This transcript was generated from an audio file by AI, and may contain inaccuracies.
Transcript
I pledge, I pledge allegiance to the pencils made in the United States of America and to the graphite for which
they encase one eraser on the end, four mistakes for which it rubs out and many more.
Okay. Hello, everybody, and welcome to episode 19 of erasable podcast. I am your host, Andy Welfle from Wood Clinched, and I'm joined by the two true Americans, Johnny and Tim. Johnny Gamber from Pencil Revolution. How are you, Johnny?
I'm excellent. How are you?
Very good. And then Tim Wasem from Writing Arsenal. Hey, Tim.
God bless America.
God bless America. That was our attempt at a pencil pledge of allegiance, which will be in the show notes, which, by the way, that's going to be erasable. US 19. We are talking today in the main topic about pencils made in the USA and some of our favorites. So we're going to be relying a lot on Johnny's encyclopedic knowledge of pencils. What, us Pencils. No pressure. No pressure or anything. No. Yeah, it'll be a lot of fun. Interestingly enough, which this totally wasn't planned, but apparently there is a sale@pencils.com right now. They are offering. Oh, let me go to the site and see here. I think it was like 20% off made in the USA products, so we planned this completely separate from that. But I'll have a link in show notes. And, Charles, if you're listening, hopefully that sale will still be up when we go live.
That's awesome. Yeah, that makes me feel red, white,
and blue all over.
That is patriotism. Let's start with tools of the trade, what we're drinking and writing with. How about you, Tim?
I am drinking a New Belgium 1554 Black Lager.
I'm not familiar with that one.
Oh, it's very good.
I've also got an oatmeal porter in waiting. But this is. If I want something a little lighter than a porter or a stout that's still like a dark beer, this is what I go for. So it's kind of lighter in weight, but it's really, really good, dark flavor. So that's what I'm drinking. And I'm writing with a Wahl pencil or, sorry, a Wahl Bicycle Company pencil. It's a vintage pencil that was sent to me by our friend Dr. Hans, and I just picked it up kind of at random today, started writing with it, and it is one of the most fragrant pencils I've ever used. And it writes really, really nicely. Really nice dark lines. I don't know how old it is, but I'm guessing it's probably 20 years old.
Maybe It's a good pencil.
Yeah.
Back when I feel like they, like before they started, like, foil wrapping pencils.
Yeah, yeah, definitely. It is. It's definitely painted. Painted on. And it has a whole bunch on it. It says, Wald mfg Co Incorporated, Maysville, Kentucky. Manufactures of axles, nuts, guards, braces, bars, stems, baskets, chain guards, stands, carriers for forks, sprockets, cranks, struts, reflectors, flashlight brackets, et cetera, et cetera. And then in quotes, it says, ask for walled bicycle accessories, which I don't know if that's different than all the things I just listed, but some awesome pencils. Yeah, they still make most of that stuff Wald does.
Yeah, they make some really nice baskets, but they tend to rust. Don't send me hate mail.
A bunch of jokers.
How about you, Johnny? What are you doing?
I'm finishing up my seventh cup of Zeke's Colombian Mesa de los Santos coffee. So I'm sort of hovering here, and I'm slowing down with a.
Do we need to call an ambulance?
No, no, no, no, no. Ah, Seven cups. I'm all right. I'm slowing down with a cream stout from Sam Adams, which is one of my favorite beers in history of all time beer drinking.
I've never had one of those.
They're delicious. I miss living in Boston, where you could get it at the grocery store for like six bucks. It's kind of hard to find. A lot of times they'll have it like, this time of year. And I'm writing with a promotional pencil my wife brought me from Roscoe General Store in the historic Roscoe Village in Ohio. It's one of those, you know, it's natural, quote unquote, with a clear sticker around it and a gold ferrule and a pink eraser. And it's really a pretty little pencil. Kind of crappy, but I, like, was sitting here.
Did she pick it up at the general store or was it. Did she steal it?
Yeah. One of my wife's dirty secrets is that she's obsessed with those longaberger baskets. So I own like $60 pencil cup pencil baskets from them that I've gotten as gifts before. They don't work better than an old coffee mug.
It's insane how much those longaberger baskets cost.
Yeah, I don't like them. Sorry, honey.
It is a longaburger basket.
They're these handmade baskets they make in Ohio, and there's some sort of thing where the Family's involved, and you can go out there and there's a hotel that looks like a basket, which sounds made up, but it's true.
It's not an Amish family, is it?
I don't think so. They make a lot of overpriced baskets and overpriced dishes. I have a few mugs that were really expensive and they lost a fight with an Ikea bowl.
Google Images is making it all clear to me right now.
Yeah. What is. Where is your wife originally from?
My wife is from Baltimore, but they moved to Shrewsbury, Pennsylvania, when she was five. So she's from Shrewsbury, Pennsylvania.
Because I've always thought Lundenberger is like, a Midwest thing, because my family. Yeah. Really likes them. I always felt it's kind of like Vera Bradley, like, purses and stuff. It's like.
Yeah.
Not. Yeah, it's like, nice quality, but it's kind of ugly. And people in the Midwest will pay a crapload of money for it.
Yeah. They make a basket now that's painted like a pencil.
Really?
It has a cap. I think it's like, you know, it's astronomically expensive. It's on my Christmas list, though.
I'm going to track that down and put that in show notes.
I'm looking, too.
Yeah.
It was on one of the recent catalogs. But if you like Longaburger baskets, then, you know, good for you. They're nice baskets.
We're gonna get so much mail to people who are like, I think you have falsely misrepresented longaburger baskets.
Yeah. I think there are more longaburger baskets in my house than pencil. So at least money wise.
Oh, okay. I was gonna say, like, how big is this house that you live in? I've heard about your stuff.
I can't walk.
A bathtub is a basket tripping over.
Everything's a basket.
I sleep in a basket. It's like a Longaberger Papasan chair that would cost $3,000.
So I am drinking. It is. I don't know about where you guys live right now, but it is very cold in Indiana. When I woke up this morning, it was 8 degrees. And the trouble is is that I record the podcast in my basement and I have to turn the furnace off while I record because otherwise all you would hear would be the furnace. So furnace is turned off. It is rapidly cooling down in this house. So I am drinking Twinings lemon ginger tea, which is very nice and warming, and it's decaffeinated, so I'll sleep better tonight. But, yeah, so I'm drinking that and I hope that my wife and my cats are bundled up upstairs and drinking the same because it is going to be very cold up there very shortly. So I'm sure I'll get texts from her as we progress saying, hey, when's the podcast over, dude? What's going on? So, and I'm also, I am writing with a Palomino prospector, which we'll talk about next in a field notes ambition notebook, which we will also talk about soon. Yeah, it's so great. We'll get to that down in freshpoints. But yeah, that is. That is what I'm writing with right now. So that's probably a good transition into the pencil of the week. We put it up for a vote and everybody voted on the Palomino prospector. I know that it's going to be a little bit of a weird discussion because Johnny and Tim used the natural and I could not find any naturals. And I'm using the green one. And correct me if I'm wrong, the natural is from back when, like, it still says California Republic on it, right?
Nope.
Mine doesn't. No. Oh, really?
Yeah, I have both of them right here. I'm an equal opportunity prospector.
Okay, cool. Yeah. So, yeah, I'm. I'm. So I'm going to assume that it's the same pencil only with a, you know, a sheet of varnish on mine and on Johnny's and Tim, you have a prospector, right?
A natural processor.
Yeah. And it's the. It's the Palomino Prospector.
It is.
Cool.
Okay, awesome. So, yeah, I wasn't sure about that because I know I don't have any of the new prospectors that are natural, but I. Somewhere I have a California Republic prospector. It's confusing. So. So any impressions of this pencil that you want to share? Just right, right straight up from the. Off the bat,
jump on it. I hate the white eraser.
