This transcript was generated from an audio file by AI, and may contain inaccuracies.
Transcript
Whenever you're ready, Johnny. I'm recording.
Hello, welcome to.
Keep that one.
Hello, and welcome to episode 29 of the erasable podcast. I am on hosting duties tonight. I am Johnny Gamber, and I am here with the two gentlemen who perfected my paperclip, Tim Wasem and Andy Welfle. How are you guys doing?
Pretty good.
I'm great.
Perfect. Say yes.
Perfect.
Because this is. This is overdue and gonna be awesome fun. So tonight we are doing super book club awesomeness for the perfection of the paperclip or for you Brits, Adventures in Stationery by James Ward, who Tim actually talked to on Twitter earlier. Do you want to tell folks about that, Tim?
Yeah, I just kind of, on a whim, went out and reached out to him on Twitter. He's amjamesward, and just told him we were doing this episode and asked if he would come on the show, and he said yes, like, within a couple hours, which is exciting. So we'll have him on sometime in the near future.
Excellent.
I am stoked. We get, like, the best guests. No offense to other podcasts. We get seriously awesome guests. So we're six days late, so should we jump right into our tools of the trade?
Absolutely.
Awesome.
What are you consuming, Andy?
Well, since I. I now live by the bay, I. I'm drinking sea water, and unfortunately, I don't feel very well right now. I don't know if it's because of the seawater, but maybe. Maybe it's because of the drought. I figured because of the drought, I should just start drinking the seawater instead of fresh water.
I wonder if the drought's affecting the salinity of the bay.
Well, the. The bay's always been a little bit, like, less salty than the actual ocean part, and. But there are, like. They're all basically like salt flats. Like, because the bay has dropped a little bit and because a lot of it just kind of gets filtered out. There's. There's like, kind of inward kind of in the. The mid peninsula area. There's just, like, these big open marshes that are disappearing.
Super salty.
It's kind of gross.
Yeah, no, I am drinking. I am actually. I do have a glass of fresh water here, and then I'm drinking some coffee because I slept in a little late and woke up and drank coffee and ate a breakfast bar and talking to you guys.
So it's still morning for you?
It's still. Yeah, it's. It's like 11:50 right now. So.
Are you in your PJs?
I'm wearing a T shirt and some sweatpants. So I'm liking somewhere I'm in a transition phase.
It's like a dressing gown. Yeah.
How about you, Jim? Oh, and I should probably say what I'm writing with. Yeah, I am writing with. I actually have a tombow8900 that a friend of mine went to Japan and I was like, if you see any interesting pencils, bring one back. And so they bought this little three pack of tombows from basically like a Japanese 7 11. They just have tombows and 7 11s there.
That's ridiculous.
Yeah, so mostly I like it. It's an 8900 that kind of like olive green color. And it comes in this three pack with these little clear pencil caps, which are pretty cool.
Oh, sweet.
Yeah.
And so that's. That's what I'm writing with. And I have a Wolpex standing by for later discussion. Nice, Tim.
Well, you know, I live in the mountains as, you know, like life. Life here is a little different than life there. So this might seem weird to you,
but life is old here. Older than the trees.
Exactly. And one thing that we have in abundance in Tennessee is woodchucks. They're just everywhere. They're like all over the place. Kind of like the mountain goats we talked about last time. So I am drinking this. There's not really a name for it because it sort of speaks for itself, but it's just basically the vital fluids of a woodchuck. And you just warm them slightly because otherwise it just. It's disgusting.
If you warm them in the microwave or on the stove if it's too.
Oh, no. Over a campfire.
Campfire, obviously.
Microwave. What is that? Yeah, if you warm it too much or not enough, it's disgusting. But if you warm it slightly, it's fine. Good protein.
I figured you remove it and then put it back into the woodchuck. Sort of like in Star wars where he crawls inside the tauntaun to Torn.
That's disgusting. No, no, it's in my flagon. I keep it in my flagon. Yeah, thanks, Johnny, for that one. That was a good setup. I am actually drinking some. Some Pennsylvania Yingling Lager, and I'm writing with my Midori Bullet pencil loaded with a stub that I made from the Staedtler Norris Eco, otherwise known as the Wopex. Or maybe it's not technically, but it feels an awful lot like a Wopex to not be a Wopex. I'll let Johnny explain that later. But that's what I'M using. What about you, Johnny?
Well, I'm not drinking anything as interesting as you guys. I'm just drinking some cold pressed coffee from Zeke's, our local roastery. It's the Colombian Mesa de los Santos, which is delicious, and I let it steep for like 30 hours. So it's like a stiff drink. It's very good. And I'm actually writing with a really cool pencil that I got weeks ago at TW Pencil Enterprise from Caran d' Ache called the Natura, which is, I think it's. It's clear lacquered, but it's very thin and it has the imprint sort of heat stamped on there, just into the wood, super fragrant.
It's a really nice pencil.
I should get off my butt and
review one of these.
I'm trying to think if I picked one of those up.
If not, I'm gonna order like a pile of them while they're there because I like them. Okay, so now we will do our fresh points. And I'm gonna go first because I've had a lot of coffee and I'm gonna jump on it. So anyone who ordered stickers, who was nice enough to order stickers, thank you, super. A whole ton. And they're all gone. They should have gone out, I think two weeks ago from Baltimore. So if you haven't received them and you're in the U.S. please do send us a message. Because I figure with that many orders, someone's gonna get lost.
And if you haven't received them and you're not in the US Wait another two weeks and then let us know
they fit Australia and Germany.
Yeah.
And the uk but it could be, you know, one hit. One hit Germany and one will in two weeks.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Usps. Sorry for the stamps with the Christmas wreaths. That's all my post office had for some reason for air mail stamps. Although I think the lady was mad at me for something. I looked at the time on my cell phone or something like that, but one was already lost and we replaced it. So if folks haven't ordered, then we have probably a good 160 or 170 left of the small ones. And I think we're down to less than 10 of the bumper stickers.
No, man. Yeah.
Yeah. A buddy of mine put it on his guitar case. It looks really awesome.
Oh, I did that too. I put on my guitar case and on my. My MacBook,
I'm gonna do the only thing that's cooler and put it on a base case.
So.
Yeah. And also, if Folks don't follow us on social media, which is just weird. Andy and I got to meet two weeks ago, which was so awesome. So to answer the question, Andy is definitely taller in real life. Like, I thought you were joking. I walked in and looked at the store. We gave. We had a hug. I'm like, whoa, you're like, six inches taller. I'm not that short. No. That was super awesome.
That was so much fun. Tim, you were there in spirit.
Yeah, I was happy to be. The least I could do.
We took a picture, which I'll make sure is within the show notes of Johnny and me, and then I pulled up a picture of Tim from Facebook on my phone and got our picture taken with that. So he was there in spirit and on iPhone, oddly enough.
We were wearing the same shirt.
Yeah. This blue shirt with a pencil in it.
Yeah.
But this podcast about pencils.
Bizarre.
Yeah. It was a big day. We met each other. I met Dr. Hans, met Caroline Weaver, hung out the shop for a while. We were there for maybe a couple hours. I don't remember if we have run this bayou, Tim, but we kind of have a great idea for a. An episode. So some summer, Caroline and Caitlin are going to go off and take a vacation, and they're going to fly us to run the shop for a week, and we're going to just. We're just gonna run the shop and just, like, record interviews with people who come in about it and. Yeah, so. So that will be a. That will be a special. We're just going to, like, sleep on some cots in the middle of the store for. So.
Yes.
Come back. Where'd all the pencils go?
What? We found a bar down the block. There's a restaurant underneath.
So we're covered in graphite.
Yeah.
What? Pencils?
Graphite. Handprints on our face. What'd you guys do?
What?
Maybe we can get a videographer and make it, like, a reality miniseries.
