There is a great post at Orange Crate Art on pencils and the film The House on 92nd Street.
A number of excellent screen captures are included.
Porsche Design P’3120 mechanical pencil
The Porsche Design P’3120 is no everyday mechanical pencil. Machined out of aluminum, the P’3120 is a design standout.
Made via a Porsche Design/Faber-Castell collaboration, the pencil has all the design oomph one would expect from those design titans.
At 30g, it is one of the heaviest mechanical pencils on the market. The all black metal is highly distinctive. It is part of the “Edition 1” series, commemorating the 35th anniversary of the first black Porsche Design chronograph. (The pencil is also generally available in aluminum, anthracite, and titanium finishes.)
The pencil is cylindrical, with circumferential grooves. There is a grip area, with three scooped out areas for a traditional finger grip. The lead sleeve is conical. The pencil uses 0.7mm lead.
The major usage factor I would note is the weight. The pencil is heavy, and even if you tend to prefer a more perpendicular grasp, letting the pencil rest in your hand at a lower angle can become a habit of necessity.
The clip rests on another highly designed scoop. But the pencil is so long that it can’t be easily clipped to all shirt pockets.
The lead refill caused me some initial caution, but there was nothing to worry about. The pencil’s top half (called the “cap” in the documentation) can be pulled off or unscrewed. Pulling it off reveals the eraser – also in black. Unscrewing the cap reveals a cartridge. That cartridge itself has a cap, revealing the lead bay.
That “cap” is also the (twist) lead advance mechanism.
There is one slight documentation discrepancy – the manual says the cartridge has a capacity of three leads, while the cartridge itself says the limit is five.
The pencil comes with a manual, guarantee card, and small booklet mentioning other Porsche Design items. (The pocket knife, watch, and car, seemed to look fairly nice.)
The pencil itself is sold in a box with a magnetic clasp, inside a sleeve, inside another sleeve.
The P’3120 is a very nice pencil, and I love the look and feel. More so after some time. I can’t imagine this pencil not being appreciated by anyone who loves fine graphite writing implements.
pencils.com relaunched
The pencils.com domain was registered on March 20, 1996, according to Network Solutions Inc. The registration expires in 2015, so owner California Cedar Products is definitely thinking in the long term.
Usually the top result when searching for “pencils” in online directories and search engines, the site has been redesigned and relaunched. I was fortunate to be able to see a development version, and am happy that the site is now live in a “beta” version.
New features include:
* an online store
* an area for artists
* forums
* industry news
* essays on pencils
And much, much, more.
I registered as “penciltalk”, and look forward to seeing what develops.
Congratulations to pencils.com on the site relaunch.
Spangle pencils
California Republic Stationers recently announced some oversized pencils aimed at children: the Mini Jumbo, the Mini Jumbo Triangular, and the Jumbo.
Made in Thailand, the pencils are part of the discount Spangle line.
The pencils are brightly coloured, and have a heavy solid feel. They also have a fairly strong paint aroma. Strong enough that I found myself quickly going to wash my hands after touching them. While CRS states “All Spangle Pencils conform to the ASTM D4236 and are safe and non-toxic”, there can still be a gap between being safe and being pleasant. Maybe it’s just that they are “fresh off the press”.
The Jumbo has a diameter of 9.5mm, and a weight of 11.3g. The Mini Jumbo is 8.4mm/9.4g, and the Triangular Mini Jumbo weighs in at 8.3mm/9.5g. (Numbers approximate.)
Issued in bright primary colours, the pencils scream “fun”.
As oversize basswood pencils, they require quite a bit of effort to manually sharpen. Unfortunately, that effort reveals that the lead is a bit scratchy.
I think the Spangles look great, but the strong paint aroma, sharpening difficulty, and scratchy lead outweigh the initial appeal, at least for me.
Pottery Barn pencil
Here is a giant novelty pencil found at the Pottery Barn store, along with a regular pencil for comparison.
The photo was taken during the summer.
Here’s that same picnic bench a few days ago:
Its been a tough winter.
The Wallace Invader pencil
Does anyone remember these?
I have only one in HB, and a few in F.
It has that classic unrounded hexagonal shape. The varnish hasn’t completely survived though the decades, but the pencil’s writing ability is unimpaired.
Dixon purchased Versailles, Missouri based Wallace in 1982.