On Holiday

Kuru Toga 0.7

Whats wrong with this Kuru Toga picture?

Here's a hint.

Uni Kuru Toga 0.5mm mechanical pencil with 0.7mm lead refills?

Way up there in Japan, Isu has been at it again. Out with his micro tools, modifying away, trying to make ever fatter Kuru Toga's. Thanks Isu, a unique addition to the collection.

Ritepoint Mechanical Pencil

Ritepoint Perpetual Calendar Mechanical Pencil

One thing I like about vintage mechanical pencils is their link to history and how they can take me down paths I would otherwise never have explored. I recently became the owner of this vintage mechanical pencil.

It is a Ritepoint Perpetual Calendar mechanical pencil. I don’t know much about Ritepoint of St. Louis, Missouri, but they were clearly a reasonably large manufacturer who, like Autopoint, made a lot of advertising pencils. A couple of years ago I reverted to wearing an analogue mechanical wristwatch which has only a date display. Formerly I wore digital watches that told me the date and what day of the week it was. Without wanting to sound like some sort of moron or absent minded type of person, when I first got rid of my digital watch I really did struggle with what day of the week it was, let alone being able to tell the time by looking at the hands!!!! I could have done with a perpetual calendar pencil back then.

On the first day of each month you pull the top cap up and rotate it around to set the correct day of the week for the first day of the month, and then you have a calendar set for that month. In the picture above, M (Monday) has been rotated to coincide with the 1st of the month.

This pencil is in near new condition. As you might expect it is a twist tip screw mechanism using 1.18mm leads. The front section pulls off to reveal an eraser.

Whilst it is visually in near new condition, unfortunately a previous owner has tried to refill the lead by jamming them in through the spiral top of the mechanism beneath the eraser, down the sides of the spiral, up through the tip…you name it…wherever you look there’s a lead jammed in there and despite my best efforts I can’t get it to work again.

Now, as for this pencil taking me down an otherwise unknown path…well this is a souvenir pencil, printed with an image of the M/S Batory.

I had not previously heard of the Batory, but a quick Google search reveals she was a ship with an interesting past.

Originally a Polish ocean liner, she saw service as a troop ship with the Allied navies in WWII and her honour role matches that of many a mighty battlewagon - transporting evacuee children from the UK to Australia, British troops to Norway, the BEF from Dunkirk, the UK gold reserves to Canada, landing troops for the invasions of Algeria, Sicily, southern France, and more.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

It’s that time of year again when all sorts of other things seem to need attending to and I have to put this blog on hold. So, I will probably still have some time now and then to publish a few bits and pieces, but normal transmission will not be resumed until mid/late January.

I would like to take this time to say thanks to all of you who read this blog, who comment, who email me, who send me things, who I have swapped things with…it is all much appreciated. I really enjoy my contact with other pencil folk around the world.

For those of you who celebrate Christmas and/or New Year then I send my best wishes for the season, and for those of you who don’t celebrate either of those, I send you my best wishes too.

I’ve enjoyed this blog through 2009, and I hope you'll still be reading in 2010.

Ka kite ano

The 2009 DMP’s

It’s that time of the year again, so welcome to the second annual DMP Awards.

Just to remind you, any mechanical pencil or other item featured on my blog in the 2009 calendar year is eligible for an award, but preference is given to mechanical pencils. Awards will not be given if there are no suitable candidates. The awards are:-

The “Bonus Slice of Pav” and “Last Nights Left Over Warm Flat Stale Ale” - special awards for anything judged worthy of an award, good or bad, respectively.

The “Pencil of Shame” awarded for the worst pencil (or item).

And the supreme award, the “Mordan-Hayakawa Trophy” for the best mechanical pencil (or item) of the year.

All decisions are final and the judge need offer no justification or defence of his decisions.

So, without further to-do, the envelopes please….
This year the initial long-list for the “Pencil of Shame” had three pencils on it. However the panel immediately decided against short-listing the Stabilo ‘s move easyergo and Beifa MC1002 - bad names and rotten erasers do not make a truly bad pencil. That left only one nomination, and after some deliberation the judge decided to award the “Pencil of Shame” to the eMicro Jedo M105.

Whilst a few candidates were initially discussed, ultimately the judge decided that this year there was (thankfully) no need to award any “Last Nights Left Over Warm Flat Stale Ale” prizes.

On the flipside the judge was happy to consider several nominees for a “Bonus Slice of Pav”, and decided to dish out two slices – one to the Vespiary notebook and the other to Ancient Kauri pencils. Then in an impulsive move a third slice was awarded, to Uni Nano Dia leads - the judge appreciated your efforts.

For the supreme award, the “Morden-Hayakawa Trophy”, the judge felt that overall the calibre of this years candidates was perhaps down a little on last year, but from the initial field of 18 candidates, 9 nominees that made it through to the short list.

• Cross Tech 3 multi pen
• Faber-Castell Propelling pencil
• Lamy Accent
• Pentel Smash Q1005
• Pentel ‘The Bat’
• Rotring Tikky
• Stabilo ‘s move easyergo
• Uni Shift 1010
• Zebra Tect 2way

The judge noted the irony of the Stabilo ‘s move easyergo being an initial candidate for both the Pencil of Shame and the supreme award.

Drumroll please....the winner of the Morden-Hayakawa Trophy for 2009, the Supreme DMP award is…the Faber-Castell Propelling Pencil. You don’t have to be big, techo or fancy to be cool.

Housekeeping

Here's a new pencil related blog you might want to cast your eye over - "Bleistift". Despite the name, it is in English.

Hopefully you have noticed over the last month or so I've done quite a bit of work on Labels etc over in the sidebar. I'd be interested to know if you think the current order of the various sidebar elements is OK, or if some other order would be more user friendly. Also if you think there should be other Labels, etc.