier to find a really good deal on the 0.7mm version (finding a good deal is something that happened to me three times in the last two years) than to find the fine version at any price (something that has happened to me zero times in the last two years).

When I came across those three good deals I always bought them and every time I ended up with different versions. My oldest Inkjoys, retractable big barrel ones, were Made in Korea, but the later versions I bought, the retractable 300RT and the capped big barrel ones, were Made in India.

They all write great, but the cap of the capped version is a bit loose and less practical than the retractable version.

Mechanical Pencil Day is here!

149 Comments / Mechanical pencils / By

It’s time to celebrate! The first ever Mechanical Pencil Day is here.

Why Today?

With the two most popular lead diameters being 0.5mm and 0.7mm the day was set to 05/07 (in the format used in UK, France, Italy, Spain, ..) that’s 07/05 (in the format used in USA, China, maybe Canada) or 5.7. (in the format used in Germany and other Central and Northern European countries). [1]I guess my personal mechanical pencil day should be 02/03 then 😛

To celebrate this special day there are, of course, prizes to be won.

Everyone’s Celebrating

CultPens was kind enough to supply more than £50 worth of prizes. They also agreed that I can split these between Bleistift.blog and Stationery.wiki. As part of their Mechanical Pencil Day celebrations they published a blog post from me on their blog yesterday (The picture are not form me, though). Other blogs give out prizes, too. I can’t list all the blogs that offer prizes, as I am not sure who exactly is taking part (this blog post was written before 5 July) but I know that Dave from Dave’s Mechanical Pencils has some fine pencils he’ll hand out. He’s the one who made me aware of Mechanical Pencil Day in the first place. Have a look at his blog for even more chances of winning fine writing gear than if you only take part in my giveaway.

How to Win

OK, here’s what’s on offer and how to win Bleistift’s giveaway prizes. By the way, I won’t force you to follow my YouTube, Facebook or Twitter account to take part in the draw for this giveaway. We’re all adults here and you should decide yourself who you want to follow. Instead of following my social media channels, all you have to do for a chance to win is to leave a comment at the bottom of this blog post.

Mechanical Pencil Day Prizes

..and here are the prizes. From left to right we have:

How will the winner be decided?

  1. I will use a random number generator to get a random number n. I will then check who wrote the nth comment.
  2. I will then check whether the nth comment is the first comment by a blog reader on this giveaway post. If it is the first comment by a blog reader on this post this reader will get the pencil of their choice. If the comment was written by myself or it was not the first comment I will go back to step one.
    This ensures that I won’t win a prize myself. It also means that you can comment as often as you want, but only one of your comments (the first one) will count for the prize draw.
  3. I will then repeat the first two steps until we have a winner for the second pencil. The second winner can choose from the remaining three pencils.
  4. Deadline is 11 July 2018 at 12:00 (noon) Zulu time (UTC), that’s 5:00 PDT [2]Tango, 8:00 EDT [3]Quebec, 13:00 BST [4]Alfa, 14:00 CEST [5]Bravo, 20:00 CST [6]Hotel, 21:00 KST/JST [7]India. [8]All these time zones remind me of the 1980s and early 1990s when MTV Europe was still free to watch. In Europe, you’re not really used to different time zones, but with MTV Europe being a … Continue reading
  5. I will contact you if you’ve won, but if I don’t hear back from you within a week the pencils might be given to someone else or used in another giveaway or contest.
  6. The two remaining pencils will be the prizes for the Stationery.wiki contest. You can, of course, take part in both, the Bleistift giveaway and the Stationery.wiki contest. In fact, I encourage you to.

Who can take part?

CultPens sent the pencils to me. I will send them to the winners using Royal Mail. They will usually send items to more or less all countries, but if you live on the ISS or in a research station in Antarctica and are not sure whether they deliver to you you can check on their Country Guide page.

I will send the pen using the cheapest method (this is a free blog after all, with no income from advertising). I think within the UK this is covered up to £20. Internationally the cover might be even higher. If you need the pen sent in a specific way let me know and I will see whether I can accomodate.

Good Luck.

References

References
↑1 I guess my personal mechanical pencil day should be 02/03 then 😛
↑2 Tango
↑3 Quebec
↑4 Alfa
↑5 Bravo
↑6 Hotel
↑7 India
↑8 All these time zones remind me of the 1980s and early 1990s when MTV Europe was still free to watch. In Europe, you’re not really used to different time zones, but with MTV Europe being a pan-European TV station programmes were announced in different time zones.