Yeah,
we're using this picture. Sorry, Somebody just put a picture of Will Ferrell as a prospector in our show notes.
Yeah, that's one of my favorite all time unused Saturday Night Live sketches.
That one. Or I guess we could also use Kelsey Grammer from Toy Story as he's a prospector as well.
Yeah, there you go.
We'll just put them all next to each other.
I'll go as far as first impressions.
Yeah.
I was drawn to these and I ordered two packs of them. This year is the first time I'd ever used them, mostly for use in school and to give to kids just figuring that as cheap as they are, as affordable as they are, it has to be better than the options that they have that are available most places around here. And so I picked some up along with some golden bears. And my first impression of them is that I think they're a fine pencil, but I don't want to use them. It's kind of like I'm not gonna pick one up.
Yeah.
Basically, I think they're a solid pencil. Like, as far as, if you're thinking grading scale and you know how it's supposed to be where a C is supposed to be like, like solid average, you know, and that B is supposed to be above average and A is supposed to be like, amazing in that sense of the. The scale. It's just a very kind of solid middle of the road pencil that I just won't pick up just because I have better, better options, I think.
Yeah. Given. Given the choice between a prospector and a golden bear every single time, I'll go for a golden bear.
Yeah.
And the.
The price difference is so small that it's. It's not like.
Yeah, well. And actually what's weird right now is the 12 pack of the green prospectors is now the same price as a 12 pack of the Golden Bears. They're both two. No, no, I'm sorry. I have number dyslexia. It's $2.25 for the prospector and $2.95 for the Golden Bear. And you know, that 70 cent price difference is, in my opinion, totally worth it for the. For the golden bear.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'd agree.
And then the naturals are 30 cents cheaper than that. Man, I need to get a pack of those.
Yeah, I only got. I got two packs of the naturals when I ordered my pencils for school.
Yeah. How does. So. Because I don't have the natural in front of me. How does that natural would feel? Is it.
You don't feel the wood?
No, it's finish isn't very smooth, though.
Yeah, yeah. Little rough.
Not in a bad way. It's a natural look, so it feels natural. That's good.
I was actually kind of tempted this week to sand off the smooth part and actually like grind it. You know, sand it down to an actual, actual natural finish just for the fun of it. Because I wanted to feel like the actual grain in my hand. Because I love that in a natural pencil, like the field notes pencil, where you can actually feel the. Feel the wood, the naked wood, you
can kind of condition it. With the oils in your fingers and grease it up.
Yeah.
Luber up, boys.
This is one of the best smelling basswood pencils I've ever used. Or basswood, however you pronounce it, actually smells good. It doesn't smell like cedar, but I'm like, this is a pleasant woody smell. I dig that. But the old one with the pink eraser was aesthetically superior, even if the lead was very scratchy.
Hmm. I never tried one of those.
The font they use for USA and two also makes this look like a cartoon pencil. I'm not a fan of that. I think that makes the golden bear look kind of ugly too. Yeah, that's a fine pencil. But I think of the four, the natural prospector is the best looking.
Yeah. So I know that it's, you know, it has made in the USA right here. If it's basswood, it's probably grown elsewhere, Right? The wood is probably grown elsewhere. Do you have any idea?
No idea.
We should ask Charles. I wonder if Charles wouldn't mind if I photoshopped his face over this Will Ferrell prospect. I think I'm gonna do it and then send it to him to see if he's alright with it. And then if he is, I'll post it.
Another kind of note about these. And I don't know, this could have been a fluky thing, but as I was using them at school this week, I had one that just kept breaking on me.
Like the, you know, when I sharpened up this one, the first sharpen that I got, I think I hit maybe a kind of a broken core because, you know, it got weird and I had to do it again. So. Okay.
Yeah, Yeah. I had a rather stressful day last week when I was at work and I was having to do a bunch of this paperwork that I just, just really didn't want to do. And nobody's gonna look at it anyways. So it was just like really frustrating. But I was working on it. I was using my prospector and it cracked and I sharpened it and then it cracked and I actually picked it up and actually threw it on the ground. Like, go away, mister.
Are you okay?
I was definitely in the room by myself, but I just like threw it on the ground. Like, I'm done with this for now. I need something else that's not gonna break. And I picked up something else and finished what I was doing. But I figured it was, you know, not the norm necessarily, but I didn't assume that.
So where would you kind of, what would you say would be a Good equivalent pencil to this
USA Silver from. Right, dudes.
Okay.
The non cedar version, which is probably the best super cheap pencil I've ever used. Even though it's kind of ugly.
I need to.
I've never. I've not tried the silver.
Oh, I'll send you guys some. They're.
They're.
They're cool pencils. I like them.
It'd probably be cheaper if I just went and bought some.
They have, like, big packs at Walmart. You might accidentally find the USA Golds in that pack like I did.
Score.
I do love that blue stripe they have around the feral on some of them.
Yeah. The silver is just a naked silver feral.
Okay.
Which is cool. But it's cool. I like that better in some ways.
Yeah.
And I don't know about you, but when you look at this Prospector, I've noticed this for a few of them. Does the eraser kind of sit crooked within the ferrule?
Mine aren't crooked, but they're stuck into different lengths.
Hmm. Yeah. Mine kind of sits at a jaunty
angle, so I hadn't noticed that in the few that I've used. And the one that I have right
here, this one is crooked.
Yeah.
Now you put it in my head. They're gonna all be crooked. Damn pencil.
You got the laser level.
Will Ferrell's name when he was playing the Prospector was Gus Chiggins. I forgot about that.
Gus.
Gus Chiggins.
There's got to be a hipster band called that somewhere.
If not, let's start one.
Brush up on my mandolin skills.
There you go.
So if you were to give this a rank, Tim, what would you say? Oh, I think you already said, didn't you?
Yeah, I'd go up a little bit. I would say it's a C. Okay. Which, like, I give it the same preface from before. From before that it's not the way I'm picturing that. C is like an actual, like sort of solid average, you know, like, definitely could be better, but for what it is, it's just like a really solid middle of the road. Cheap pencil.
Yeah. Cool. Where are you finding these pictures? I guess you're probably just googling and searching it.
Yeah, I have my ways.
Johnny, how about you? What would you. How would you grade this pencil?
I would give the green one a C. Because it's ugly.
Yeah.
And, you know, I'm surface guy. I would give the natural a B minus because for some reason I really like this pencil. But I would give it a B if they put the pink eraser back in it. I might even give it a B plus.
Oh, man.
For two bucks. It's a really good pencil.
Yeah. Yeah.
I think the green one's finish isn't that great.
What would you call that green?
Kelly green.
Like, I don't know. Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of that green.
I do use them on March 17, though, every year. Well, the two years they've been out.
Do you give them out for trick or treaters? And didn't they throw eggs at your house because you gave them pencils?
No, I give out good candy so that everyone leaves my house alone. I would.
I'd probably rate it. I would say B to a B minus. I. I do need to pick up a natural. I have not used it since. Since it's been brought under the Palomino brand and made in the usa. So I don't know what the naturals are like, but. But, like, it's a. It's a. It's a decent pencil. I obviously, like, we talked about, wouldn't use it unless it was, you know, unless there was not a golden bear there. But for the price and for the quality it is for that price. Yeah. I'd go with in the mid to low Bs.
Yep. I'd say that's fair.
Cool.
It was. I'm glad. I was glad to spend some time with it and use it this week because I had been meaning to for a while. And kind of along the lines of what I said that it's just not a pencil that I would naturally pick up, which isn't anything against it. It's mostly just that I have a tendency to have pencils that I like and I stick to them. And so it was good to pull it out and experiment.
Yeah.
You know what I'm gonna do is this picture of Gus Chiggins. He's holding a pickaxe. And I could totally Photoshop the pencil in where the pickaxe is. So that's gonna happen.
Oh, man.
Yeah, they took the image of the Prospector off when they started making them in the usa.