We'll have to bring TJ in.
Yeah. Get TJ down here, too, and we'll just make this.
Oh, man. It's gonna be a Frontline episode about this.
So Johnny and I already. Like, a couple customers came in, and we started asking them questions about what they were looking for and upsold them on some black wings and some fancy pencils. So it's. I am really amazed how much walk in traffic that place had.
Yeah.
Like, when we were there for two hours, I bet there were, like, a dozen people who just kind of walked in to just check it out.
Wow.
Yeah. Met Caroline's protege, Amelia, who's the child of a neighbor who comes in and she just. She was looking at pencils. She. Caroline had some of those. Like, they're thinner than bridge pencils. I can't remember what they're for, but, like, the really, really thin ones. And she was, like, writing with them and trying to figure out how to sharpen them. So we talked about pencils for a while. Yeah, it was. It was so much fun. It was lots of fun.
Like, breathtaking.
Yeah.
It's a pencil store. So I went back up that. That Friday and encountered a lot more walk in traffic, which was awesome.
Yeah.
How many times have you been there, Johnny?
Three
seemed like more.
That's because every time I go, I buy too much stuff. The first time, I had a lot of self control. Two weeks ago, I did not have any self control.
I spent a good.
That's shameful.
I spent a good $60 in wooden pencils, like, individual ones. So that's. That's a lot of wooden pencils.
I spent 100 there that week. And not including the other places I went in New York. Bad boy. But you figure, you know, what's a hundred dollars get you in? Fountain pens.
It was really great meeting Dr. Hans, too. He brought me a little. A little goody pack of stuff, including a. A pack of those. And I never say. Say it right. Kinokanoia. Is that how you say it? No clue. Like, there's my two favorites so far of the index cards that I've tried out are the dot dash cards from. From Natco and then these Kinokanoe, like, information cards. And June Thomas sent me a pack of the dot dash, and then Dr. Hans brought me some. Some of the other ones. So that was super cool. He's a really interesting guy.
He's so nice.
Yeah. Well, it's nice to see little tours
around New York, which is awesome because I know nothing about New York. It's a very, very good time.
Yeah.
Yeah, he was.
He was fascinating.
So we have to have Dr. Hans on the show.
We should have Dr. Hans on the show.
He has a lot of pet pencils.
Yeah. And then Johnny and I had some drinks and then realized that we have to. We had to get him to Penn Station real quick.
Yeah. I almost fell running down the steps at the train station.
So we. We ubered it.
God bless Amtrak and their convenience.
I'm so glad you were not taking an Amtrak around Boston last week.
Yeah. Frankie was actually on the train the day before that and was supposed to go the day after that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I also. I know right where that curve is. It's kind of frightening.
Yeah.
I said this on Facebook. We've seen that conductor like, a million times on the Northeast Corridor.
Hmm.
Because he's got the beard. Some of the guys that work on Amtrak kind of dressed apart a little bit, which I appreciate. Like, cool beard or carry a pocket watch or something.
Yeah.
I still love Amtrak.
Yeah. It seemed like it was kind of a semi freak kind of thing. Did he. This is, like, totally off topic, but I've been kind of out of loop for a couple days. Did he. Or like, the speed the train was going at, Was that on purpose or did that kind of, like, get out of control or do they know it?
They're investigating reports that something hit the front of the train, that the windshield was broken, and supposedly there was another train that reported having something thrown or shot at it.
Oh, man.
It was double frightening.
Yeah.
There are parts here in Maryland where you cross the bay with nothing on the side. So a little derailment would mean a sinking train.
Oh, man. So anyway, this is pencil podcast, guys.
Yeah. No, trains and pencils go together naturally, I think.
Yeah. Just ask Cody Williams.
Yeah.
Amen.
So another cool thing that Caroline was nice enough to do was we did what I think is the first graphite based stationary blog interview. There are a lot of hyphens in there. So the thing I said I would do, I finally formatted. So if you haven't read it yet on Pencil Revolution, there's a cool interview that Caroline did asking or answering really nosy questions about her own pencil preferences. And she wrote down the answers in pencil and I scanned them, so they're all up there. But I haven't typed up the tags yet.
You have to come up with a fancy name for that. Like. Like, Cheryl from Strikethrough has the typecast where she would, you know, typewrite it and put it. Put a blog post in there.
Yeah.
Elizabeth from Little Flower Petals has done pencil casting before.
Yeah.
Which is awesome because she has cool handwriting.
Yeah.
My handwriting, not so much.
So yours is in a pencil cast, but it's like an interview, Like a back and forth.
Yeah. The questions are written in her handwriting because mine were all on one page because I didn't have the foresight to do it the other way. My handwriting's not great. It's like Catholic school handwriting.
She's a very. Caroline has a really unique handwriting. Yeah, definitely. Her logo is in her handwriting.
Yeah. And she has new pencils, which are cool. Did you get one when you were there? The new Caroline Weaver pencils that are in yellow?
Yeah, they're pretty.
They're really cool. I need to buy some like this because they're. They're embossed, but sort of like in a. In, like, her unique handwriting. So. So somebody made, like, a custom, like, punch embosser with I don't know what to call it. Like, yeah, somebody made a. Like, a press just custom to her.
Her logo.
And it sounds like she didn't pay, like, too ridiculous money for it. So I. I totally need to get some of those.
I want to get one in my handwriting. But then people would look at it and be like, what the hell is that? Pencil. God. Pencil revolution. Jeez. So my only other thing that I have to mention is that I have, like, all these new pencils to review.
Me too.
And, like, I've been pretty bad about reviewing stuff in general lately, so I don't know if this is gonna happen. I'm kind of overwhelmed. But I got to be a reviewer for massdrop now. So I've got this solid brass mechanical pencil I have to review. So did you talk to Kat? No, she was. She got replaced.
Oh.
Like, this week after. I was like, oh, what does that mean? So I hope it's good things. Yeah, that caused the switch, but, like, man, that brass pencil is something else. It weighs, like, five pounds. Getting a workout?
I got an email from somebody there at some point, and I didn't find anything yet I wanted to review, but I was like, can we stay on the. On the back burner?
And you should get one of those modern fuel pencils to review. They're really nice.
The modern field pencils.
They call them modern fuel. They did the raw aluminum one before, so they sent me the brass one.
Oh, yeah.
There's only a $5 price difference between the two, which strikes me as odd, because if nothing else, the brass one's more expensive to ship. It's heavy. Like, really, like, wow, this is really, seriously heavy pencil. You don't have to press down on it. That's half the pressure, twice the speed. Horrible. Okay, well, I'm rambling so much. So do you or too much? Would you like to go next, Mr. Andy?
Yeah.
So.
So, yeah, it was. I went to New York for work, and there was just a whole bunch of people I wanted to meet. Johnny. Johnny at the top of that list. But I also met the Baron Fig guys, Adam and Joey. That was really cool. They walked over, and we went and had coffee and talked about stuff Some stuff I can't talk about and some stuff that they gave me. Some of those new. What are they called? The.
It's not tube rivers, the path river and grass. I just finished one today. They're so pretty.
Yeah, they're really pretty. So yeah, those are some super sharp guys and they have a lot going on. We talked a lot about pencils. Just about like I sort of explained the history of as I saw it, of black Wings and you know why it's sort of like this has this big mythos to it. So we talked about that. We talked about just different pencil brands and just. Yeah, it was. They're super interesting. So there's that. I met Harry Marks who I think we have all communicated with before. Tim, you just sent something to Harry, didn't you?
Yeah, I sent him a sampler of some pencils. He was. He's a fiction writer and he was looking for pencils to write longhand with for like long form writing. And I was just trying to help him find something that fit his. He had some pretty like kind of specific parameters that he was trying to fit. And so I sent him a sampler of things to.
