I found a parcel in my letterbox the other day. I’m not sure what I did to deserve it, but Stephen from Pencil Talk sent me some Musgrave, FSC Canada and Papermate Canadiana Naturals wooden pencils. I haven’t seen any of these before so it was good to get them. However, the main contents of the parcel were four notebooks. 
A small black ‘Moleskine’, a brown ‘Field Notes’, an orange ‘Rhodia’ Bloc No 08 and a ‘Rite in The Rain’ No 393 All-Weather Spiral. Fantastic stuff. I’ve seen Moleskines locally for astronomical mind-boggling prices, but the others I have only seen on the net and I don’t think they are imported down here. As indicated by my blog sidebar link to Black Cover I am interested in notebooks.
I like that the Field Notes notebook has tick-boxes to indicate a ‘handsome reward’ (or not) for returning a lost notebook.
More than that though, the inside back cover has very detailed product specifications, and an excellent list of ‘Practical Applications’ for the use of the notebook.
I do a fair bit of note taking out in the field for my bird studies, but it’s generally in fine weather. Telescopes and binoculars don’t work that well in the rain for the sort of work that I do, so I don’t really have too much trouble with wet notebooks.
However, the Rite In The Rain is a most intriguing product and I couldn’t resist giving it a proper try-out. One of our recent former Prime Ministers described our country as “irreducibly pluvial”. The dictionary tells me he meant it rains an awful lot, so I only had to wait a few days for the weather report to include “frequent showers, some thundery and very heavy”. So it was on with my best raincoat, storm-pocket filled with a Rite In The Rain notebook, and three test pencils – Staedtler Mars Lumograph HB and 2B, and a BIC #2 mechanical pencil. I wanted to try different lead grades as well as ceramic and polymer leads. Taking inspiration from ‘Field Notes’, I decided on a route that would allow me achieve nine of their Practical Applications.
Right, lets not beat about the bush, the Rite In The Rain is fantastic. It works. Period. Full stop. Woodcase and mechanical pencil leads both wrote as if the paper was dry. In a particularly heavy thunder shower I rubbed my hand all over the page so it was totally wet, and made sure I wrote through an unbroken film of running water. To all intents and purposes I was writing underwater, but it was basically just like writing on dry paper.
A small black ‘Moleskine’, a brown ‘Field Notes’, an orange ‘Rhodia’ Bloc No 08 and a ‘Rite in The Rain’ No 393 All-Weather Spiral. Fantastic stuff. I’ve seen Moleskines locally for astronomical mind-boggling prices, but the others I have only seen on the net and I don’t think they are imported down here. As indicated by my blog sidebar link to Black Cover I am interested in notebooks.I like that the Field Notes notebook has tick-boxes to indicate a ‘handsome reward’ (or not) for returning a lost notebook.
More than that though, the inside back cover has very detailed product specifications, and an excellent list of ‘Practical Applications’ for the use of the notebook.I do a fair bit of note taking out in the field for my bird studies, but it’s generally in fine weather. Telescopes and binoculars don’t work that well in the rain for the sort of work that I do, so I don’t really have too much trouble with wet notebooks.
However, the Rite In The Rain is a most intriguing product and I couldn’t resist giving it a proper try-out. One of our recent former Prime Ministers described our country as “irreducibly pluvial”. The dictionary tells me he meant it rains an awful lot, so I only had to wait a few days for the weather report to include “frequent showers, some thundery and very heavy”. So it was on with my best raincoat, storm-pocket filled with a Rite In The Rain notebook, and three test pencils – Staedtler Mars Lumograph HB and 2B, and a BIC #2 mechanical pencil. I wanted to try different lead grades as well as ceramic and polymer leads. Taking inspiration from ‘Field Notes’, I decided on a route that would allow me achieve nine of their Practical Applications.Right, lets not beat about the bush, the Rite In The Rain is fantastic. It works. Period. Full stop. Woodcase and mechanical pencil leads both wrote as if the paper was dry. In a particularly heavy thunder shower I rubbed my hand all over the page so it was totally wet, and made sure I wrote through an unbroken film of running water. To all intents and purposes I was writing underwater, but it was basically just like writing on dry paper.
Sorry about the state of handwrting, but I've got a good reason - driving rain, freezing wind, hands shaking, notebook balanced on my knee, etc, etc, etc.
Here’s a quick 2-minute sketch of the golf course where I stopped. Note the absence of golfers at 8.30am on a weekend morning. It was driving rain on the tee rather than driving off from the tee. 
