Made in Japan

OHTO Super Clip

9 Comments / OHTO, Paper clips / / , , , ,

Last time I was in Germany I discovered a second hand book shop in Würzburg that also displayed stationery in the shop windows. The stationery on display seemed to be a mix of items I have seen in Lexikaliker’s blog and in Manufactum’s catalogue, but there were also a few items I have not seen anywhere else.

Zerkall & Artesanos del Papel paper

Items I saw there for the first time included paper and envelopes from Zerkall Ingres, mouldmade in a paper mill dating to the 16th century, and cotton/linen paper from Artesanos del Papel in Alicante.

One of the items I bought in this book shop is a paper clip from OHTO, a paper clip looking a bit like a picture frame hanger. The informal name seems to be Japan-Clip. It can hold 20 sheets of 80g paper. The standard clip is nickel-plated, selling for 20c each (25¢, 16p), the posh version for 50c (63¢, 41p ) is 18K gold-plated.

Japan-Clips with Faber-Castell eraser on Banditapple carnet

The nice thing about these clips is that they still look good even if they hold many sheets of paper, while ordinary paper clips usually look unsightly if you squeeze too many sheets of paper in. On the other hand ordinary paper clips can hold more sheets of paper and seem to be softer to the paper. When you try to squeeze too many sheets of paper (> 25) into the Super Clip it can damage the paper slightly when you remove the paper clip again.

...compared to ordinary paper clips

 

After using OHTO’s Super Clips for a while I came to appreciate them as re-usable, temporary clips that hold paper together much better and tighter than ordinary paper clips. The fact that I have two different colours helps to distinguish similarly documents I am working with, e.g. two sets of statistics from different years.

Links:

I found this company selling Zerkall Ingres paper in the USA.

JetPens and Cult Pens do not seem this paper clip and I could not find an American or British online shop selling the Japanese paper clip. RSVP and Modulor are two German online shops that have the paper clip in stock and ship to most countries.

Prices and exchange rates: August 2010

I would like to thank Kent and Arnie for the Banditapple carnets used in the photos.

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Green Muji A5 notebook

2 Comments / Muji, Paper & Notebooks / / , , ,

Today: another product from Muji. This time a green notebook (item code 8238231). Muji’s UK website advertised it as a notebook with a 100% Cotton fabric bonded cover. With a price tag of £ 6.95 ($ 10, € 8.40) it is not cheap, especially since the main feature that distinguishes this notebook from other notebooks, the cover, is nice, but not quite as nice as “100% Cotton fabric bonded cover” sounds. The paper is white, but not too white, pleasant for the eyes. Writing on this paper using a pencil is great. Using an eraser does not create any problems either. The paper is however completely useless when it comes to writing on it with a fountain pen as it seems to suck ink in like blotting paper, even though the surface is smooth, not rough. The lines get up to four times a thick as on other paper and will bleed through (even when using Noodler’s X-Feather ink!!). This will obviously depend on how wet your fountain pen writes, but even with a dry fountain pen you will not get any joy.

Comparison Muji 8238231 / Rhodia

Conclusion:

A nice looking notebook, but not cheap. If you do not use fountain pens it might be worth having a look. Even though there are so many alternatives it is nice and has the plain Muji look.

Muji Notebook 8238231, Seed Super Gold eraser, Staedtler Mars Micro 775

This notebook is available in white, black, dark blue, light blue, red and green. There might even be more colours.

Price and exchange rates: June 2010

I would like to thank Sean from Pencils and Music for the Seed Super Gold Eraser used in the last photo.

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More East Asian stationery

4 Comments / Paper & Notebooks, Pencils / / , , , ,

A few weeks ago I wrote about the Eco Bridge Paper Pencils. I want to mention a few other things that are being sold in the same shop sell. The items are not exactly cheap, so it is unlikely that I will buy them. This means I cannot write a proper review, but it would be a shame to leave these items unmentioned, as they are unusual and, for lack of a better word, interesting.

If I had to describe the shop I would say it is a shop full of random quirky things aimed at arty, Apple using yuppies. Things are not cheap, but it will be difficult to find them somewhere else. It is a kind of hip and cool version of Manufactum.

Continuing from the Eco Bridge Paper Pencils, along the Korean stationery theme, they also sell Korean ‘notebooks’ (actually what I would call exercise books). They look nice and are labelled in French. Unfortunately importing them from Korea made them cost five to ten times the price of a similar (plain looking) notebook from Europe. If you want a really nice, thin notebook this might be it.