What'd you send?
Oh, I have to look at the picture. I sent him a lot of stuff. I sent him a layout. I sent him a Kimberly B. Sent him a Palomino hp, I think. And yeah, seriously, I was looking at the picture. I sent him like a dozen.
So I think he said he really liked that Kimberly. I'm trying to remember.
Yeah, that was as of now that was. Or the last I heard, I should say that was his favorite. He was trying to find something, you know, kind of like the eternal search of something that has a. Holds a. Holds a point and has a dark line like everybody wants that. But he was, he was trying to find something that fit that. And I sent him. See, I got the picture right here. I sent him a General's layout, Kimberly B, a Musgrave test scoring, a general's test scoring, a Mitsubishi HB High Uni, a Nanodea HB Force Choice Palomino B, a 9850 Mitsubishi like the one we reviewed. That maroon one, a Tombow Mono 2B, a Tombow Mono B and a Tombow Mono 100 hp.
Damn.
Yes,
I sent him a pretty, pretty extensive collection and he sent me in exchange. He had a dozen Blackwing MMX that weren't his thing at all. So he wasn't going to use those. He sent me that dozen in exchange for that dozen samples that I Sent him. Yeah. I think it was a good deal for both of us. That's awesome. I hope it helps him find hopes. Help. I hope it helps him find one that fits his need. If pencils what he needs, maybe, maybe he should stick to what he's been using. But I was happy to help him try to narrow it down.
He's a. Yeah, he's a really cool Johnny. If you think I'm tall and tall in real life.
I saw the picture.
Yeah. Harry is probably a good 2 or 3 inches taller than me. So he's like 6 foot 5 maybe.
Yeah.
So yeah, he's super nice guy. We walked around Facebook a little bit. Check that out.
Cool.
Yeah, so it was. I mean it was a good trip. I haven't been to New York since 2007 and just gotta go. Ate some really good food. I stayed right in the East Village, which is really cool. Just right near everything. Speaking as before of CW Pencil Enterprises, did you guys see the Pencil of the Month club is a thing now?
Yes.
Yeah, that's super cool.
It's a good price too.
Yeah. I loved like my first sort of experience with pencil things and pencil blogging in general was because of a Pencil of the Month club. And I know people have been talking about it for just years after they stopped doing it. And at some point I was kind of thinking about trying to do that, but then I realized I'm not like, I would just be like buying dozens myself and splitting them up and sending them out. So Caroline has. Definitely has the capacity and the will and the audience built up to do this. So yeah, so it's. You can buy it in three month, six month or one year increments. And it is $5 a month. And it looks like she is sending
you
a really great pencil on the first day of the month for a whole year if you choose the 12 month. Obviously included will be a specialty chosen pencil, beautifully packaged and containing a little card to tell you about what makes it special and occasional little surprises. So it's like per pencil kind of expensive, but it's really about sort of the curation and the intentionality behind it. And truly Caroline has pencils that I would go so far as to say like nowhere else in the US can you buy some of these.
Yeah, every time I go there I'm like, I never heard of that.
Yeah. And like there's a whole brand that she carries. It's Naturaj N A T A R A J And I'd never heard of them before. She had some really? And I bought a whole dozen of these really gorgeous. These tombow recycled pencils where they're brightly colored, but they're stained instead of lacquered. So it's like. Like a. Yeah, like you can see like a blue wood grain. It's just gorgeous. So I don't know where she gets all of these, but it's amazing. She does a super good job. So I can't wait to see this pencil of the month club. I hope that she'll come and post about it in the group so we can all kind of have a discussion around this. It's pretty great. So, yeah, I'll have a link to that in show notes, which is of course at erasable U.S. 29, man. One away from 30. Speaking of nothing. Well, this isn't anything in particular. So we were talking a little bit about. There's a brand of writing instrument called Napkin, which is a funny name. They sell them over at Pen Chalet. Who's. They mostly sell pens, but they have some mechanical pencils. They're a really good sponsor of the pen Addict. They started carrying these three pencils made by Napkin, and they're called forever pencils. Sometimes like forever. Like graphiteless pencils, something like that there. I'm still trying to kind of figure out the science behind it. You guys read about these, right? They. They have some sort of a metal alloy tip, and it basically lays down a thin layer of oxidization onto the paper. So it doesn't work on all paper. And it is essentially like it just goes forever. Like you can conceivably never run out of way to write with it. And it's. It's interesting so far. It's really cool looking. Like Napkin. It's. They're clearly there to like design something neat and it doesn't perform super well. I haven't quite figured out where there would be a use case where this would be the best thing to do, but it's. It's fun to try out. So I. I'm trying the Prima, which basically looks like a chopstick or like a knitting needle or something like that. And they have other ones too. They have. They have one that's really gorgeous and they all look beautiful, but like. Yeah, like one of them is $100 for something that doesn't write super well. But yeah, this one is like 30. I think maybe $35. I have to look. And it's. It's fun to play with. But I. Yeah, it's definitely not a. Not a pencil replacement. Last thing I'll mention is Sticker Mule, who makes our stickers. Just started a new kind of like subsite called Button Frog and they. They had a special going. So I printed 50 erasable buttons and actually I saw I was sending something to Will Fengy, the host of. Co host of my other podcast. So I just included one in there because I just had them with me. So I feel a little bad. I think Will has. Will has one before you guys. Do I need to.
I'll get over it. Eventually. I saw his. I was like, does he have a button? I had forgotten about him. So, like, I saw his picture. I was like, how the hell does he have buttons? I didn't even know he had buttons. When I remembered, like, I was talking about Tim is.
Tim is driving to Shelbyville. Yeah. Taking them away from him.
I'm coming for you. Like, jump him on the way out of school.
Steal his bag there. I was just. I needed something just quick and dirty and circular because I was just making these real quick. And so I used the design from the older gray sticker that we made and they're like two and a half inches in diameter, which is bigger than usually. I like buttons. I usually like the 1 inch buttons, but at the moment they're only offering that one size. But so I have. We have 50 of them. I'm going to send some to you two guys and then we'll figure out how to put the rest of them up for sale a little bit just as a limited run. And then if they seem popular and it seems like something that maybe we can get different sizes from Sticker Mule or no Button Frog, we can make more of them. So yeah. Swag, swag, Swag.
Swag, baby swag.
So that is all of my fresh points. How about you team?
We talk about bullet pencils an awful lot and kind of where most people like with bullet pencils, place they start if it's not vintage until the twist and the bullet pencil is it TT and ST came out is the Midori. And I bought a Midori early on in the show. I think I talked about it one of the first episodes and I remember Andy talking to me about buying, you know, saying make sure you get the refills and stuff like that because they have this semi proprietary refill. But I've learned over time that you can basically cram most things into it.
Really?
Yeah. I mean, unless it's thin, as long as it's like. I usually. I have the proprietary refill in sometimes, but the things I most often have in are a golden bear or a 602. Usually a golden bear is the most common, but lately I've had. I just put a new one in, actually, but a wopex stub. Actually, I cut it too short this time, so I used my Keras Customs tube of plastic that they use to. So you can fit different refills into one of their pens, and I cut a section of it off to fill in the gap below the wopec stub that I'm using. But I was just gonna mention that. That I think that is. I don't know. I mean, I like all the bullet pencils that are out there right now, but outside of the vintage ones, I really love the Midori. I think they did a really great job of keeping it lightweight.
Yeah.
And small. You know, it's not overly kind of industrial or something, and sometimes that kind of gets in the way. So I just. I've really, like, recently re. Fallen in love with Midori.
Yeah.
Mention that.
I love the. Yeah, I love how lightweight it is and just that stamped brass, and it's really hardy, which is nice. It's probably not, like, tactical, like the. Like the twist or the st. Tt, but, yeah, it's a really great pencil. I actually lost mine sometime, and I have no idea where it is, so I need to get another one.
