[stationery] DECADE-OLD PENCIL DRAMA

[kaberett]

One of the things my ongoing attempt to Read All The Stationery Reviews has turned up... is an entry point to the German stationery nerds blogging community. On the basis that if I'm going to be reading this stuff I had might as well also be practising languages (I've learned pretty much all the specialist vocabulary in English at this point, so clearly I need to move on), I have been working my way through archives.

Bleistift (mostly in English? significantly in English?) I first came across thanks to a really helpful article on disc binding systems (I think at the point I was dithering over whether I wanted to buy a punch; at that point I was doing a more targetted special interest so I read all of their posts on disc binding but didn't dive into the rest of the archives).

Yesterday, via literally the search string "stationery review blog" (this is what I am presently reduced to. there are SO MANY OTHER THINGS I could be doing.) I found Scrively, grumpily scrolled back until I found the text reviews, and read enough to decide to go back to the very beginning. (I cannot at this point remember whether it was via them or somewhere else -- possibly TheCramped? aha, yes, TheCramped -- that I stumbled, yesterday, across Ugmonk's Analog, which I keep going back to to stare at some more in something that is not quite either horror or fascination...)

... and then. Via scrolling down the front page at Bleistift. I came across... well. It's actually a post about a department store in Hamburg, but it comes with the side note

Thanks to my wife I walked away with Caran d’Ache’s Nespresso pencils (more about them at Pencil Talk) and my first ever “Les crayons de la maison” pencils (more about them at Lexikaliker, who discovered that this series is not quite what it is made out to be).

In some trepidation I clicked that link to Lexikaliker, and... BEHOLD: A PENCIL SCANDAL. with SCIENCE.

Some time back Caran d'Ache released a line of fancy limited-edition pencils (in issues, like Blackwings, I think? ... which I also don't understand the appeal of...) (and this series is definitely still ongoing), which were described as „Aussergewöhnliche Holzarten* für eine exklusive Kollektion“ ("extraordinary kinds of wood for an exclusive collection"; the English marketing is quoted as „An exclusive collection made with essences* of noble woods“).

... you see where this is going.

tl;dr Lexikaliker did some RIGOROUS SCIENCE in their HOME LABORATORY ("in which I sometimes prepare little meals", yes this is the point at which I started cackling) involving BOILING THESE PENCILS until (yes this is where the cackling intensified) "al dente and very bendy", thereby establishing thaaaaaaaat they... sure do seem to be made of some combination of "a composite" and "a laminate"! With some further digging into the probable manufacturer and just -- all-round excellent investigative reporting, extremely enjoyable, highly recommend.

Comments

[gingicat]

What a fun rabbit hole!

[sporky_rat]

Us stationary people, we are almost as bad as the War Thunder people.

Are you sure you're not

[jesse_the_k]

another reincarnation of Sherlock Holmes?

I still have the metal tin of Caran d'Ache I purchased in the hard-currency store in Moscow, 1971. карандаш (karandash) is the word for pencil in Russian.

[recessional]

Okay to be fair "the essence" (emphasis mine) "of noble woods" is brilliant fucking marketing though because a composite would count!

[kaberett]

RIGHT.

[azurelunatic]

I must not follow that rabbit hole down, but oh GOSH that sounds like a lot of fun!!!