What I did notice though is that the paper did absorb water in from its edges. This became a bit of a concern with the spiral binding. All those square holes for the wire spiral make a lot of edges and I became concerned about the pages becoming soggy, weak and tearing out. I think I would personally look to use a stapled notebook rather than spiral bound because of this. Also the wet pages did tend to stick together a little. Still all this is minor stuff in the big picture. Pencil is normally pretty useless on wet or damp paper, but not on Rite In The Rain paper. I suspect erasability is a little reduced on dry paper, and out in the rain the difference between HB and 2B lead grades seemed reduced.
Back home, I wasn’t sure how to dry out the wet notebook. I was a little surprised there was nothing printed about this in the notebook. I decide to blot off the excess moisture with a towel, and then put the notebook in the linen cupboard to air. The paper dried out reasonably unaffected although there is a little wrinkling. I checked the Rite In The Rain website but couldn’t find any drying instructions either, but one of the “User Stories” was an acquaintance of mine! The guy thrown overboard with his notebook on the way to Guam.
Just for the record, my walk achieved the following Practical Applications:
03-Inspired Ramblings
05-Shoddy Sketches
06-Half-Ass Calculations
12-Small Ideas/Notions
17-Escape Routes
23-Phone Numbers
24-Treasure Maps
26-Topographic Studies
28-Scrapbook Fodder
So, get yourself out in the rain.
First the Penol P200. Obviously an economy model – hmmm, times have changed, a Viking dressed in fluorescent pink? Odin and Thor are probably rolling their eyes. I don’t know the price of these pencils but assuming the P200 is priced at an economy level then it looks fairly reasonable. Pictured with the P200 we have an unknown model. It is apparently Penol, but they do not put their name or anything on it. They are rightly ashamed of this nasty little side-clicker.
The Penol Double-Click. A seemingly respectable vanishing point pencil. The rubber grip is a bit of a monstrosity though.
Keen eyed readers may have noted there is one more Penol in the original picture - . more on that one next time.
Henrik tells me that back in the good old days there was the Viking Pencil Co, and as he recalls things, they manufactured the Viking in three grades - No. 1 Soft, No. 2 HB and No. 3 Hard. There was an office pencil too, yellow in HB only. No ferules or erasers. Sometime in the 70’s they were discontinued and the Viking factory closed, the end of a piece of Danish cultural history. However in 2005, Esselte started to offer pencils under the Viking brandname. Apparently the demand for Viking pencils is rising and recently the yellow office version came back too.
A while ago I had a fleeting flirtation with LED flashlights (or “torches” as they are called in Australia). I would visit flashlight message boards on the internet, enjoying the exotic jargon of collectors as they discussed topics such as lumens, twisty versus clicky switches, barrel knurling, runtimes, spill and so on.
The Forte Pro is a nice-looking and comfortable pencil. Its barrel colour is the deepest, translucent blue I have ever seen in a pencil, so it looks good in the hand as well as in the shirt pocket.
The lead capacity of the Forte Pro II was the feature that made up my mind to award this pencil my coveted EDC status. The larger-than-normal internal barrel space is claimed on Pentel’s website to store more leads than “standard” automatic pencils, whatever the capacity a standard automatic pencil might be.
With its low price point (at least for me to purchase from a US supplier as they are not available in Australia) this is one fine pencil - my EDC! 
Dave's Comments
The Forte Pro and Forte Pro II are very similar. The only real difference that I can see is the lead storage area. With the Pro II you pull the top cap off and then the eraser, to access the lead storage chamber. Basically the whole barrel is the chamber thus allowing a lot of leads to be stored inside. With the Pro the whole end section comes off at the pocket clip to reveal a narrow diameter thin plastic tube inside as the lead storage chamber. Only a couple of leads fit inside it. The top section push fits onto the storage tube, and probably becomes loose over a long period of time. Apart from that, I think they are identical, except for colour schemes, etc. 
Here’s a rather interesting oldie. Definitely a thing of beauty!
Now, I’m far from being an expert on old pencils, but a bit of net surfing leads me to believe the following - it is a Parker 75, sterling silver body decorated in the ciselle pattern with gold trims (pocket-clip and push top button). The black lines are cut into the body to form the squares of the ciselle pattern. The pocket-clip is attached to the side of the body thus making it the “classic” style. (Editors Note, added 12 July 2008 - please read the comments to this posting to see I'm wrong. This is a Parker Classic, a different but similar looking model to the 75)
Apparently the 75 was produced from 1964 to 1994. By the 1970’s they appear to have used 0.9mm lead but mine uses a lead cartridge with 1.03mm lead. That’s a size I’m not familiar with. Being non-metric American, I guess it was called .040 or .041 lead at the time. So, I’m not sure if this means mine is one of the earlier 75’s or they offered two lead sizes, or…?
The tip of the cartridge sticks out of the body so you can see the clutch jaws open and advance the lead, etc.
By today’s standards it’s a little strange to see this, and it’s not really all that aesthetically pleasing. Definitely the weak point in an otherwise very attractive writing instrument. Hmmm, time to get out the polishing cloth. Probably should have used before the photo shoot rather than afterwards.
