Winnie The Pooh

Although my personal reading has generally moved on from Winnie The Pooh, there are enough small visitors to my house that he maintains a presence. He is of course a true fan of the pencil and one of the most famous literary characters ever. I recall that as a youngster I was quite fond of him, and I still seem to have a nostalgic soft-spot for old Pooh. Last Christmas one of our family games was a “Pooh” quiz, so Rachel is the reigning Pooh-Champion of our family. She was unstoppable!

These days of course Pooh is controlled by the Disney mega-corp, and perpetually embroiled in billion dollar law suits over who really “owns him”. Recently I started to come across Winnie The Pooh mechanical pencil stuff so I have picked up a few items to add to my collection – of pencils that is, I’m not a Pooh collector per se. However, this has led me to do a little Pooh research, and I discovered a couple of interesting things, assuming the websites I visited are accurate! Firstly, he’s still around. Yes, you can go the New York Public Library and see him and his friends “in the flesh”, so to speak. Secondly, as near as we can tell, his birthday is 21 August (1921), hence this posting.

First up there are those simple mechanical pencils pictured by "The House at Pooh Corner" - nothing particularly notable about them except for the Pooh decoration.





Quite a selection of Pooh lead refills are available. Normal style containers.
















Tube style containers, one with the top being a Pooh figure.











Of course if you use pencils, you probably need an eraser too.






I had forgotten about dart(?) pencils, until I saw these in a $2 Shop. I recall they were popular for a while at my primary school but then seemed to disappear. I'm sure we used to make blowguns with them. The leads are in small plastic dart-like things and when the lead is worn down you pull the dart out and stick it back in the top of the pencil, thus pushing a new dart out the front. Are they a type of mechanical pencil? I suppose so. These Pooh ones come with a cap that has a pocket clip and eraser. A superior pencil!