An interesting, artist-oriented perspective on sharpening pencils:
Draplin Design Co. Factory Floor Issue Longhand Set
I just received a Draplin Design Co. Factory Floor Issue Longhand Set. It’s like an early Hallowe’en loot bag for stationery/design lovers.
The shop floor never looked so good. The set included:
Field Notes ruler
Field Notes sharpener
Field Notes notebooks
Draplindustries carpenter pencils
Draplin round pencil
Draplindustries ballpont pen
Draplin Sharpie
Draplin Mini-Sharpie
Draplin Calendar
Draplin Anvil decal
This was much more than I ordered. They threw in a number of these items as extras.
I don’t know how they did it, but they’ve got the retro industrial look down pat. With many touches of whimsy.
The fun doesn’t end there. The envelope in which this was delivered was addressed “Canada, eh!”, which someone at the post office found the need to manually annotate as “CANADA”.
There is something that just feels great about a talented designer taking on these “ordinary” items. I will definitely keep an eye on Draplin for their future projects.
A little less conversation…
Okay, maybe the same amount of conversation. But in some cases, less subjective. I’ve acquired a few tools to assist in describing some of the physical properties of pencils – a ruler, micrometer, and scale. (Well, I already owned the ruler.)
Flat Cedar pencils
A special treat today – we are taking a look at “flat cedar” pencils. This is a historic pencil variety, no longer manufactured. They were made for waistcoat pockets, according to Henry Petroski’s The Pencil. And they are indeed very portable, even if you don’t have a waistcoat pocket.
I’ve had for some while an old Eberhard Faber pencil in this style. It is roughly in the shape of a miniature carpenter’s pencil, though with a round core. The pencil fits in a case with a cover that is removed and placed on the base to form an extender. I’m not sure of the material – tin or nickel would be my guesses – but it has survived well. “E. Faber, U.S.A.” is inscribed.
The pencil is already quite worn, and I was happy to find some refills – a partially filled box of “Johann Faber’s flat cedar refills with black leads. Made in Bavaria. No. 5837.”
Unfortunately – they don’t fit! The various branches of the Faber family are known to have feuded, and it may be that these are different formats by design. (The J. Faber is narrower than the E. Faber.)
As pencils, the Johann Faber pencil lead is a lighter, harder lead than the Eberhard Faber version.
I’ll have to keep my eye out for flat cedar pencil supplies.
Firefox pencils
This is a great story about ordering promotional pencils. It’s full of photos and has step by step instructions on how to create and format the needed artwork. These particular pencils were commissioned for the Firefox web browser.
My only issue might be the pencil quality. Has anyone ordered novelty pencils with an emphasis on quality? I know that Mitsubishi, Kita-Boshi, and Tombow all make first rate novelty pencils, but I don’t think they take small orders from overseas!
The Blackfeet Indian Pencil revisited
It’s almost two years ago that I wrote about the Blackfeet Indian Pencil. It remains one of the most popular posts at pencil talk.
While a lucky few were able to buy this pencil at retail, it never broke into mainstream distribution channels. The picture above shows some hand made ceramics that were sold along with the Blackfeet pencils in the early 1990s via specialty catalogs. Since a lot of people are interested in the culture around the pencil, this bit of context seemed relevant.
I recently gave the Blackfeet Nation offices a call to see if there is any news about their beloved product.
It’s not good. The Blackfeet Writing Instruments factory has been fully converted to another use, and all the pencil making equipment removed. With the machinery gone, a revival of the pencil isn’t even a remote possibility anymore.
The company was founded in 1972, and sold by the Blackfeet Nation to a private firm in 1992. In 1997, sales were a mere 27,000 pencils [1]. That’s probably a minuscule fraction of the number sold by the large firms. I’m not sure when they folded, but it seems to be around 2000.
They are sadly missed.
[1] Indian Country Today, March 20, 2000 An informative article.