Tuesday, September 18, 2018

Rubber Madness

Back in the mid 00's there was an outbreak of the dreaded Rubber Madness in the Avery design department.
They got swept up in some sort of mass hysteria and next thing the Avery Nexgrip ballpoint pen and the Avery doubleClick multi-pen ended up in my hands. Urggghh! Now you know I would never buy those rubber horrors, so don't ask me how I got them, I just did, okay.

It's awful. I worried about breaking out in hives when I first touched the Nexgrip.


Full body rubber grip.
Quelle horreur!
Es una abominaciĆ³n!!

Not so terrifying, but still enough to put me in a spin, the doubleClick multi-pen. 

Only a partial rubber body :) It is a twist action multi with one ballpoint tip and one 0.5mm mechanical pencil tip.

But there's more bad news.
Another red card for Dave!
Can you see it?
"doubleClick TM"

In my One-Man War Against 'Double Knock' it appears that like Vanishing Point, Double Click is also toast.
Double Action is probably gone too... I think I'm in trouble.... Retractable Tip, Retracta Point... so few options left :)

Luckily the I think the rubber madness outbreak has been brought under control at Avery, because I believe both are discontinued.

5 comments:

Stefano said...

I bring another bad news:
you can find a clone of the Nexgrip (with the same name) under the Stabilo brand still today!
I'm afraid to admit that I like it... now I feel like a rubber-pervert! :D

Kiwi-d said...

Arrrrghh… so the madness is contagious... Avery passed it onto Stabilo :)

Blackbeard said...

I see the dreaded white dust-hair has attacked your rubber grips too.

2nd_astronaut said...

Good to know, that the various rubber illnesses will sweep away the outcome of this outbreak, while metal beauties will last forever <3 ;-)

Cytherian said...

The madness was truly maddening, because it's very rare that any of these pencils would survive more than 10 years. For many, a composite polymer was used that eventually breaks down. The rubberized plastic, or sections of it, would become sticky / tacky. For some you could rub that off and the remaining rubber would be just slightly sticky, but most would reveal more sticky mess. Even if it cleaned up, it would only be temporary as the polymer continues degrading.

However, I have a Pentel QE505 from over 10 years ago, and the rubberized plastic grip is still smooth, no sign of stickiness. I hope the rubberized coating on my rOtring Trio proves out the same way!