FuZhou road

Meriful

9 Comments / Uncategorised / / , , , , ,

…and another post linked to Shanghai’s Fuzhou Road.This time about a shop called Meriful.

Meriful is quite different to the other shops you’ll find on Fuzhou Road. It is neither a cheap shop selling mainly Chinese-made stationery, nor is it one of those boutique-like shops selling a mix of “cute stuff” and designed, overpriced stationery of questionable quality. Instead you’ll find many items you might find in the online shops of the West, like JetPens, Cult Pens, bureauDIRECT or the less well known Deskstore.

Erasers...

Even though the shop is not too big you will find an incredible choice of exciting items. Just looking at the erasers – there must have been more than 100 different ones. Most items in the shop are imported from Asia, but you will also find European brands, like Rhodia (I bought the orange pad cover in Meriful) or Faber-Castell.

Midori Traveler's Notebooks

 

Meriful sells expensive designer calculators from Canon, but also affordable mechanical pencils from Redcircle (which are essentially fake Rotring pencils) as well as absolutely stunning handmade desk accessories from China (so beautiful, but so expensive).

Stationery by Carl

 

Imported items were usually about 50% more expensive than in their country of origin, but that isn’t too expensive, I thought. Other shops have similar mark-ups for imported stationery.

Carl Decorer Tape Dispenser

 

 

Their selection of items by Carl was amazing. The Decorer desk set (¥158, ~ $25 ; £15.60; €18.80) was unfortunately not available in the colour we liked, so my wife bought one of the Carl Decorer tape dispenser by itself, not as a set. It doesn’t feel as solid as it looks and it is a bit odd that the different materials have different shades of green, but overall it is a very nice tape dispenser.

 

Some of the items I bought in Meriful. The nice leather pen case is made in Korea.

Staff are very friendly and you can even negotiate the price if you find any issue with the products (previously opened, etc). When I asked for a new Rhodia pad cover from their stock they offered me a discount because they didn’t have any unopened ones left.

 

Price: December 2011

Exchange rates: March 2012

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Three black pencils

4 Comments / Chung Hwa, M&G, Pencils, Zibom / / , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Today: black pencils from China. Black because of the paint, not because of the lead or the wood. I bought these pencils in December in Keyroad, a shop I have mentioned several times so far.

The three competing black pencils, here in a Dairy Queen calendar pencil stand.

OK, we’ve got the black version of the Chung Hwa 6903 and the M&G AWP34601. Chung Hwa and M&G are both from Shanghai. Just South of Shanghai is Zhejiang province, represented by the Zibom P-6000 pencil.

 

Chung Hwa 6903

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog post about the, in my opinion, better looking brown version of the Chung Hwa 6903. The black version is very similar. The pencil is still round, but painted black and the cap at the end is black, too, not white. I paid ¥9.9 (~ £1; $1.55; €1.20) for a dozen.

The Chung Hwa 6903

 

 

Zibom P-6000

Then we’ve got the hexagonal Zibom P-6000. It comes with an eraser and has the packaging I like most of these three pencils. It also comes with a sharpener, but the pencils have an unfinished end. I paid ¥7.5 (~ 75p; $1.20; 90c) for a dozen.

The Zibom P-6000

 

M&G AWP34601

The last pencil in this blog post is the hexagonal M&G AWP34601. This pencil is certainly the winner is this group when it comes to the coolest model number. I paid ¥9.9 (~ £1; $1.55; €1.20) for a dozen.

The M&G AWP34601

 

…and the winner is:

My personal favourite is the M&G AWP34601, the only 2B pencil in this comparison [1]The other two pencils are HB.. It’s the winner …not because of the cool model number, which sounds like a model number for some sort of high tech robot, but because the wood is not red. If anything, the AWP34601’s wood is too yellow, but I still prefer that to red wood. The runner up is the Zibom P-6000, the packaging is great, it is the cheapest in this comparison and comes with a free sharpener. The worst pencil is the Chung Hwa 6903. Yes, I know, this must be difficult to believe, as my blog post about the brown version was quite positive – but unlike the brown version this black version is just not so nice. Plus, I prefer hexagonal pencils. Lead-wise the AWP34601 is smoothest, it is a 2B after all. The P-6000 seems scratchier than the 6903. Wood-wise the 6903 has the hardest wood, so hard in fact that the auto-stop mechanism of some desktop sharpeners will not engage.

Congratulations M&G AWP34601.

