Noris Archives - Page 9 of 9

Chung Hwa Drawing Pencil 101

Popular Pencils in the UK and Germany

For me the Staedtler Noris has always been the archetype of a pencil. The Mars Lumograph might come close and these days I might also consider the Castell 9000, but somehow I never really saw the Castell 9000 being used around me when I was younger. My father was a joiner, so he used carpenter pencils and normal pencils …and because he used a lot of them he would not buy the more expensive ones. There was a point, I think it was the early nineties, when Herlitz Scolair pencils became quite cheap. So he usually used those …and he used a lot of them. Even though I also used to use them I never thought of them as nice pencils, they were always just cheap pencils to me. In the eighties there were of course Japanese pencils in Germany, too, but they were usually novelty pencils, not branded pencils. Their selling point would be the unusual look, e.g. unusual patterns or colours printed on them, often metallic. Unfortunately they usually suffered from lead breakage, probably because the manufacturers did not have to try hard: Everybody who bought them did so because of how nice they looked, not because of their reputation – and since they were not branded you could not really know which ones to avoid in the future .

Back to my original topic: I think the Staedtler Noris can be seen as the archetype of a pencil in the UK and in Germany. In the UK the Staedtler tradition can also be seen quite often, but in both countries the Noris seems to be the pencil that is most ‘common’ and recognisable the same time.

Shanghai’s popular pencil

Last time I was in Shanghai I was trying find the Shanghainese equivalent by looking for the most common pencil in everyday life. I expected it would be the Chung Hwa 6151, just because it was a Shanghainese pencil you come across in stationery blogs or web sites, but I never really saw the 6151 in the wild. Instead I came across the Chung Hwa Drawing Pencil 101 again and again. Employees in supermarkets used it to make notes. Waiters in restaurants used it to take orders. It just seemed to be the most common pencil in Shanghai. If there are any reader who know or live in Shanghai and disagree please let me know. I would like to know what your experience is.

China First Pencil Company Ltd.

Before I go into more detail about this pencil I would like to talk about the manufacturer, Chung Hwa, first. There are many Chinese companies and products in different and unrelated industry sectors that are called Chung Hwa: there are Chung Hwa cigarettes, cars, there is Chung Hwa cognac, ink, etc. As far as I can tell these companies have usually no connection except the common name. Chung Hwa (PinYin: ZhongHua) does translate as ‘China’ but not in the normal sense, i.e. when you talk about the country, but in a cultural or literary sense.

The Chung Hwa pencil company traces it roots back to 1935. It changed the name a few times and today’s official name is China First Pencil Company Ltd. They manufacture graphite, colour and cosmetic pencils as well as pencil related stationery and machines for the pencil industry.

Chung Hwa Drawing Pencil 101

Prices for a pack of 10 Chung Hwa 101 Drawing pencils start at 6.50 RMB (97¢, 61p, 70c) but usually they are quite a bit higher. The look of this pencil seems to have changed dramatically over time: In the past there was one version of this pencil (i.e. same name and model number) that looked like a typical Mars Lumograph copy. The article number of Chung Hwa’s pencil with the Mars Lumograph look (Google translation of the linked page) has however changed from 101 to 111, and you can sometimes even find this pencil in supermarkets in the West.

Today the Chung Hwa Drawing pencil‘s body has a dark green body colour with a light green pattern of bamboo leaves and totems printed over it. The pencil is hexagonal without a painted cap and is labelled on three sides. The wood used is rather red, but does not seem to be the Vatta wood (Macaranga Peltata) mention in a previous blog post. Two sides are labelled in white, one in white and gold. As far as I know the Chung Hwa 101 should be available 6H – H, F, HB, H – 6H. Despite my best efforts I was however unable to find this pencil in F, so I bought one pack in HB and one in H.

…compared to the Staedtler Noris

Since this pencil seems to be Shanghai’s everyday pencil I thought it would be a good idea to compare it to what I think is the UK’s and Germany’s everyday pencil, the Staedtler Noris, as explained earlier. Let’s start by looking at the finish. I like the fact that you can see the wood grain through the paint, but on the 101 the paint has not been applied as well as on the Noris. This applies to both the dark green base and the light green pattern. The Chung Hwa Drawing Pencil 101 in HB is also not as soft and smooth as a Noris HB. It is not yet scratchy and certainly not worse than an average pencil. The graphite is not too reflective and does not smudge, so keeping the price in mind the 101 HB is very good value for money. The 101 in H is also very good for the price, but compared to the Noris in H it is much softer, more like an F grade pencil.

