Today: a look at a new eraser from Staedtler. I bought this eraser in August at Kaufland, a German supermarket-chain that is part of the same group as Lidl, on offer for €1.09 (~£0.92; $1.16). The normal price seems to be €2.20 (~£1.85; $2.33).
The packaging advertises it as being made with a minimum of 56% renewable materials. This made me curious to find out more. Luckily Mr. Rüdel from Staedtler was able to provide some more details: the chalk that is typically used when producing this type of eraser has been replaced by olive pomace, i.e. the solid remains of the olives after pressing for olive oil. The eraser has been available since Autumn 2023.
According to the official web page for this eraser, the plant flour that replaces the chalk can also come from corn. Additionally, the sleeve paper is made from by-products of sugar cane harvest..
This all sounds great, but the question now is whether the eraser performs well at erasing.
Luckily the 526 83-5 (that’s the official article number) doesn’t disappoint. Its performance is comparable to the well-known Mars plastic eraser, also by Staedtler.
My favourite erasers are still dust-free ones, but this is a nice performer with the added bonus of being made from renewable materials.
Once a year, not long before their worldwide Hubs, Pelikan organises an Open Day at their ink tower (TintenTurm) in Hannover’s Pelikan quarter. Seeing that I now live in driving distance, we (i.e. the whole family) went there last Saturday to have a look.
Lots of construction sites around
When parking the car nearby the venue you can see a lot of construction sites where residential buildings are being built. A nice surprise was that the street names all seemed to have a Pelikan link.
A Pelikan related street name
Before even entering the ink tower the event already starts just outside the tower, with activity tables and a prize wheel set up for kids.
Activities for kids
The prizes were really nice – a free spin gets you anything from pens and other stationery items to fridge magnets and the likes.
Prizes
I was especially impressed by the Pelikan erasers I saw there that have a slot on the top, so that they can be used as pen holders. Unfortunately I haven’t seen these in shops yet.
An eraser with a pen holder (green) – great idea!
You can certainly see where the ink tower got its name from, as it is the tallest (connected) building around.
Downstairs entrance area
After walking up the stairs you see the main area. Luxury pens in the front and school pens in the back.
Landing area updstairs
To the left of this area there is a neighbouring room.
Exhibition
On the day, it housed an exhibition of drawings submitted for a contest on one end and a table where you can try out different Edelstein inks by writing your own postcards.
Postcard station
Cards and stamps were provided. There was also a member of staff on this table who was engraving Toledo pens, or, more precisely, the barrels of Toledo pens.
Toledo engraving
The main part of this room, between the exhibition and the post card table was taken up by a pen-show-like set up with sellers, selling their goods on tables.
Toledo!
Similar to what you see at Pen shows in the UK the pens on offer are mainly vintage pens.
Kaweco’s Michael Gutberlet
This being Pelikan’s Open Day I was quite surprised to see Michael Gutberlet there, the man who single-handedly revived Kaweco in the 1990s.
Goldfink Berlin’s Tom Westerich
Another ‘revived’ brand at this Open Day was Goldfink Berlin, revived by Tom Westerich in the 2000s.
Goldfink Berlin
I was quite moved by the fact that Goldfink gave children free fountain pens. What a nice gesture.
Goldfink Berlin
We also got a tour of the (outside of the) buildings with an overview of Pelikan’s history. A great experience.
Historic Tour
Pelikan also sells some of their luxury pens at a discount there. I was very tempted by the Orange Delight version of the M200.
Historic Tour Pelikan coat of arms
You also have the chance to try out the different nibs, so I asked to try out the F and EF version.
Trying the pen out there and then only produced meh results, with the line being far too wide. We bought the pen anyway because it looks so nice.
When trying it out after I returned home I was very surprised: the pen wrote much better, producing thin crisp lines, just how I like them.
I am not sure what happened, either their ink wasn’t right or their paper, maybe because it had been stored in a humid environment at some stage, who knows. In Hannover the paper sucked the ink in so lines were wide, nearly like blotting paper.
So I now have an Orange Delight M200 that writes amazingly, I have one critique about the new paper-covered boxes though. The employee must have had inky hands when packing the pen – and it is impossible to remove the ink without damaging the slightly rough paper on the box.
We had a great time. If you ever have a chance to visit the ink tower please do so. They are open throughout the year, but historic tours only take place on certain dates. I assume that the special activities, like postcard writing, pen sellers etc also do not occur very often, so it might be worth checking first.
Most of us only know the really expensive fountain pens [1]Not sure where to draw the line here. Maybe at €200 plus? from the Internet. No wonder – unless you live in a very big city or close to a specialist stationery store you probably don’t have much chance of seeing them in real life. It’s understandable that many shops don’t stock really expensive pens: they might not sell, so would end up just tying up money that could be used to buy other goods that sell faster.