That's true. It's still in the box, isn't it?
I think so, yeah.
Let me.
It sounds right.
Yeah.
They do come in a nice box. We forgot the box. That's very nice.
These just come in a sleeve with a belly band in it.
Yeah.
I appreciate any pencil that comes in a box.
Yeah. I remember I worked there when they started, you know, working on designs for boxes. And there are some really cool, cool concepts that Went through.
Yeah.
But I do miss the. I do miss the prospector on the pencil itself. Now it's called a palomino prospector, so it kind of sounds like it's a horse prospector. Of course, the palomino golden bear is even more confusing.
It's a bear that only eats horses. It's a very, very big bear.
It's a really big bear.
A very huge, sophisticated bear.
Yes.
It only likes French horses.
It doesn't have as bad of an aftertaste as the others.
All right, should we move on to the fresh points? The FPS?
That sounds good.
Cool. Tim, do you want to go first? Sure.
I'm gonna have to go ahead and get this party started and just get us talking about the new field notes. Yes, I think we should just get to that because that is.
That's the elephant in the room. That's the golden bear in the room.
Just use golden bear to refer to any animal. From now on. It's golden bear. It's a regular golden bear. Eats like a golden bear.
Man pee like a Russian golden bear master.
Than a golden bear.
I'm gonna hop on the golden bear bus and come out and visit you guys.
Smells like an Issaharan golden bear in here.
Looks like a prospector. Stings like a golden bear.
So, yeah, the new field notes were announced this week, which is the winter edition. And the title of this edition is called Ambition. And if you haven't seen it yet, you really need to go check it out because it is one of the most beautiful. I would say it is the most beautiful edition I've seen since I've been into field notes. As far as the ones that have come out, because the first one, when I first got into field notes beyond like the colors editions, I think the first one I was around for was drink local, actually.
Yeah.
I had had just the craft editions, but I wasn't really into or aware of the colors additions until around then. And I've of course gone the other direction. I've gotten some older ones since then. But it is. It is a really beautiful edition. And it comes in three colors. And you guys have them, so you'll talk about the actual colors, but. And then each one has different paper type inside. And there's one, one comes with a ledger, like ledger style paper, like from traveling salesman. One comes with grid. And then one is a daybook, which is something that's totally new for field notes, which is really, really exciting. And of course the big, totally different thing that they went for that is I'M really excited to get to see because I actually don't have any in hand yet. Is that they gilded the pages of this edition, which is a really, really nice touch for the 25th colors edition.
I know that there's a few like ministers and Bible study people within the field nets group. And it's interesting just how much they just talk about this because it's. It just matches, I think all of the. You know, like, I think a Bible printing company did the gilding on the paper. So.
Yeah, I mean, these days that's really all. That's the only place you see that.
I mean, yeah, maybe old books, but mostly Bible.
Yeah. But as far as what' produced today, it's really. It.
Did you see my unboxing video?
I haven't yet. I just saw that it was there before we started recording.
I knew that when you open it, it makes a crackling sound. The gilding kind of breaks apart and it crackles a little bit, but I did not know how loud it would be. So I was like, boy, I hope that my microphone picks this up. And then it was like within the
microphone, it was like, whoa, sounds like you're eating pop Rocks or something.
It was. It was really cool. And there was like this little kind of like sparkle of the little tiny gold pieces flying off of it. So it's like little fairy dust.
Don't eat them.
Yeah. Nobody lick your gilding.
Nobody lick your gilding. There's an episode title.
Don't lick your gilding.
Nobody lick your gilding.
Okay, we'll have to think about that. Sorry, go on.
I was just say I haven't ordered any yet. I'm actually just waiting. I'll probably order some this week, but I am really excited. And this is an edition that I know I'm going to end up stocking up on. Oh, yeah, and I know our buddy Gary Varner over at Notegeist is going to be selling them separated, like different types. Like you can get just the date books or whatever or whichever one you wanted, which I might. I may take take advantage of that possibly at some point because I'll definitely get some just complete sets. But there are certain ones that I'll use more than the others. I'm not much of a written paper planner kind of person. I don't really. I just never use them. And every time I try, I end up after a couple days just forgetting because everything else is. I have different ways of keeping track of that stuff. But the. The ledger books in the grid books or the ones That I really want to stock up on. Especially the ledger one with that beautiful red cover. That's my favorite.
Or the. Actually the ledger is the green cover. The olive cover.
Don't shatter my dreams.
Oh, sorry.
You could switch them.
Yeah.
Pop out those beautiful gold staples.
Okay, so that's the green one.
Yeah, that's the green one.
I guess that's still cool. But the grid is the.
Yeah, the red one is the grid. And I love, love this grid because it's not just grid all the way through. There's a, like a 10 centimeter, like tall place for a title at the top. And it has those really pretty, like double lines at the top of that. So it looks just gorgeous. Like I. I really like kind of that creamy. Oh, the creamy paper that has like those double lines. That's one thing I really like about that. Ampad gold fiber notebooks. And the fact that they put this on a grid paper is just gorgeous. And it's kind of that cream color. Actually it's called Cougar natural. It's a 50 pound, but yeah, it's. I love the insides of all of these notebooks. I don't use the ledger a whole lot. I think I'd use it for lists a lot. But I really also like that date book. I was thinking about using it less as like a planner and a date book and more like people are using those word memorandum notebooks just for like a little two sentence kind of summary of my day just to have a. Just to have a record of it.
Yeah, yeah, I can see that. And I was thinking about that one as being a nice fit for the. My Cody Williams wallet. Just something to carry around with me. Just even not just like for that, but just to. Not to plan things, but just keep the day's little notes that I need to like things I need to do or whatever. Just they'll each have their spot and it'll be kind of a messy version of what you're talking about.
Yeah. I'm hoping that this kind of gets big and then maybe every year around the new year, maybe in winter edition, there will be some kind of a planner. Because people who just buy one of them, you know they're gonna be stuck next year once they stock up.
Yeah, that was one that I was considering trying to pick up at least a couple of them from Gary. Yeah.
Yeah. And it's. It's awesome. I know. Actually, I think he has them up right now. He's selling them for $3.75 each, which isn't A lot different than just a third of the price of the notebook.
Yeah.
So good on you, Gary. We'll have a link to that in show notes.
There's some cover that someone linked to on the field nuts group from some leather company, and it comes with a pack of field notes, and one of them is a planner, but with a regular cover. So that would be pretty awesome if they start printing those even. Yeah, I'd buy 20 of them.
That was. That was one thing I wanted to. That this edition made me want to bring up and ask you all if you could, if you had the influence to recommend a new standard edition, what would it entail? Like, what type of edition would it be?
I think that I would want. I think the COVID would be something to consider, but I would love there to be a standard edition with that thick, creamy paper that they have in Shelterwood and in America the Beautiful.
Yeah.
But with the blue lines, like America the Beautiful.
Yeah.
Maybe even a red margin. Oh, swoon.
Which Tim will soon experience.
That's almost exactly what I was gonna. Yeah, yeah. And actually. Yeah. So I had never tried America the Beautiful. And then one arrived today or from Mary Collis sent me an America the Beautiful edition. And then. Yeah, that's one other thing I wanted to bring up in my fresh points is just again, I feel like I say this all the time, but how generous people are in this community that I was. I posted something on Facebook just Giving my top 10 field notes, editions that I had used, things that are the ones that I had been available to me. And it just mentioned, you know, someday I'd like to try America the Beautiful. And then pretty quickly, I guess Mary had sent me one and then Topher had offered to send me some, and he put those in the mail. So I'll have some coming because that is my favorite paper too. So I know that I'll use them. And I'm really thankful that people are so kind as to.
I can't believe. Toffer.
Give me a chance.
Jerk.
Yeah. What a jerk.
I'm just getting tougher.
