Made in USA

A different use for Nock Co.’s Burton

4 Comments / Pencil cases / / , , ,

Hands up, please, if you miss Nock Co.

Ah ok, thanks.

You can lower your hands again, thanks for taking part.

I’m not surprised so many here miss Nock Co. It’s a real shame they closed down. Their products were well thought-out and of great quality. Luckily, I backed all Nock Co. x Pen Addict Kickstarters, so can still enjoy a few of their pencil cases.

The 2015 Hightower is just a great pencil case.

The 2017 Sapelo fits perfectly in my Lihit Lab A4 sleeve that I use to transport my laptop to work every day – and the quality of the Sapelo so much better than that of the Lihit Lab case.

The 2018 Tallulah is my dedicated Rotring case.

There’s one case however I never really could find a great use for: the 2019 Burton. The waxed surface made me (probably needlessly) worried that it will make items sticky or greasy if the outside comes into contact with them. The inside was somehow too big for my purposes. The look is great though. Outside it is unobtrusive, inside it is happily and very bright green – it’s the bomber jacket among pencil cases.

My new use is not really stationery-related. It’s now my case for an 8 inch portable screen I use for Raspberry Pis. It’s not quite the intended “A5 notebook and some pens” use, but it works very well for me.

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Silver

8 Comments / BIC / / , , , , ,

When I bought the Chinese New Year pens from BIC I also put a few more items in the basket to get free shipping. One of them was the BIC Silver Set: Seven silver-ish pens and a silver-ish notebook. The official UK price is £16.99 (~$22.70; €20.50). I saw which pens will be included, but didn’t know what to expect in terms of material. Will some of them have a metal body?

In case you wonder: all of the pens are plastic-y, none have a metal body. The 2mm Criterium lead holder would have been amazing with a metal body – a bit like the Caran d’Ache Fixpencil 884. The American made marking pencil is quite interesting. You can use it to mark any(?) surface with nice, opaque silver-grey paint – good to label black plastic or metal.

I really like that the packaging shows where the different pens are from.

Price and exchange rates: March 2022

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Trimline 3594

Leave a Comment / Dixon, Pencils, Uncategorised / / , , , ,
Dixon Trimline 3594

Discovered in our Scout group’s hut, this American-made Dixon Trimline not only made it into Europe, it also managed to survive several decades hidden between other pencils and kept in pristine condition.

Notice the slim and elegant font and the blind-stamped U.S.A., left of the writing.

A smidge of the beautiful orange paints seems to have made it’s way into some of the knurling on the ferrule.

The last photo ended up a bit blurry, but if you are using a computer to read this then please have a closer look at this pencil by clicking on the (other) photos to admire this pencil’s details.

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America Standards

8 Comments / Pencils / / , , ,

Earlier this year, in Spring, I imported some pencils from the USA.

It won’t come as a surprise that they are painted in yellow/orange and that they are eraser-tipped.

The whole look of these pencils, including the name, America Standards, and the way they are printed makes them look like a ‘big pencil’ that you’d imagine to be available and sold all over the USA…
…but as far as I can tell the company behind the America Standards pencil is a small-ish company that registered a few trademarks and uses them to resells goods made by other manufacturers.

In the case of the America Standards pencils there is a big emphasis on the fact that they are made in Tennessee. I assume they are made by Musgrave, but they might, of course, also be made by Wagner or Moon Products.

I ordered the pack of 24 in a wooden pencil box, which doesn’t currently seem available, but you can still get the pack of 100. Previously there has also been the America Standards Mammoth pencil with a jumbo grip.

Importing into the UK always attracts customs and import duties, but the pencils are beautiful and the wooden case seem really special, so the extra I had to pay seems well worth it.

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My Sapelo Penvelope

8 Comments / Pencil cases / / , , , ,

You might have seen this already on my Instagram account, but I thought I also post this picture here, too: Last week I got my Sapelo Penvelope from The Pen Addict’s 2017 Kickstarter.

It looks absolutely beautiful.

Unfortunately customs weren’t kind (again), so after adding postage, fees etc, the $30 Sapelo was $62 by the time it landed on my door.

Other had similar fees to pay:

Good news is that I am now the proud owner of both The Pen Addict Kickstarter cases.

Here’s a reminder that the first one (300 were made) was nearly as good looking as the new one:

Nock Hightower Case and Notebook

Nock Hightower Case (outside) and Notebook. The Noris was not part of the Kickstarter.

 

Back to the topic of customs fees in the UK: Let’s see how much my 2018 Hobonichi will cost in the end. I will know soon.

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