M&G Archives - Bleistift

Back to school, sci-fi style

Leave a Comment / M&G, Uncategorised / 24 August 2019 / M&G, Made in China, Sci-Fi, Shanghai

In many countries back to school offers have arrived in the shops. Why not do back to school in style: Sci-Fi style – with The Wandering Earth-themed stationery.

The Wandering Earth is a novella from Liu Cixin and also a Sci-Fi movie based on the novella. As far as I know the movie can be watched on Netflix in many countries.

I first came across Liu Cixin though his Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy – when the first book The Three-Body Problem was dramatised for a German radio station. A year later the dramatisation of the trilogy’s next book The Dark Forest was broadcast on the same radio station. By that time I was so hooked that I didn’t want to wait another year so I read the English version of the final book of the trilogy (or rather I let my phone read me the ebook on my work to and from work).

M&G, a Shanghainese stationery manufacturer that made several previous appearances on bleistift.blog, approached Frant Gwo, the director of The Wandering Earth movie for this cooperation.

The Morning Light Award Series won the iF award in 2019.

The Morning Light Star Universe Series is the girly high-end stationery from the Wandering Earth stationery.

There’s also the Morning Light Flavour Series.

The images in this blog post has been taken from an M&G post and fall under “fair dealing” as described by the UK Copyright service.

Back to school, sci-fi style Read More »

This and that

Leave a Comment / Uncategorised / 27 September 2016 / IKEA, M&G, Prestel, Rocketbook Wave Smart Notebook, Stationery Fever

Work has kept me very busy which explains the lack of new blog posts in the last weeks.

M&G

Just to show that I’m still alive here’s a quick blog post with some small points I want to raise.

I have mentioned M&G several times in the past, but all my M&G pens so far were bought in China. They seem to work on getting a bigger presence outside China and I have now spotted their pens in my local post office. I wonder whether this is the time where we’ll start to see more and more Chinese stationery brands in the West.

IKEA

I’ve seen this IKEA pencil soft toy during a recent trip to the Swedish furniture retailer.

Rocketbook Wave Smart Notebook

Erasable ballpoint pens have been around since the 1970s ^[1]see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasermate and there are numerous reports how these type of pens work – you can for example get erased content back by freezing the notebook. Well, this notebook adds a new idea to the mix.

Stationery Fever

Thanks to Gunther I found out about the new Stationery Fever book. The German version: Schreibwaren has already been released. The UK version will be released on 3rd October and the US version will be released on 8th November.

It looks as if this book contains some very exciting content.

I believe that the use of the cover of the book in this blog post falls under “fair dealing” as described by the UK Copyright service.

References[+]

References
↑1	see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasermate

This and that Read More »

Deli No.7083 HB

1 Comment / M&G, Pencils / 8 January 2016 / 7083, Carrefour, Chung Hwa, Chung Hwa 6151, Chung Hwa Drawing Pencil 101, M&G, Made in China, No.7083, pencil, Shanghai, Shanghai Hongkou Dragon Dream Shopping Centre

Yet another blog post related to my recent visit to Shanghai.

You might remember the Chung Hwa Drawing Pencil 101, together with the Chung Hwa 6151 it forms the pencil backbone of Shanghai. Whenever you see a pencil in Shanghai it usually is one of these two – and they are made in Shanghai, too.

…but what happened? Deli dared to enter Chung Hwa’s home turf – disturbing the natural order of things.

…and what a pencil they sent to threaten Chung Hwa’s hold on its home territory: it’s the Deli No.7083 ^[1]I assume the product number is derived from the last digits of the bar code before the heck digit …or maybe it’s the other way round..

The Chung Hwa 101 in its natural habitat

Price

I bought the 7083 in the Carrefour in Shanghai’s Hongkou Dragon Dream Shopping Centre and paid 11.80 元 (~$1.80; £1.25; €1.65) for a dozen HB pencils. They were also available in 2B and 2H.

The Chung Hwa 6151 in its natural habitat

Appearance

Let’s look at the appearance first. The 7083 looks like a pencil with a very thick layer of paint. The paint seems to be applied very well, except near the end of the pencil, which seems to have been dipped in just a bit too much paint. The 7083 has an unusually large diameter for a modern pencil. The paint job and the large diameter make it feel like a much better pencil than what you’d expect from a pencil with this price tag.

It is dark green like the Chung Hwa 101, but there’s also a similarity with another pencil. The shade of green used is virtually identical to the one used for the Castell 9000.

Lead

The 7083 lays down a very dark line and feels very smooth, even creamy when writing – but just to put this into context, we are talking about a very cheap pencil. The 7083 is not as good as the big boys, like the Mars Lumograph. Nevertheless it is very good and probably the best pencil I have tried in this price range.