Yeah. I was really, really shocked. Really thankful for generous people. So thank you, Topher, so much, and thank you, Mary.
That's awesome.
Looking forward to trying that. But yeah, I totally agree. That's. If I was gonna recommend a standard edition, it would definitely involve that paper. Yeah.
100% linen cover, man. Flood coated. So they crack and turn white. Yeah.
Yeah.
And the ravens ring.
I guess if I had one criticism of the Ambition notebook, it would be that I feel like the paper is A little thin. I think it's fine for pencil, but it's 50 pound paper, which, you know, isn't bad, but it's, you know, it's no, you know, 90 pound American beautiful paper.
Yeah. And you wonder if it's a byproduct of the fact that they're able to keep standard prices no matter what they do with the editions. And if they spent the extra money on gilding and the letterpress and having the three different color covers. And you wonder if that's a reason why they went with a lighter paper just to keep the costs manageable. So they weren't just losing money on this notebook.
And I know that they sent this notebook to like four different places for all these products.
Yeah.
So I'm sure just shipping and transportation alone for that was more than usual. And they still kept it at the
standard price because the gilding was like in Michigan, wasn't it?
Gilding was in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Oh, because I saw something about them sending it to. I thought I saw something about them sending it to Michigan at some point.
Yeah, they sent it to Michigan. Well, the French paper covers are from Michigan.
Oh, okay.
There we go. I almost got a tour of the French paper factory once with our local advertising federation, but I did not make it that day. And I was so disappointed. But, yeah, that's from Michigan. The French speckle tone. I can't remember where. Oh, I'm looking through my notes in the back. Mount Prospect, Illinois, is where they actually printed. Where they actually printed it.
What are the production numbers for this edition?
Does it say in the back 30,000 sets?
I think so. That's like half of Shelterwood, right?
Shelterwood was 25. 25,000.
I think. I'm like, my facts are all over the place today. I thought it was. I thought that was a huge one because they were. It cost so much to make it, but I think.
Was it unexposed?
I could be totally wrong.
I'm trying to remember. Oh, let me go. Yeah. So winter ambition was 30,000 packs. Unexposed was 20,000 packs.
I have a shelter wood right here.
Yeah, shelter wood is 75,000 books.
Yeah, that's what I thought. So. Oh, 75,000 books. Okay. There we go. That's what I. I know I had a 70,000 number in my head, so that. So you're right, Johnny.
That's weird that they would.
I think they made the cherry woods at the same time, too. Which are really pretty. I like those.
Yeah. Yeah. I went to. I went to Asheville a couple weeks ago and went to, I say, my favorite because it's the only one I have available, but it's still pretty nice. Favorite stationery store that sells nice pens and pencils and inks. They have a nice. I sent you all the picture of the Blackwing display that they had. Yeah, that was a while ago. But I went back there, it's called Origami Inc. In Asheville, and picked up some stuff. And then I went to this little ridiculous hipster shop in Asheville that sells like $400 pairs of jeans and stuff, but they also sell field notes, and they had cherry wood and unexposed and several different editions. And so I decided to pick up some unexposed because I wanted the cherrywood too, but I only had the money to get one. So I was like, I'll just pick up these because they'll probably be gone soon. And I opened them up on the way out of the store, and by the time I was standing on the street, I was already put putting together a tweet about getting rid of them because I just hated them. I was already planning on trading.
Did you spend all your other money on $400 pairs of jeans?
Yeah, I mean, that's what it was. Either, you know, buy 40 packs of Field notes or a pair of jeans. And I just. I didn't have any pants on, so I had to go for the. I had to go for the pants.
What colors did you get?
Survival? I got blue, pink, and yellow.
The blue one, I think was hard to get. I think folks were having trouble. Oh, no, I'm thinking of purple. I'm sorry.
The blue. The blue is the closest one that I was considering keeping, but so I've got. I've got a trade in the works that I can talk about when it shows up, but someone's sending me a pack of shelter wood.
Did you guys see the super limited edition factory floor gray? Beautiful.
Oh, my gosh.
I'm stalking the field Nuts group for when they say they're available.
My sister lives. Lives in Newburgh, Oregon, and I'm thinking about, like, paying for her gas to drive up to Portland to go to the Pop up shop. Oh, yeah, she picks me up some packs too, because they. Also, in the picture of the Pop up shop, they have the DDC Cole edition there, too. Yeah. Yep. Which I want more of those so bad. That was number two on my list.
It's amazing. I just. I just want to see Draplin's, like, you know, his. His store of field notes when he was in Fort Wayne, last November, he had a whole bunch of, like, America's Beautiful with him, and he had. He had a lot of stuff that if I had the foresight back then to pick them up, I would sell them for a significant profit and. Or use them, of course. Yeah. But, yeah, those gray packs are super cool.
Yeah, that's the actual. They could just sell those in Tennessee because those are the UT football colors, which for people who are into barbarism, you know, that was a low blow. I'm sorry. That was unnecessary. I'm a baseball fan. We like to hurt our players slowly over a long period of time. So that's all I got. I just want to get you guys talking about field notes. Johnny, what are your fresh points?
Well, I meant to ask you, Tim, if you're still doing National Novel Writing Month.
I am. And in some very. Some thick irony, after our last episode, I actually started writing fiction. It's still just sort of all over the place. I've been writing poems, too. I'm being very loose in my interpretation of the challenge, but yeah, yeah, I'm still writing. Doing some. Some fiction and some poetry at the same time. It's just basically an.
I feel like some sort of cheater. I'm 2,500 words ahead, but I'm using all pens. Well, if you mix poetry and fiction, you'll come out like Michael Andonche, and that's a win in my book.
Yeah, there you go.
I'm a big Andante fan, but I'm keeping up with it. But I'm using all gel pens, and I feel guilty. But then a lot of folks recently on our Facebook group confessed to liking pens even better than pencils. So I. I feel a little better about that.
Everybody just came out of the closet
and then like, yeah, I don't really use pencils that much. Okay, I can stop lying. I have a lot of pens, and I like gel pens a lot, like a teenager. But it's been satisfying because when you use gel pens, you kill one, like, every two or three days. You're like, yeah, I'm getting it done. But it's very sudden. You know, with pencils, you watch it inch down with a gel pen at the end, you're like, yeah, Imagine you
like being at a coffee shop and gasping when it's empty. Like, whoa, it's gone. It's all gone. I had no idea.
You can write really fast with gel pen with smooth paper and lots of coffee coursing through your veins. I swear I could smell the ink sometimes, like, wow. I'd probably start a fire using wood. But yeah, I don't have a lot of fresh points because the last few weeks have just been like NaNoWriMo and taking care of children and drinking coffee in roughly that order. And also, this is depressing. I got an email from someone who just left a username, so I don't know his or her name about Ticonderogas not being made of cedar anymore, which is like troubling me. And I actually lost sleep over it twice.
But don't call me up Botany Ticonderoga since maybe like Target over the summer or for back to school stuff.
You need to stock up.
They had that not dark, but that very gold glossy yellow on their Chinese stock for a few years. And they're very fragrant, very smooth and very nice. And all of a sudden the Chinese stock doesn't have macro band on it anymore or micro ban, whatever it is. And they're sort of like a matte yellow now. And I noticed when I shopped them, they felt kind of heavy, like the Envirostik. And they don't smell like cedar anymore. They're really nice. If anything, the production quality has gotten a little better. They're smooth, but they're not, you know, smeary.
Are they basswood?
I don't know. Charles said I could send him some and he could provide some answers.
Spectrograph or something like that.
Yeah, you just taste it.
Just like, look at it. Baseball. But I picked up a box of the Tri Rites recently and they, like, stink. They're horrible. I actually almost chucked them. But, you know, I don't want to do that. I'll give them to some kid unsuspecting child. But I don't know how old the stock of the Groove from Amazon is, but they're still cedar and they're nice. But I noticed the last two runs from Target that are colorful are not cedar. They're too light. Yeah, they're still nice. They're really pretty. There's something very Wes Anderson about the latest ones. It's one of those blog posts I keep made to write.
