Staedtler

A Franconian Noris

Franconia Day

This weekend is Franconia Day (Tag der Franken) again, so I thought this blog post should feature some Franconia pencils – in the wild.

Juge Robin's pencil
Juge Roban’s pencil (Image © Son et Lumière)
Engrenages

According to Wikipedia “only two European regions continue to be associated with the Franks” [1]I’m not sure whether this claim is true, but nevertheless I’ll just repeat it here:

  • Franconia – to link this blog post to Franconia: it’s where the pencils in the following pictures were probably made (unless they were old stock)
  • and Île-de-France where the pencils in the following pictures were being filmed.
Juge Roban's pencil
Juge Roban’s pencil (Image © Son et Lumière)

These screenshots have been taken from Engrenages, where they used to use the BIC Matic last season.

While the magistrate is using Staedtler’s Noris the police is using the Tradition:

Staedtler tradition
Staedtler tradition (view in full resolution to see the pencil) (Image © Son et Lumière)
The Game and Clifton

Meanwhile, on the other side of the channel. Actually, not meanwhile, but kind of 40 years earlier: MI5’s Alan Montag is using a Staedtler Noris. There are a lot of pencils in the series, but usually they are unidentifiable yellow/orange pencils. For a few minutes I thought Joe Lambe’s accent is Irish until I realised it’s one of the different types of Scouse [2]I should have recognised it earlier …a few years ago I had a student with a very similar accent.

Alan Montag listening in with a Noris
Alan Montag listening in with a Noris (Image © BBC Cymru)

The previous screenshot is from the great TV series “The Game” – from 2014, but set in the 1970s. In contrast here’s an MI5 pencil from the real 1970s – from the story Atout…coeur! / Hartkloppingen! from Franco-Belgian comic series Clifton. Burton and Taylor seems to be a reference to Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, the design of the pencil seems to be based on the Staedtler Lumograph.

Clifton's pencil
Clifton’s pencil (Image © Turk & De Groot)
Make me Welsh

After the BBC’s Make me a German this time: Make me Welsh. Funnily enough the TV series The Game I just mentioned was produced by BBC Cymru Wales, too. Sean told me about this programme and sent me a screenshot showing pupils using Staedtler’s Noris (very common in British schools).

Pensiliau Cymraeg
Pensiliau Cymraeg (Image © BBC Cymru)

 

Episodes

If that’t not enough Franconian pencils yet – there are plenty more in the latest season of Episodes. Episodes does again feature an extremely high density of Noris pencils per episode. I’ll skip the screenshot though as it would be virtually indistinguishable from the last one I posted.

 

Noris in the wild

To celebrate what is probably my favourite pencil, the Noris, I have put together a page from the different Noris in the wild blog posts, which can be found here.

Franken Bleistift


I would like thank Sean for the Make me Welsh screenshot.

I believe that the use of the screen shots, taken from Engrenages, The Game, Clifton and Make me Welsh falls under “fair dealing” as described by the UK Copyright service.

References

References
1 I’m not sure whether this claim is true, but nevertheless I’ll just repeat it here
2 I should have recognised it earlier …a few years ago I had a student with a very similar accent

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Noris shavings

I like the Noris shavings from KUM’s Masterpiece [1]I guess officially it should be ‘KUM’s The Masterpiece’ so much, I took them out of the waste bin to take a photo. noris-shavings

References

References
1 I guess officially it should be ‘KUM’s The Masterpiece’

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A broken Wopex

Sniff..

I guess I’m a glass half empty guy. One of my Wopex in 2H broke today. A glass half full guy would probably rejoice, now being in possession of two pencils instead of one.

Broken Wopex

I used it to open one of the fire doors at work using the pencil. Something I am sure I did with other (wooden) pencils in the past. They survived, my Wopex didn’t.

Broken Wopex

I guess the fact that it the Wopex is hard to sharpen made me subconsciously assume that it would have a high fracture strength.