Renold, the robot, presents the winner, the AWP34601.
The winner: The M&G AWP34601 2B
Gold Silver Bronze
M&G AWP34601 Zibom P-6000 Chung Hwa 6903
Good:

cool name

wood not red

smooth lead

 

 

 

 Good:

cheap

free sharpener

 

Bad:

red wood

unfinished end

 Bad:

hard wood

red wood

round

 

 

 

 

Prices: December 2011

Exchange rates: March 2012

 

The Dairy Queen calendar pencil stand was ¥10 (~ £1; $1.60; €1.20). It comes with twelve walls for twelve months and three “bottoms”. Bureau Direct started selling a similar pencil stand (maybe a but late, now that it’s already March), unfortunately it is quite a bit more expensive: £9.95 (~ $15.60; €11.95).

 

Unfortunately I forgot to open the lens’ aperture on the photo where Renold, the robot, presents the winner.  Now the out of focus highlights are not round and a bit distracting..

References

References
↑1 The other two pencils are HB.

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Stabilo LeftRight

8 Comments / Mechanical pencils, Stabilo / / , , , , , , , ,

The biggest stationery shop I know on Shanghai’s FuZhou road is in the building labelled “Shanghai culture commercial building”. Unlike the small, independent stationery shops found nearby this shop is state-owned – at least I think it is. In this shop different brands have their own different counters and staff and even though prices are a bit higher than in some surrounding shops prices are still reasonable compared to what you pay in shopping malls or in hip and funky stores which tend to charge you a packet just because they are so cool…

Shanghai culture commercial building

The Stabilo LeftRight

One of the things I bought in the Shanghai culture commercial building, on New Year’s Eve, was Stabilo’s LeftRight. Officially referred to as a retractable pencil this is a leadholder for 2mm leads.

I paid  ¥18 (~ £1.80; $2.90; €2.20) for this set which includes the leadholder, a very nice eraser, a lead sharpener – very nice, too, and a container with four 2mm leads, supposedly 2H. I wouldn’t call these 2H. For me they are definitely softer than H B. As we know there is no standard to say what is HB, what is 2B, etc.,  but even in Asia, where leads with the same grade are generally much softer than in the West, most manufacturers wouldn’t label the leads that come with the LeftRight as 2H. Back to the set: all items that come as part of the set are blue and triangular. There is also a pink set available and as far as I know both, the right-handed and the left-handed version, are available in both colours. The items from the set do look quite nice. In my eye, the worst looking of these items is actually the leadholder, just because it looks a bit plasticy.

The problem

The left-handed and right-handed version of this leadholder come with a “ergonomic triangular thumb pointer grip for correct gripping”. Unfortunately there is a problem with this pen: because of the indentations there is only one comfortable position for holding this pencil. That’s intended. The (probably) unintended consequence is that the 2mm lead will always be used on the same side and will get too wide too soon which means that it will need sharpening too often – at least when you use the LeftRight for writing Western text. The situation might be different if you draw or if you write Asian character and hold the leadholder vertically like a brush. Rotating the pencil, to compensate for the one-sided use, is not really comfortable and rotating the leadholder mechanism in the pencil is only possible of you remove the triangular cap.

The Stabilo LeftRight on a Seagull notebook

 

Conclusion

The original idea for this leadholder might have been good, but the execution is less than exciting. I would not be surprised if a ballpoint pen user came up with the ergonic grip series idea – which I guess works well on the LeftRight ballpoint pen. It is really a shame because all the items that come with the Pencil set look quite good together. You really want to use this pencil, but it has such an off-putting property… I use it… …nevertheless …at least for now. All in all still not a bad buy as value for money is excellent, at least if you get it for a good price. The LeftRight seems to be for sale in very few countries [1]including China, Malaysia and Russia . I am not sure whether Stabilo wants to start selling it in more countries or whether they have realised that something is not right therefore and don’t introduce the leadholder in more markets.

Presharpened vs. sharpener-sharpened

 

Price: December 2011

Exchange rates: February 2012

You can find information about the LeftRight on Stabilo’s Malaysia page.

There’s also a commercial for the LeftRight.

 

References

References
↑1 including China, Malaysia and Russia

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Chung Hwa 6903

6 Comments / Chung Hwa, Pencils / / , , , , ,

Shanghai’s FuZhou road

You might remember Keyroad, a stationery shop on Shanghai’s FuZhou road, from the blog post about the Simbalion Graphic Pencils or from the blog post about the Deli pencil sharpener 0635. How could I not go there again this year… This time I was actually more excited by two other shops on FuZhou road, but I will not go into more detail now and will write more about them another time.

M&G

Back to Keyroad. I bought several packs of pencils, including a few different types of wooden pencils made by M&G, a stationery manufacturer from Shanghai which I only knew as a manufacturer of mechanical pencils and other stationery, but whose wooden pencils I have either never seen or I must have forgotten about.

