Germany

Alsterhaus in Hamburg

A recent family trip to Hamburg [1]which was my first ever trip to Hamburg included a trip to Alsterhaus, a posh department store that very much reminded us of Harvey Nichols in Manchester.

Excuse the wide angle distortions of the photo but because of construction work I couldn’t move further away

The Alsterhaus sells many posh brands (think Armani, Chanel, Hermes, …), but unexpectedly we also found an extensive selection of stationery brands on one of the higher floors.

Some brands, like Graf von Faber-Castell, S. T. Dupont and Caran d’Ache take up large parts of the stationery corner’s luxury corner, but pens from other brands, like Pelikan and Kaweco, are also in stock.

Despite Alsterhaus’ general focus on luxury brands you can also find affordable stationery items for office and school use.

This includes a great selection of Lamy pens.

Faber-Castell, Leuchtturm and more were also available.

Thanks to my wife I walked away with Caran d’Ache’s Nespresso pencils (more about them at Pencil Talk) and my first ever “Les crayons de la maison” pencils (more about them at Lexikaliker, who discovered that this series is not quite what it is made out to be).

Prices were comparable to what you pay for these items in other shops or online.

This set seems to be the tenth edition, created together with Mizensir, a Swiss parfume firm.

When opening the plastic wrapping you can smell the strong smell from these pencils.

At this stage it is not completely clear whether the different pencils have different smells that are indistinguishable because they were together in sealed packaging or whether the different pencils have the same smell by design.

References

References
1 which was my first ever trip to Hamburg

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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

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Stationery Shopping in Germany

After several blog posts and videos about stationery shopping in Shanghai today’s post is about stationery shopping in Germany.

The video shows one of Müller’s branches’ stationery selection. Originally a pharmacy, Müller are now a chain selling all sorts of items.

The video is in 4K, so you’ll see more details if you open it in YouTube instead of watching it embedded in this blog post.

✏︎ ✏︎ ✏︎ ✏︎ ✏︎

On a different note: a former colleague [1]Thanks, Mark. sent me a link to this article from The New York Times Magazine today:

Inside One of America’s Last Pencil Factories

The pictures are droolworthily excellent. Have a look.

References

References
1 Thanks, Mark.

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Visiting Kaweco in Nuremberg

End of last year I had the opportunity to get a tour of Kaweco’s premises in Nuremberg, lead by none other than Sebastian Gutberlet himself. He is the son of Michael Gutberlet – the man who brought Kaweco back in the 1990s.

Sebastian Gutberlet

Kaweco did offer a tour of their premises at the time the Insights X trade fair was on, but back then I didn’t have the time to take this offer up.

The museum contains many pens from Kaweco’s past

 

..as well as more modern items from Kaweco’s recent history

 

The offices and the factory are actually just next to Nuremberg’s convention centre. They will soon house a shop and a museum, too.

Old Kaweco pens in the museum

 

Old machines in the museum

As you might know, Kaweco used to be based in Heidelberg (where Lamy is), but since Michael Gutberlet brought it back to life in the 1990s it is based in Nuremberg (where Staedtler and many other stationery manufacturers are).

..and old materials that were used to make pens

 

Sebastian demonstrating how the old machines worked

The factory visit was actually supposed to take place a few days earlier, but illness meant that our family’s trip to Germany was delayed. Luckily we were able to rebook the ferry. Kaweco was happy to accommodate, but as the tour now took place on 23rd December, with December 24th being kind of the most important Christmas day around here, there were no workers in the factory assembling pens and I couldn’t see (or film) the machines in action.

No workers that day, so I didn’t see the machines being used by professionals

Parts for assembling pens

That was a shame, I would have loved to see how fast workers are assembling Kaweco pens. At least I’ve seen this type of machine in action before ..when Kaweco let visitors assemble their own pens at Insights X.

Sebastian Gutberlet wasn’t the only Sebastian in the room….

In case you wonder: the plastic parts for the pens aren’t made at this location. They are designed by Kaweco but outsourced as you’d need a lot of expenditure for machines etc if you’d want to make all the parts yourself. The parts are however all coming back to Nuremberg to be assembled here. Depending on how big the batch or order is the pens can also be engraved here.

More vintage pens from the museum

 

Except housing the machines these premises also include the warehouse, which was busy because annual stocktaking was just taking place.

Hmm, the shelves must be full of stationery goodies

 

Even more goodies. Can I stay overnight?
Even more goodies. Can I stay overnight?

Since we were in Nuremberg anyway and it was just before Christmas we used to opportunity to visit Nuremberg’s Christmas market, probably the most famous one in Germany. By the way, Sebastian’s Ewok hat in the following picture from Nuremberg’s Christmas market that day was handmade by Shangching from East…West…Everywhere.

At Nuremberg's Christmas market
At Nuremberg’s Christmas market

We had a great day visiting Kaweco and Nuremberg. I hope I will have a chance to go back there once the museum and shop are officially open.

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The search for the pencil cedar

You might remember my 2011 blog post about the Schwanberg and the pencil cedar. If you visit the castle grounds, mentioned in that blog post, you’ll have a chance to look for the pencil cedar as part of an organised tour this Sunday.

 


Two more blog posts that mention the pencil cedar:

Schön gespitzte Bleistifte from Lexikaliker

and Juniperus virginiana

 

The newspaper article has been taken from the Kitzingen Section of the Main-Post newspaper from 14th February 2013. I believe that the use of the fax of the article in this blog post falls under “fair dealing” as described by the UK Copyright service.

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