Another product imported from East Asia is a set of 36 squary, coloured pencils from Japan. It retails for £60 and is part of the Düller range. The Düller range also includes a pen designed by Dietrich Lubs, who is featured in New York’s Museum of Modern Art. The coloured pencil set is designed by Naori Miyazaki. Unfortunately I was not able to find out more about her [1]I assume it is a female name, except that she is not featured in the Museum of Modern Art. The MoMA online shop does however sell a clock designed by her. Back to the pencil set. There is some rather strange text in German written on this pencil box about combining German taste and Japanese handiness, which looks instantly East Asian because of the character spacing. In different online stores in the UK and Australia the price of this pencil set can vary dramatically. I thought I saw it in an American online store for $96, but I was not able to find it any more to confirm this price.

Also for sale are fairly big animal shaped erasers and Penguin pencils.

You can find more information about the Penguin pencils at penciltalk.

The Lamy 2000 and other products by its designer can also be found in the Museum of Modern Art.

References

References
↑1 I assume it is a female name

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Muji “A6” Memo Pad, 200 Sheets

4 Comments / Muji, Paper & Notebooks / / , , , ,

A few months ago, on a trip to the Trafford Centre in Manchester, I bought this Memo Pad from Muji. I used to write little notes on the reverse of calendar sheets, so there was no need to buy memo pads… but I seem to run out of calendar sheets, partly because the sheets of my Dutch Donald Duck calendar were printed on on both sides, partly because there has not been a sheet-a-day Star Trek calender for a few years, so I am reluctant to use the remaining Star Trek calendar sheets for notes.

Muji Memo Pad, Soennecken pencil, Läufer eraser

 

The Memo Pad (item code 1476353) has 200 sheets and is made from 50% recycled paper [1]At least according to the information provided by Muji. In the previous years there have been some concerns about the accuracy of the figures given by the manufacturers as several large Japanese … Continue reading. As expected the recycled paper is not pure white. The colour of the paper  from my memo pad is slightly more green than other recycled paper I know, but this might not apply to all Memo Pads. Writing on it with a pencil is working really well. Writing on it with a fountain pen is a very different thing though. It is actually quite problematic as the paper soak the ink up really fast. Enhanced difficulty – I used a really wet writer: the Lamy 2000 fountain pen and tried to use it on this paper, but writing very fast and with few pressure. It didn’t really work well either (as you can see). If you want to use this paper with a fountain pen (even if it not such a wet one) you will have to live with the fact that you can also see the ink on the reverse of the sheets.

The price is great, only £ 0.90 ($ 1.36, €1.04). In its native Japan the Memo Pad is even cheaper, ¥ 84, which is currently about 59 pence. In the USA it is cheaper, too: $1.25. One thing is rather odd about this Memo Pad: even though it is not advertised as being A6 in Japan (or the USA) it is being advertised as being A6 in the UK. “Hold on”, you might say, “that’s not odd, the USA is using ‘letter’ and ‘legal’, etc. and Japan… maybe they don’t use the ISO 216 standard in Japan” …but it is (odd), because they do (use ISO 216).

The odd thing is that the Memo Pad is not A6, but that someone from Muji UK seemed to think it would be a good idea to advertise it as A6 because it is a bit like A6. Most readers of this blog are from the USA, followed by Canada. As far as I know the ISO 216 format (i.e. A4, A5, ..) is relatively unknown in North America (please correct me if I am wrong!), maybe except among pen and stationery aficionados, so here is a bit more on ISO 216:

In 1786 physics professor Georg Christoph Lichtenberg wrote a letter to a friend. This letter included, amongst other things, a discussion about the materials used for paving the streets in London, and the idea that it would be nice to base paper sizes on a single aspect ratio of √2 (I am however not sure whether Prof. Lichtenberg or his English student thought of this). The advantage of this aspect ratio is that you can halve the paper, but still get the same aspect ratio. In 1922 Dr. Walter Porstmann made this idea, together with some fixed sizes and other bits and bobs, into the DIN 476 standard ..which became the ISO 216 standard. The A6 standard should have 105 mm × 148 mm (with a tolerance of ±1.5 mm). The Memo Pad is labelled as being 140 mm x 100mm, but is actually 138 mm x 99mm.

Conclusion:

All this A6 fuss? Much ado about nothing. Only engineer type people will be shocked, everybody else can’t be bothered. Not A6, but nearly A6. Not labelled A6 in Japan, but sold as A6 in the UK. Luckily it is smaller, not bigger, so it will still fit in folders and holders, etc. Paper good for pencils, bad for fountain pens. Good price. The End.

Prices and exchange rates: May 2010.

I would like to thank Lexikaliker for the Läufer eraser used in the photo.