I haven't thought about that, but you're totally right. Just need to lay them perfectly.
That light pink, man.
Yeah.
Want a very wide screen with like
a, you know, old fashioned telephone over here and like a nice old fashioned chair over here.
Words running along the bottom that says
pencil and in Houston.
Yeah.
And labeled as pencils.
Narrating. Yeah, that's pretty much the end of my fresh points. I'm a little Brain dead this month, but I will regroup for next episode.
I am definitely. I'll launch into this news with my fresh points. I'm a little brain dead too. And it's because that trip to San Francisco that I took and talked about last episode was a job interview. And in fact, I got the job. And starting the 1st of December, I'll be moving to San Francisco.
Working for.
Working for Facebook.
Facebook.
All of your accounts.
Yeah. So all of you better be good. No, just kidding. No, I don't have access to that. And in fact, even if I did, I signed a million things that said that I wouldn't be messing with it, but sign it.
Pencil.
Yeah. So most of my pencil collections are all kind of like packed up in cigar boxes and stacked on my desk right now, so I don't have access to a lot of it. And in fact, whenever record our next episode, it might be a little funky not only for what I can get to in my pencil stock, but also when we record and release it, because all of a sudden we're going to go from us all being in the same time zone to me being three out, three time zones away. Well, four time zone difference. So when it is, when it's 9pm in Indiana and Baltimore and Tennessee. Tim, you're on Eastern time, right?
Yep.
Yeah.
Yeah. When It's. When it's 9pm There, it'll be 6pm Where I am. So between my schedule and everybody else's schedule, I apologize for the rest of the episodes for now until we kind of figure that out.
But as far as the pencil of the week goes, in honor of your awesome new job, we should just make an executive decision, and it's kind of a natural transition and do the golden Bear. Your beloved golden bear is our next.
Okay.
Because you'll have one, right?
Yeah. And that blue golden bear, I believe, is almost a Facebook blue.
Hey, there you go.
I did notice that, you know, when I was out there interviewing for the job, they have like a little gift shop and, you know, they have a lot of like, Facebook swag in there, but there is no Facebook pencils. There are Facebook pens. Oh, yeah. Well, I, you know, I'm thinking to myself, like, you know, not yet. So first order of business. Pencils in the gift shop.
I'll take your job.
But yeah, so, yeah, that'll be. That'll be lots of fun.
And
I'm sorry, everybody in the group, when they make changes, I will not be personally responsible for them. They told me that every time they make a change, I'M going to be getting a deluge of people who are complaining about it. And I kind of saw that in action today when Facebook released the new group app, kind of the group management app. I obviously don't work there yet and don't have anything to do with that, but I definitely saw a lot of people talking about it. So. Yeah, so that's gonna be. That's gonna be kind of an insane few weeks. I'm leaving the day after. No, the Saturday after Thanksgiving and starting work the Monday after that. And then my wife and Katz will be joining me after Christmas.
Well, congratulations. Thank you. We're really happy. This is. It's fun to. Yes. Yeah, it's fun to. Fun to finally talk about it because we knew it was in the works and of course Johnny and I knew all along that you were gonna get it. So just a matter of Zuckerberg finally, like answering our emails.
I appreciate.
Hey, wrote that prediction in Pygma Micron ink, man.
So, yeah, I also wanted to talk a little bit about a project that just launched today from Baron Fig. It really doesn't have that much to do with pencils, but I figured since we're talking about poetry and literature and all that, I should talk about that. I wrote one third of a haiku today, if that counts. Baron Fig just released a little side project which is pretty nifty called the Global Haiku Project. And what's cool is what you do is you go and you put in the first five syllable line of a haiku and then you click Enter. And then the next thing is you write the middle seven syllables of a different haiku that somebody else wrote the first line for. And you can see their first name and where they're from. And then you click Enter. And then of course, the last part is you finish out a haiku with five syllables. So the one that I did, ironically, was one about ink. So about a pen. So it started off ink on pen, now write. And then the second one was letters swish, swoosh, delicate. And then my, my wrap up to that was black marks in its wake. So that made it to the haiku gallery page. So but anyhow, that's pretty cool. Yeah, of course you can, you can pay $5 and have and buy prints of these haikus they'll make and send you, which is actually kind of cool. I may do that for something.
I'm gonna step away from the mic because I have something relevant I need to get for this discussion. So you just talk amongst yourselves. I'll Be right back.
Okay.
The teenager in me wants to know how they handle vulgarity, because I know
I was talking to Joey Cafone, who's from Baron Fig, via the Baron Fig Twitter account, and he kind of saw it as it was coming in. So I wonder if they just. Somebody has like eyes on it all the time, which could get impractical. But I think Baron Fig users are, you know, they would never do that.
I would at least use the word but a few times.
Of course, you know, I started one out for pencils. So I'm supposed to get a notification when that. When they, when somebody finishes that. So maybe I'll get the pencil print.
Okay, I'm back.
Okay.
I have something to contribute to this.
Okay.
Which is a gift I received from my brother in law, which is something called high cubes. If you. Have you seen these, I've heard of them.
I have not seen them.
It's this box full of cubes. They look like big dice. And so I'm going to roll the first two. There are two that have a red print on them. Tell you what your haiku is going to be about. And so mine is a tirade about is what the first cube says, then the other one says my family. Tirade about my family.
Too hard.
I'll spare the eardrums of everybody, but There are about 60 cubes in here. And then you just roll them out and then you piece together a haiku and they're pretty. They're actually. It sounds kind of, you know, cheesy, but actually is very entertaining. And it's really good for like dinner parties and stuff. Just pull it out just to mess around. And my kids love them at school too. I'll bring them for our poetry unit. That's like, see? Yeah. Yeah.
Huh. So, yeah, speaking of teachers, I guess my next segue would be a fellow middle school teacher to Tim, Tennessee middle school teacher is Will Fengy. I always want to say fan guy, because that's what it looks like. And I thought for a long time that was a fake name, but it's Fangy. And he and his brother Rob just started a new podcast. They released Episode zero, which I guess would be sort of the. Just kind of where they're setting expectations for the podcast and maybe trying it out. And it's called Nerd Uprising. And basically what they're going to do is just talk about, just talk about things that are interesting to nerds, I guess, maybe not just, you know, you're like specifically a Star Trek nerd or a Dungeons and Dragons Nerd or something like that, but just people who are passionate and interested in a particular subject. Sort of like we are all nerds about pencils. We pencil nerds.
So they're just more inclusive.
Yeah. Yeah. So, in fact, if Will. If you do have a Star Trek episode, I will. I would. I'll volunteer to be on. Because I do love Star Trek. But anyhow, I know that I sort of committed us to being on some early episode about pencils, because Will is also very much into pencils, and he
lives in Pencil City now.
He does, yeah. He moved to Shelbyville, which is. Yeah. The pencil used to be the pencil capital of the United States, which probably still is. Right, Because Musgrave's still there.
Yeah. Yeah. I would assume that nothing has trumped it yet. No new Pencil City has risen up from the.
I'm still waiting for you and him to start a. A middle school teacher podcast.
Yeah. I mean, who knows? I definitely have things to say about it. That's all I'll say.
But, yeah, I guess he was. I know that Johnny's away from the microphone, but I know that I'm back. Oh, you're back. Yay.
Sorry.
I know that Will was just in Baltimore, but I guess they couldn't get together.
Next time, man. Yeah, get some black wings.
Yum.
