Holiday Pencils

OK, well I’m off on holiday in a little while, so this blog will be on hold for a few weeks.

One of the most common enquiries I get is about small pencils suitable to put in your pocket, in a notebook, etc. I’ve never really had a good answer to these questions so I’ve decided my holiday is an appropriate time to check out a few mini-pencils. Accompanying me on holiday will be (in photo order, top to bottom)

• Kaweco ‘Sport’
• Pentel ‘Mini M.V.P.’ AL17MN
• Pilot ‘Birdie’
• Zebra ‘T3’
• Ohto ‘Tasche’ SP-10T

Shameless Advertisement – I thank Cult Pens for giving me the ‘Birdie’ and ‘T3’. In a couple of weeks we’ll all know my opinion of them.

Staedtler CD

I really wonder why a lot of writing instrument manufacturers bother with a contact link on their websites. Most of them never bother to reply to any of my questions, and from comments that others have made to me, I’m far from alone in this experience. But there is one exception to that rule, namely Staedtler. Both German HQ and their Australian subsidiary have promptly replied to my enquiries. Staedtler Australia even airmailed me their CD “Facts about Pencils” in response to a simple enquiry, and the covering note was personally signed by the CEO, so they obviously take customer relations very seriously.
So, a few words about this CD. Firstly its about woodcase pencils rather than mechanical pencils. It looks to me like “Facts about Pencils” is aimed at children around the 8 to 10 year old age bracket. It opens with the question “Have you ever wondered where your pencil comes from?” accompanied by the raucous sounds of the Australian bush and a friendly cartoon kangaroo and koala bear. Then 5 short movies take you through the pencil manufacturing process,

• Where Do Pencils Come From?
• The ‘Unleaded Pencil’
• Shaping the Pencil
• Painting the Pencil
• Labelling & Packaging the Pencil

These 5 short movies are obviously Australian productions. There is also a “Student Workbook – Teachers Aid” section, and two bonus movies which are obviously from Staedtler Germany. One movie is about erasers, the other pencils - who would have guessed how erasers were so important in teenage love?

It was good to watch the movies to see all the automated machinery producing pencils by the zillion - pencil leads and erasers just being continuously squeezed out and chopped to length. I was particularly interested to see the painting process and how they get the pin-striping and other effects. The German movie mentions that Staedtler’s two manufacturing plants in Germany produce 1.7 million pencils per day.

So, 10 out of 10 for Staedtler when it comes to customer service.

Note: I originally had this published over on Pencil Revolution. But since the revolution has gone underground, I thought I’d put it on my blog as well, “just in case”.

The Machine Gun of Pencils?

Here’s an old pamphlet, copyright 1928, Royal Pencil Corp. Unfolded it is a bit bigger than A5 size, at about 23cm high x 20cm wide (9 x 7 ¾ inches). It’s very bright and colourful. The gold printing ink still has a metallic lustre. The front page is advertising the Lodge-I-Cal Pencil. Turning to the inside of the pamphlet, this becomes a little clearer. It’s the “Salrite” pencil, and it can “…be furnished with the emblem of all Secret, Civic and Fraternal societies.” I imagine Fred Flintstone and his brothers down at the Water Buffalo Lodge used this pencil.

Extolling the virtues of the Salrite pencil, we learn from this pamphlet that it is “…not a metal pencil, but is the fountain pen of pencils, being made of hard rubber.” Furthermore it is “…scientifically balanced to prevent fatigue and writers cramp”, it has a “…safety magazine at the business end where it belongs. There is a separate compartment for each of the six extra leads, eliminating jamming and breakage” and also “…the clutch point is constructed of special metal, which permits it to contract and expand, keeping lead tight.”

Awesome stuff. All this from Royal Pencil Corporation, “The Machine Gun of Commerce”. Yes indeed, I’m sure that opposition salesmen cowered in the corner when they saw another rep armed with their Salrite, and what customer would dare to not write out a purchase order when threatened with such a weapon. Was this a WBD – “Weapon of Business Destruction”?

On the back of the pamphlet we learn about Salrite leads, the ammunition with which sales reps will win the battle. As well as tubes of a dozen leads for ordinary patrol and skirmish missions, Salrite leads also came one gross (144) in bulk for when there was an all out major attack. For another view on Royal, if you troll around a few "ink" sites, you will sometimes find Royal on the “cheap and nasty, not worth collecting” sort of list. But hey, either way, it’s a great pamphlet.

How Long Is Your Pencil?

Here’s a bit of a novelty.

The body is nickel or chrome plated, 7mm square in section. I think its my only square pencil, but not totally sure on that. It’s a bit of an oldie and in average condition - there is some corrosion to the plating, etc. I imagine it dates from sometime around the 1930’s. There are no makers marks or brands other than the word “GERMANY” stamped into the body by the pocket clip. The tip is a cone, and it’s a simple twist mechanism to advance the lead. There is a big long cut up the conical tip, nearly splitting it in two, and the two halves are slightly sprung and thus grip the lead. The lead is blue.

Well that’s all unusual enough, but there’s more. One side of the square body is marked as a ruler, in centimetres and millimetres, 10cm long in total. The opposite side is also marked as a ruler, but this time its imperial, so 4 inches in 1/16th divisions.
But wait there’s more.

Yes indeed, it’s a telescopic body, extending out to a marked 25cm on the metric ruler, or 9 and ¾ inches on the imperial ruler scale. Seems a bit crazy to me they didn’t go all the way and make it 30cm or a foot long.

