Well, I certainly know which two movies I’ll be rooting for.
In the Wild
If you like this topic have a look at the Noris in the Wild page that lists Noris sightings in movies and on TV from the 1970s onwards.
Thanks to Stephen for this information.
I have added these to my ever growing list of Staedtler sightings I should make screenshots of, but in this case it might take a while before these movies make it to free to air TV channels, so don’t expect to see them here anytime soon.
Today: a quick look at Staedtler’s new 925 15 mechanical pencil. Another pencil I got to know from Gunther.
The 925 15 came out in November 2017, has an official price of ¥500 (~$4.40; £3.30; €3.75) and is available in 0.3mm, 0.5mm, 0.7mm and 0.9mm.
In my opinion, it looks absolutely stunning. The grip section is made from Elastomer. One thing to note: as it is rather rubbery little bits of fibre or dust will easily stick to the grip section.
The push button looks quite different to the push button found on other members of Staedtler’s 925 family. By the way, I have no idea how the numbers after 925, in this case, 15, are assigned. They don’t seem to be in chronological order, but they also don’t seem to indicate how cheap or expensive the pen is. The 925 15 has a much smaller push button than its relatives and comes with a hole. I couldn’t think of any practical use for the hole (checking whether the eraser is used up?) – the only reason I could think of was the same reason why pen caps have holes, so that air can flow in case anyone (most likely children) swallow the cap and it is stuck in the windpipe. ジムキング confirmed that this is the most likely reason for the hole in the push button.
Here’s a family photo with some other 925s.
Top to bottom: 900 25, 925 15, 925 25, 925 35, 925 65, 925 85
The 925 15 is so nice, it deserves a centrefold picture. If it was a bit heavier and had a sliding sleeve it would probably become my daily mechanical pencil.
Welcome to the first post in a new series on this blog: Stationery Factlets [1]The term factoid has two meaning, so I decided to go with factlet, even though the term factoid is more common.. This new series was actually born out of necessity. You might remember my current lack of time. To enable me to post with minimal effort I thought of adding this series where I present small bits of information. Many readers will know some or most of these factlets, but you might be surprised by the occasional fact that is new to you or you might be reminded of old bits of information you have started forgetting.
Staedtler’s Noris digital, their digital pen for Samsung tablets, works with many EMR (electromagnetic resonance) devices (EMR is one of several technologies that makes digital pens work), so it can actually also be used with many WACOM pen tablets (…but because of Staedtler’s current cooperation with Samsung Staedtler’s marketing material only makes reference to Samsung devices).
The images in this blog post have been taken from Staedtler web sites. I believe that the use of the images shown in this blog post falls under “fair dealing” as described by the UK Copyright service.
I would like to thank Benedikt Schindler for the information about the Noris digital presented in this blog post.
My previous blog post, looking at Tiger’s Blackwing, seems to have made some people upset.
The ‘points’
It might be worth to walk a few steps back and to get an overview of the points I tried to raise.
There is no continuity between the original Blackwing and the CalCedar/Palomino version.
If the new Blackwing would use the same lead recipe or was made in the same factory I would see that as ‘strong continuity’. If the name was bought from Faber-Castell I could see that there is some continuity, but the Blackwing stopped being made, the name ‘expired’, someone unrelated grabbed the name. These are just facts – Don’t shoot the messenger.
I like Tiger’s Blackwing more because it keeps the point better.
I’m writing with pencils, I’m not an artist as you might have noticed from the low quality of the occasional drawings you can find here. I also write very small, so need a fine point. People use pencils in different ways, so for you a 4B like pencil might just be the thing you need. Everyone’s mileage varies. The Palomino Blackwing might be great for some, but I spelled out why I prefer the Tiger. Put the Tiger in your hand! (was: put the tiger in your tank).
The ferrule
There were some questions about the ferrule, asked by Gunther and on social media. When those questions where asked I made a little video instead of writing it up, just because talking to a microphone is so much faster and more convenient than writing a blog post and my blog is still in hibernation mode because of a lack of time. I thought I link to the video here, in case you want to compare the ferrule to your own ferrule.
Cheaper alternatives
Graph from the DelGuard post.
If you are looking for a cheaper alternative to the CalCedar Blackwing, why not try a Staedtler Mars Lumograph 3B. It’s great! ..but don’t take my word for it, look at Pearson Moore’s comparison instead. The man who spent some 1,200 hours collecting and categorising data point for different pencils. I first heard about his book from Gunther.
If you remember my DelGuard blog post you know I’m into this kind of stuff. Unfortunately that blog post only got one comment, so I assume this topic is not of interest to readers of my blog. but if you are one of the rare ones who likes this kind of stuff have a look at Pearson Moore’s book: Pearson’s Graphite 2015 ($19.95 in the USA, £13.95 in the UK)
Here are some of the attributes of the two pencils that are most important to me.
Name
Type
Darkness
Softness
Lissance
Palomino Blackwing
2010
15
9
12
Staedtler Mars Lumograph
3B
15
7
14
The have the same darkness, but the Staedtler keeps the point longer as it is less soft. Lissance, i.e. smoothness is higher for the Staedtler. That’s a win win for the humble blue pencil. The Palomino does score higher in some other areas like Pressure Insensitivity, but they are not important to me. Pearson Moore checked pencils between 30 mN and 1N. I guess if you are an artist this might be of interest, especially if you only have one pencil you need to do all your shading with, but again this is not the case for me.
If you love the Palomino Blackwing please let me know what you think of the Mars Lumograph in 3B.
My ‘baseball pencil’ choiceLast month Josha from the Netherlands sent me an email. He is using pencils for the purpose of keeping score during baseball games. He wrote:
For baseball score keeping addicts, like myself and many others out there, there are three important things to a pencil:
1. lead must not smear
2. a good sharpener so you can use the pencil without sharpening too often during a match (which can take up to three and a half hours)
3. a good eraser.
(4th optional: a good red pencil!!)
Keeping all the requirements in mind my first idea for a graphite pencil is a Mars Lumograph in F. It doesn’t smear and will keep the point for a long time. I have written many pages of text in meetings with the Lumograph in F, without sharpening, so I think it should be able to survive 3½h of writing of score keeping.
Eraser
There is no eraser tipped version of the Lumograph, so I would take a dust free eraser with me. My favourite type of eraser. You can get them from Faber-Castell (in big and small), Staedtler, Tombow and many other brands.
The red pencils are commonly used for tho things: number the strike-outs and underline red handed players. So they’re mostly used for writing numbers.
As a good red pencil that keeps the point for while I would go for the Staedtler Noris colour, made from Wopex material, or the Mitsubishi 7700. Both pencils have been covered in this previous blog post. Mitsubishi’s 7700 line was stopped, but luckily the red 7700 is still available.
As described in that blog post the Mitsubishi creates a darker shade of red on the paper (…at least when used with 1.8 N and an angle of 90° while moving along the paper with 25 mm/s. The pencils will behave differently under different conditions).
Mitsubishi 7700 #15 Red
Noris colour, a similar shade of red
Sample:Histogram:
Sample:Histogram:
The comments from Josha’s Instagram account imply that he is selling notebooks he made for baseball score keeping. I don’t have further information and didn’t try to explore this further. I just liked matching the pencil requirements to real world pencils.
