Blake Eskin writes about the Blackwing 602 pencil for The New Yorker's News Desk blog:
In June, I learned from the omnium-gatherum site Boing Boing that the Blackwing has been resurrected. I shared my excitement with our most experienced and revered copy editors — O.K.'ers, in New Yorker parlance — who still work on paper, with pencils.
Turns out Boing Boing and I were way behind my colleague Nancy Franklin, who still has a few dozen original Blackwings. Nancy informed me that Blackwing pencils first resurfaced last fall, but they were more tribute than clone.
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Nancy ordered boxes of Palomino Blackwings for herself, and gave some to "three people whose proofreading has made my work better." But the O.K.'ers were not impressed.
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California Cedar wasn't satisfied, either, so they came up with a second version—the one Boing Boing noticed—complete with the model number 602 and the pressure-speed formulation.
Nice article, but Mr. Eskin incorrectly stated that Boing Boing was "way behind" his colleague. In 2010, I received pre-production copies of the Palomino Blackwing and wrote about them here. (Like Ms. Franklin's O.K.'ers, I wasn't impressed with the first tribute pencil, either.)
Side note: About five years ago, Mister Jalopy and I contacted Charles Berolzheimer, president of California Cedar Products Co., to discuss the possibility of a partnership to resurrect the Blackwing 602. Mister Jalopy and I lost interest on the project, but Charles thankfully pursued it. The latest incarnation is a terrific pencil.