If I had to compare to a pencil that is well known I would compare it to Staedtler’s Mars Lumograph in B. Point retention is very similar, but in direct comparison it is ever so slightly lighter than the Lumograph in B and slightly less smooth and erases slightly worse than the Lumograph in B ^[2]In case you wonder why, based in these statements, I don’t compare it to the Lumograph in HB: It is still much closer to the Lumograph in B, which shows you how minute these differences are. .

It writes well even on paper that is not good for non-soft pencils, like the original (‘Kraft’?) Field Notes.

Wood

The wood is slightly red, similar to the one used for the Chung Hwa 101 and when you knife sharpen the 7083 you notice that the wood is harder than cedar wood.

Conclusion

A great pencil that is nearly as good as much more expensive pencils. It has a strong paint smell, similar to other Chinese pencils, but for this price you probably won’t be able to find a much better pencil.

Price: December 2015

Exchange rates: January 2016

Please open images in a new tab/window to see them at full resolution.

References[+]

References
↑1	I assume the product number is derived from the last digits of the bar code before the heck digit …or maybe it’s the other way round.
↑2	In case you wonder why, based in these statements, I don’t compare it to the Lumograph in HB: It is still much closer to the Lumograph in B, which shows you how minute these differences are.

Deli No.7083 HB Read More »

M&G m9

1 Comment / M&G, Mechanical pencils / 6 January 2016 / FuZhou road, M&G, Made in China, mechanical pencil, Shanghai, sliding sleeve

One of the pencils I bought in Shanghai this Winter is the M&G m9, also known as the AMP85405.

Price and properties

When I saw it in a stationery store ^[1]I think it was 立信帐册, house number 618, even though according to Google it is somewhere else. on FuZhou Road, the book and stationery road I mentioned many times before, I just couldn’t resist. Only 15元 (~$2.30; $1.60; €2.10) for this quite handsome mechanical pencil. It is available in white, grey, red and black. It feels very well made, from some kind off metal, and with 12 g it is quite heavy for it’s size. The pen’s centre of gravity is in the middle.

Sliding sleeve

It does feature a sliding sleeve, but the ‘sleeve’ is shaped more like a cone than like a pipe. This means that it is not good at what I like sliding sleeves for, i.e. sliding back while you write so that you don’t have to keep advancing the lead manually, despite only needing 4 dN – 6 dN to slide the sleeve.

Conclusion

Great value for money, despite the sliding sleeve not doing its job properly. I think the m9 might benefit from its centre of gravity a bit closer to the front …and maybe from having a slightly larger diameter.

Price: December 2015

Exchange rates: January 2016

You can read about a wood-cased pencil from M&G in a previous blog post.

I have added the m9 to my sliding sleeve table.

References[+]

References
↑1	I think it was 立信帐册, house number 618, even though according to Google it is somewhere else.

M&G m9 Read More »

Sliding sleeves, Kuru Togas, DelGuards and more

1 Comment / Mechanical pencils, Pilot, Uni / 3 January 2016 / Kuru Toga, M&G, mechanical pencil, Mitsubishi, Pilot, Uni

Just a few small points I want to mention:

Sliding sleeve

I have created a table showing some of the sliding sleeve pencils and the force needed to slide the sleeve. I have averaged the values displayed in previous blog posts, just to make the table sortable. I plan to add the Orenz in 0.3 and the M9 to this table very soon.

Speaking of the Orenz, there’s a new Metal Grip version of the Orenz.

Kuru Toga

I have also ordered the new sliding sleeve version of the Kuru Toga. I did learn some Japanese in the 90s, but all I remember is some Katakana characters. Just enough to figure out that this version of the Kuru Toga is called “Pipe Slide”. Michael Fryda has published a video review of this pencil.

There is also a limited Adidas edition of the Kuru Toga. There used to be a Faber-Castell and Adidas cooperation in the past, not surprising as they are both from the Nuremberg area, but now Adidas seems to cooperate with Uni Mitsubishi Pencil.

Speaking of the Kuru Toga: M&G seems to offer a Kuru Toga copy, the AMP89202, but I haven’t seen it in reality, so I am not sure whether it is functional or only copies the look, not the functionality of the Kuru Toga.

DelGuard

One last point to mention, I noticed that two weeks after my DelGuard blog post and its video Zebra published a video that seems somehow similar – featuring the new 0.3 mm and 0.7 mm version of the DelGuard. There’s not as much information about the force needed in the video, but they have proper equipment to take close-ups, so it looks much better. Have a look at their video.

Wooden paper

One last thing I came across: Kizara memo pads, instead of paper they use wood shavings. Reminds me of the wooden Field Notes cover.

Sliding sleeves, Kuru Togas, DelGuards and more Read More »