The images in this blog post have been taken from Episode 4: “Walking Around in Our Drawings” of the Double Fine Adventure documentary by 2 Player Productions. I believe that the use of the images shown in this blog post falls under “fair dealing” as described by the UK Copyright service.
Today: another blog post about one of the items I have received from Office Hero, the Staedtler Wopex. You might remember my previous two blog posts about the Wopex, one was looking at the Wopex 2B and 2H and one was comparing different eco pencils. Office Hero sent me a pack of twelve Wopex as a free sample. Their normal price is £4.01 (~ $6.35; €4.60) plus VAT.
Why another blog post about the Wopex? The Wopex has one property I really like, even though there are actually also a few things wrong with the Wopex. Back to the characteristic I like, which is why I pick this pencil more and more often when making entries in my diary. The reason is simple and has been mentioned by Koralatov in a recent comment: there’s hardly any graphite transfer between different pages when writing on the reverse. I use my diary to keep track of appointments and to record things that need doing. Graphite from soft pencils will transfer easily after something has been written on the reverse or on the next page, which will in then look very unsightly. Even though you can get graphite from the Wopex to transfer to another page if you want to, as seen on the photos, this transfer is usually not happing under normal circumstance and is therefore not a problem.
Graphite comparison in a Castelli Academic Diary
I think the Wopex has great potential, but it also has a few flaws which I want to mention.
The “fibre Wopex material” is too hard, so I use dedicated sharpeners in my office and at home, just for the Wopex. The “fibre Wopex material” is also too hard for rotary blade sharpeners.
If you sharpen the Wopex to a very fine point the point will break easily.
Small bits of the “fibre Wopex material”, close to the lead, can crumble off when sharpening.
There doesn’t seem to be a difference between the Wopex 2B, HB and 2H.
There are quite a few other issues, but mentioning them all would distract from the main issue I want to address here: Wopex‘s great lead that is a very good choice for diaries.
Top-bottom: Mars Lumograph HB, F, Castell 9000 HB, 2B, Technograph B, Wopex HB, Mono HB, Ticonderoga HB
Let’s look at the results from my (unrepresentative) graphite transfer test, conducted by writing on one page, putting the next page on top and applying pressure to the reverse of the next page [1]The effects can be stronger when applying pressure directly to the reverse of the page you wrote on.. Harder and lighter leads do better than softer and darker leads – no surprise here. The best pencil in my comparison was the Staedtler Wopex HB, followed by the Caran d’Ache Technograph 777 B, which has previously been reviewed by penciltalk. The worst pencils in this test were the Tombow Mono 100 HB and the Amos Dixon Ticonderoga HB. This was obviously due to their softness which does however bring other advantages, e.g. better pressure/darkness ratio – I do however prefer a tidy diary and do tend to use the Tombow and Dixon only when smearing, smudging and graphite transfer don’t matter.
Price and exchange rates: October 2011.
I would like to thank
David from Office Hero and Oliver Carding from Sagittarius Digital for the free samples
The comparison has been conducted in a Castelli Academic Diary my wife got from her employer. I use a no name academic diary from my employer, which has very different paper. My initial impressions are that graphite-transer-wise good pencils behave better in my diary, but bad pencils behave worse.
1983: 222 years Faber-Castell, 2005: 100 years Castell 9000
Let’s have a look at Faber-Castell’s 222nd anniversary in 1983. Back then pencileers, molyvophiles [1]Someone passionate about pencils and molyvologues [2]A student of pencils had more than enough reason to celebrate. I wonder whether there was a corporate party for their business partners in 1983, too. Personally, I prefer nice anniversary products, but that’s rather selfish, Faber-Castell business partners will probably prefer the party.
Click to read (subject to screen resolution)
Why is the 222nd anniversary so important? I don’t know. I certainly don’t know why there have been more exciting products back then than in the 250th anniversary year so far. In my experience people from German-speaking countries place more importance on Schnapszahlen (repdigits) than people from English-speaking countries. You might argue that a repdigit is not very important, but then a ’round number’ is actually not that exciting any more once you change to another positional notation[3]25010 = 3728 = FA16 = 111110102.
The Castell 9000 Jubilator pencils
Faber-Castell released six different limited-edition tins for the Schnapszahl anniversary, featuring the following images: ‘The Nile Pencils’, ‘Railway Pencils’, ‘Aristocratic’, ‘The Caravan Pencils’, ‘Landscape Pencils’ and the picture with the jousting knights, previously discussed at pencil talk. Leadholder has more information about this picture – a mirrored version has been used on pencil tins in the early 20th century. The jousting knights image has also been used for a special box from the same year, containing one gross, i.e.12 dozen, Castell 9000 pencils and limited to 2000 boxes, and it has been used again in 2005 for a special tin commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Castell 9000.
2011 is the year Faber-Castell celebrates its 250 year anniversary (1761 – 2011). Stephen from penciltalk told me about an anniversary set of 6 Castell 9000 pencils that was for sale on eBay. Faber-Castell gave these away at this year’s Paperworld trade fair. Unlike the centennial tins with 12 and 72 pencils, this tin does not contain the normal Castell 9000 pencils you can buy in shops, but Castell 9000 pencils with 1761 – 2011 * 250 years printed on them. They are not available in shops (yet), but according to comments on Faber-Castell’s facebook page Faber-Castell seems to consider producing them for sale. Let’s keep our fingers crossed!
Stabilo celebrates the 40th anniversary of their Boss Highlighters. As part of this anniversary there is a giveaway from Tiger Pens, where you can win Boss mugs, and a game from Stabilo where you can win Boss mugs, USB sticks and other prizes (there are different prizes for different countries).
Staedtler‘s historic pencil construction kit will unfortunately not be available in shops. The good news: you can order these kits directly from Staedtler for € 5 each. You can also get Staedtler’s historic Lumograph tin (100 M12H: € 16.20), the historic Tradition tin (Nr. 110 M12H: € 14.40) and the historic Noris tin (Nr. 120 M12H: € 9.60) directly from Staedtler. All of these special items are only available while stocks last. The historic pencil construction kit is not available yet, but can already be ordered.
The photo of Stephen Wiltshire using a Staedtler Tradition has been taken from Top Gear Episode 5 of Series 14 and has been used previously in a blog post from March 2010 about the Staedtler tradition. I believe that the use of this image falls under “fair dealing” as described by the UK Copyright service.