Conclusion

The Chun Hwa Drawing Pencil 101 offers very good value for money. It is not really a great pencil that can compete with good pencils, but it is definitely better than the average no name pencil and better than many cheap branded pencils.

As usual: the paper that can be seen in the comparison photo of this blog post is the Bloc Rhodia Nº 13.

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Handicraft with Bleistift

4 Comments / Handicraft / 21 April 2010 / Bonanza, Handicraft, Mars Lumograph, Noris, point protector

Staetdler Mars Lumograph with a point protector

As a tribute to Lexikaliker’s fantastic “Basteln mit dem Lexikaliker” series I want to show you today how to make simple point protectors for your pencils. Lexikaliker had two different posts about point protectors (a simple version (Google translation) and an improved version (Google translation)). My version is not as good as Lexikaliker’s, but you will usually have all the material necessary at home. Actually… my point protector is so simple, you probably thought of it yourself somewhen in the past. If you have not looked a Lexikaliker’s handicraft articles yet, you should definitely have a look, especially at the one where he turns a pencil into an electric, musical instrument (Google translation).

For this simple point protector you need some old paper and sticky tape. I usually use the reverse side of calendar sheets to make notes, but the sheets of this Dutch calendar (see first picture) with Donald Duck comics are printed on on both sides. As I cannot use them for notes I will use them to make the point protectors. Maybe you also have some old calendar sheets somewhere. Just divide a calendar sheet into three equal strips. If you use other paper cut it into strips about as long as a pencil and a quarter of a pencil length wide. Roll the paper around the pencil and fix it with sticky tape. To increase stability you might want to close one end of the cylinder you just created. Either fold the end over and fix it with stick tape or just use sticky tape to close it without folding the end over.

Faber-Castell Bonanza 1320 with an unfinished point protector

Some pencils, like the Staedtler Wopex, have a rubber-like surface which is nice when as it gives you more grip but makes removing the point protector difficult. In this case just put some sticky tape on the inside of the protector to reduce friction.

The point protector protect the point of your pencil and will help to keep the inside of your pencil case graphite mark free.

Staedtler Noris with a finished point protector

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Staedtler tradition 110

24 Comments / Pencils, Seen in the wild, Staedtler / 13 March 2010 / Made in Australia, Made in Germany, Made in Great Britain, Mars Lumograph, Noris, screenshot, seen in the wild, Staedtler, tradition

When it comes to the recognition value of their pencils there is one company that – in my opinion – does by far the best job: Staedtler. Compared to other companies in this industry Staedtler is quite unusual as the company belongs to the Staedtler foundation whose main purpose is the promotion of scientific research… but I digress. Let’s get back to the pencils: As much as I like to use pencils from other companies, the Faber-Castell 9000 for example, for me the archetype of a pencil is the Staedtler Noris, available in two versions: as the 120 (without eraser) and as the 122 (with eraser).

The Noris is a pencil that is very common in Europe, but I would not say that it dominates the market. Noris as a brand name for pencils has been registered in 1901 and the name Noris itself is closely related to Staedtler: the nymph Noris is the personification of Nuremberg, the city where Staedtler has its headquarters. The Noris pencil is definitely quite popular in Germany. In UK it is also quite popular: in supermarkets you can usually find at least two types of pencils, often more, but a no name pencil and the Staedtler Noris seem to be the common denominator.

Somehow the look of the Noris is easy to remember, but this is not a feature unique to the Noris: Staedtler also did a great job in that respect with some of their other pencils: the tradition and the Mars Lumograph. These three models are instantly recognisable and unless you count the yellow Koh-I-Noor ^[1]which was not the first yellow pencil, but seemed to have sparked the popularity of yellow pencils in America they seem to be the most copied pencils in the world.

Wiltshire Top Gear — Stephen Wiltshire, using a Staedtler tradition, on BBC’s Top Gear (Image © BBC)

The look of some of the most popular pencils in India, the Reynolds 432, the Nataraj 621 and the Doms Ajanta, seem to be based on the Staedtler tradition, as is the look of the Chunghwa 6151, reviewed at pencil talk as well as countless other copies. You can also come across the tradition in the media. In a recent episode of Top Gear for example, Stephen Wiltshire was using a Staedtler tradition for his drawings.

