Caran d’Ache Ecridor Yacht Club
Those marketing folk always have to tempt us. Most weeks I get out on the water for a quick sail and so nautical themed objects have some allure for me. I like Swiss Army knives and I eventually succumbed to temptation and bought the Victorinox Skipper, and recently I gave into temptation again and got a Caran d’Ache Ecridor Yacht Club 0.7mm mechanical pencil.
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| Two Swiss classics |
I have previously posted about my two other Ecridors, the standard Ecridor and the Artiste. The Ecridor Yacht Club is available in fountain pen, ballpoint pen and rollerball, as well as my mechanical pencil format. These days Ecridors are palladium coated rather the rhodium coating used in the past.
The engraving on the body is what makes the Ecridor Yacht Club different from other Ecridors. The guilloche engraving features two nautical themes. Firstly a rope motif to link with yachting, and the main feature which is the wording “Caran d’Ache” engraved on the body in nautical flags.
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| Rope motif |
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| Caran d'Ache in flags |
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| Ropes and flags |
For those of you who are not aware of maritime signal flags, in the old days before radio, ships could communicate with each other by flying flags that had meanings. Nowadays flags are still officially used and there is an internationally agreed set of flags that represent numbers and letters so messages can be spelled out, as well as specific individual flags or combinations having a specific meaning. For example flying a black and yellow quadrisection flag means the ship is quarantined and should not be approached. Of course you may want to send private messages, e.g. instructions to your battle fleet without allowing the enemy commanders to understand your signals, so navies historically had flag codes as well, with a code book of common messages and words and the corresponding flags to fly to represent them.
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| Signal sent by Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson, from his flagship HMS Victory as the Battle of Trafalgar was about to commence, 21 October 1805. Image by Ipankonin - Vectorized from raster image , CC BY-SA 3.0, Link |
Dave, thanks for posting about this interesting Caran d'Ache 844 mechanical pencil. Looks like it has roots in the 844. The nautical theme imprinting looks attractive. By the way, nice Victorinox knife! I have the exact same model, the Skipper. I really like how the knife locks into place, with the ribbed thumb switch to release, as most Victorinox Swiss Army knives do not feature a locking mechanism. And the pliers feature is pretty nice too. I don't have a sail hobby (I'm a kayak paddler), but I do enjoy sailing when I get the chance. Hobiecat (double-hull) craft are my favorite. Do you have your own boat and if so, what type/model is it?
ReplyDeleteSorry Dave, can you delete the first "844" in my previous post, as it wasn't supposed to be there? Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI'd be happy too, but Comments cannot be edited, only deleted in full :)
ReplyDeleteMy own boat, no, I crew Hover your mouse over the bottom two images for the tool tip text.
That's a nice looking pencil. Thank you for showing us.
ReplyDeleteThis pencil looks beautiful! I like the engraving of the manufacturer's name in nautical flags.
ReplyDeleteVery nice looking vessel--you're lucky to get the chance to crew on that. Looks quite modern. Is this through a friend or local sailing club perhaps?
ReplyDeleteThrough a friend. Modern... yes an no. To use an analogy, it's an 80's muscle car extensively modernized and updated to remain competitive with newer editions.
ReplyDelete