Shanghai Archives - Page 5 of 7

Faber-Castell dust-free eraser 18 71 70

19 Comments / Erasers, Faber-Castell / 26 January 2015 / 18 71 70, Deli Report Pad paper, dust-free, eraser, Faber-Castell, Fili Perfetto pencil, Made in Malaysia, Shanghai

Dust free - my favourite kind of eraser — Dust free – my favourite kind of eraser

Previously I have mentioned that I came across a new, nice eraser. Well, this eraser is new to me – and Faber-Castell have confirmed that this eraser, the blue, dust-free eraser ’18 71 70′, is available in Malaysia, but is not officially available in Europe. It seems to be for sale in Canada, though. I paid 4元 (~ 65¢; 55c; 45p) for this eraser.

Faber-Castell's 18 71 70 eraser — Faber-Castell’s 18 71 70 eraser

Performance is similar to the 18 71 20 (which is the bigger version of the 18 71 30). The blue 18 71 70 seemed to be a little bit softer and required a little bit less effort than the white 18 71 20, which is already very soft and effortless to use. This could however be because the white 18 71 20 is a few years old. The dust of the blue 18 71 70 did not roll up as neatly into strands as that of the white 18 71 20.

There is also a black version of the 18 71 70, the 18 71 71. According to Faber-Castell both versions are identical except the colour. According to Faber-Castell the white dust-free erasers 18 71 20 and 18 71 30 are phthalate free. There are no similar claims regarding the blue or black dust-free eraser.

Comparison 18 71 20 and 18 71 70, Fili Perfetto pencil, Deli Report Pad paper

In case you wonder why my 18 71 20 looks so funny on the picture, it took on the colour of my Berit case after being stores in the Berit case for a while. Eraser easily take on the colour of items they touch, or even ‘dissolve’ other items.

Price: December 2014

Exchange rates: January 2015

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Shanghai stationery

10 Comments / Uncategorised / 12 January 2015 / Shanghai, stationery

The time it takes to read most blog posts at Bleistift is probably a bit longer than the time most readers are willing to spend on reading them – so in an attempt to keep blog posts shorter I’ll talk about my trip to Shanghai, where I bought some nice stationery, before writing more about what I bought in two further blog posts.

Shanghai

In December I’ve been in Shanghai again. Unfortunately there wasn’t much time while I was there, so I only managed to see some more stationery in shopping malls I happened to pass and to visit one proper stationery shop.

It’s not an uncommon sight to see little, open Lamy shops in Shanghai’s shopping malls. I have mentioned this in the past. As in previous years prices are more expensive than in Europe, roughly 50% more, but that depends on the specific pen you’re looking at. On a positive note: it is not uncommon to see limited edition pens from previous years that are hard to get in Europe. Funnily enough I’ve seen Lamy being sold in several places, but I haven’t seen Chinese Lamy copies, like the Hero 359 or the Jinhao 599 anywhere.

This time I’ve also seen Kaweco pens for the first time in Shanghai, it was in one of the more expensive shopping malls, called Réel, near Jing’An Temple.

Masking tape ...every day a bit better. — Masking tape …every day a bit better.

The proper stationery shop I mentioned at the beginning of this blog post is a shop on Xiangde Road in Shanghai’s Hongkou district. I have visited this shop in the past. It’s not too big and there’s not too much choice when it comes to wood cased pencils, but the shop has a lot of other stationery, from the kind of stationery for children and students, like different kinds of papers, brushes, scissors to all sorts of stationery small companies would buy.

In the past I have bought lots of erasers and sharpeners in this shop – so, of course, I couldn’t resist buying more some erasers and sharpeners this year.

The two most exiting items I bought were, without any doubt, Faber-Castell’s blue dust free eraser and Deli’s 0620 sharpener.

...still in the shop on Xiangde Road — …still in the shop on Xiangde Road

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Keyroad

4 Comments / Uncategorised / 21 June 2013 / FuZhou road, Keyroad, Meriful, Shanghai, Shanghai Hongkou Dragon Dream Shopping Centre

In my blog post about Simbalion’s Supreme Quality Pencil 88 I mentioned Keyroad, a Chinese stationery chain that I have also mentioned in several previous blog posts. Today I want to show you some photos I took in and around Keyroad stores, most from Keyroad’s store on Fuzhou road.

The stationery on offer in Keyroad is not as exciting and high-end as what you could get in Meriful, but unfortunately Meriful on Fuzhou road closed down, or moved, in any case: I couldn’t find it on Fuzhou road. There are Meriful stores in other parts of Shanghai, but I haven’t visited them.

Keyroad’s focus isn’t directly stationery. Their target group seems to be teenage girls, but because of this they have “designed” stationery, while common stationery stores tend to sell functional stationery.

There is of course some overlap: you’d find plain pencils as well as erasers with cartoon pictures on in either type of store, but in Keyroad you’d find lots of colourful as well as imported stationery.You’ll find the likes of Lamy Safari or Parker Pens, but imported stationery tends to be prohibitively expensive.

I found more Keyroads than on previous visits – in new locations and also in locations where, previously, there have been similar shops.

Keyroad HongKou — The Dragon Dream Shopping Centre’s Queen’s Market is now a Keyroad, too

Price: May 2013

Exchange rates: June 2013

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Simbalion Supreme Quality Pencil 88

8 Comments / Pencils, Simbalion / 13 June 2013 / FuZhou road, JiangSu Province, Keyroad, Made in China, Shanghai, Simbalion, Supreme Quality Pencil 88

Simbalion’s Supreme Quality Pencil 88

Simbalion are, as far as I can tell, not very common in the West. In a previous blog post I looked at the Graphic Pencils from Simbalion, one of Taiwan’s oldest stationery manufacturers. When I visited Keyroad, a Chinese stationery chain where I bought my previous Simbalion pencils, I saw Simbalion pencils I hadn’t noticed before: Simbalions supreme quality pencil 88. They have a very old fashioned look. Packaging-wise I thought they were the best looking pencil in the shop, because of this old fashioned look. I like the layout, the fonts and the colours used.

