Tuesday, December 02, 2008

The Cats Pyjamas

Not normally my thing, but I saw a pencil being auctioned by a local pen-turner. The black and white acrylic resin body really struck a chord, it just called out to me. Something almost Conway-Stewart’ish about it, and the price was quite reasonable. So I bought it.
Push top ratchet, 2mm leads. Quite frankly, I am ridiculously pleased with it. Tried out a new photographic technigue with a mirror. Extremely pleased with that too. I feel like I’ve got the cat’s pyjamas.
For a full high-res version of the above photo you can click on this link to Flickr. Should have done some dusting before photographing it ! Live and learn.
Two self-portraits

8 comments:

B2-kun said...

Glad you are enjoying your latest acquisition. It certainly looks fancy, though I was more intrigued by the "cat’s pyjamas" phrase which I had to Google.

Anonymous said...

Nice! What do the innards look like?
A typical Caran d'Ache Fixpencil 77, or?
/Claes in Lund, Sweden

Kiwi-d said...

The Cats Pyjamas - an old term but a good one. Not that I use it very much.

Claes - I haven't pulled it apart or anything as I don't want to risk wrecking it. So can't say what the innards look like.

Anonymous said...

It's beautiful. Wow. And I really mean wow. I'd be ridiculously happy if I had those pencils.... =)

Mark said...

That is a really nice find!

Do you think one day you could maybe share some of your auction hunting techniques for collector wannabes?

Kiwi-d said...

Hi Mark
Well I'd be happy to share auction techniques, despite the fact it might mean you will win them not me. But to be honest, I'm not sure i have any / many techniques. Just lots of pre-loaded searches that fill my inbox everyday with lots of junk and the occassional jem. On the other hand, I am/was the "auction-savvy reader" on the leadholder auctions so maybe i have learned a thing or two about auction psychology. It is a fascinating field of research. Just don't bankrupt yourself in the process. Jupiters or Crown, etc is quicker and more fun for that.

Anonymous said...

Nice pencil and, since I've read your blog for a while but never posted, thanks for writing the blog. Just for reference, it looks like the Power Pencil Set with the maybe the lava bright acrylic both from Penn State Industries (www.pennstateind.com). It's a fun site where one can imagine the combinations of ~35 different styles of pens with ~340 different types of wood, bone, acrylic, etc. to make the barrel of the pencil. I should warn people before they look that "pen-turning" is also known as woodworker's crack cocaine. It's easy to fill your house and your friends house with these. Personally, I'm currently waiting for the supplies to make a Buffalo Bullet pencil with Water Buffalo horn.

Thanks again.

Kiwi-d said...

Hello Che pablo.
Welcome and thanks for commenting. Yes indeed, it is the Power pencil. I liked it so much have commissioned some more. Staye tuned - well it will be a month or two :-)