Zebra DelGuard - The Other End

The Zebra DelGuard range of mechanical pencils has been around for a while, but hasn’t been mentioned on this blog before, so it’s time to put an end to that. The DelGuard system is a very effective anti-“lead breakage” invention. Sure, you can still break the lead if you advance it out a stupidly long way, but for all reasonable intents and purposes, leads in a DelGuard mechanical pencil are virtually immune to breaking from writing pressure. It really is impressive. If you don’t have a DelGuard then I really do think you need to add one to your collection. It would be like not having a Kuru Toga. It’s sort of compulsory, whether you like it or not. My only negative is that I don’t like the aesthetics of the current crop of DelGuard tips.

Zebra DelGuard - full strength for strong leads

The Japanese pencil brands still seem to produce a lot of advertising material, and some of it is a constant reminder of just how different the Japanese market is to the western market. This DelGuard video sort of sums it up. I can’t imagine a western brand producing such pencilporn. Softcore hard lead?

Anyway, as I said, I’m not a fan of the DelGuard tip, so let’s turn that around and focus on the other end.

Focus on the blunt end, not the sharp point.

Top to bottom = DelGuard standard, Type-ER and Type-Lx

Firstly, take a look at my three DelGuards. Two have pocket clips but the third one does not. The Type-ER model has a small anti-roll finial rather than a pocket clip. At first I didn't really like it, but it has grown on me. The Type-Lx (luxury?) has a smooth metal grip section and a metal pocket clip as opposed to the standard models plastic grip and clip. I much prefer the eraser cap on the Lx to the standard.

Now, taking a further look at those erasers.

The DelGuard Type-ER has one of those magic erasers. The type that automatically extends out when you turn the pencil upside down to use it, and it locks in place whilst the pencil is upside down, but then it automatically retracts back when you turn the pencil up ready to write. Magic 😁 I am a bit of a sucker for magic erasers.

DelGuard tips - no thanks.

DelGuard Type-ER

All Black colour scheme and magic eraser - hooked - addictive and habit forming.

Happy New Year

From The Desk hmmmm, Courtyard Deckchair.

Happy New Year folks. Well I'm back from holiday, melting in the heat. However, whilst I've been away several of you 'up over' northerly folk have sent me pictures and/or stories of yourselves buried beneath mountains of snow and ice so I do spare a thought for you. Also of course my friends and rellies across the ditch in Aussie sitting unhappily in the middle of their muddy lake the size of Germany and France put together.

But this is a pencil blog, so we must move onto pencilicious matters. This Christmas I purchased a little pencil present for myself. A book, which I'm slowly working my way through, from the chair, as it were.

"Fountain Pens for the Million
The History of Conway Stewart
1905-2005"
By Stephen Hull

Published 2010, my copy is one of the Limited Edition copies, signed by the author, with gold stamped cover box.

Hmmmm, number 93 of 100....I'm kind of worried that might mean I'm the 93rd biggest Conway Stewart nerd in the world? I don't even collect FP's!!!

It's a history of the company just as much as, perhaps even more than, a history of their writing instruments. Some interesting stories like the difficulties of manufacturing during the wartime. From the amount of vintage Conway Stewarts available locally I've always assumed the Antipodes were an important market for CS and the book confirms this.

• Chapter 1939-1948, "Conway Stewart were particularly strong in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa" and "By 1948 60% of Conway Stewart's output went overseas with Australia, New Zealand and South Africa still the major markets".
• Chapter 1955-1962, "New Zealand, despite the size of its population (with sheep outnumbering them 100 to one!) was also an important market".

Of course most of the pictures are of inky things, but graphite and mechanical pencils gets it fair share.

Also lots of data like tables of model numbers, copies of old patents, etc.

Clearly a must have for anyone with an interest in Conway Stewart. The book is available as detailed here.

A special thanks to Leigh Reyes (she's a verb not a noun) for alerting me to this book by mentioning it on her blog.

Normal blog transmission will resume in a week or two.

In The Year 1969

Nixon became President, Eisenhower died, Led Zeppelin I was released, the Beatles gave their last public performance, Sesame Street and Monty Pythons Flying Circus debuted, De Gaulle resigned, the Manson Family did their stuff.

The Boeing 747 had its maiden flight, the Concorde had its first test flight and the Hawker Harrier jump jet entered service with the RAF. The USA got its first ATM machine, and the first messages and connections were made on ARPANET…the INTERNET was coming.

