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History of the Lead Pencil

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Officemuseum.com has a nice page about the history of the lead pencil, where you can also find a picture of an early pencil vending machine.

If you search for “pencil vending machine” in the search engine of your choice you might be surprised how many different types of pencil vending machines there still are today.

…and a last link: some authors still start the process of writing a book on a piece of paper. Award-winning children’s author Donna McDine used her favourite Graf Von Faber-Castell pen for the first draft of her latest book. The only question remaining is: was it a pencil?

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Moleskine Limited Editions: Pac-Man & Peanuts

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Thanks to the Office Supply Geek newsletter and to Woodclinched I just discovered that there is a Pac Man Moleskine Limited Edition available. There are altogether four different notebooks and one set with a Pac-Man theme. Another limited edition, to be released between next week and November (depending on where you live) has a Snoopy / Peanuts theme. I have not had any ‘real’ Moleskines before …but since the Pac Man and Snoopy editions remind me of my childhood I might buy my one of these.

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Graphite in the news

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Pencils made it into the news this week.

You might have heard about this year’s Nobel prize for physics. In 2004 Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov started removing layers of graphite from pencil leads  …which eventually led to the Nobel prize for their work on experimenting with graphene. Here is also an older article about graphene with the catchy name ‘Black Hole in a Pencil’.

From the world of science to entertainment:

Do you remember A-ha’s music video with the pencil drawings? That was 25 years ago (time flies, doesn’t it). In time for this anniversary: an article about this music video.

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Staedtler Inspiration No. 176

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3 October 2010 was not only the 20th anniversary of the German reunification, but also the 175th anniversary of Staedtler [1]Even though Staedtler’s history goes back further, 3 October 1835 is the official ‘birthday’ as it is the first day Staedtler can trace their business back to without interruptions. It was also the last date of their “Fascination of Writing” exhibition.

Happy Birthday Staedtler!


You might have already read about this exhibition at Lexikaliker (Google translation of this article), but I just discovered that there is an article about this exhibition in Staedtler’s latest newsletter Inspiration No. 176 (from August 2010).

To celebrate this special year Staedtler released a 175th anniversary pencil set. You can read more about it at pencil talk.

References

References
↑1 Even though Staedtler’s history goes back further, 3 October 1835 is the official ‘birthday’ as it is the first day Staedtler can trace their business back to without interruptions

Staedtler Inspiration No. 176 Read More »

Two articles

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David O. just posted two comments with links over at pencil talk’s. They are linking to  great [1]great because they are about the pencil industry, I am not sure what to think about the content articles and it would be a shame to miss them because are hidden in the comments, so I thought I post them here.


One article is from the economist, focussing on Faber-Castell and our favourite nobleman.

The other one is from the Wall Street Journal and is looking at the rivalry between Staedtler and Faber-Castell. To be honest I always thought they get along perfectly fine: selling name rights to each other, having joint press statements, …   but the article portraits a much darker image. I am not sure whether they exaggerated a bit to make the article more catchy.


Thank you David O. for posting the links at pencil talk.

References

References
↑1 great because they are about the pencil industry, I am not sure what to think about the content

Two articles Read More »