Actually, speaking of them or speaking of losing, I didn't really lose one, but I was actually thinking of looking into another one because I really like the white version they have. I was gonna look into that because I have the brass one, which I talked about early on. One of our early episodes was about my caustic hands that, like, tarnished my brass bullet pencil, which now, in the last, like, two weeks, I've been using a lot. It started to sort of balance out, and now it's looking really awesome, and, like, the friction from stuff in my pocket is starting to get shiny again in certain spots, and it looks really great. I was switching to that white one because I think group member Chris Zeitz, I guess is how you pronounce it. But he's pretty active in the Facebook group and talk to him on Twitter a lot. And he's actually in our stationary fantasy baseball team, but he has a white one. They look really awesome.
That's cool.
The other thing I was going to mention. Oh, go ahead.
I was gonna say they're. They're weird color combinations because there's, like, it's brass and then white and then brown, Right?
Yeah. Yeah.
And I know. I'm actually a little jealous Torsten has, has like an orange one and I think a blue one that are limited editions and have like other company names printed on them.
Oh yeah.
So I, yeah, I've been trying to figure out how to get one that's. That's actually used much like an original bowl of pencil where, where it's being used for advertising purposes. So someday I'm going to track one of those down and have it. But it seems like they're pretty hard to find.
Yeah, I've seen a picture of those somewhere and those do look pretty awesome.
Yeah.
Next thing I was going to mention is that Charles Berlsheimer posted something on his Instagram. I guess he was on his way to some business trip and had a few prototypes with him that are collaborations between Pencils.com or Palomino, whatever you want to call it and metal shop ct. John they're making what looks to me like a perfect pencil kind of COVID sort of thing like so you can put a pencil in your pocket and it clips into your. That clips onto your breast pocket which looks awesome. We'll leave that. I don't know anything about it but I just want to mention that that is really. They looked pretty cool. We'll have to see the details and see what it's like, see when it's coming out. And also the price is going to be, you know, important for me because there are things like that that are pretty affordable and I don't know if I'll want to go out and spend, you know, like overspend on something like that when I can get one for cheaper. But I'm super excited to find out about them because they look pretty, pretty interesting.
I'm interested to know when. So I've actually never used a perfect pencil like thing like that. When you have like a full sized pencil, like a just brand new pencil in there, how do you clip it to your shirt pocket? Because it seems like it would just be way too long.
The Faber Castell ones are all tiny. The ones.
Yeah, you don't. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I really. That's the only answer is that it's for pencils that are. Have been used down a couple inches because if it's full size, I mean it's a cap but I mean you can get caps for like a dime these packages so. But it's just kind of a high quality cap that you can use to put something in your pocket. Rare but it would have to be a shortened pencil.
Yeah, that makes sense.
And the last thing aside, I was gonna mention Like Johnny, that I have like a million reviews to come because I have all this stuff piled up that I want to write about that I've gotten from various places that I'm really excited about. So this summer we're gonna be. As of the end of next week, I'll be done with school for a month and a half. So use some time during Henry's nap times that I'll be writing reviews over the summer. But I did. I finished my master's degree recently. Thanks. Thanks guys. Last week, yeah, I was, it's. I was really happy to get it finished up and I got some nice, very nice gifts, including Johnny who sent me a copy of the Days of Henry Thoreau which I'd been wanting to read for like two years, which I was like overwhelmed by happiness when I saw that come in. I was like that is so perfect.
That's awesome.
I'm going to read that this summer. That was really so. Thanks, Johnny.
My pleasure.
I got a couple gifts and made some stationary purchases with the gifts from family, one of which which I'll only mention in like one sentence because it's a fountain pen. I don't want to scandalize. This podcast is. I got a Lamy 2000 beep which I'm just gonna leave it there. It's all right. It's pretty amazing. It's. It's outstanding. But I'll move on. I won't. I won't dwell on it.
Did you get.
But I also. Oh yeah, definitely. The black one. Yeah, the. The macrolon pretty and is really awesome. And besides that paper wise which this relates to us is I got a Nanami seven Seas writer notebook with a graduation gift which is a notebook made. It's made in Japan but it's sold from California and it's made with Tomo river or Tomoe river paper. And I first heard about it on the. I guess it was the Pan Addict.
That's where I first heard about it.
Yeah. But it was because I couldn't remember because it was mentioned by J. Robert Lennon who is one of the co hosts of the Lunchbox podcast. And I couldn't remember if he had mentioned it on Lunchbox or just on Pen Addict but he has used it for drafting stories and novels and so he had mentioned it. That's how I found out about it. But it's a. A notebook that's made with Tomoe river paper. And because that paper is so thin, it actually has 480 pages in it, which is awesome. It's a ton. But at the same time, that's 200 or 480 pages. But I'm putting it side by side with the little bobsleit notebook that Johnny gave me, the. What's it called? Six by four. And it's like, not even twice as big. It's still pretty slender.
So I wonder, with paper that thin, if you filled up all 480 pages with graphite, if it would thicken the notebook a little bit.
Yeah, and actually John J. Robert Lemon talked about that on the podcast that once he's filled it up, that it's actually. Yeah, it is fatter. You actually see it expand because it's so thin.
That's amazing.
I've used it with fountain pen ink, and it, of course, is great because that's what it's known for. But also there are some pencils that are just awesome on it. And the one, appropriately, that has been my favorite with it is the Wopex. You barely have to touch the paper and you can just write. And of course, the. I was gonna talk about this later, but the Wopex has, like, an eternal point. It's like never, you know, like, never wears down. And it works so well on this paper, which I was not expecting at all. I was expecting the Wopex to be, like, really light, but because the Wopex is so dense, you can write on it forever. So they're really nice notebooks. I guess you could say they're on the pricey side because of how much you have to pay for one notebook. But at the same time, it's twice the size of a Rhodia or, you know, it's so many pages that it's actually a really good deal. So I would really recommend it. If you haven't tried the Tomoe river paper, it's something special. It's like cream color. And the notebook, it's cream colored. And they have a 7 millimeter rule, which is perfect. It's not. It's like. I think it's somewhere in between College ruled and Wide ruled.
That is really nice.
Which is really comfortable. Yeah.
Graph paper is usually like a 5 millimeter rule. So this is just a little wider than that, which is nice.
Yeah. So I would highly recommend it. And it seems like a pretty small operation. I mean, the website, and I know it's new because this company is new, but it feels like it was made in, like, the mid-90s. But I got the notebook, and then they have a thing they actually call the cheap cover, which is just like a plastic slipcover. Because the notebook doesn't have a really thick, like moleskine style cover for. It's kind of like a cardboard. Which probably would be fine on its own, but I went ahead and got it because it was like 250 or something. So go check that out if you haven't. They're really beautiful notebooks and they'll, you know, they'll last you a really long time. Excited? I'm excited to use it over the summer with some stories and stuff. So that's all I got.
Now, we didn't do a pencil of the week last week, so we have one this week which a lot of people do not like and a lot of people like myself very much like. This is the Staedtler wopex, which is the wooden pencil extrusion, which I guess should be pronounced woopex. I'm not going to say woopex. I'm going to say wopex.
You already invented a plural version of wopex.