But the real news was elsewhere - the Space Race was on. And by on, I mean really ON! The Soviets flung Venera 5 towards Venus and their cosmonauts undertook the first space transfer spacewalking from Soyuz 5 to Soyuz 4. Kiwi fired Mariner 6 and 7 at Mars, and not to be outdone the Americans launched Apollo 9, 10, 11, and 12. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Pete Conrad and Alan Bean walked on the Moon, and lived to tell.

Against that backdrop of supersonic aircraft and space exploration, the pinnacle of human technological endeavour, here’s the 1969 Staedtler Mars catalogue. This is their technical drawing catalogue – wooden and mechanical pencils, technical pens, erasers, slide rules, drawing templates, compasses, etc. This is the stuff that space-rocket designers used. The catalogue has 44 numbered A4 size pages.

The pen and pencil works at Nurnberg.

Here’s the mechanical pencil range.

Yep, that’s it.

Four styles of 2mm clutch pencil / leadholder! That's their entire range.

Just think about it for a moment. Astronauts were walking on the moon and Staedtler couldn’t make a 0.5mm or 0.7mm mechanical pencil? Was making 0.5mm lead more difficult than sending a man to the moon? Their entire mechanical pencil range was 4 leadholders. Take another moment to think...the guys who designed those space rockets...they drew the plans hardcopy with pen and pencil, calculated things with slide rules...no CAD for them!

Now, to be fair, I believe Staedtler did release their first 0.5mm pencil in 1969, just not in time to get in this catalogue. Faber-Castell had been selling thin lead pencils for a couple of years, and Pentel for much of the 1960’s, but leadholders were still the mainstay of the drafting fraternity.

I would like to thank Staedtler for giving me this catalogue and a little trip back in time. I just wrote to my local national Staedtler and asked, “Any spare catalogues hanging around, especially old ones?” They replied unfortunately they had just had a big clean up and thrown away a heap of old stuff. Arrrrrrrggghhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!
But they had this old one if I wanted it....?

1971 - The Sharp

It’s no secret that I like my pencil ephemera, but this advert really did catch my eye. From ‘Life’ magazine, 11 June 1971.

Whoa! Check out the hair, moustache and mortar board. It doesn’t get much better than that! “Dave’s not here man!”

In 1971 ‘modern’ mechanical pencils were starting to come into their own. By modern I mean thin lead (e.g. 0.5mm) and with push top ratchet advance mechanisms – "hand assembled with watchmakers tools", no less! The ad states “Sharp…the world’s finest pencil. The Sharp makes all other pencils seem old fashioned.” Back in 1971 when they said that, there is every chance it wasn’t just advertising fluff, it was pretty much the actual truth.

A Different Yard-o-Led

A different concept for a yard of lead?
From 'Popular Mechanics' magazine, March 1950.

Follow up posting - Roller Rule Mechanical Pencil

Lamy Design - From the Hammock

My last posting was about a pencil book that I would not be reading from my holiday hammock, so I thought I should balance things up and post something about a book that I am reading. You may recall that some months ago I published an interview with Lamy. Well, at that time they very kindly sent me a couple of catalogues and publications, including this one:-

Entitled “2006 Design Brand Lamy – 40 years” this 27 x 23 cm (10 ½ x 9 in) softcovered 88 page booklet celebrates 40 years of Lamy as a design lead company and the 40th Anniversary of the Lamy 2000. The introduction by Dr Manfred Lamy explains that he joined the company in 1962 and whilst Lamy was a brandname there was no consistency of distinctive design. Dr Lamy then began the journey to establish Lamy as a design and marketing brand which led to the project to design “a fountain pen in the tradition of the Bauhaus” and thus the Lamy 2000 was born in ’66.

One of the little gems from the book that I like the most is Dr Lamy discussing design creativity, “…for Italians beauty is right, while for us Germans what’s right is beautiful.” Another statement that resonated with me is “…the making and marketing of design products is our fundamental core expertise.” Many claim this sort of thing but personally I think it’s true in relation to Lamy.

The book is bi-lingual, with everything being in both German and English. It is divided into 4 major sections - The History, The Product Design, The Brand and The People.

