Recently I came accross yet another pencil bench test comparing various graphite drawing performed pencils including our California Republic Palomino 2B as well as General’s Kimberly and others.
Found this posted to our Palomino Riders group page on FaceBook by Tom Smolinski on his smomotion blog. Check out his animation demo reel here. Always glad to learn the Palomino has gained another fan in the animation and illustration community.
The first theme seems to be the ever increasing barrage of marketing and promotion of “Green” products and processes to produce not just pencils, but many writing, art and stationery items exhibited this year. The fascinating thing to me about this is how many different types of green positions, often conflicting in message, that are being espoused for various products. Some efforts I simply consider “green washing” while others offer legitimate improvements in environmental impacts related tor raw materials used or production processes employed.
Wooden products have long been positioned as green for the renewable resource characteristic of the raw material. The addition of various and competing forest and Chain-of-custody certification schemes such as FSC and PEFC are more and more frequently used in our industry, primarily for paper products, pencils and more traditional building materials, though less often seen at this point for other home, office and school products produced from wood. While these schemes are much well known and supported by consumers in Europe there is increasing awareness here in the US. More and more often pencil manufacturers are moving towards implementing some form of third party certified wood pencil for a broader portion of their product range. This is especially in the light of new regulatory actions such as the 2008 amendment to the US Lacey Act which seeks to extend protection of endangered plants to include all manner of wooden products imported to the US. Similar legislative actions are under review in Europe and will be an increasing challenge not just to the pencil industry, but the global wood products industry as a whole. I expect to write more on this legislative topic and its projected impact on the industry in a future Timberlines post.
The most notable new certified wooden pencil at Paperworld this year is the new STABILO Green Range (image above). This range from Schwan-STABILO features the 100% FSC certification label and initially covers about 4-5 different pencil products with the intent to add new FSC certified pencil items over time. For more information see the STABILO Green Pencil Library Wiki page at our Pencils.com site. Of course Faber-Castell has long touted their leadership in FSC certification of the majority of their pencils and other European brands such as Caran d’Ache have had FSC certified products for some time, as well as our own California Republic ForestChoice brand which was the first FSC certified pencil offered to the market. As the leading supplier of FSC certified Incense-cedar and FSC Basswood to the pencil industry our company is experiencing increased demand for our FSC certified pencil slats.
Plastics and recycled products are also increasingly positioned as green. Our industry is clearly experiencing a re-emergence of the extruded plastic pencil. It was even interesting to see some standard PVC type plastic products from Asia being positioned as green simply for the fact they are “woodless”. However, most of the traditional plastic pencils are actually a composite of wood flour and plastics so technically they are not woodless. 
The Remarkeable Pencil has different versions produced from recycled cd cases, plastic cups and a variety of other materials. Bic’s Conte Evolution has been the market leader in plastic extruded pencils ever since Newell discontinued production at the former Empire EPCON facility in Shelbyville, TN some years back. However as BIC long since stopped exhibiting at Paperworld I am not certain what specific environmental claims they make regarding the Evolution these days. Chinese and other developing country companies have increased investment in plastic pencils production as well, though in these cases it’s most often to address economic concerns as wood costs for pencils have been increasing over past several years.
The major announcement on the extruded pencil front is the new Staedtler WOPEX pencil which they gave top billing and emphasis as their new product at Paperworld. This pencil has already been reported on at Lexikaliker blog in German. I was able to meet the Director of R&D at Staedtler who presented this product introduction to me. First, the name is a form of anagram for the words Wood, Pencil & Extrusion. I did find it somewhat interesting that a leading German writing instrument company used an English anagram to name its new product, but I guess this simply reflects the current state of the use of English more globally. The key features of this pencil are that a full 70% of the raw material used is wood flour. So Staedtler is pushing the recycling of wood and minimization of recycled plastic with respect to environmental positioning. Also the pencil is definitely more rigid than other plastic pencils I have seen and they indicate they will produce it in three grades H, HB & B. It did write better than my experience with most other plastic pencils. Finally the rubberized surface has more ergonomic properties similar to their Ergosoft range. As I understand it they do not intend this to be a cheaper substitute for wood pencils, but a value added product preaching it’s performance and green benefits.
