A pencil factory for Nigeria. If it really provides employment for 400,000 people it must be one heck of a factory.
Seen in the supermarket
A magazine that comes with pencils. Int he past I’ve only seen (and bought) ‘children magazines’ (Simpsons, Disney) that came with pencils.
Seen in a shop on FuZhou road in Shanghai
A ‘graphite object’.
From the description:
Please Use! Functional Graphite Object writes like a pencil while resists staining your hands. Handcrafted using a proprietary technique that San Francisco artist Agelio Batle invented. With daily use they should last 7-9 years.
Seen at the chemist [1]Not any old chemist, even a dispensing chemist.
A crazy golf set – with one pencil, one golf putter eraser, three golf ball erasers and more.
Seen at the airport
Cheap Rhodia notebooks [2]Well, cheap for UK standards.. Only €1.20 for a Bloc Rhodia N° 12.
Seen in the catalogue of a distributor of electrical and related products
A pencil factory for Nigeria. If it really provides employment for 400,000 people it must be one heck of a factory.
Seen in the supermarket
A magazine that comes with pencils. Int he past I’ve only seen (and bought) ‘children magazines’ (Simpsons, Disney) that came with pencils.
Seen in a shop on FuZhou road in Shanghai
A ‘graphite object’.
From the description:
Please Use! Functional Graphite Object writes like a pencil while resists staining your hands. Handcrafted using a proprietary technique that San Francisco artist Agelio Batle invented. With daily use they should last 7-9 years.
Functional Graphite Object writes like a pencil while resists staining your hands. Handcrafted using a proprietary technique that San Francisco artist Agelio Batle invented.
Seen at the chemist [1]Not any old chemist, even a dispensing chemist.
A crazy golf set – with one pencil, one golf putter eraser, three golf ball erasers and more.
Seen at the airport
Cheap Rhodia notebooks [2]Well, cheap for UK standards.. Only €1.20 for a Bloc Rhodia N° 12.
Seen in the catalogue of a distributor of electrical and related products
Possibly of interest if you live in the UK [1]so no exchange rates this time.
I was just looking at the Belgian Atoma notebooks at Craft & Party Direct’s web site when I noticed that they sell the Rhodia ePure notebook covers for £1. The covers even come with a pad. I think I won’t order one as I alredy bought one at Meriful (paying much more). They also have other items on offer, like Rhodia pencils for 25p each.
Edit: Unfortunately Koralatov had a bad experience with this mail order. I haven’t ordered from them, so cannot comment. If you have ordered from them in the past, what was your experience?
I would like to thank Kent for the Munhwa Deojon you can see on the photo.
This morning, I received Rad and Hungry‘s fourth stationery kit. You might have read about Rad and hungry before. Quite a few blogs reported about Rad and hungry’s idea of a country-themed stationery kit you can subscribe to and some blogs reviewed the kits. The Pen Addict and Pencil Revolution even had a giveaway. Bleistift was one of the many lucky blogs that got the first kit, Colombia, free of charge. Unfortunately I never wrote a review. The kit arrived while I was in Shanghai and when I was back I was snowed under with work and the kit was snows of yesteryear (OK, I admit, it’s not funny and I shouldn’t mix contemporary and dated idioms 8^/ ), so I never reviewed it. I did however like it so much that I subscribed to these kits.
Nicely wrapped
Back to the parcel I received this morning, it was the fourth kit, Korea-themed. I do like Korea (even though I have never been there) and listen regularly to the German Service of South Korea’s KBS World Radio on short wave. Their programme is very good and introduces Korea and life there from different angles and on different levels. North Korea has a similar service, Voice of Korea – from the Radio TV broadcasting committee of the DPRK in Pyongyang. I really like the music the Voice of Korea plays. The Pochonbo Electronic Ensemble is so plasticy, it’s just great. It sounds very much like the background music from the video game Puzzle Bobble (Bust-a-Move in the USA). I think there is no need to describe what kind of non-music content you can expect to hear from North Korea’s international broadcasting service. Suffice to say that I do not listen to the North regularly – but their music is really nice.