The bad news

When I say supreme quality I use Simbalion’s description from the packaging, so these are their words, not mine. In my opinion these aren’t exactly supreme quality pencils. …and when I say “not exactly supreme quality” I’m being kind. They aren’t horrible, but compared to good quality pencils they are a bit scratchy and the finish isn’t to a good standard either. Their lead also breaks easily when you have a long, nice point, like the one produced by my favourite pencil sharpener, the Deli 0635. Looks as if not all pencil can handle the Deli’s 17.5° point.

The good news

…but I think I should put this all in perspective. When I picked a pack with a dozen of these pencils up I thought they’d cost 8.5元 ^[1]I’m using the 元 sign instead of the ￥ sign, which is normally being used in Chinese shops, so that there is no confusion between the Chinese Yuan and the Japanese Yen. (~$1.40; €1.05; 90p), because that’s what the sign under the pencil said, but that sign was for another pencil. A pack containing a dozen of these pencils was actually only 4.5元 (~75¢; 55c; 45p) and thanks to my loyalty card and some other offers in store at that day I only paid 3.83元 ^[2]I haven’t seen Fen (分), 1/100th of a Yuan in years, so I guess they’ll round up or down if necessary.. Value for money is therefore excellent, despite them not being on par with what a would call a good pencil

…and I like them mainly because of their look anyway. Their bright, strong orange, not fluorescent, but really strong is nice, even though the package is even nicer…

Other things to mention

Other interesting points to mention are that the performance of the eraser is better than expected and similar to the quality of the kind of erasers you find on the end of good pencils. Despite this being an Asian pencil ^[3]…from a Taiwanese company, but made in JiangSu province, China, just next to Shanghai. the HB classification is also more like a European HB, not like an Asian HB. If anything the pencil seems to be harder, not softer than HB, but that feeling might be caused by the slight scratchiness. I’m also not sure whether lead hardness will be consistent across a bigger sample. The length, including the eraser is slightly more than 19 cm. The diameter of the pencil is on the bigger side (7.1 – 7.2 mm edge to edge, 7.7 – 7.8 mm vertex to vertex). According to the packaging the pencil has a weight of 6.5 g ± 1. When I checked the weight the pencils were lighter, but my scale is rather old ^[4]You might have seen it in some older blog posts., so I’m not sure I can trust it.

I’ll try to keep my blog posts short, because I tend to go one forever ^[5]This blog post ended up being longer than expected – again. so instead of talking more about Keyroad now, I’ll show you some photos I took in Keyroad in another blog post soon.

In case you wonder why the pencil’s name is 88: 8 is seen as being an auspicious number – in Mandarin it sounds similar to the word for wealth or fortune. I think that similarity is even bigger in Cantonese, but I’m not absolutely sure.

A nice-ish pencil for a great price. I wish I’d bought more…

Price: May 2013

Exchange rates: June 2013

References[+]

References
↑1	I’m using the 元 sign instead of the ￥ sign, which is normally being used in Chinese shops, so that there is no confusion between the Chinese Yuan and the Japanese Yen.
↑2	I haven’t seen Fen (分), 1/100th of a Yuan in years, so I guess they’ll round up or down if necessary.
↑3	…from a Taiwanese company, but made in JiangSu province, China, just next to Shanghai.
↑4	You might have seen it in some older blog posts.
↑5	This blog post ended up being longer than expected – again.

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Meriful

9 Comments / Uncategorised / 30 March 2012 / Carl, Decorer, FuZhou road, Meriful, Shanghai, tape dispenser

…and another post linked to Shanghai’s Fuzhou Road.This time about a shop called Meriful.

Meriful is quite different to the other shops you’ll find on Fuzhou Road. It is neither a cheap shop selling mainly Chinese-made stationery, nor is it one of those boutique-like shops selling a mix of “cute stuff” and designed, overpriced stationery of questionable quality. Instead you’ll find many items you might find in the online shops of the West, like JetPens, Cult Pens, bureauDIRECT or the less well known Deskstore.

Even though the shop is not too big you will find an incredible choice of exciting items. Just looking at the erasers – there must have been more than 100 different ones. Most items in the shop are imported from Asia, but you will also find European brands, like Rhodia (I bought the orange pad cover in Meriful) or Faber-Castell.

Meriful sells expensive designer calculators from Canon, but also affordable mechanical pencils from Redcircle (which are essentially fake Rotring pencils) as well as absolutely stunning handmade desk accessories from China (so beautiful, but so expensive).

Imported items were usually about 50% more expensive than in their country of origin, but that isn’t too expensive, I thought. Other shops have similar mark-ups for imported stationery.

Their selection of items by Carl was amazing. The Decorer desk set (¥158, ~ $25 ; £15.60; €18.80) was unfortunately not available in the colour we liked, so my wife bought one of the Carl Decorer tape dispenser by itself, not as a set. It doesn’t feel as solid as it looks and it is a bit odd that the different materials have different shades of green, but overall it is a very nice tape dispenser.

Some of the items I bought in Meriful. The nice leather pen case is made in Korea.

Staff are very friendly and you can even negotiate the price if you find any issue with the products (previously opened, etc). When I asked for a new Rhodia pad cover from their stock they offered me a discount because they didn’t have any unopened ones left.

Price: December 2011

Exchange rates: March 2012

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