Oh, I didn't invent that. It was Sean or Steven or Matthias. Someone was talking about another blog. I just kind of stole it. Okay. Yeah, that's perfect. Wolfex. And it sounds like Santa's ninth reindeer. This one is very sharp antlers. So this pencil is made of an extrusion of. Is it wood flour? It's wood flour mixed with plastic. Not unlike those horrible eagle pencils that we had in the 80s. But this one's a lot more dense and it's not flexible and it's heavy and just. It's right. It's better. It's better in every way. Plus they still make them, which is, you know, a bonus. But they've been out in Europe for a while. I think they came out in like 2009 in Paper World or something. And they're only a little more recently available in North America, I think, in the last two years. So ours are green with an eraser, but, you know, it's a really good eraser and the feral is like, you know, we'll talk more about that. But yeah, if folks don't know about it much, I have a review up and Matthias has a lot of information on Bleichdift and Gunter has even more on Lexi Kalliker. So we can put those links in the show notes. It's a great pencil. What do you guys think of that pencil, Tim? Told you it's great.
I'd have to agree with you. I used to be in that camp of people who were like, I don't get it. I don't understand why this pencil is so, like, why is this a big deal? Why is this nice? Admittedly, I was in that camp and now I've definitely been converted in the last week of playing with it, and now I really, really love it. And I think that the main thing that for me, like, there. I mean, I like it overall, but the specific thing about it that I like is the weight of it. Because you have this melted plastic wood combo, which I guess is like 70% wood or something like that, that because it's so dense, it has a nice weight to it. You know, like, I've noticed that. That it's. It's a little heavier. And so. And part of my. The reason for me changing my thoughts on it might because of how well it did in the 7Cs rider. And I think the weight had something to do with that. So it's kind of a heavier pencil a little bit. But I like it. It's so. It's weirdly smooth. You think it's going to be scratchy and it's so smooth. And I guess that's maybe because of the density of the barrel that it kind of insulates any scratchiness maybe well.
And I know and like you, I really do love the weight and I like the kind of like, velvetiness of the. Of the outside lacquer, slash rubber or whatever it is. And. And I think. I think that it's a little like the. I know the lead is reformulated a little bit. I think Charles talked a little bit about this when he was on. But in order to, like, stick inside that barrel of wood, it needs to, like, kind of merge with it a little bit more. So the lead is a little bit reformulated in order to be. To. To be able to be put in there because it has a different sort of, like, fluxiness to it. I think it needs to be a little bit more flexible, from what I heard. So, yeah, I love the weight. I love the look and just like the tactile feel of it. I think that. I think that why. So I would probably give it a B. And I think that's mostly because it's a little bit lighter than I generally like. And it's also kind of hard to sharpen. You can't run it through, like, a classroom. Friendly. For example, as we talked about when we first started talking about Wolpex in one of the early episodes, you have to use a sharpener with a little W on it. That kind of comes with it. And Johnny, I know you are the one who explained that to Me,
I don't really understand it. Yeah, I haven't found that it works better, but I found a couple cranksharpers that work pretty well from Delhi. One of them is. It's a long point. It's not classroom friendly long point, but it's pretty long. And I don't know why. Like there's. There are two different finishes in the wopecs. Their European one is thicker and very rubbery and sort of almost has like glitter in it. And then when they release the green ones over here, they're a little more like clicky and a lot drier. And those. You can get into one of those sharpeners and get the auto stop to work. But the European one just baffles the auto stop and you've lost 2.2 inches of pencil and then broken it to boot.
I found. I found that out the hard way.
Yeah. Matthias has a bunch of articles on how to sharpen them. He gets some. Some nice points on his. Yeah, plus he likes the knife sharp too.
Johnny, I look at those.
Yeah, Johnny, you did. You did something to one of your Wolfex the other day.
Yeah. I've seen people peel them. So I peeled one and I also cut off the ferrule and cut off the eraser. So it was just totally naked. And Charlotte picked it up off the table and put the ferrule back on and put the eraser back in the ferrule and said she fixed it.
How nice.
I also.
I did it to a neon one, which was stupid because I have a million green ones, but I don't have a million neon ones. Well, I do, but not a million neon orange. I might have 10 dozen of the neon ones like right next to me.
I remember when Staples had that big wopex sale and everybody went a little crazy.
Well, I bought seven dozen and they were all broken. So Staples sent me another seven dozen and they were also all broken, but they were like, that is. Just keep them all. We'll charge you for one.
Now you have 14 dozen broken pencils.
Yeah. So whenever I shared them with people, I'm like, I didn't give you the broken ones. They're all broken. I actually gave you a better pack than the ones I kept, so don't hate me. But yeah, cool.
Awesome.
What grade would you give it, Mr. Tim?
I would. I was prepared to give it a B plus, but now I'm tempted to give it an A because yeah, I've just kind of been a bit convert and now I'm sort of smitten by the idea of Wopex 2B pencil, which I just found on Amazon, which there are. I didn't know was a thing until as we were recording. So Staedtler makes a Wopex 2B which I really want to try.
That's awesome.
They're orange and they don't come with a ferrule, but there's a 12 pack, which they're like 15 in free shipping on Amazon.
That's not a bad price for those.
Actually. It's not bad and I'm sure they're not like super common. So maybe it's coming from somewhere far away. It says it would be delivered if we order it today. It would be delivered between June 16th and July 8th. So I'm guessing it's coming from overseas somewhere.
Yes. Staedtler's really, really strict about what they'll send to different countries. They won't sell us those Wopexes Wopecs. And they won't sell us, Norris, no matter what you do and how badly you beg.
Still with Americans?
Yeah. So I, yeah, I'd give it an A, I think just I've been kind of converted by the weight and they're so smooth. They're much lighter than I usually like, but they're just fun. So give it an A. I would
love to give it an A because I don't know, it's very good example
of what it is.
Yeah, it's supposed to be an eco pencil and it's at least as green as all the other pencils. And I find that it's. You know, some of the cycled wood pencils are just a pencil with no paint on them. Like whatever.
It's pencil, but whatever is the non wooden part of it, will it like degrade?
I don't know. I know there's. There's a thing in there where there's palm oil involved somehow and the process which people have brought up as being non ecologically friendly. But was it Gunter? I think Gunter's actually had conversations with the people at Staehler, if I understand right. And the palm oil is part of why this pencil doesn't smear. It adheres to the paper really well because it hardly ever smears. It doesn't transfer to the other page, but it's a little difficult to erase, which is fine with me. They're really good for like pocket notebooks and planners and things like that. You guys want to start our main topic, our book club of the perfection of the paperclip.
Yay.
Mr. James, as you mentioned earlier, we might get to get on the show, which we saw.
That would be super cool. We've had some really good response of people reading it and buying it based off our affiliate links and others who have gone to an independent bookstore to buy it. That's even better. So, yeah, lots of people. People buying this. I actually kind of broke one of my rules, and I wrote in the margins, which I don't usually do. Yeah, in pencil, definitely. I actually kept a. One of those little Ticonderoga golf pencils by my bedside, so it's kind of a crappy writing experience in the book. But, like, it's a small, portable thing.
They're so adorable, though.
They really. They're so cute.
Just like, give them out of the bathroom or something.
I had a dream about those the other night.
You had a dream about them?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I had this, like, super strange dream of, like, being at a movie theater for some reason, and I was trying to sneak in a bottle of wine, and all of my students were at the movie. Like, all of them. And one of them. And one of them was passing out pencils, and it was in, like, a box of those mini. Those mini Dixons is what they had. It was really weird. I don't really. That's, like. I usually don't remember my dreams. That's, like, 100% more than I usually remember. But, like, it stuck with me. It was really weird.
I wonder if teachers have that, like, as an anxiety dream. Like, they're trying to do something kind of, like, kind of trashy, and all of a sudden, the students are there.
I was pulling my flask out in math class. Students all pulled their phones out, were gonna take a picture of me.
Yeah, I had, like, 80 of my students were at this movie theater
just so happened to be. Yeah.
What movie was it?
I don't remember. Something black and white. So they wouldn't have been there in real life. So
do you guys want to talk about. This is kind of a long.
The book. We have a book?
Yeah.
Like, favorite. Well, each chapter was a topic, sort of. So what were some of the chapters you guys really enjoyed? Learned a lot about?