That’s it for this Part 1 report as it got way longer than planned, as usual. Tune in for Frankfurt Paperworld 2009: Pencil Report – Part 2 where I’ll focus on the industry impacts and reactions to the current World Economic and Recessionary environment.
Hello all you fellow Palomino Riders out there. I’m long past due in providing an update on developments with the Palominos and other brand ranges in our California Republic lines.
Also comming soon we will be adding an eraser tipped option in our Palomino Blue HB, as well as a few varieties of Spangle jumbo size school learning pencils in both round and triangular shapes.Finally, I am making the commitment once again to more frequent posts on Timberlines so look forward to a series of new articles and weekly features covering a variety of topics. I know I got started last Spring and then didn’t keep up. This time.
Yesterday I came accross the following post “¿Cómo se meten las minas en los lápices de madera?” which answers just this question on the general interest Spanish language blog Ya está el listo que todo lo sabe (Here is the list of everything to know). The post includes a brief history of the development of the graphite pencil and a description of the pencil manufacturing process. This post as many other websites I have found over the years has liberally borrowed the photo from our How to Make A Pencil page on our Incense Cedar Institute Pencil Pages site on how pencils are made.
What I found most interesting about this post was the “commentarios” left by readers and in particular a long treatise on the wood used in pencils by Dr. Amio Cajander who provided a knowledgeable discussion of the use of Incense-cedar ,other pencil woods and even composite substitutes in his long comment in addition to describing some of the technical factors that make for a good pencil wood. He even generously noted my Timberlines blog as a resource for his information for those who wished to practice thier English. Additional comments indicated readers seemed generally interested in learning about how the pencil was made. This is not unlike my experience with reactions to my Timberlines posts and our feedback over many years from information provided on the Incense Cedar Institute Pencil Pages.
While my Spanish is just okay, I was able to make my way through this post relatively easily and it was good practice. So for those interested in testing their Spanish, practicar aqui.
Honestly, it’s nice to see that there is such interest in the manufacturing process and the pencil itself from all over. I would take the time to link to a few other foreign language sites on the topic of how pencils are made that I’ve found over the years, but unfortunately I never bothered to save any of those links. So if you’re visiting from another country and know of any such web pages in your native tongue please feel free to link to these in a comment to this post.
Our friend and colleague Don over at PencilThings.com is starting a Pencil of the Month™ Club . Just $24/year for a monthly edition of a new pencil each month. Link here to join or you can read more details here at Pencil Revolutions.
We are pleased Don is getting off to a good start with his new PencilThings venture which is becomming the definitive source for KUM sharpeners and a growing list of our own California Republic pencils in our Palomino, Golden Bear, ForestChoice & Prospector ranges in addition to more new “pencil things” everyday. His efforts are quite a compliment to our own Pencil World Creativity Store @ eBay making a wider range of PencilThings available than we at California Republic have the time to focus on for our own more limited eBay offerings.
We are excited to collaborate with Don to help him locate and source interesting pencil items for the club’s monthly listings and look forward to the fun ahead for fellow Pencil Revolutionaries.
A little while back there was an interesting debate among Pencil Revolutionaries regarding the various benefits and drawbacks of wood cased vs. mechanical pencils. (See “Can’t Corral that Palomino”) I was of course happy such a passionate discourse resulted from a post on our new Palomino Mixed Grade Graphite pencil set, but the real benefit for me came from the comments themselves.
As an industry participant I was intrigued by the detailed consideration of performance characteristics of these alternate pencil types. It was somewhat like sitting in on a focus group discussion and though certainly a limited sample size of true enthusiasts I did find some ideas that we manufacturers and marketers could further explore. Of course, many of these ideas have already been addressed in various forms by manufacturers of both styles of pencils. However, the challenging aspect for me is to think about what performance benefits and objections people expressed regarding wood cased pencils and how creative product solutions to those might expand the wood cased market through new customer conversion.
