BIC

Silver

When I bought the Chinese New Year pens from BIC I also put a few more items in the basket to get free shipping. One of them was the BIC Silver Set: Seven silver-ish pens and a silver-ish notebook. The official UK price is £16.99 (~$22.70; €20.50). I saw which pens will be included, but didn’t know what to expect in terms of material. Will some of them have a metal body?

In case you wonder: all of the pens are plastic-y, none have a metal body. The 2mm Criterium lead holder would have been amazing with a metal body – a bit like the Caran d’Ache Fixpencil 884. The American made marking pencil is quite interesting. You can use it to mark any(?) surface with nice, opaque silver-grey paint – good to label black plastic or metal.

I really like that the packaging shows where the different pens are from.


Price and exchange rates: March 2022

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Year of the Tiger

With the year of the tiger in full swing (we just finished Lantern festival and had the first full moon of the Chinese New Year) it is time to show some Chinese New Year pens.

I assume BIC made these for the Chinese market as one of them even shows a Chinese flag. They have a generic New Year theme and are not focussed on the animal of the Chinese zodiac, i.e. Tiger for 2022, so can be resold every year without having to be redesigned. The centrepiece is the golden BIC in the middle.

Happy New Year!

Year of the Tiger Read More »

2019 contest and 2020 wishes

Bleistift Blog is wishing you all the best for 2020.

If you want to start the new year with new mechanical pencils (from Caran d’Ache, Faber-Castell, Lamy and BIC) you still have a few days left to take part in the Stationery Wiki:Mechanical Pencil Day Contest 2019 (..if you read this blogpost on the day it was published).

The pencils that make up our prize for the mechanical pencil day contest

All you need to do is to improve an article or maybe even create a new article to have a chance of winning.

Good Luck – for 2020 and for the contest.

2019 contest and 2020 wishes Read More »

Highway to pen

It’s always nice to drive through Belgium as it gives me a chance to refill my Atoma reserves. As you might know, I’m a big fan of Atoma notebooks.

Stationery in a Carrefour Hypermarket

With such a choice to tempt me (see photo above) I couldn’t resist getting a BIC multi-pen with a pencil to add to my multi-pen plus pencil collection.

BIC in Belgium

Carrefour had an offer on the Pelikano junior for under €10. It’s a great pen. When I bought mine in 2008 I paid £6.80, but these prices are long gone and today €10 seems like a steal.

Pelikano junior, probably bigger in Japan than in Europe

The reason I really stopped was to get more Atoma notebooks. Unfortunately they didn’t have the Bio Atoma which I love. Even Atomas with cardboard covers were rare. Most had thick plastic covers which seem unnecessarily plasticy and not as nice as the cardboard variety. The similar Adoc notebooks were however available with cardboard covers.

No Bio Atomas. Sniff.

When I drove on, into Germany, I noticed another nice stationery surprise. Kids get the excellent Noris colour pencils with a kids meal. Chicken fillets, fries, orange juice and Staedtler Noris for €3.99. The Noris is certainly the star in this combo.

I wish I was a kid

Highway to pen Read More »

Pencil prize

Previously, I mentioned the start of Stationery.wiki‘s Mechanical Pencil Day Contest 2019, running until 7 January 2020 extended until 31 January 2020.

The pencils that make up our prize for the mechanical pencil day contest

It’s time to show what’s up for grabs: one Swiss-made, two German-made and one Japanese-made mechanical pencil.

Please take part!

Pencil prize Read More »