Caran d’Ache Lead Review

Caran d’Ache Lead Review

Caran d’Ache leads were one of the surprise performers in the 2006 Lead Cup, losing to Pentel Ain in the grand final, so it’s high time they received proper recognition with a review of their own.
Firstly, according to my 2006 catalogue, Caran d’Ache only offer a very limited range of thin lead refills, but just to confuse me the catalogue lists leads in two different sections, and they disagree with each other.

One section of the catalogue lists the range as
0.5mm = B, HB, F, H, 3H, 4H
0.7mm = B, HB, 2H
The other section lists the range as
0.5mm = B, HB
0.7mm = B, HB, 2H

Well, that certainly got me confused for a starter. Presumably they are in the process of scaling down their offering.

Right then, I have only ever had a couple of containers of 0.5 and 0.7mm HB grade Cd’A leads, so obviously I needed to get some more of their range to do a proper review. Caran d’Ache isn’t available in my country so it was off to that world wide interweb net thing to do some shopping. Talk about easier said than done!

Whilst Caran d’Ache writing instruments and mechanical pencils are fairly easily to obtain online, their lead refills are another matter. Very few retailers seem to offer them, and it gets harder from there. For instance I found one retailer who offered a full range of lead sizes and grades. Now this made me a little suspicious as it included many grades not in the CdA catalogue. As I was keying in my order, I suddenly realised the reference numbers were exactly the same as the reference numbers for the Pentel leads on this same retailer’s website. I didn’t complete that order! Then I found another retailer who offered a reasonable selection, but after placing my order they contacted me to say that most of the ones I had ordered were “not imported into the USA”. (This went along with my earlier theory of Cd’A reducing their range offer.) I went ahead and paid a small fortune to get the ones they did have. When the package arrived they had sent HB leads instead of the B leads which I had ordered, and was invoiced for. To make matters even worse, they had previously told me they couldn’t supply HB as it wasn’t imported into the USA, only B was!!!! Their customer services department then refused to accept they had sent me HB and so basically they’ve shafted me and that’s that. Yet another retailer to cross off my list! And yes, months later these turkeys still have all the leads that they said “are not imported into the USA” listed on their own website.

Seriously, it’s just nonsense, I’ve spent seventy-five bucks and ended up with 3 containers each of 0.5mm HB, 0.7mm HB and 0.7mm B leads. Complete madness! Surely things aren’t supposed to be this hard. Enough whinging, on with the review, limited though it might be.

Firstly the aesthetics. Well, Caran d’Ache don’t seem to put much importance on this aspect of their leads. The only markings on the containers are a four digit catalogue number, the hardness grade, and the recyclable plastic symbol for plastic number 6 – polystyrene. That’s it. They don’t mark their name or logo on the lead containers, they don’t have “leads” or anything on them, they don’t even say the lead diameter - you have to work it out from the four digit code, i.e. 6705 are 0.5mm and 6707 are 0.7mm leads. This really is rather surprising in todays market. Fair enough if they don’t want to make a big song and dance on the container, but to not even put their own name or logo on them…???
The lead container is a simple rectangular transparent container with an opaque red top. There are 12 sticks of 60mm long lead per container. You pull the top off and the leads are right there – no fancy ‘lead-dispenser systems’ for these guys. Don’t mix those red tops up either, otherwise your container of 0.5mm HB just turned into 0.7mm B leads.

During the 2006 Lead Cup, Caran d’Ache leads had two consistently reliable winning characteristics, namely they laid down a good solid very dark line, and were very resistant to smearing. Their strength was in the “above average” category and erasability was not so good. Actually if you think about it, excellent smear resistance and poor erasability could easily go hand in hand.

Load your weapons! Let’s do some writing with 0.7mm HB and B leads, compare them to each other, and to Pental Ain which I’ll take as the “test standard”. Firstly, when it comes to blackness there isn’t much difference between the two, but B is darker, as it should be. If you write a paragraph in HB, and then one in B, you can see a difference, but really it’s not all that big a difference. As I’ve said before, manufacturers could probably delete every second hardness grade and we’d never really miss them. Whilst there may not be much difference between HB and B, both being good solid dark leads, I do think they are a little darker than their Pentel Ain counterparts - again you notice it if you write a paragraph or two for comparison.

When it comes to smoothness, then both HB and B are smooth, but again if you really try and compare the two, then HB is just that little harder and rougher. I did feel that in comparison Pentel Ain was a fraction smoother writing than Caran d’Ache.

Excellent smear resistance was a trait of Caran d’Ache in the Lead Cup, though whether that’s a good or bad trait depends on you. For general writing, smear resistance is a good thing, but many an artist might like to blend and smear the graphite as part of their sketches. Well, when it comes to smear resistance, Caran d’Ache have got it in bucketfuls. For comparison I wrote a few words with Pentel Ain HB and Caran d’Ache B lead, and wiped my finger quickly over them. You expect a B grade lead to smear more than a HB. But no way, Caran d’Ache B lead stays put better than Ain HB. Don’t buy Caran d’Ache if you want a “good smeary lead”!

These Caran d’Ache leads are good strong break-resistant leads, but not quite as strong as Pentel Ain. Really though, I’m one of those who thinks no one should have breakage problems with 0.7mm leads, and personally I think good 0.5mm leads are plenty strong enough for most of us as well.

So, overall, Caran d’Ache leads are excellent leads, but they really could do with a few more grades, and being easier to purchase!


Photo: Not in the best of condition, but this is the little cardboard box that holds 12 refill containers.

Test Poll

OK, so just testing out the new Poll feature in blogger.

I picked up my Lamy 2000 for the first time in a week or so, and was once again impressed by just how good it feels "in the hand". The surface finish is great to the touch. So, do vote, I've tried to include suitable options for all opinions.