One of the key “objections” about wood cased for mechanical pencil fans is the need to continuously sharpen pencils versus the simple clicking action of mechanical when doing extended writing or note taking as opposed to drawing or sketching where most seemed to favor wood cased. Harder grade leads are certainly one option to reduce frequency of sharpening. This has it’s limitations though as it negatively effects the darkness many pencil users prefer from softer leads, which by the nature of their physical properties simply wear at a faster rate. Naturally, it seems that perhaps a “sharpenless” wood cased pencil might find a niche of new converts if it combined the ease of use of a mechanical with the attractive feel an emotional sache of a good wood cased pencil.
Other than simply encasing a mechanical type pencil with a wood casing, which is not a new idea, I can’t say that today I have a real design concept for a truly unique sharpenless wood cased pencil. Whether such a concept is achievable or there really would be an attractive demand is uncertain. The world is full of interesting product concepts that don’t really achieve mcuh commercial success. Recently we received a proposal to market someone’s design for a pencil with about 1/2 of the total length made up of a long eraser. The concept allowed the user to peel back the “cardboard type” ferrule to expose more eraser as needed. We declined as I could not see the economics working well for this combination versus the simple use of an eraser topper wihch is reusable with other pencils and more cost effective. More often than not the typical pencil eraser is not fully utilized and is wasted anyway, so why make it longer.
In the meantime I can announce our first eBay auction listing in our new “Vintage & 
Collectables” Category on the Pencil World Creativity Store. This is a single Palomino Wood Cased Ball Point Pen which is one of a limited set produced as Premium gifts when we first initiated our California Republic product line. Unfortunately, I don’t have any of these which are mechanical pencils with a Palomino quality lead that I might call the “Sharpenless Palomino Pencil”. Perhaps one day.
Finally, I am pleased to note that following an important Revolutionary’s detailed technical analysis our Palomino HB and 2B pencils has resulted in their selection as the winners of the most favored replacement to the famous Blackwing 602 pencil which is no longer in production. In addition, we are pleased to announce that the Palomino HB is now also available as part of the new Moleskine Gift Sets at Ninth Wave Designs eBay Store. Ninth Wave Designs has become an authorized dealer of our California Republic and ForestChoice pencils and we look forward to seeing more combination Moleskine pencil sets using our Palomino and ForestChoice pencils in the future.
Back to the creative side for a day.
We generally think of the use of pencils to generate art. However, it seems the pencil itself is continually viewed as a source of inspiration for artistic expression in several media. Here are links to a few interesting examples:
Given my family history in the in the pencil industry it’s not too surprising I tend to have a wide selection of pencils stashed in desks, drawers, closets and cabinets around my house, my office and even the car. A few years back when redecorating my home office I spent some time actually going through pencils that had accumulated over the years. Some even dated to my childhood that found their from that of my parents when an old desk and group of boxes were delivered as part of their own cleanout process.
Among the clutter there were indeed a few gems from a collecting standpoint. Since that time I have become increasingly interested though not always too active in broadening and expanding my collection. This collection includes not just pencils themselves but old advertising materials I feel have some of historical or design interest. A few my own personal pencil favorites relate to our family heritage within the industry dating back to the 19th century with the Berolzheimer und Ilfelder and the early 20th century from the Eagle Pencil Company. The Eagle Diagraph pencils shown here have a very interesting knurled effect in that they were rolled in a steel die which imprinted the surface to provide this interesting texture in order to improve grip. The compass is one of my favorites due to the detailed design in the metal work. For more views of various Eagle brand pencils visit the Pencil Images Gallery at Doug Martin’s Pencil Pages. His site is the most extensive online respurce dedicated to collectors.