Chung Hwa 6903

The best looking pencil in the shop was, however, the Chung Hwa 6903. A round, brown pencil with a white-painted cap and golden lettering. What a magnificent looking pencil, at least in my (subjective) opinion. I am not really a fan of round pencils and prefer hexagonal pencils, probably because I don’t have to write using pencils for six hours in one go… Nevertheless, the elegant look of this pencil, the great combination of colours used, the lettering and, not so common for a Chinese pencil, the painted cap made this pencil the star of the shelf.

Quality

There was some disappointment when I sharpened the first 6903 a few days later, the cheapish looking red wood does take some of the magic of the pencil away. There are also some gold flecks on the pencil body near the lettering and the white cap could have been painted a bit better. The 6903 seems to have a slightly larger diameter than some other round pencils, like the Faber-Castell 9008, but compared to the 9008 the difference is less than 1mm.

Chung Hwa 6903 and Staedtler Mars Lumograph

Conclusion

Keeping in mind that this is not an expensive pencil, I paid ¥9.9 (~ £1; $1.55; €1.25) for a dozen, the 6903 provides excellent value for money. The graphite transfer between pages for text written with a 6903 HB is similar to the transfer that is occuring with a Staedtler Mars Lumograph HB, definitely worse than a Staedtler Wopex HB and definitely better than a Tombow Mono 100 HB. If you have a chance to get the Chung Hwa 6903 for a good price you should definitely give it a go.

 

I am quite happy with these pencils, but wish there was a better version, made of cedar wood, or at least something not so red. I’d be more than happy to pay extra for the better material.

 

Price: December 2011

Exchange rates: January 2012

The Chung Hwa Drawing Pencil 101 has been reviewed in a previous blog post.

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Simbalion Graphic Pencils

3 Comments / Pencils, Simbalion / / , , , , , , ,

Einszweidrei! im Sauseschritt
Läuft die Zeit, wir laufen mit. (from Julchen by Wilhelm Busch, 1877)

It’s incredible how fast time is flying by. This blog started last November with a blog post about the Kuru Toga and now it is already more than a year old. In the first year there were altogether 65 blog posts. Now for some statistics: during the first year most visitor came from the USA, followed by the UK, then Germany, then Canada. In terms of numbers the visitors from these four countries, where more than 65% of all visitors came from, were followed by visitors from 106 other countries.

…but enough about statistics. Let’s talk about pencils!

Today I want to write about a pack of “graphic pencils” from Taiwan’s Lion Pencil Co., Ltd., better known as Simbalion. I bought this pack of pencils in December 2009 at Keyroad a shop on Shanghai’s FuZhou Road. If the name rings a bell, I mentioned it in my previous blog post about the Deli sharpener 0635. I never saw this brand in the West before. Have you seen Simbalion pencils in your country?

The pack contains twelve pencils with the grades 4H-H, F, HB, B-6B. My pencil came in an “easy to use easel box”, but this box has since been replaced and these pencil are now available in a new polypropylene case.

The Lion Pencil Company was established in 1956 and is one of Taiwan’s oldest stationery manufacturers. The Lion Pencil Company is proud of having invented the “art set”, but I am sure some other companies will lay claim to having invented the art set in the stationery context, too. Their Taiwanese factory is in Taipei county, but they also have a factory in Kunshan (Jiangsu province), very close to Shanghai and just next to Taicang, where Eisen has a factory.

In Taiwan the normal price for the new set of these pencils in a PP case is 120 NT$ ($ 3.95, £ 2.50, € 2.95). I paid much more for my old “easel box”, maybe because these pencils were imported into the Chinese mainland or maybe, this is only speculation and probably not the case, because the new set is from the factory in Kunshan. According to the labels and stamps on my pack it was produced in the factory in Taipei county on 7th May 2009 – nice to get so much information 🙂

The pencils are nice, certainly not scratchy, but I do wonder about Simbalion’s grading. The H pencil from this pack is certainly the softest H pencil I have ever used and does feel softer than the HB pencil from the same pack. The print on the pencils is uneven in places and the end of the pencil has too much paint that is not evenly distributed.

Altogether a nice set of pencils for this price. The pencils are not scratchy or bad in any other way. My main criticism would be the unpredictable hardness or softness of the lead that does not seem to be consistent with the printing on the pencil.

Conclusion

Nothing too fancy, nothing too bad – you get what you paid for as long as you pay not more than the official price.

 

 

Price and exchange rates: November 2010

I would like to thank Kevin Davis from O’Bon for the sugarcane paper used in these photos.

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