I am wondering if shops with enough turnover can sell expensive pens on commission / don’t have to pay for them until they sell them. If you know how this works, please leave a comment. The fact that you don’t see expensive pens often makes me think that this is not the case.
With this in mind it came as a surprise to see not one, but three €2,000 fountain pens at a supermarket in Bremen. OK, I admit, that it is not a normal supermarket, but a rather unusual one: It is not part of any of the common German supermarket chains and there is only branch, i.e. it is not its own chain. It’s called Lestra and is a normal, but posh, supermarket that sells milk, bread, butter, cheese, meat – and has a small but very special stationery aisle.
In the top row of the shelf in the next photo you can see Pelikan’s Silver Screen fountain pen (€1,950) from 2009 (limited edition of 420 pens), Pelikan’s Herzstück fountain pen (€2,500) from 2019 (limited edition of 462 pens) and Pelikan’s Temple of Artemis fountain pen (€2,750) that is part of the Seven Wonders Of The World Series and was released in 2006 (limited edition of 440 pens).
As you can imagine this was a very unexpected discovery. Next time I visit I’ll look what other unusual items are there to be discovered.
How to use a lead pointer tub might not be that obvious. That must certainly a factor contributing to the video’s popularity, but it still doesn’t explain why the video remains popular to this day.
Many of the comments show that buyers of the lead pointer often don’t know how to use it properly and that they wish they had known about the video earlier.
Three years ago, one of the comments (see above) posted under the video said that Staedtler should point to this video. Well, a few days ago a follow up comment was posted (see below). It came from Bleistift viewer Björn who found the video because Staedtler is now printing a QR point on the lead pointer box, pointing to the Bleistift video explaining how to use the lead pointer!
What a surprise that was!! Björn also sent some photos of the new box with the QR code.
Thank you Björn for letting me know and thank you Staedtler for linking to the video.
Almost unimaginable today, but: Yes, there was a time when employees spent their entire working lives, from training to retirement, with just one employer. A time when companies lasted and sometimes outlasted whole generations. Corporations and conglomerates with which people associated a degree of identification that went beyond the purely professional.
There is no doubt that Duisburg DEMAG was one of these companies, which lasted from 1910 to 1973, with roots going back to 1819. DEMAG – a name that still means something to many people on the Rhine and Ruhr.
Those who had been associated with such a company for a long time were given a gift, a token of appreciation, on their work anniversary – after 25 and 40 years with the company – in addition to an extra month’s salary.
A famous example of this is SIEMENS; to this day, a very high-quality wristwatch from a German manufacturer is given to mark the anniversary: the Ludwig from NOMOS in the corresponding SIEMENS edition (one of the few companies in the present day that still has such long ties).
What is the exception today was the rule in post-war West Germany: high-quality gifts on anniversaries.
Recently, while walking through a flea market in Duisburg, I discovered just such an anniversary present: a beautiful, originally packaged, actually never used LAMY 2000 gift set, consisting of a piston fountain pen and a biro, both engraved with the DEMAG logo.My father spent his working life in the ThyssenKrupp Group. I remember that when I was a child – the 1990s! – writing instruments, often from LAMY, and also pocket knives (Victorinox) were often given away in a professional context. Whole drawers were filled with LAMY pens and miniature pocket knives. These “normal” promotional gifts often had an equivalent value of € 5.00-10.00; something like a LAMY 2000 was only given on very special occasions.
Back to the flea market in question: The seller himself was not the youngest – but too young to have worked at DEMAG himself. An heirloom from his father? Probably. Written on the box in sharpie: Black fountain pen, black biros” – the beautiful set, it ended up in some cupboard, a drawer, maybe even in the attic, as soon as it was received. A package with obvious contents, after all, the writing instruments are clearly pictured on it, and yet the previous owner felt called upon to note the contents again in full.
In the cupboard, in the drawer or in the attic, this box must have lain for decades until it was sold to me. Why were the writing instruments never used? Perhaps they were “too bad” (although one might argue that it was too bad just NOT to use them). Or maybe they were simply not appreciated and only “archived” because that was the way official gifts were made at that time.
DEMAG existed until 1973, after which some former subsidiaries continued to bear the name – but it is unlikely that the gift was made after 1973. The iconic LAMY 2000, designed by Gerd A. Müller, came onto the market in 1966. The guarantee on the nib until the year 2000 is noted in the set .
Also based on the old LAMY branding, I assume that this beauty falls exactly into that period – i.e. 1966-1973. A wonderful set. And – in more ways than one – a piece of German history.