Pencils are of course considered collectables by children and adults alike. People specialize within their collections in all sorts of forms such as advertising pencils, old brands and their transitions and developments throughout the years, coloring pencils, carpenter pencils, cosmetic pencils, etc. In Japan, a few years back a few producers even developed a series of “game” pencils decorated with popular cartoon characters with each side of the hexagonal pencil representing a different outcome when the pencil was rolled. Children battle it out on pencil rolls for the fate of their game character pencils.
So what gems might you have stashed away in a drawer somewhere?
Those of us in the pencil industry are all quite proud of the origins and traditions of our companies. Many of us like to tell our historical tale of product innovation and organizational development. A number of us even claim to have produced the world’s “___est” pencil. Pick your adjective.
But where does one go for a good insight into the overall industry history?Henry Petroski’s “The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance” is considered to be the most definitive history of the development of our industry. Many insiders however view a few facts pertaining to their own company history as not fully accurate. Some may even contest some of Petroski’s statements regarding which company first achieved various technical developments.To be sure there is plenty of interesting history in our industry.
Given the age of many of the companies even some of the factories may be considered museums or museum like. So here are a few historical references for your perusal.
Perhaps the most elaborate company historical presentation in our industry, the Cumberland Pencil Museum established by The Cumberland Pencil Company sits next door to their manufacturing facility located in Keswick, Cumbria, England. Here the Cumberland Graphite story is told beginning with the discovery and development of the famous Borrowdale graphite mines. Of course one of the museums key features is their “Worlds Longest Pencil” unveiled in 2001 at 25 feet 11-1/2 inches.
Many companies in the industry have a tale of growth characterized by merger and acquisition of other pencil manufacturers as well as of other writing instruments and art supply businesses in order to expand the product range. One of the leading examples of such development is Dixon Ticonderoga Company which a few years back published its history entitled “The Best of It’s Kind”. During a visit to their Versailles, MO facility some years back I saw their project to produce another world’s “___est” pencil, a giant Ticonderoga. We even supplied Dixon with super-sized Incense-cedar timbers for this effort, though I don’t have the final pencil dimensions available.
Among US pencil manufacturers just two company’s with production history pre-dating 1920 still trace current ownership to descendants of company founders. The Musgrave Pencil Company history typifies the early development and concentration of pencil manufacturers in middle Tennessee. Here much of the US industry located in order to attain supplies of Eastern Red Cedar which was the preferred pencil wood early in the 20th century. A number of US factories were originally established by immigrants from the German pencil industry culuster around Nuremburg. General Pencil Company reflects the last remaining US pencil producer with current ownership still related to the original German founder. To my knowledge neither of these companies has ever attempted to produce a Worlds “___est” pencil, though they both know how to make very good pencils.
Faber-Castell has a significant history in the pencil industry and has several entries in the competition for the Worlds “___est” pencil. A Grip 2001 measuring 12 meters is displayed at the company’s headquarters in Stein, Germany. Not to be outdone Faber-Castell’s Malaysian subsidiary has the Guinness Book of World Records certification achieved in Novemer 2002 for the World’s “Longest” Pencil at 19.75 meters.
Schwan Stabilo Group’s 150 Years of History represents perhaps one of the more interesting web based company history presentations for its multidimensional timeline covering History, People, Writing Products and Cosmetic Products. And of course, you guessed it, Schwan claims to have produced the Worlds “Tallest” Pencil coming in at 30 meters for the 1906 Bavarian State Exhibition (shown above). How this one got overlooked by all the recent pretenders is a mystery, though it’s uncertain if this monster was truly capable of writing with a graphite core as the others all have. So perhaps this record needs to have an asterisk attached.
Finally, we have our own historical archives and historical display at California Cedar Products Company which provides much detail on our pencil slat history. While we do claim to be the worlds leading pencil slat manufacturer and we do make a few pencils, we have never attempted to produce our own World’s “___est” pencil. I’m guessing a little more research may be in order before ever attempting such a feat.