Firstly I had better say I am not totally sure of the model designation for this pencil under review. I bought it as a ballpoint pen and pencil set, because that’s the only way to get an Inoxcrom pencil in my part of the world. You can buy pens as separate items, but not pencils. The labelling on the cardboard sleeve implies they are a Model 2002 chrome pen and pencil, but there are other numbers too. Down here, Inoxcrom have a rather unusual distribution model. You basically don’t find them in the normal place, i.e. in stores that sell other writing instruments. Rather you find them in homeware and gift stores, or in that kiosk at the mall that cuts keys, engraves trophies, sells torches, pocket-knives, cigarette lighters and…Inoxcrom pens. Many of their writing instruments have metal bodies, and the kiosks hope you will take up their offer of discounted engraving on that nice Inoxcrom pen you are giving as a graduation present. Well, anyway that’s how they are distributed in these parts – I’d be interested to know about where you see them in your part of the world.
The Inoxcrom website doesn’t really tell you much. There’s a few graphics and so on, a very brief history of the company (started up in Barcelona, Spain in 1942) and not much else. Little to no product information. Their website doesn’t give any hint at the origin of their name, although to my English-speaking (?!?) ears the word “Inoxcrom” sounds suspiciously foreign for stainless steel. All that influence from Victorinox and chrome. Inoxcrom are certainly the only Spanish pencil manufacturer that I’ve heard of.
I usually associate Spain with things like bull-fights, or some nice treats for the taste-buds
or for the eyes. 
Right well that’s a fair amount of general introductory burble, on with the review.
The body sections have brass inserts inside them with good quality fine machine cut threads. This type of construction compares very well with the rolled threads on some competitors, e.g. modern Parkers.
Whilst we are looking at the innards, I was half expecting to see Schmidt or some other German name on the internal mechanism, but it is totally blank, so no hint as to its origin. I note with some interest that the markings on the ballpoint pen refill cartridge include “Made in Spain”.
The pocket clip is something that really stands out for me. It's an attractive enough shape and is quite strong yet springy, but it’s fixture to the body via an oversize slot just cheapens the whole pencil. It’s a little better on the matching ballpoint pen. Also, I really feel the pocket clip is a lost opportunity. It just cries out for a little brand decoration – like the Parker arrows, the Sheaffer dot, a brand name stamped into it - just something to take it that step up out of the plain generic ranks.
The Tradio is a relatively recent addition to my collection. The Pentel USA website declares the Tradio as a special offering from Pentel Europe and they only offer the pencil version in silver colour and 0.5mm lead. Pentel USA also offers the matching Tradio fountain pen, but this time in a variety of colours. I haven’t bothered to do the research to see what other variants may or may not be available in Europe or Japan.
With its cap on, the Tradio definitely has that traditional fountain pen shape and look. Well, at least it does to me. I assume the name Tradio is also part of the play on the traditional fountain pen theme. The Tradio is much lighter than I expected. The size, shape and metallic look all implied something a little heavier to my eyes and brain.
To post or not to post, that is the question!
The Tradio does not have an eraser hidden anywhere. The lead sleeve is a fixed thin 3mm sleeve. Definitely not pocket safe without the cap. The lead advance mechanism is a side button ratchet system. Ten clicks will advance 5mm of lead. This is somewhat on the short side and I did notice that I had to advance the lead more often than usual. The side button is right there in the middle of the black front section of the body, right in the grip zone. I certainly did not like that at first, but I tended to get used to it over time. Having said that, it is still a bit annoying as you always have to twist the pencil into the correct orientation when you pick it up, and the button really is “in the way” although you do get used to it. At least operating it is easy given that it is “right there”. Ignoring the whole button thing, this pencil does feel quite good in the hand, although the narrow diameter grip will not suit all people. The grip section itself is smooth hard shiny plastic without any particular grip enhancements. I found that the side button tended to make me a little conscious of my grip, and I gripped it a little lighter than usual.
The Pentel website states, “Ergonomic barrel design provides added comfort and control.” Well, “Yeah, right” as we say down here. Just what’s ergonomic about it? I don’t see one of those so-called ergonomic rubber grips, or a triangular grip, or a large diameter grip, or…so what’s ergonomic about it? Looks like this is just pure marketing dross if you ask me.
Last year when I opened up my newly delivered parcel of pencils, my first impression of the Tradio was not a good one. I felt that the silver metallic finish looked rather cheap and, well, “plasticky” for a premium offering from Pentel, particularly considering the price they demand for it. I’m somewhat surprised but glad to say that my week spent using it has largely reversed this negative feeling. The Tradio is never going to be one of my all-time favourites, but I’m now reasonably happy with my purchase. 
Posts