 

 

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Blog and Monocle

Blog

You might have noticed that the look of this blog has changed a lot in the last days. The theme that I have used until recently wasn’t working any more as it should, at least not in new versions of WordPress [1]WordPress is the name of the blog softare I use, because it hasn’t been updated by its developers for several years. I have switched to another theme. I still miss my old theme (I guess you do, too) and if I find a nicer theme I might switch again, but for now this is the best I could come up with.

How Bleistift used to look like
How Bleistift used to look like

Monocle - Issue 81Monocle

No, not the Gentleman’s single-use unlubricated monocle, but Issue 81 of the magazine called Monocle. When I went to the supermarket I noticed that the latest issue, a Japan special, also features an article about pens and pencils in Japan. Unfortunately you can’t read this article online, but (as a consolation) here’s a link to their video report about Staedtler.


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

References

References
1 WordPress is the name of the blog softare I use

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Noris colour wear and tear

Introduction

Here’s my first follow up post about the Noris colour, the coloured pencil made using Wopex material, which has been mentioned in a previous blog post. I bought my set of six Noris colour for £2.49 (~$3.76; €3.46) on eBay. There are also sets with 12 and with 24 pencils available.

As explained earlier I have been looking for a coloured pencil, one that is suitable for writing, for quite a while now. The Noris colour is one of the best pencils for this purpose I have seen so far.

The Noris colour pencils have arrived
The Noris colour pencils have arrived

 The test

Now this is not a scientific exploration of how fast the lead will wear down, I have neither equipment nor experience, but just to give you some rough idea what I did:

  • The average normal pen force used to write the sample lines was approximately 1 Newton. I don’t know the average axial pen force. There was obviously a lot of variation as I wrote by hand – with more force being used for downward strokes. As you can see the point broke a few times. It would be great to have a pencil hardness tester, like the Elcometer, to make these tests more objective [1]They’re actually supposed to the the surface you scratch with the pencils, not the pencils themselves. I guess I should either start a Kickstarter (think potato salad) to try to get my hand on … Continue reading.
  • All pencils were sharpened using the Deli 0668, i.e. with an angle of approximately 20°. The Deli was dialled back one full rotation (360°) do avoid creating a point that will break too easily.
  • The paper used was from a Brunnen – Der grüne Block (previously seen in this post)
Old and new Noris coloured pencils. The old ones didn't take part in the comparison.
Old and new Noris coloured pencils. The old ones didn’t take part in the comparison.

Before

All pencils, the Noris colour, the Eberhard Faber 1410 and the Noris club 144, had an initial line thickness of 0.1 mm – 0.3 mm (vertical / horizontal variation).

 

After

The point of the Noris colour wore down the least. After one line of writing the line variation was 0.3 mm – 0.5 mm.

The point of the Eberhard Faber 1410 wore down the most. After one line of writing the line variation was 0.5 mm – 0.6 mm.

The point wear of the Noris club 144 was in the middle. After one line of writing the line variation was 0.3 mm – 0.6 mm.

noriscolour-comparison

 

Conclusion

The Noris colour performed best. Subjectively the point felt better than what the numbers suggest, but then the Noris is also the pencil that left the lightest mark. The Eberhard Faber 1410which wore down fastest left the strongest marks on paper.

Despite the light marks the Noris colour is in my opinion the best pencil for writing or marking. It is also easy to erase.


Price Noris colour: February 2015.

I bought the Brunnen notepad in August 2011 in McPaper, Schweinfurt (Germany) for €1.19 (~$1.29; £0.86).

I bought the Noris Club pencil in 2008 from Woolworths went they into administration. I don’t remember the price.

I bought the Eberhard Faber pencils in 2010. More information about them can be found in this blog post.

Exchange rates: March 2015.

References

References
1 They’re actually supposed to the the surface you scratch with the pencils, not the pencils themselves. I guess I should either start a Kickstarter (think potato salad) to try to get my hand on a pencil hardness tester or try to build my own one.

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