Friday, February 25, 2011

Soennecken Mechanical Pencil

soennecken mechanical pencil
Live and learn. Well it was quite a long time ago now, but Memm of Bleistift made the effort to send me something he thought might be a little unusual, something new as it were. He was right, and I appreciate the effort. I’d never previously heard of Soennecken, the German brand of office products, despite Wikipedia’s assertion that “Its products are well-known in the Anglo-Saxon world”. Apparently though back in the early and mid 20th Century they were a brand of significance, supplying writing instruments of good reputation, but they went belly up in 1973. In 1983 the brand trademark rights were purchased by Branion eG and today it operates as some sort of cooperative. Frankly, I don’t quite understand its current legal status.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the Soennecken brand mechanical pencils that Memm sent. I doubt Soennecken actually manufacture them.


Simple but classic styling.

soennecken mechanical pencils
The semi-metallic blue coloured pencil has a certain style.

Lightly grooved grip zone. The lead sleeve is fixed.
soennecken mechanical pencil grip zone

Eraser under top button.

mechanical pencil eraser
Wave-curved pocket clip with branding.
soennecken pocket clip

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are right Dave, Soennecken don't produce anything today.
Their legal status is "eg" = registered cooperative.

Google's Translation is not that bad:
"Today Soennecken eG is Europe's largest and most profitable purchasing and marketing cooperative of medium-sized trading companies in the office management and related industries."

Kiwi-d said...

So, is it something like various retailers own "shares" or are memebers of Soennecken and Soennecken then negotiates and buys on behalf of the group, etc?

Anonymous said...

Right.
See the graphics on page 6 in this pdf:
http://www.soennecken.de/fileadmin/downloads/SE038_Geschaeftsbericht09_R1_27_Web.pdf

PointFour said...

Dave, what is it with you and the colour blue?

Kiwi-d said...

Ahh well, we've all got to have a favourite colour :-)
Hmmm, actually we don't have to have a favourite, but it would appear I do.

2nd_astronaut said...

Soennecken is a well-known brand here (Germany) for office stuff.
But of course the glory of Soennecken (http://images.cloud.worthpoint.com/wpimages/images/images2/1/0408/21/1_c1a43bd9f776891f5f8580c2c1e49c1e.jpg) has gone...

cheap personalized pencils said...

Oh! Ilove the black one.. by the way Dave is it available in Ebay? I want to have one!!