pencil talk | pencil reviews and discussion
exploring the art and science of pencils since 2005
The 2021 Recording Academy Grammy Awards noted the loss of Sean Malone. It is a long list for a tough year – Sean’s name is at the 4:45 mark.
National Public Radio also noted Sean’s passing:
Years ago, this blog featured occasional posts with pencil news. I know of a few current events and links that I would like to mention.
The founders of Moon Pencil have repurchased the company. The company was sold to toy company MegaBloks, then Mattel. Back in the Rosen family, I hope the owners will consider emphasizing some of their own label pencils, similar to General and Musgrave. The press release notes that they are “America’s largest pencil factory.” pencil talk looked at their product line in 2011.
Known for a very innovative product line, one of Japan’s smaller pencil producers has gone out of business. Following the death of the chairperson, no path forward was found and the company dissolved.
From the Austrian design school FH Joanneum, we have a 200 page book on red and blue pencils. It is conceptual and exploratory from a design and artistic perspective.
This post at the blog of composer Gavin Bryars is a remarkable companion to the 2017 Contrapuntalism post on the Alpheus Music Writer and the 2020 Blackwing Pages post on Judy Green Music. It is a great read.
This post follows in the tradition of The Treasury Tag at Bleistift, a post which discussed a specialty stationery item.
The Princes of Paperwork (sorry, there may be a paywall) at The Economist discussed the Notary profession – in some European countries, notaries are embedded in the real estate process and earn a small percentage of the sale price for notarizing the sale documents. Being a notary in such an environment thus pays quite well. There is also – the stationery! In Germany, notarizing a document involves binding the document with string and sealing it with red wax. It even gets better – each German state has their own colour pattern for their string.
A Public Domain image showing the Bavarian version of the string with a notarial seal (but no red wax).
To my surprise, Montréal stationer Papeterie Nota Bene sells this string! (This blog visited Nota Bene in 2013.)
The colour coding (Blue and White for Bavaria, Green and White for Saxony, etc.) scheme can be found in the PDF catalogue of the 102 year old manufacturer Willy Heckmann GmbH & Co. (My thanks to Gunther from Lexikaliker for locating that catalogue.)
It can of course be used as office/household string. I think the colour combinations are nice. A long running German-English legal translation blog suggested in 2003 that translators may also be users of notarial string. An image search also shows quite a bit of historical use, particularly the red and white string.
A remarkable aspect of the pencil industry is the longevity of the manufacturers. In a selective sample of 23 of the largest and best known manufacturers, nine are less than a century old, ten are between one and two centuries old, and four claim over two centuries of existence!
To be clear, here we are accepting general statements from company websites. We know that Dixon didn’t make pencils on day one, that Dixon and Lyra are no longer independent, and that Koh-I-Noor has a discontinuous history that doesn’t cleanly trace back to Hardmuth in 1790. And there are other companies who may also claim a descent from forerunners that could be challenged. Further, some are more brands than manufacturers today.
Yet, it is extremely impressive. Particular congratulations go to Faber-Castell, celebrating their 260th anniversary in 2021!
| Company | Created | Age |
|---|---|---|
| Staedtler | 1835 | 186 |
| Faber-Castell | 1761 | 260 |
| Lyra | 1806 | 205 |
| Stabilo | 1855 | 166 |
| Dixon | 1795 | 226 |
| Newell | 1856 | 165 |
| Moon | 1961 | 60 |
| General | 1889 | 132 |
| Musgrave | 1916 | 105 |
| Tombow | 1913 | 108 |
| Mitsubishi | 1887 | 134 |
| Kitaboshi | 1951 | 70 |
| Camel | 1939 | 82 |
| Eyeball | 1972 | 49 |
| Derwent | 1832 | 189 |
| FILA | 1920 | 101 |
| Viarco | 1907 | 104 |
| Koh-I-Noor | 1790 | 221 |
| China First | 1935 | 86 |
| DOMS | 1974 | 47 |
| Camlin | 1931 | 90 |
| Hindustan | 1958 | 83 |
| Maharashtra | 1972 | 48 |
Wow, it has been a decade since the last comparative eraser review at pencil talk. I think the reason is that erasers have generally reached an excellent quality level. There are of course differences, but synthetic erasers from the top manufacturers in Japan or Europe are usually excellent, and the motivation to review them is diminished.
The Technik is the lightest.
The Caran d’Ache block erasers are interesting because of the shared dimensions, but differing appearances and stated functions. Caran d’Ache is also regarded as a leader in art supplies, and these products come with a reputation to uphold.
The three erasers are:
Artist 0173.420. Description: “Graphite and charcoal extra soft plastic eraser.” Green.
Design 0172.420. Description: “Graphite and colour pencil eraser.” White.
Technik 0171.420. Description: “Non-abrasive pencil eraser, does not remove ink.” Slightly translucent.
Years ago I sometimes set up very complex erasure tests, and there is indeed a complex pencil/paper/eraser/environmental factors relationship, but I wanted to keep this simpler – these erasers tested with one pencil and one test paper. I though a Caran d’Ache Swiss Wood pencil (freshly sharpened in an El Casco) would be appropriate, and decided that the Biella Index Card would be a nice companion.
All three are much harder than erasers from Tombow, Seed, etc. They also produce fine granular residue, particularly the green Artist. The Technik probably did the best job at complete erasure, and the Design is the one that most veered towards aggregation of the residue in clumps.
The erasers are good, but I don’t find them compelling when there are so many outstanding offerings available today. Of course, these are from Caran d’Ache.
We’ve seen that there are preserved seventeenth century pencils in museums and collections in Germany and Japan. There is also a very interesting historical pencil in the United States.
© Mariners’ Museum and Park
In the 1740s, a ship (the Princess Carolina (1717)) was sunk in New York City’s East River as infill.
This ship was excavated in 1982, and many of the discovered artifacts found a home at the Mariners’ Museum and Park in Newport News, Virginia. A curatorial query from the Jamestown Yorktown Foundation in (or around) 2015 led to the discovery of a highly interesting pencil.
Estimates of the pencil’s date have evolved with additional research, though it can’t be precisely dated. The excavation site wasn’t thought to have items newer than 1770, while this pencil earned a London patent in 1783.
As well as being very well preserved, the pencil is remarkable in multiple aspects:
1. It has a ruler imprinted on one side.
2. It has a maker’s name.
3. All wood, it has a sliding section and a stop mechanism for housing and extending a piece of pure graphite. In my view, this makes it jointly a mechanical and woodcase pencil! It is a remarkable (and to my knowledge, not duplicated) early pencil.
Further reading and photos at the Mariners’ Blog:
Do you have an 18th century pencil we can borrow? (March, 2016)
You never know what you’ll find in our collection… (October, 2017)