I mean, I have to admit, and I feel a little sheepish saying this, but, like, I feel like I knew most of the stuff in the pencil chapter.
Oh, yeah, man.
Yeah. So, like, that was. That was sort of my least favorite. Well, one of my least favorite chapters, just because, like, it was nice to see things reinforced and talked about. But I definitely learned a lot more, like, in the pen chapter and the paper Chapter.
The paper chapter is awesome.
Yeah, the paper chapter was really great, I think. Oh, man. I don't even know what my favorite between, like, the pen and the paper chapter was, but both of them were just fantastic. He talked a lot about moleskins in the paper chapter, which is really good.
Yeah, that was a good transition. Yeah, the China thing.
Yeah. He talked a lot about the. The differences between parchment. I didn't. I guess I never even really knew what the difference between, like, parchment and papyrus was. And that was. That was really interesting. Parchment is based. Let me. Let me see if I'm remembering this correctly. Parchment is based on, like, animal skin.
Right.
And then papyrus is more like what we would consider. It's a little bit closer to what we would consider, like, wood pulp paper, just not wood. But I never realized that wood pulp paper was such a difficult thing to achieve back in the day. Like, so many people tried and failed to, like, you know, grind the wood fine enough and then, you know, produce something that was. That was smooth and white enough to be. To write on. So, yeah, just. Just. Just reading. Just reading some of the elaborate ways that they needed to just, like, push out the paper pulp in order to make paper. Excuse me. The wood pulp in order to make paper just seems like a giant pain in the butt. Yeah.
Yeah, that was. We mentioned this a couple episodes ago, but that was definitely a huge takeaway from that paper chapter was the part where he's talking about how papers made and then about how people are freaking out about moleskins being made in China. Yeah. He's like, hey, hey, folks. You know, papers from. They basically invented paper. Like, the way we make paper now is. Because of. That was like. That is in. Yeah, like, made in China does not necessarily always mean quality problems. Yeah, most of the time it doesn't. You know, it's just like. It's the world we live in, so just get over it. You know, sometimes you're really. I know there's like, the whole issue of the labor and stuff of making things there, which is an issue. Like, could be an issue or whatever, but the quality, necessarily, I mean, that's just kind of silly. Yeah, that's just part of that. Like, we are America. We are the greatest ever. Like, everything we make is better than everything you make, which is not the case, you know, so there are a lot of great things made there and a lot of things in this book that are made there, frankly. So that was really interesting takeaway. And I also really enjoyed the discussion of paper sizes, which we referred to about like the kind of international or intended to be international paper sizes. Which were these? The author explains these. I forget what the. I guess a one is the first size. Right. And then everything from there on is a half of that. I can just kind of like perfect ratio.
Yeah, I think I. So I have that page open and it was on page. Turn to page 80. One of your books.
Sounds familiar.
Yeah. At this time only three countries. Burma, Libya and the US have not adopted the international papers in the International System of Units. Usa, Burma, Burma. SI or metric system is their official system of weights and measures. They go on to talk about like how Grandpa Simpson. The metric system is the tool of devil. My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's the way I like it. Grandpa Simpson. That's pretty funny. So he definitely pontificates, and rightly so about the ISO 216 system for paper, which is a five, a six, that kind of thing. ISO 216 system. So it's not named very well, I should say so. Yeah. He talks about. I can't remember when we talked about this last time. Did we talk about how legal pads came to be? I think we did.
I think we referred to it briefly. Yeah, I thought that was really interesting too. That.
Yeah, go ahead. So, yeah, a judge would like rule his own paper pads and that came to be known as a legal pad, which is pretty, pretty amazing.
And even the like legal pads are typically yellow. And the reason they were yellow is that they were originally made from scraps that they would like mix together and they would dye them yellow so they'd all be the same color.
Yeah.
Which is really interesting. Which.
So yeah, when I was reading. There's some. There's some heavy stuff in this book. Like some. For example, the guy, Thomas Hawley, who was a. And kind of a key figure in the development of legal pads, the company that he formed around that, Ampad, actually he misappropriated funds. He misappropriated $35,000 in 1903, which is $35,000 a lot of money now, let alone in 1903. So he fled to Canada. Yeah, it's a lot of drama and it's funny. I mean Ampad is a company that's still around today. They make my. Some of my favorite the gold fiber notebooks. So yeah, and I think. I'm sure they're owned by some. Some bigger larger brand. Probably Newell Rubbermaid or something.
But
yeah, it's. So the paper chapter was super great. I loved. I actually really liked and I feel like I'm rehashing a lot of what we talked about last time. But the business card chapter was really good. The stapler chapter was really good.
Yeah. What did you like about the stapler chapter?
I sort of really liked how much he tied into office space and how Swinglein did not make a red stapler. And then after office space, people started requesting them so much that they saw a business opportunity and started making that.
Do you guys have one?
I do not have a red swing line.
Not a red one. I have a slate gray one that I use at school. Don't my students touch?
I'm the cool kid. I have a red one.
Yeah.
Beat up. Had it for a long time.
I think it's interesting how it used to be that basically every different stapler brand had its own format of staples. It was a huge push to sort of, like, to standardize staple sizes. And it's just something I've never really thought about. And the fact that staplers have been around before, staples have been around before staplers. So at some point you just sort of, like, had to, like, push it through the paper and bend it, which seems dangerous, but.
Yeah, that ties into the whole idea. This book that comes up pretty often of, like, the lineage of stationary things, like how one thing leads to another thing.
Yeah.
And one really awesome takeaway was the. The fact that pens are, like, a thousand years older than pencils.
Yeah.
So pencils are actually the modern technology. Yeah, yeah. Remember that? People want to talk about pens being, like, the modern equivalent. No, no, no, no. Pencils are the modern. The modern writing tool.
That's why they work better.
Yeah, it's. Yeah, it was that. That pen chapter really was fascinating. Like, I just talking about, like, the development of the ballpoint pen, and that was really fascinating. Yeah. I. I didn't realize that there was such a. Between Biro and. What was it between Biro and. And Bick? There was just sort of like a. A bitter rivalry. Swan. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because Biro is the South American.
Yeah.
He was a Hungarian.
Yeah. So Henry Martin took legal action against Marcel Bich, or Bich. I don't know how to say that. Going to say dick for the infring. B, I, C, A, you bish for the infringement of patents from Biro. So, like. So Bic had some of his stock confiscated. Bic agreed to pay Biro 6% of all retail price of all pens sold, which remained in place until, like, 1957, in which case, I think that Bic just went on and bought Biro Yeah. And. Oh. So what happened was Henry Martin's son married Marcel Bick's daughter. So it basically just turned into a. Like. Just like pen magnates come together. Somebody should make a. Someone should make a. Like a love movie out of that. Like a romantic movie. No, love movie.
Get the ball rolling.
Yes.
Yes.
Nicholas Sparks, where are you? That's not nice.
I think we can write this.
I thought it was interesting that the bit. Crystal is one of the original ballpoint pens.
Yeah.
Originally, they were all refillable.
Yeah.
It's like one of the original designs. My favorite pen.
And I love. I love what a spectacle. Ballpoint pens were. Like, you know, they sold them in this one department store, and the line was around the block, and they sold out, and then they discovered they all leaked.
Yeah, they were all pieces of crap. They just did not work.
And I think they were all like, $25, which is something like more than $100 equivalent today, which I just can't believe. Can you imagine? Like, I mean, there are pens that obviously cost more than that now, but there's not sort of like this spectacle around them.
Yeah, it was sort of like the I pen.
Yeah. Yeah, they are.
Only it worked.
Well, the first ones didn't.
The other one doesn't work.
Yeah, but that's funny. They were the, like. Yeah. Apple of their time. Sorry, go on, Tim.