So we'll have a link to Nerd Uprising in the show Notes, and you should go listen to it, because we, he and I and everybody else talked a lot about podcasting and technical parts of podcasting, and I like to think that we helped inspire him to podcast. So, yeah, check him out. Also launching is. We had Gary on last week, and since then, notegeist launched. I don't know how they've been doing, but it seems like it's been going pretty well. I know I've seen a few people in our group and in the fieldnuts group that have gotten packages. I know that. I was actually talking to Will on Twitter today, and we were talking a little bit about building a cart, and I know he's gonna be getting some things. I was thinking about getting the Ledger. Not the Ledger, but the memo book and the planner in the Ambition edition, just, you know, kind of separately, just to have it. And then also, man, I don't know about if I'll make this purchase, but I sort of want the DDC factory floor, sort of jade.
Mm.
Oh, does he have those?
He has two of them.
They are very pretty.
They're 30 bucks, which I think is pretty good, but I know it's really fluctuated based on what people have, like, been selling them for in the groups. But I don't know. I. Of course I say this, and now everybody's gonna jump on it, but I will, because everybody listened to this show
because all the hordes. Yeah.
But I'm thinking about it because it is really pretty, and I should have gotten it.
You just need to wait to publish the episode before you make your decision. After you make your decision.
It's kind of pukey in real life.
Really?
Actually, yeah. I bought one because I didn't want to buy a ton of them last year, but I wish I had bought a ton of them because I haven't written any yet. Sort of hoarded away.
I also added a few pencils to my order. It's just sitting in my shopping cart now. One of them is. He has Apsera platinum pencils.
Oh, got some of those.
You did?
Oh, no, wait. I got. No, I got the. The absolute. It's different, but it's that company. They're nice.
Yeah. Yeah. These are. These are pretty nice. I've never really heard of them, so they're $1.50 for three of them, so I figured I'd try them out. So there's those. And then I ordered. I have one of the Dixon Ladee, the blue 304s in here, the ones with nothing on the end. That's. I feel like it must be really close to what I used to use as a kid. It's an old, vintage, vintage Laddie. And that one is $1.25 each, so that's pretty good. And then finally, I also added a couple general cedar point pencils in there just because I. I think I have one, but I could use a few more. So. Yeah, I'll be doing that pretty soon.
Oh, he's got some Norris pencils on there.
Yeah, Excellent. He has some neat stuff.
There goes all my money.
Yeah, he has one of those circular erasers with the brush on it, which I don't know what they're called, but he calls it a circular eraser. That's pretty neat. Yes. So go to notegeist.com we talked about it last week, but I'll have a link in show notes here this week as well.
I think all three of us will have made a purchase by the end of this episode.
Oh, yeah, working on it right now. I need some of those metal pencil caps. Wow.
Oh, yeah. And I've never tried the. I haven't had a chance to get. Get a hold of the Renu. The Ticonderoga renews.
They smell delicious. Yeah, deliciously.
They smell like good environmental. I don't know.
Smells like nice practices.
So the last thing I was going to mention, you know, if you guys wanted to go in on this with me, that would be just fine. But there is for the low, low price of 27, $27,500, we can grab 1.1 million pencil eBay lot. That's only two and a half cents per pencil.
What?
But it's. Somebody is selling. And I'm assuming this was like a teacher supply store that went on a business or something, probably went out of business because they bought too many pencils.
That's a huge stock, even for a store.
Yeah, 1.1. It's like 300, like thousand box sets or something like that. Yeah.
Who's a genius who decided to sell them at altogether?
I don't know. I'm sorry. It's 3,000 in each box.
That's insane.
Yeah. What's funny is, like, if I bought this, which I'm not, I could just drive. It's in Joliet, Illinois, so I could just drive there and pick it up like three hours away.
You should ask me if you can come check it out. I wonder if you spend 27,000, but then you find out that one box is full of nothing but original, like black wings or something.
I'm rich. I'm looking through the pictures that they have, and it's mostly like that picture
of all the, like, looks like Christmas pencils. It says teachers. Something like the red and green ones. Alex. Idiots.
It's a lot of what I think, like pencils.com and other places call motivational pencils. There's like, Jesus loves me pencils, and there's holiday pencils, and there's one that says star student.
You see the one? That's the picture of all the palettes. All these are on palettes, so I
probably need to bring a semi with
me because looks like my house now.
This is the most terrifying picture of pencils I've ever seen. The one that has the glitter pencils. Have you seen that?
Oh, yeah.
Oh, my gosh. That makes me want to throw up. What are those things? Like, I feel like it would shoot sparks off in my classroom. Friendly when I sharpened it.
Hey, kids, check this trick. So if we wanted to turn erasable into a storefront, like, we wanted to just take this, take this to the masses. We just will pitch in, buy this out, sell some pencils.
Yeah, yeah. It's only like 9,000 a person.
Yeah. So it's not even a. It's not even a bid thing. It's just straight up buy it now.
So I think. Yeah, I think my favorite part of the. Yeah. Because we don't want anybody to bid $1 and then win. Win a million pencils. I love that it says hassle free return.
Well,
turns out that it's not exactly hassle free to return three tons of pencils.
So. Yeah, that's pretty amazing. I wonder how much it would cost to ship. Like it doesn't even say on here.
Yeah, I'm trained.
Yeah. You have 14 days to return them after opening
back there.
I'm clicking the watch button on this one.
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Gary, if you're listening, I definitely think you should expand. No Geist. I'll even.
Ohio is not too far from Juliet.
Yeah, that's not too bad. I'll even drive with you part way. I'll keep you company on the road because I want to say I want to see 1.1 million pencils in a truck.
There's only 11 hours left too. So we gotta get this episode posting.
Thank you, guys.
You've gotta hire someone to count them so that you know you're getting your money's worth.
That's true.
There's how many of that? I don't know.
There's only 1.099 million pencils in here.
I mean you turn them around, sell them for a dollar a pencil. I mean that's like a three million dollar profit.
We'll be rich, guys. Yeah, amazing scheme.
Yeah. No point. Sorry, I saw it as. No, man, never mind.
I was way off, guys.
025. Yeah. I'm not a math guy. If it was. If you had described it to me in words, I'd be fine. Point. I didn't see the point.025 cents per pencil. $A pencil. That would be outrageous.
So thank you, Kathy Rogers for posting that in the group. I certainly got a lot of gulks
out of that instant pencil Baron if you. If you purchase it. Cool.
Do you guys want to talk about our main topic?
That sounds good.
I think I'll insert some patriotic music in here at some point so we can see that. So our main topic today is about pencils made in the usa. We don't really have a lot to kind of general information to give on it. We mostly just kind of picked out our favorite three and we're going to talk about them a little bit. But I know. Oh, and this is how little I prepare prepared for this show. But Charles had a really interesting post or I guess response to somebody in our Facebook group about being able to use the word made in the USA and had a lot to do with if practices. If there are manufacturing processes that happen in the USA that significantly changed something from like raw materials into the product, then it can be said as being made in the usa. So, for example, say there were some pencils that, you know, were sawed down and then sent off to, you know, somewhere to be. To have the ferrule put on. But it came back and it was shaped and the lead was inserted, you know, inserted something like that. It could still possibly be called made in. Still have that designation of being made in the US And I know that it can be kind of vague because it sounds. I mean, it's a fairly vague notion, I think, because nobody's really defined what that significant change needs to be. Does that sound about right to you guys?
I think so.
Yeah.
Yeah. I'd like for somebody to.
If I. I'm not really clear on it.
Yeah. If I really screwed that up, somebody please correct me in the Facebook group or through a comment on the blog. But I believe that to be what. What that is, what that designation means. And really, there's not a lot of made in the USA pencils anymore. There's Musgrave, which is in Shelbyville, Tennessee, which makes mix pencils. They make a lot of the Palomino products that are made in the U.S. there's general's pencils, which are made in New Jersey. And then Joni, do you know where. Right. Dudes is made?
Somewhere in Tennessee. Lewisburg.
Okay.
Something like that. I think it's where PA Papermate used to make stuff. Same city. I don't think. The same factory.
