German stationary fetishism FTW!

In the article referenced below, the reviewer compares his vintage Blackwing to a new Sanford “Turquoise” 4B drawing pencil which even accounting for variations among manufacturers, would be much softer than an HB.

A good article on the Eberhard Faber Blackwing: http://www.pencilpages.com/articles/blackwing.htm

Not to sound as if defending the new Blackwing, but not all Blackwings had the black stripe on the ferrule, nor did all of them have the “half the pressure…” slogan. One thing they did all have was the non-water-based finish, whereas, I am willing to wager, the Palomino finish is water-based and may never live up to the original.

Another classic pencil reissue of note is the Gesner pencil, a reproduction of the first known pencil: http://www.leadholder.com/lh-non-gesner.html

My favorite currently produced wooden pencil is the Staedtler Lumograph 2B.

It is originally west-coast gang slang (crips & bloods etc) which stands for “original gangster,” i.e. a guy from one of the original sets that doesn’t really soldier anymore, but is still known for his rep and has complete respect. “O.G.” came to mean any thing or person that is respected for being an originator of whatever is current. And now it is being used in a non-hip hop context to describe pencils on a nerdy blog :)

Rapper Ice-T (former crip and current star of Law & Order SVU) named his greatest album “O.G.”(1990ish,) which probably went a long way in popularizing the term. It remains one of my favorites, btw.

If Staedtler goes out of business, I’ll just find another pencil.

name like that, I think maybe Sanford, anyway, it

was a lustrous deep *purple* and would shine amber

held to the light just right, and really ‘flowed’.

http://www.officeworld.com/Worlds-Biggest-Selection/40225/10Q1/

$6.76 a DOZEN

During my engineering school, the mechanical was king. Especially during those thermodynamics lectures which were little more then proving you could copy down math forumlas as fast as the ta could write them in chalk. No time for pencil sharpeners here!

But doing sketch work, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody use a mechanical pencil for that. A wood pencil, or better, many wood pencils of different hardness, offer much more.

Also, I had to chuckle a bit at the “exotic nature” of “California ceder”. Ceder is the cockroach of the tree world. When there’s granite three inches below acidic topsoil and the environment doesn’t support trees more then 15 feet tall, look around and you’ll notice you see nothing but ceder trees.

Yet somehow I always find one that looks like it’s 5 years old that writes thick, dark, and smoothly, usually from somewhere like Dr. Joe Schmoe’s Orthopedic Footwear! or whatever.

I can’t wait for my HB to need sharpening. You can actually see the point, so you decide just how sharp you want it. When I’m marking 2×4′s I leave it a bit round…

~hb

Your example of food is interesting on two fronts.

You’re asserting that this pencil is to the previous version as a pile of dogshit is to a fine meal. If it’s truly that bad of a pencil, don’t use it. But it seems you won’t get that far because it isn’t pretty enough.

Also, there’s a restaurant I’d love to try in Chicago called Moto, which, among the disturbing visuals their place on their patron’s plates is a “Roadkill” dish. It designed to look unappetizing at the very least, and perhaps even revolt.

My point is: Try it before you dismiss it out of hand due to petty cosmetic differences. If it sucks, then complain about the poor substitute that has sullied the Blackwing name.

Thanks for replying.

I’m sure this is heresy of the highest order, but I am no pencil purist.

The color of the new Blackwing (NB) is flat black. The color of the original Blackwing is (OB) is a lustrous charcoal gray.

Look at that subtle lustrous charcoal coloyring. The tasteful thickness of it.
Oh my God, it even has a gold ring. *grip weakens until pencil drops*

I was most interested to read your description of the performance of the lead in the new Blackwing, because for me, this is the crucial reason that Blackwings are so special. No pencil that I know of can float across the paper like a Blackwing.

It appears to me from your review that California Cedar Products Co. did not replicate the old Blackwing’s lead. If that is true, I am not sure why Cal Cedar even bothered to acquire the trademark “Blackwing.” My message to Cal Cedar is: don’t toy with us Blackwing fans — if you’re going to reincarnate the Blackwing, bring back the Blackwing lead.

I’ve always been fascinated by stationary fetishism. I’m just too cheap to take the plunge myself, unfortunately.

Mina, I agree with you. I hope they are able to make the production models as elegant as the original Blackwing.

ROFLMAO hugely. Seems like nearly all the Blackwing fanboys managed to conveniently ignore this.

Thank u for this, and please, more pencil reviews.