It was really interesting that they. When they talked or when he wrote about the ballpoint being. Which I don't necessarily. I don't personally necessarily agree with this, but ballpoint Ben, being relief from the fountain pen, like, for the modern. Like, the common public, like, they, like, didn't want to have to deal with fountain pens. And so they were this huge deal. They were saving people from. From fountain pens. And also the. When they talked about the space. Space pen. Which was really interesting because there was that whole drama of the space pen being designed in that NASA made him change his wording. Yeah. So that he was trying to make it sound like it was the only pen. Like, it was NASA's pen.
I love it.
Not exactly.
I actually wrote that. I wrote down a note, and I had started turning that page. When you said that. Yeah. He just kept, like. Fisher just kept, like, bugging them, like, please use this pen. Use this pen. They're like, okay, sure, we'll buy some.
And he's like, the official pen of NASA. Wait, wait, wait, wait.
So it's interesting. I kind of marked the area where it talks about how there had been some controversy at the time when it emerged for the Gemini 3 mission that a total that 34 pencils have been purchased for the mission at a total cost of $4,300, which works out to the cost of $128.84 per pencil, although only two were ever taken aboard. When asked to justify the cost of these pencils, NASA's Robert Gilruth explains that the actual writing mechanism was obtained from a small pencil procured from a local office supply house at the cost of $175 each. However, the reluctant cost of 128 per pencil included the fabrication and assembly of a take up reel base plate and the pencil housing. You can't just buy a regular pencil from the store and take it up into space with you. You need to take up a real base plate and pencil housing too, obviously. So I wrote down a little note. I just want to. I just want to know what pencil do you suppose it was? Like what a local stationer in probably Florida or maybe it's in Houston. I can't remember. In 1965. Like it could have very well have been like a Ticonderoga.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's an easy guess.
Yeah. So I would love to try to figure out like what sort of what pencil that could have been and then we can just start calling it the space pencil.
They have a small display of the pens and pencils they took on some of the missions on display at the Air and Space Museum.
Really?
Yeah. Yeah.
I'm gonna be down in Washington.
I have been there.
Go peak.
Heck yeah. I've been there like three times to the Air and Space Museum. I've never noticed that.
That makes me sad, Johnny, because if I was going on the D.C. trip, I would be leaving tomorrow to go. But I'm not going to be there this year.
Change your mind?
No, I. It wasn't my mind.
It was really hot.
It was someone else's mind. I was not invited. I don't. Yeah, I was not invited this year. I get to go next year, but not this year.
Stow away.
Stow away. Well, I think next year the Museum of African American History will be open.
Yeah.
Somewhere new to go.
Should be cool.
So I really loved. And this is in the pen chapter. I. I don't know if you guys ever read my thing about writing in green ink. I wrote that on. Yeah, they had a. They had a big thing about that. About the green psychopaths writing green ink.
Yeah.
The phrase green ink brigade soon emerged. This is on page 54 to describe people who write long, slightly Confused letters to journalists and politicians, often explaining some outlandish theory of revealing evidence of a conspiracy. If green ink is so closely associated with paranoid conspiracy theorists, it is fittingly ironic then, that the most famous user of green ink was Mansfield Cumming. By the way, that's an amazing name. Mansfield Cumming, the first director of MI6. Cumming would sign his correspondence with initial circumstances in green ink, a tradition continued to this day by the current director, Sir John Sawyers, which. Which is interesting because I bet that has something to do with what I. Operation Cicero, which is the story that I read about British espionage and the commandant of the, like, the German Embassy writing in green ink. I wonder if that, like, relays over. Which is also interesting because the. The director of MI6 like, signs off stuff with just his initial or her initial. So I wonder if that has something to do with, like, you know, in James Bond, you know, the director of MI6 goes by M. I think it's MI. Yeah. And Q too.
Yeah. Like the tech person.
Yeah, well, Q is Q because he's the quartermaster. Like, he's the supply guy, which is cool. Yeah, which makes sense. Just, again, so people just kind of going by the, you know, title of their names. So. Yeah, the Greening Crooked. I wrote down a big thing about that, which is pretty great. Long, slightly confused letters to journalists and politicians explaining outlandish theories or revealing evidence of a conspiracy.
I actually did enjoy the whiteout chapter.
Yeah, that was a little.
I didn't want to read it at the time. I was like, I don't think this is going to be interesting. But it ended up being pretty. Pretty fascinating. Or just the whole process of involving typewriters and how typewriters needed to have some sort of way to delete. And that was obviously an early predecessor to just having a delete key on a computer. That was a huge deal for them to be able to delete a few letters and then start over again without having to cross stuff out. One of my favorite parts was when Pelikan Pelican Pen company was developing what they called an ink bleach.
Yeah.
And this. I chose a title for the episode, if you see that at the top. But there was a few options of names that they came up with in German that translated differently. First thing was Radierwasser, which was Erasing water, or the more sinister sounding Tintentad, which translated to Ink Death.
I really think it should be called. I do love Hank Death.
Yeah. Or the name was changed to the more exciting, though less explicable Tintin Tiger or Tintin Tiger, which translated to Ink Tiger.
Wow.
It's also a novel in 1972 and was changed again to Tintin Blitz Ink of Lightning two years later. I love his little, like, stroke of humor where he says, the more exciting, the less explicable. Like, you can't explain this. Why is it called the Ink Tiger? I don't understand. But yeah, Tintin Top, or however that's pronounced. That should be our episode title.
Where do they talk about whiteout? Was that in the eraser chapter?
No, We All Make Mistakes chapter.
Yeah. Okay. I'm trying to turn to it right now. Did you notice that thing about the woman who invented, like, liquid paper was married to one of the monkeys?
That was his mom.
Oh, his mom. Oh, his mom. Okay.
Hey. With a white out.
Yeah.
Yeah. And then she was, like, basically running that business from within her other job.
Yeah. And she just sold. Yeah.
That's double dipping, man.
Did she, like, accidentally wrote something on the stationary of her company? Like, or she signed. She signed some document at her job. Like, she's a typist and she signed it the. Like, what. I forget what the name of the company was, but. Tibex or something. Like, I. Yeah, she signed tibx.
Yeah, it was. There are some interesting ones, like the. Oh, the. The postcard chapter, which. Which I wouldn't really call stationary, but I. I guess, but I. It was. It was great. It was super interesting. And, like, talking about, like, how cartoonists who draw, like, naughty postcards made their living. That was pretty great.
Yeah.
I liked all the stuff about adhesives, like the tape and post it notes
especially, and why I never knew where
post it notes came from. Yes.
Scotch tape is just racist.
Yeah.
What was this crossing a line?
Yeah. It's because they used to only put adhesive on either side of the tape. And people would talk about how they. They scotched them on the adhesives, meaning that they were cheap. I didn't know that about Scotts. I didn't know that was a thing. So. So, so they. They had scotched their tape, and so they were like, Scotch tape. And so, so now there's, like, plaid, you know, there's like special limited edition Christmas plaids on Scotch tape. And it turns out it used to be super racist.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which, like many things in our world used to be super racist. And now they're.
No, it's just. And it was. I can't remember who I was explaining.
And now we don't remember why, but they are still.
I was Explaining to somebody about. About that. And then I was like, well, like, you know, yellow pen pencils are yellow because they wanted people to remind them of the Orient. And like. Like, somebody. Somebody I was talking that. Talking to that about was just like, whoa. Yeah. So pencils, too, are yellow. Pencils are pretty racist.
But
so I have to admit, I did not get to chapters 15 and 16, the storeroom of Knowledge and Tomorrow's World. So I still have. I still have that much to read. I sort of started traveling and didn't bring my book with me and fell off the wagon. But it's.
I didn't quite finish either, but I was. I'm pretty close.
Yeah. I love the Back to school chapter.