References

References
↑1 At least according to the information provided by Muji. In the previous years there have been some concerns about the accuracy of the figures given by the manufacturers as several large Japanese paper manufacturers exaggerated when it came to the amount of recycled material used. I do not know whether the paper manufacturer of this memo pad is one of them.

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The Kuru Toga – a disappointment

45 Comments / Mechanical pencils, Uni / / , , , ,

Introduction:

Kuru Toga UK packaging - front
Kuru Toga UK packaging - front

The Kuru Toga is a mechanical pencil from uni / Mitsubishi pencil. In Japan it has been available for more than a year. The plastic version is now officially distributed in the UK and other countries, while the successor, the new Kuru Toga pencil, is already available in Japan.

The Kuru Toga’s unique selling point is that its lead rotates which keeps the tip sharp when writing. When pressing the lead against the paper to write or when lifting it the gears of the “Kuru Toga Engine” revolve, rotating the lead slightly.

After reading a review of the Kuru Toga on Dave’s Mechanical Pencils I was really impressed and quite excited when I saw that the Kuru Toga is now officially available in the UK. Cultpens.com sells this mechanical pencil in many different colours for £ 7.99 (~ € 8.90). I bought mine from Ryman, a High Street chain, for £ 4.99 (~ € 5.50), but unfortunately they only seem to stock the black version.

Packaging:

My first surprise, when I saw the packaging, was that the advantages of the Kuru Toga Engine were not advertised as much as I expected. Somehow I expected this pen to stand out from the other pens on the shelf, but this wasn’t the case at all. For the designers who created the packaging the Nano Dia leads seem to be nearly as big a selling point as the Kuru Toga Engine. If you are in marketing or advertising it might be difficult to resist telling the potential customer about the “400 million nano diamonds” in each lead. Yes, nano is a buzzword (see PhD Comics) and diamonds sound very precious, but instead of just throwing numbers and cool words at customers I would have preferred an explanation why having 400 million nano diamonds in a lead is an advantage and how that helps to deliver super strength and a smooth, crisp line.

Kuru Toga
Kuru Toga

Problem:

Using the Kuru Toga for writing was a big disappointment. The pressure I exert when writing “normally” does not seem to get the lead to rotate. I could of course press the pencil down harder to get the gears to revolve and consequently the lead to rotate, but that is not how I would normally write. Real world use has shown that when I write in a hurry I use more pressure and the lead will rotate, but the lead should rotate whenever I write,not only when I write in a hurry. When using more pressure the lines tend to get wider anyway and I got better results, i.e. thinner lines, by rotating the pencil in my hand.

Kuru Toga UK packaging - reverse
Kuru Toga UK packaging - reverse

Analysis:

Two possibilities come to mind when looking at the problem of the non-rotating lead.

  • It might be a substandard pencil, and other Kuru Toga Engines work with less pressure. This would would mean that there is a quality control problem at uni / Mitsubishi pencil. This is probably not the case.
  • I might not press the pencil down hard enough to get the gears to revolve. This could be because of many years of using fountain pens (which do not need a lot of pressure) and a relatively infrequent use of ballpoint pens (which need much more pressure). When I went to school you had to write with a fountain pen and today I still like to use fountain pens and avoid ballpoint pens. My wife, for example, is using much more pressure when writing.

Conclusion:

The Kuru Toga has been a disappointment for me, as the lead is not rotating, eliminating the advantage of this pencil while the disadvantages of this pencil remain:

  • the relatively high price for a mechanical pencil compared to similar pens made from plastic …more than twice the price of a Rotring Tikky, which is usually £ 1.99 (~ € 2.20), but to be fair: the Tikky does not come with a pack of replacement leads.
  • and the inability to fill in as many spare leads as in some other mechanical pencils (maximum 4 – 6 leads, depending on length and whether you try hard to squeeze them in)

It is difficult to predict, but my guess would be that the market share of pencils using the Kuru Toga engine or similar mechanisms will increase, because they are great of they work for you. On the other hand most mechanical pencils still do not even have a retractable sleeve and most consumers do not really seem to care but buy what is available and cheap.

Assuming you usually write in a Western language and use joint writing a lot (I do) the lead will also not rotate as much as it would if you use block letters or South-East Asian characters ..unless you apply different levels of pressure.
On a positive note the eraser of the Kuru Toga seems to be working really well, and if your writing pressure exceeds the pressure necessary to set the Kuru Toga Engine off this might be the pencil for you. The rotating lead is a great idea, but the implementation does not seem to do this idea justice. I think I will give my Kuru Toga to my wife. She is using much more pressure when writing…

Prices and exchange rate: November 2009

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