Yeah.
And obviously, like, you know, it used to be Eberhard Faber was made in the US Even. Aw.
Ticonderoga.
Ticonderoga Bums. So, yeah. And to my knowledge, Those are the three that are made here.
There's that. There's two little ones, J.R. and Richard Best. I don't even know if they're around.
Yeah.
I can only find their stuff at teacher supply stores. They make a pencil called the Big Dipper. It's a big fat red pencil.
It's awesome to track some of those down.
Next time I hit the teacher straw, I'll pick up some.
Okay. That's awesome. And what was the second one you talked about, Johnny?
Richard Best. They make a pencil called the Trirex.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's a neat pencil. It's kind of got six sides, but three are big.
Huh.
If that makes any sense.
Yeah, that is cool. So yeah, there's. There's definitely a shadow of what it once was. The US pencil manufacturing. Yeah, but.
And it was even 10 years ago, there were a lot of good American pencils.
Yeah.
Paper Mate used to make passable pencils. Ticonderoga was still here.
Yeah, so. So yeah, there's a few. If anybody knows of any, oh independent, like artisanal pencil makers in the US Please share them with us because I would love to research these and find them out. So. Yeah, let us know.
I know there's a group of like third graders at the school in my town that made pencils out of sticks on our field trip recently, so that's awesome. I could hook you up with them.
Oh yeah.
Order a couple dozen of those. You know, pretty crude looking, but they'll get the job done because you got a sharper.
This is crap.
Bush league. Bush league.
It looks like it was made by a bunch of middle schoolers.
Do you know who I am? We're third graders. That's a compliment because we're third graders.
So, Tim, tell us about your favorite USA pencils.
Well, my instinct, when I followed instinct, I added two initially to my list and they're both Generals pencils. When I, you know, personally, when I think of American made pencils, Generals is what comes to mind.
Yeah.
You know, putting all the little like definition details aside, as far as what's officially made or, you know, when I think of American pencil companies, I think of Generals and the two that. Well, really before a couple weeks ago, the one that would have jumped out to me is the General's layout pencil, which I have loved for quite some time now. I'm a really big fan of that one. And then now the General's Test scoring 580 is probably my favorite American pencil. I think since talking about Musgrave and when I said that the test scoring was still. Or the Musgrave test scoring was still my favorite. Yeah, not any longer. The Generals. The Generals is just incredible. I use this all the time. That's the one when I tossed my prospector to the floor in frustration when I was doing that stupid paperwork. That's what I picked up. And it's become my, you know, my kind of go to pencil.
So.
And then the last one I added to the list was the Eberhard Faber American, which putting it as far as my as a favorite is kind of loose because I don't really use it. Very much at all. And I just sharpen for this episode. I just want to talk about it. And I know, Johnny, you have some history with this pencil. So. Yeah. So that was my third one to bring in a different company and a pencil that is no longer made here, which I know is not necessarily fair for if people want to buy them. But you're not really missing out too much. There's just kind of a, you know. Yeah. Take it or leave it sort of pencil. But it is. It's, you know, pretty. It's pretty. Has a nice silver ferrule and solid pencil. Yeah.
That's why I like pink erasers. Sorry. I'm also. I'm gonna go with two Generals, also. Probably my favorite American made pencil. It's a toss up between the General Cedar Point, because it's delicious and beautiful and it smells good and it has very good point retention. And the Generals, Kimberly and B, which is just perfect pencil for writing.
I need to pick some of those up. They sell them at my local university in their bookstore there.
They're so nice. Yeah, they're a pretty good deal for the quality. They're usually like a dollar when. Well, Faber Castells might be like the buck 80.
Yeah.
And Sean just said something about that on Contrapuntalism. There was one in film still, and he thought it was interesting they picked the Kimberly because the Kimberly gets no love.
Yeah.
But I think it was on Pencil Talk when Stephen was talking about the Kimberly, when he nailed it, that nothing feels like a general's lead, especially the Kimberly. It's got this nice. Not like a grit, but a chalky drag to it. That's really nice. And the B is very, very good in the darkness, but not smearability department. So that's a really good pencil. If you want to try one out, try the B. And the HB is nice, but the B is something special. And the Cedar Point, I think we all know and love that pencil.
Yeah, definitely.
It's heavy and unfinished and fragrant. And now you can get them at Michael's, apparently, which is really good.
That's where I bought mine.
It used to be kind of hard to find.
And I was at Hobby Lobby or something in Nashville. And that's where I got my first pack of Kimberly's. And I got Kimberly 4B's at a hobby Lobby. Yeah. And I love those. Those are nice.
Yeah, they make a 9xxb, which is a big fat black pencil.
It's awesome.
It's not even gray. It's some sort of like. I don't know. Carbon composite in there, it doesn't smear. And my third one is the new right dudes. America's pencil in natural finish. Because they took off the varnish. Varnish. Now they're naked pencils and they're cheap and they keep getting nicer. So if you're at Target, they always have them at Target. They're like two something for a pack.
Are they always going to be unfinished?
Do you have any idea?
Or are they going to. Is that something that's just kind of temporary?
They took them off the website for a while because when I bought some that were unfinished, I looked them up like, oh, maybe they were a mistake. And now they changed it on the website to say that they're not varnished at all. So I think they're gonna stay that way. I have it. We were talking before. I have a pack that's half varnished and half not varnished, so, you know, collector's item. But they're a very, very good pencil, especially for the price.
Yeah, I imagine that box being like the box in the middle, like when they stopped making the varnished ones. Like he switched. Yeah, like you got the one when they. When they flip the switch and change the production.
That's this kind of magical thing that would happen in Baltimore. Send that one here. But Those are my three. What about you, Mr. Andy?
Well, my top one, of course, is the Palomino Golden Bear.
Can I interject and ask you what color?
Blue.
Really?
I love, love that blue color. And with the orange eraser, I just. Just love that combo.
Excellent.
I. I mean, I like this pencil. When it was still made in Japan or was it Thailand?
Thailand.
Thailand, yeah. Yeah, it was when it was still the California Republic Golden Bear. But I did a big review right after they kind of switched and started selling the. The Palomino branded ones. They sent me a box of. Of several different ones and I, I compared them and they. The difference it. The USA made ones were a little bit. It felt like a little bit wider with a little bit sharper edges, but it wrote almost identically.
I felt like.
And I really, really liked it. Same price, same like thick blue varnish, which I really like, and it's just a really gorgeous pencil. So, yeah, I think that my first skip golden bears were the orange ones and I like that a lot. But then I saw the blue ones and I just fell in love. Same thing with the. With the Palominos as well. The blue ones are. I definitely prefer over the orange ones.
The. On the subject of those Blue golden bears.
Yeah.
Our buddy Mike Dudek over at the maker of the Divide and the Cube and, and he has the Kickstarter project out which we should have talked about which is not really pencil friendly necessarily but it's still a pretty cool project. They're making the Cube Keras Customs with the due deck. I co ordered some golden bears with him and he's going to be giving out free golden bears with purchases of the Divide.
That's super cool.
That's what he's going to throw in is like the freebie with the Divide which is good choice.
Oh yeah, one of those. Are they making an orange? Oh no, for the divide, not the key cube.
Yeah, for the Divide.
Yeah.
The cube is. They're all you know, pen, pen size, uniform, larger pen size.
Yeah. Those that divide is super nice. I, I'm definitely have mine in use right now. Yeah. So though the Golden Bear is I think probably my, you know, it's not, maybe not the best quality pencil ever but it for the price, it's an amazing price with the quality you get for that price is really great. So that may be kind of my all around favorite pencil in general, let alone you know, in, you know, made in the usa. But so like that. I like that one a lot. I had the Musgrave testing 100 down here just because I think I liked the general's test scoring better. But the Musgrave one was also pretty great and I used that one down to a, to a stub and yeah, that's a fantastic pencil as well. I think. What two episodes back we talked about it our first pow.