The contents
Oh, that was off topic. Let’s talk about pencils again. The Korean kit was $26 (~ £ 16.20, € 18.70) including shipping [1] $14 for the kit (the price for a kit as part of a quarterly subscription) and $ 12 for shipping . One of the pencils in this kit is the Morning Glory Black Grip in B, which I examined a bit closer. The Black Grip is very similar to the Bauhaus 6004. Both have a triangular barrel, both are black wood pencils, both are from Korean companies, both are made in China, but the Black Grip does not come with an eraser. I assume the Black Grip is made by Marco, but I cannot be 100% sure. Other pencils similar to these two include the Rhodia pencil, reviewed at Lung Sketching Scrolls and pencil talk. Rhodia’s pencil is made in China, too. The way the ferrule is clinched in exactly the same way as the Bauhaus 6004 makes me think that this is another pencil manufactured by Marco, but it has a smoother lead than the Black Grip or the 6004. Two other, similar pencils, probably from the same factory are two “non black wood pencils”, the Marco 9001, reviewed at woodclinched, and the pencil’s from Eisen‘s fusion line, which are – in some markets – distributed by Lyra.
Stop the press! Supreme leader sees performance of women’s brass band!
Conclusion: The kit is very nice. Other items included in this kit, except the Black Grip, are more pencils, a note pad and a correction tape as well as some comments from the trip and some paper to test the items on, all wrapped up very nicely. The Morning Glory Black Grip itself is a nice every day pencil, there is no point in comparing it to some top of the line pencils, but it certainly does a good job.
Last time I visited Selfridges, they had the Robot Pencil Sharpener from Kikkerland on a shelf. I recognised it from Dave’s Mechnical Pencils, but I am sure I have also seen it in other blogs. Of course I could not resist and was drawn to it. Next to it there were also some other novelty pencils and eraser, including big dinosaur shaped erasers, Penguin Book pencils and paper pencils. This being Selfridges the items were not cheap, but I still bought the robot sharpener and the paper pencils.
The paper pencils are from a company called Eco Bridge and are made in Korea. I paid £3.95 (~ $ 5.95, ~ € 4.40) for three pencils. The price in Korea is 2300 Won (~ £ 1.35, ~ $ 2.00, ~ € 1.50). Not cheap, especially when keeping in mind that until recently Tesco sold similar pencils made from rolled Chinese newspaper for less than 5p (~ 8¢, ~6ct) each. O’Bon’s newsprint pencils, reviewed at pencil talk, cost $5 (~ £ 3.30, ~ € 3.70) for a pack of 10.
The Eco Bridge pencils is definitely softer than the Tesco pencil or the average European HB pencil, its softness is comparable to a Staedtler Mars Lumograph B, Faber-Castell 9000 2B or Palomino HB. Smudging is similar to other pencils of this softness. To my surprise the Eco Bridge is a very good pencil. It is much smoother than a Dong-A Fable HB, one of the few pencils from a Korean company that is, as far as I know, produced in Korea. I normally prefer pencils where the point stays sharp for longer, but softer pencils like the Eco Bridge have the advantage of delivering a nicer, darker black when writing.
Eco Bridge Pencil (front) & Tesco Pencil (back)
When it comes to sharpening the pencils the Tesco pencil performs better than the Eco Bridge. The blade of the sharpener (in this case the Eisen 402) seems to cut the Tesco paper much better, while the paper in the Eco Bridge is more likely to get ripped away. While the paper used for the Tesco pencil is rolled paper with Chinese characters on it, probably from a newspaper or something similar, all three Eco Bridge pencils have a similar colour distribution on the paper, red in the middle, near the lead, and recycling beige on the outside. I suspect that the paper used for the Eco Bridge has been recycled and printed on specifically for this pencil, in order to produce this pattern on the paper. This would also explain the higher price tag. This recycling process might be responsible for the rougher paper, compared to the Tesco pencil, which results in the paper ripping easier.
Eco Bridge & Tesco on Bloc Rhodia No 13, eraser test with Mars plastic pen, smudge test on the right
Conclusion:
The Eco Bridge is not cheap, but it is a nice pencil. It might not be able to compete with really good pencils, but it is better than most “average” pencils. If you like B or 2B pencils and happen to see the Eco Bridge pencils in a shop you could give it a try. On the other hand this money would (nearly) buy you one of the good pencils (9000, Lumograph, Palomino, Mono).
Price and exchange rates: March 2010.
I would like to thank Kent from Pencilog for the Dong-A Fable used for the comparison.
Seen at the chemist [1]Not any old chemist, even a dispensing chemist.
Seen in the catalogue of a distributor of electrical and related products
