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Mitsubishi Vermilion and Prussian Blue pencils

Mitsubishi Vermilion and Prussian Blue pencils

At pencil talk, we love red and blue pencils! But sometimes one needs a red pencil or a blue pencil – not both at once. Or, you’ve found that a double ended pencil gets unusable a bit too quickly. Here is a red/blue pair of very impressive pencils.

Mitsubishi Vermilion and Prussian Blue pencils

Hailing from the venerable Mitsubishi Pencil Co., we have Vermilion (model 2451) and Prussian Blue (model 2453) pencils, both round with ferrule and eraser, and the finish matching the lead colour.

Though not shown in the photos, the pencils (labelled “Hard”) can be reliably sharpened to extremely fine points, even in the most acute setting of a Carl DE-100 sharpener. This is an exceptional achievement for colour pencils, which are often brittle and sharpener-unfriendly.

Mitsubishi Vermilion and Prussian Blue pencils

Further, they answer a question I’ve often heard – is there a colour pencil that can be used as a writing pencil?

Mitsubishi Vermilion and Prussian Blue pencils

They sport a feature highly untypical of Japanese pencils – a ferrule and eraser.

Mitsubishi Vermilion and Prussian Blue pencils

The attached eraser seems to be depleted by 20% or so after a single use. On Maruman Mnemosyne paper, the erasure is okay but not exceptional. But on Rhodia paper with a Tombow Mono eraser, there was an extremely clean erasure.

Mitsubishi Vermilion and Prussian Blue pencils Mitsubishi Vermilion and Prussian Blue pencils

These pencils seems very capable at many tasks – they are non-breaking writing or checking colour pencils that are also erasable. Yet another product that keeps Mitsubishi at the top of their industry.

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Cretacolor Ergonomic 430 15 5.6mm leadholder

Cretacolor Ergonomic 430 15 5.6mm leadholder

The Cretacolor Ergonomic is a 5.6mm leadholder with an unusual grip section. The barrel has a zig-zag section which is claimed to be ergonomic. Artists have long applied tape and padding to make leadholders more ‘holdable’, and this instrument attempts to anticipate that challenge.

Cretacolor Ergonomic 430 15 5.6mm leadholder

The ideal grip is obviously a highly personal choice, and the Ergonomic is worth mentioning for those on a quest to find that grip. (I’ve found the Ergonomic good, but not quite right for me, while others love it.)

What can you do with it? It can use a huge range of graphite, compressed charcoal, wax colour leads, sanguine and sepia leads, chalk, or even a ballpoint adapter. Here is a nice Cretacolor lead set I found. Unfortunately, I broke a lead on the way home:

Cretacolor Ergonomic 430 15 5.6mm leadholder

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What’s that pencil made of?

Three common wood species used in woodcase pencils.
L to R: Jelutong, Cedar, Basswood

Readers have often asked about the wood used in pencils. With the exception of an informative comment by Harshad Raveshia about the situation in India, there seems to be little authoritative information on the subject.

Incense Cedar (Calocedrus Decurrens) is the familiar source, with slats provided by CalCedar supplying much of the world. They have competitors in the slat business, but I don’t know much about those other firms.

California logs are sent for milling in Tianjen, China and transformed into the “slats” that pencil companies use as their raw input.

Cedar is aromatic, long-grained, soft, non-splintering when sharpened, and in most parts of of the world, associated with quality pencils. It has a pinkish/red appearance.

Basswood (Tilia), also know as Linden wood or Lime wood, is a widely used alternate species.

Basswood typically is pale white with little grain showing. While the wood can be treated to become softer and the colour made to resemble cedar, the pencils are for me typically tough and sharpener-challenging. The appearance is a matter of taste, but I find the absence of grain to be less appealing.

I’ve been ribbed about lack of success in using a pen knife to sharpen basswood pencils. One really needs a craft or X-Acto knife to take on this type of wood by hand.

Jelutong is a species mainly grown in the rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia. Closely related, Pulai seems to grow in Thailand (see Fantasia Pencil) and other Southeast Asian countries.

This species does sharpen easily, and I regard it as being as usable as cedar. Appearance wise, the wood has noticeable striations or pit marks. I don’t regard Jelutong as being as nice as Cedar.

A quick search reveals that many individuals and organizations have objections to the use of jelutong and pulai, as it comes from tropical rainforests. While the timber use (sometimes via illegal logging) is an issue – the disruption of the rainforest’s biodiversity is also often cited.

Of course shipping cedar logs across the Pacific ocean for milling can’t be good for the environment either.

LYRA uses Eastern White Pine and White Fir in some of their specialty pencils.

So, let’s ask – is a pencil’s wood species, and/or the source of the wood important to you? Is this based on a quality perspective, or an environmental perspective? Or maybe it isn’t important? Comments are most welcome! We also have a poll on this issue:

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Caran d’Ache 45 multipen

Caran d'Ache 45 multipen

This post continues on two other articles about vintage multipencils. (The Faber-Castell 33/78 four colour pencil and the Caran D’ache Tricolor.) I mentioned their quality construction, as well as the relative complexity of their mechanisms.

Caran d'Ache 45 multipen

Well, I got further with them than I did with the Caran d’Ache 45. The 45 was advertised online as a multipencil, but when it arrived, it turned out to be a multipen – three ballpoints and a pencil in a classic looking barley pattern housing.

Caran d'Ache 45 multipen

Octagonal shaped, each writing implement is selected by sliding a corresponding switch. The implement is retracted by clicking the cap.

Caran d'Ache 45 multipen

Caran d'Ache 45 multipen

So now the fun starts. First the obvious. I can’t find any way to advance or replace the pencil lead, and suspect it is all manual. That’s okay – at least it works.

Caran d'Ache 45 multipen

Now the ballpoints – they are dried up. Easy to replace, right? Unfortunately, no. There seems to be a standard mini-ballpoint format that is used by pocket pens and multipens, but it has two differences from the 45’s format. First, the modern format is longer – which can be remedied with a side-cutter. But, the 45 is a clutch leadholder on the inside, and it wants the format of the original. The 45 does not properly grip the new format.

The original, between modern examples:Caran d'Ache 45 multipen

So, I fear this potentially amazing writing instrument is a paperweight, unless someone out there has some ideas for finding a replacement ballpoint refill.

This post is also a cautionary tale about proprietary formats for writing implement refills – pen, pencil, or other.

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Win the Felissimo 500 Colour pencil set

Felissimo pencils

To promote the Felissimo 500 Colour pencil set, Felissimo is holding two contests.

I hope you will consider entering.

Contest 1: Design a pair of web banners, or a poster. The prize in each category is a set of Felissimo 500 pencils plus $US1000.00 cash. Not bad!

Contest 2: Design a pencil case for the pencils. How cool is that? The prize is a set of Felissimo 500 pencils plus $US1000.00 cash plus an expenses paid trip to a design show in Tokyo, Japan!!!

The design briefs and contest details are here.

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