The Staedtler Noris was the antetype for the Chunghwa 6181, reviewed at oh! super tooth, but even though the Noris has probably been less often copied than the tradition and the Mars Lumograph, it can be seen on TV more often, usually used by somebody who is probably not even aware what make or model it is.

In one episode of Black Books the main character is using a Noris to control who is allowed to talk. I just saw the Noris again last week in a BBC documentary unrelated to pencils, and I see an icon that looks like the Noris on a daily basis in Okular, the document viewer in KDE 4.

Slightly younger than the Noris, with Mars being registered as a pencil brand in 1900, but with the Lumograph being released about 30 years later, the Mars Lumograph would probably have to top the list when it comes to how often the look of a pencil has been copied by no name pencils. I have seen no name pencils with the look of the Mars Lumograph, but without any writing on it countless times. Sometimes you can also see copies of this pencil with the name of the manufacturer on it, e.g. the Chunghwa Drawing pencil, reviewed at Blyantsiden (Google translation) or the Medicise Drawing pencil 9002. Of course the Mars Lumograph also got its fair share of TV presence. Just to name one example, there is a Derrick episode from the Seventies where a secretary is using a pencil, unmistakably a Mars Lumograph.

Staedtler tradition — Top to bottom: Great Britain, Australia, Germany

The distinct look of the Staetdler pencils makes recognising them so easy. This must surely be an important factor that influences the decision of customers when they are in front of a shelf of pencils and need to decide which pencil to buy.

Unfortunately Staedtler stopped producing pencils in Australia and Great Britain, but some shops still have stock left that was produced in these two countries. You might know where this is going… After this really long-winded introduction I will now compare Staedtler pencils from different countries, to be more precise: I will be comparing the Staedtler tradition 110 from Australia, Germany and Great Britain. For this comparison I used recently produced pencils from the three different factories. It would be wrong to assume that there is no variation in the production, so please do not take this comparison too seriously.

When comparing the different HB versions ^[2]Even though I have most grades of the British (actually Welsh to be precise) and of the Australian tradition I only have the HB version of the German tradition. you can see that the Australian version has the thinnest layer of paint. I have to say that I actually like it, because you can see the texture of the wood through the paint. On a negative note I also have to add that the Australian pencils (all grades) have the paint applied less consistently. All pencils came pre-sharpened, but the pencil from the German factory has been pre-sharpened using a different method than the other pencils. The pencil from Great Britain is definitely softer than the other two. It also smudges a bit more. When I tried to erase all three using the Mars plastic eraser pen (528 50) there was no real difference between the different pencils.

Comparing the Australian 4B and the British 4B I also thought that the British pencil was a tick softer, but this was definitely not as noticeable as it was for the HB pencils. Using the Mars plastic eraser pen the Australian 4B was maybe a bit easier to erase than the British 4B, but again there was not a big difference.

Conclusion: The tradition is a really good pencil. I am not sure why, but the German Staedtler web site lists the tradition in the artist category, not in the category for pencils used for writing. Nevertheless the tradition is very suitable for writing. Stock of Australian and British tradition pencils will be exhausted soon, so get some while you can …not that the performance of the German tradition is worse, but if you just spent a few minutes reading this post you must be pencil-crazy enough to want the Australian and British version as well.

Links:

You can find a post about the Staedtler tradition at pencil talk.
Kent wrote a review of the British Noris pencils at Pencilog (Google translation).
You can find the English version of Staedtler’s newsletter at the Staedtler Belgium web site.
You can find issue 175 of this newsletter here.
Staedtler’s web site has an informative PDF about wood-cased pencils.
Lexikaliker wrote a post about the colour coding used for the Noris pencils (Google translation).

Acknowledgements:

I would like to thank David from Dave’s Mechanical Pencils for the selection of Australian pencils, including the Staedtler tradition, he sent me.

The photo of Stephen Wiltshire using a Staedtler Tradition has been taken from Top Gear Episode 5 of Series 14. I believe that the use of this image falls under “fair dealing” as described by the UK Copyright service.

The pencil icon has been taken from Okular, the document viewer in KDE 4.

References[+]

References
↑1	which was not the first yellow pencil, but seemed to have sparked the popularity of yellow pencils in America
↑2	Even though I have most grades of the British (actually Welsh to be precise) and of the Australian tradition I only have the HB version of the German tradition.

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