Three episodes ago.
Three episodes ago, yeah.
Yeah.
And then Ugly Bugly.
Yeah, ugly.
Well if that silver was applied a little bit thicker, I think it would be better.
Yeah.
Don't you think?
You don't.
You don't think so?
Yeah, I don't know. It's one of the things I can't explain why I don't like that pencil. I just really don't like it.
And then the last one was sort of my, my first experience with a general's pencil which is the semi hex. It's also a really good price. It's. I like it just because of the soft edges. I think it's a really like, like middle of the road performer. Is it Johnny, is it you who doesn't like the semi hex?
I like the semi hex a lot.
Who is it who doesn't like it?
I had said something about not liking full hex all the time. There's some. There's some full hex that just. That bugged me. Yeah.
So yeah, the first generals I ever really used and knew about Generals with was the semi hex. So that's kind of an old favorite of mine.
Yeah.
In fact, what's interesting about Generals is so when I worked briefly@pencils.com Charles and I had breakfast with somebody who works at Generals in Redwood City, California where they have an office. And that was sort of my only experience outside of San Francisco with the Bay Area. So I'm probably going to be living in Redwood City because I was like, that's a nice town. So General's Pencils sounds like a nice town. Yeah. General Pencils, I think you have inspired me to live in Redwood City. So. Yeah. Anyhow. Yeah, that's a fantastic pencil. It has nice thick leaded. It's a very classic looking yellow pencil. And I really like the ferrule on it. Has the kind of that double like. Oh. The kind of segmented ferrule with the black lines in it. That's a really, really good looking pencil.
And love that Oregon Trail box that it comes in.
Yeah.
Oh yeah, that's awesome.
Yeah, it reminds me kind of like the old school Dixon pencils, even though that has like scenes from the Revolutionary War, has that same style of printing on it.
Yeah, yeah.
So. So yeah, I was going to kind of go through some of the Facebook group questions or comments that Johnny posted that we're going to be talking about USA made pencils. So I know that Tony Flores really likes Faber Castle, which is no longer made in the US but he also likes Empire and Quill, which are good brands that have been made here.
Let's see.
See, Richard hoffpaul really likes the golden bears. He says the wood is super fragrant, which I agree with. The core is large in diameter and lays down a dark and smooth line. Others may have different opinions, but I wish there was a semi hex version and. Or a resurrection of the triangular golden bear, which definitely. Yeah. That I still. I'm still working my way through a gross of the triangular golden bears and.
And those N dipped ones, those were beautiful.
Thank you for sending me one of those, by the way.
I. Oh, my pleasure.
Hesitate to use it because I just like to look at that ndiv.
Yeah, I used up half of one and I stopped. Yeah, I want to look at this
one for a while and yeah, I had a couple of Those like in 2006, maybe 2007. Yeah, they were pretty great. So let's see what other people said Les Harper likes the Emmahart Weber Ecowriters, which I don't think. I don't actually know anything about that pencil.
They became Earthright when Papermate bought and ruined everything that pencils.
Yeah.
And then they made that for a while and they made a premium version that was black and smooth and actually a nice pencil. And now they make the Mirado Earthright, which is pretty, but it's not cedar.
Yeah.
But it's green.
That's cool.
So, yeah, that's. That's exciting. A lot of the kind of comments of significance there.
A lot of love for the Cedar Point.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's a great pencil.
So we used to go to a theme park called Cedar Point every year in Ohio.
Oh, yeah, I've been there.
Group trip.
That was our eighth grade trip when I was in school.
Yeah. You know, if I was still going to be in Indiana for too long, that would not be a bad drive for all of us. I think, Tim, you'd probably have the longest way to go.
But that's true though. That'd be. I just got tickled there thinking about us meeting up in the middle to ride roller coasters and getting a picture taken like on a roller coaster.
We need to all be holding a Cedar Point pencil in front of the Cedar Point sign.
All right. How long are you still going to be in Indiana? I'll leave you and make this happen.
Time's a waste of. Yeah, yeah. This is gonna make our meetup way difficult.
I know.
No, I'm leaving as of November 30th, so I'm not here for very long. Much longer.
We will find a way.
And hey, if all else fails, maybe, I don't know, maybe. Maybe some summer I can get all of you guys out to San Francisco and we can go eat amazing food and.
Oh, man.
Yeah.
What?
I hate amazing food.
Sucks.
Hang out and play with pencils. No.
Sounds awful.
I don't come out there for that.
Yeah, we can all. We can all like have a slumber party in my like 200 square foot apartment
in a bunk bed.
Yeah, exactly.
That's three. Three beds.
That's what's freaking me out is Fort Wayne where I live now. It has some of the like, least expensive cost of living in the country and I'm going to be moving to one of the most expensive cost of living places in the country. So. Yeah, it's. That's kind of freaking me out a little bit, which I'm sure I'll get over.
But just like, ah, we have the enhanced urban equality of life.
Yes.
Yes.
I enjoy that about living in the city. I like that.
Cool.
So, yeah. Anything else we should say about USA Pencils make more.
Yes.
Yes, definitely.
Come on, Dixon. Yeah.
Yeah. I get jealous of the people in the pen community who are making things, because with pens, you can make an American made, American sourced pen. Like, guys, Keras Customs and Tactile Turn. And then, of course, the Bullet pencil projects that can use American materials. But with pencils, gosh. I mean, just starting doing a Kickstarter and launching an American made pencil is just kind of ironically, way more complicated than making a pen. Well, it's kind of like there's more involved.
It's kind of like the Henry Petroski thing kind of put into action. You know, this is such a globalized process now,
so we'll work on it. And someday we can do the erasable podcast Pencil American Made.
We should come up with, like, a manifesto. We should have an episode where we just talk about a manifesto of what would make the perfect pencil and then challenge somebody to kickstart that.
Oh, my goodness. We have to do this in person with a lot of coffee and beer.
Yes. That'll be our live episode, guys.
Now that will be sponsored by Wild Turkey.
We didn't talk about your. Didn't you get a retweet from Wild Turkey from that episode? Did we ever talk about that?
They did something.
Yeah. They acknowledged us, so we're one step closer to our sponsorship.
We're almost there, guys.
We should probably stop talking about them. Or they're going to be like, why would we sponsor them? They talk about us all the time anyways.
I can't decide whether I like 101 or not, but a sponsorship might sway
Johnny's way on the fence about wild drinking.
It's. You know, I need at least a case or two to decide if it's for me.
You know, it's assertive. It's assertive. I don't know if it asserts the good or the bad.
Yeah.
Depends how much of it you consume.
This has almost become like a bourbon podcast as well.
Well, their rye is also excellent.
Yeah.
See? See sponsor.
Come on, guys, we'll do it.
This is the kind of devotion you should pay for.
You can't buy this loyalty. Wait, yes, you can. Yes, you can.
Yes, you can. There is a way.
Free case here or there. A thousand bucks here or there.
Cool. I guess we could button it up. Tim, where can people find you on the Internet?
You can read my occasional writings@thewritingarsenal.com and I'm on Twitter imwassum and writingarcenal. And then I'm also on Instagram thewritingarcenal.
Johnny After National Novel Writing Month, I should probably be back@pencilrevolution.com a little more often. You can find me on Twitter ensolution and on Instagram onnygamber.
And I am Andy Welfle. I blog@woodclinched.com you can find me on Twitter at awelfley or oodclinched. And this is the Erasable podcast that you have been listening to. We are online@ erasable us. You can find this episode at erasable us 19 or in your favorite podcast directory. You can join our group which is@facebook.com groups erasable. Or you can find us on Twitter at raceablepodcast. So thank you for listening to us blather on about USA Made Pencils, usa, God Bless America and God Bless the Erasable Podcast. Why don't you just worry about yourself
and leave the prospecting up to old Gus Chickens.