The History

The Product Design

The Brand

The People

The book closes with…

A Collection of Pencil Cases

Like many people I enjoy a good read whilst relaxing on holiday. Unfortunately, this is one book I won’t be reading

See, it’s in Japanese, which I don’t read or speak, so I just get to look at the pictures. Of course being a Japanese book, it opens back-to-front by my western standards. It was sent to me from Japan by Isu of The Uncomfortable Chair, and he explains, “The book, 筆箱採集帳(fudebako-saisyucho), is a collection book of pencil cases. "Fudebako" means a pencil case, "saisyu" means collection, and "cho" means note or book”. So basically in English its title would be something like “A Collection of Pencil Cases”.

The book is the creation of “Bungu Jam”, a group of three well known Japanese stationery enthusiasts.
Kidate Taku http://www.irobun.com/
Takabatake Masayuki http://bungu.seesaa.net/
Tako Kabeuji http://takonet.com/

Somehow they selected 59 people and photographed the contents of their pencil cases. The people are from various different walks of life – the pencil cases featured are carried by architects, illustrators, designers, writers, students, teachers, doctors, actors, tour leaders, and more.

Softcover, A5 size, 95 numbered pages - here’s a random selection of some the pencil cases.

Note that this page is the pencil case of a person called “Isu”.

One of my favourites – artistry in fine steel.

I’m hoping the photos will be viewed in a favourable light rather than in a possible breach of copyright sort of way.
Happy New Year!

Bye Bye Skippy

Many of you will have read elsewhere of the recent closure of Staedtler Australia’s manufacturing operation. They didn’t make any mechanical pencils, but I always liked to see “Australia” on the woodcase pencils in the local shops. It made a welcome change from the usual other countries like China, Indonesia, etc. So, with that in mind I thought I should say “Farewell, Skippy. I’ll miss you” especially to the Staedtler Tradition, formerly proudly Made in Australia.

Dating from 2001, here’s the front page of a 4 page A4 brochure detailing the pencils, coloured pencils and stick ballpoints they made in Australia back then.

1915 NZ Diary No.56

A couple of weeks ago I bid a couple of bucks and got this old diary.

It is leather bound, about 125 x 80mm (5 x 3 inches), one page per day and has a pencil holder sleeve down the length of its spine. It is a New Zealand pocket diary No. 56, from 1915. Considering it is fast approaching being one hundred years old it is in excellent condition.

Not much is written in it, mostly just hours worked by a man who appears to be some sort of rural labourer, travelling around a nearby province clearing forested land for pasture, and doing other farm labours. Although he has a “home” he frequently lives “in camp” for weeks at a time, hunting for his dinner, noting his daily-bags of rabbits, hares, birds and pigs, including on one occasion “shot a pig with no ears!” Another occasion notes a trip to town to purchase suit, hat and teeth.

I bought the diary for its advertisements. They are just plain black and white, very simple and basic. Here’s three I like.

'The Cheapest Shilling Dictionary In The World.' It costs one shilling. So, umm, some ‘shilling dictionaries’ don’t cost a shilling? They cost more?

A very basic ad for one of the world’s leading prestige pen brands.

“...neither too large nor too small, too thick nor too thin, but just right.” The perfect mechanical pencil?

Montblanc Collection Catalogue

Here’s two of my options.
1 = Put a tenner aside each week, then in a couple of years I’ll be able to afford a Mont Blanc.
2 = Tell my wife there won’t be any holiday this year because I’m off to the Mont Blanc boutique this weekend.

Maybe I should have a reader poll to see which I should choose?

In the meantime though, whist I’m unable to afford a Montblanc pencil, I can afford a Montblanc catalogue full of pretty pictures! Here’s one catalogue, the "Montblanc Collection". It’s hardcover, a bit squarer than A4 size, 172 full colour numbered pages. I don’t know what year this catalogue is from. I suspect it is a 1997 updated reprint of the 1996 catalogue, as several photographs show series of annual diaries, with 1996 usually the last year pictured, but a couple show 1997.Montblanc really push the whole concept of “the writing experience”. The catalogue is full of stories of famous essayists and writers from the past, and with your Montblanc you will be able to join that heritage, become one of the select few to experience the pure writing joy of putting a Montblanc to paper. Inspiration and words of importance will just pour forth. Yea well, I’d like one anyway.The pages are tab cut into sections for different writing instrument models and other products.The Montblanc Meisterstuck Grand Document Marker (highlighter). That’s craaaaaa-zeeee! Hundreds of dollars for a yellow highlighter! Still I imagine many would say the same thing about the pencil too.Page after page of pens, pencils, diaries, pen pouches, etc etc etc.Some of the most expensive leads and eraser refills you can buy.


Enjoy it if you can afford it.