pencil talk | pencil reviews and discussion
exploring the art and science of pencils since 2005
In February, we looked at steno pencils from Staedtler and Faber-Castell.
It turns out that there is at least one more steno pencil in the marketplace, the Hardtmuth “Steno” 550, made in Austria.
With a smooth dark 2B lead, it is a contender, though the pencil appearance may not be everyone’s choice.
A very interesting story appears in the Financial Times about the plans of high end pen maker Pelikan.
Faber-Castell, Montblanc, and enterprises in North America and China are said to be on Pelikan’s acquisition list, though no transactions are confirmed. Pelikan itself may be going private.
This is the second post in a series on the pencils of Korea.
Dong-a is Korea’s oldest pencil maker, established in 1946. The Hongdangmoo Office Pencil is a basic offering, and I am told that it is the most common office pencil in Korea. It is not clear to me if it is manufactured in Korea.
A few notes:
– It does have a slightly larger diameter than the Hankook Sharp.
– The eraser seemed exceptionally good for a pink/red eraser. In fact, it is an excellent eraser by any measure. I’m not sure how they did it.
– The wood appeared to be cedar, and the pencil easily sharpened. The top photo shows an attempt with the KUM Long Point.
– The lead is much scratchier than that of the Hankook Sharp.
Overall, I think the choice between the Hankook Sharp and the Dong-a Hongdangmoo is a tough one.
It has been over two years since we last looked at a copying pencil.
The Sanford Noblot, like the Koh-I-Noor Kopierstifte 1561, appears to be a regular graphite pencil, writing with a traditional “black lead” core.
There are still several copying pencils on the market with coloured leads, but the Noblot is the last one I’m aware of in the graphite style.
It is a handsome pencil, with silver lettering on a luminous grey barrel, and a metal cap.
It also has a slogan on the reverse side : “A Bottle of Ink in a Pencil”.
The obverse reads “Sanford Noblot Ink Pencil 705”.
If you look carefully, you can see an impressed remnant of the Eberhard Faber heritage: “Woodclinched U.S.A.”.
As a pencil, it seems a bit cheap and scratchy. It is definitely an indelible pencil, trouncing the erasure attempts of even the Staedtler Mars plastic.
To test the copying quality, I drew (imperfectly) a circle on a sheet of Bloc Faf paper.
I then wet the paper revealing a rich cobalt blue:
With tissue and other paper types, I’m afraid that I couldn’t pick up much more than a smudge of blue. I’m curious about the exact paper choices and water application techniques that would be required to use the pencil as a working copying pencil.
Do you use this pencil? What do you use it for, and how do you use it?
In March, we looked at the Lyra Mega Liner highlighting pencil. The offerings in this category are few, but there is at least one alternative.
I just discovered that Staedtler Austria also manufacture highlighting pencils. The ones I found are packaged in a “blister pack” and are sold as “Bible Highlighters”.
The pencils are round, and finished in white with black text. The caps are dipped in a colour corresponding to the highlight colour – blue, green, yellow, and pink.
A couple of nice touches – each pencil is supplied with a protective plastic cap, and there is a sharpener included in the kit.
I tried them on a pocket Larousse French-English dictionary, and on newsprint. (The packaging specifically mentions dictionaries.) While they are definitely gentler than liquid pigment highlighters, and thus probably a better choice for finer papers, I wasn’t completely sold. The highlight looks more like a faint smudge than a “highlight” to me.
Overall, I suspect they could be useful with the right paper type, but weren’t great on the paper types I tried. They are also a standard pencil size, so sharpening should not be a problem.
The Staedtler Pacific is a very distinctive looking pencil, round in shape with a gold finish, a gold with blue band ferrule, and white eraser.
The pencil is marked:
Steadtler Pacific Germany 132 80 HB
Despite the great looks, it is unfortunately a scratchy office-grade pencil.
Now wait a minute. In 2007, we looked at another “Staedtler Pacific” pencil, made in Australia. No resemblance. And we also looked at another Staedtler 132 pencil from Germany. Also a different pencil.
Those two pencils were kindly provided by Dave, and purchased in New Zealand. Today’s pencil was kindly sent to me by Kent, and was purchased in Thailand.
Perhaps Staedtler has grown so large that their many offices are reusing product names and model numbers?