Cool.
Yeah. Oh, yeah, that was really good. They talk about Trapper Keepers, which holds a very dear place in my heart.
I never had one. I went to Catholic school. Have those.
Yeah.
We just felt kind of deprived. I had. Actually I wrote. Somebody wrote a thing about Trapper Keepers. I think it may be like brain floss or mental floss or something like that. And I wrote a thing on woodclinched, and I just didn't realize they were as old as they were. I thought they were from, like the. Like the mid to late 80s. And really they're from the mid to late 70s. So.
The last chapter was really good because he talked about sort of stationary is not going to go anywhere, which was pretty neat.
Yeah, it was very short. Yeah. So, yeah, I was just kind of looking through the index in the very back and about some of the stuff, and they. They talk about. There's a. They talk about Charles Berlsheimer in here, and they talk about Mark Zuckerberg in here. So, like, two of my bosses. My former bosses. Current or former bosses are mentioned in this book.
Yeah.
Short life.
That's one thing about the. The pencil chapter that I was going to mention is that I do feel that they were kind of unkind to the Blackwing.
Yeah.
The new Blackwing. Or that he.
Not.
Not unkind, like, intentionally. But the way that it was talked about ended up sounding more negative than I think it should have, you know?
Well, and they really concentrated on. And I mean, it's a. It's an important thing in sort of like the history of this mythos is that, like, you know, the appropriation of the Blackwing brand. But they. They didn't talk about how, wow, this is actually a really good pencil in its own right, too.
Yeah, that's. That's the thing. Yeah. It wasn't. I did I like that it was mentioned that the Blackwing, the original Blackwing, was a tribute, basically.
Yeah.
Was like a tribute to the original, that it wasn't supposed to be an exact copy initially. And so I like that he pointed that out. But then, yeah, he doesn't mention the fact that the new 602 is pretty awesome. So anyways, that was one thing I wanted to point out that was a little. Which I understand you don't have unlimited space to write about this stuff, but.
Yeah. Yeah, but I'm glad that they mentioned sort of like the Blackwing, you know, mythos in general, just because it's pretty important part of. Yeah. Of pencil history. But I honestly think that sharpeners could have warranted their own chapter.
Yeah.
But still. Yeah, I can see he didn't want to concentrate entirely on the pencil.
Why not?
Well, I mean, when we write our book, we can.
There we go. So overall, I was pretty impressed with the book. Admittedly, there were parts where I was thinking, I don't want to read this because this doesn't sound interesting to me. And then almost in every case, it ended up being interesting in a way that I wasn't expecting. So if you haven't read the book, I definitely recommend it. If you're interested in this world, if you're listening to this podcast, chances are you are interested enough to read this and I think you'll find it very enjoyable.
Should I read some of the comments on Facebook about the book discussion?
Yeah. Any questions or anything?
Yeah. So our own Dr. Hans mentioned. He goes, I hear somebody else say the same thing, but the book made me want to seek out an old stationery store or two and see what might be lurking on some back ship shelves. So perhaps some discussion of old independent stationery stores could be interesting. I have one in mind that I'll try to visit tomorrow. Which he did. It would also be fun to hear if the three of you have any vintage office supplies that you're particularly fond of. I'd also like to hear if you have any stories of great finds or perhaps the listeners could chime in with theirs. So I can actually start. I have a box of bond paper, just like I would say it's probably like legal paper length and it is paper that the lines are numbered and it's made to type up. I'm thinking legal documents where you need to number each line so it aligns very well with a certain size of typewriter set to a certain length. I think it lines up with one of the like IBM Selectrics or something. And it's about half full and I really haven't used the paper that's really nice, like cotton bond paper. And I just have it because it's a super cool box. I like that a lot. So I have never actually been to one of these kind of like old independent stationery stores like Fowler's, which James Ward goes to, or that one that Dr. Hans went to in New York just recently he posted in the group about it. How about you guys?
I have nothing like that around here. I haven't been to anything, anything even remotely close to that. Yeah, I wish, I wish I had. I mean, as far as old stationery that I'm interested in, I really identified with the paperclip chapter and that reminded me of like a lot of different styles of paperclips that I was really, you know, that I really enjoy. And I have a small like semi collection of what I would call paper clips. But also I guess you could technically just call them bookmarks, you know that I think they used to be designated as bookmarks that are maybe a little more ornate that were my grandmothers that were given to me. So that's something that I always kind of have an eye out for. Just good quality bookmarks or sorry, paperclips. And then that's kind of like outside of pencils, of course. But I think I talked about this in the last episode that my interest in stationery is pretty limited to writing utensils and paper. I'm not a huge fan of just stationery in general. I'm not like really into whiteout or I'm not really into business cards or folders or push pins and stuff like that. I found it interesting, really interesting, the book. But those ones for me are a little more like I'll just take it or leave it. Whatever I can find. As long as it doesn't make me mad, I'll use it. But I'm not gonna put too much thought into it like I do to pencils and pens and stuff like that.
How about you, Johnny?
I don't really have a lot of old, like actually old stores, but there are two that I've been to a lot that are sort of old fashioned, if that makes sense. Like there's a place where I was in grad school in Southern Illinois called the 710 Bookstore, which was really cool. They sold like you could buy those tiny envelopes, you'd put the pencil sharpener in individually and they had open stock of pencils and things like that. It was a really, really cool Little shop that I haven't been to in like nine years. And a few of our listeners live in the Boston area, so they probably are familiar with Bob Slate in Cambridge, which is really cool. Sort of. It's not, it's not old. It's sort of. There's a lapse in ownership and. Yeah, yeah, but I don't know, it's hard to describe. It's old fashioned. They have their own notebooks and
I
don't know, they just look really old. It's really cool. But we normally have those in Baltimore. They would disappear and get turned into Starbucks.
Something Steven Watts asked in the group, he goes, I like the idea of expanding on the author's thoughts on why exactly is all this interesting to us and what's interesting about. And he goes, I would be interested. It would be interesting to your audience to learn what drew the three of you into this niche. And yeah, I'd be interested to know what you guys think about that. How did you guys get into this niche? We talked a little bit about specifically pencils, but sort of just maybe even a broader theme of just like stationery or writing supplies or something like that. I'd be interested to know.
Interesting question.
Yeah, good question.
Yeah, it was actually pens for me. Yeah, that's how I got into it, through being just kind of a pen nut before I was a pencil nut and I had a few fountain pens and stuff like that. And then I found the pen addict and then I got hooked into that community. And that's kind of like the whole entry. But yeah, it was pens for me. Jetpens, really. I guess I could give like the most credit to is that Jetpens finding out about Jetpens and getting the kinds of stuff they had on Jetpens was pretty, pretty huge for me.
Yeah, I definitely just sort of have a love of anything that has to do with writing or drawing or just like, you know, stationary supplies in general, pencils, you know, particularly. So, so. But I like paper and pens and typewriters and things like that. And I honestly have no idea where that comes from, except maybe that. It's just. I like antiques, I like old things, I like old history. And I've sort of, since I was a kid sort of been in love with the idea of, you know, writing on like on a manual typewriter. You know, the old, you know, old journalism, old newspaper movies where they, you know, they'll bang something out real quick. His Girl Friday is a lot like that. And my grandmother had a manual typewriter that she would you know, pull out and we would kind of play with and type stuff up on. So I don't. I don't think I can solely attribute it to my. To my grandmother, but I think that's a big part of it. We really just love the idea of writing with something like that. So it just translates really, really well into this. And especially, yeah, just some of the ephemera of stationery. It's just interesting to me. We talked a little bit about this last time, but all of these little things were owned by an independent company and they all came with a really beautiful designed box or just a lot of intentionality has been put into, let's just say this whiteout or this box of paper clips. And that's something I think we lost a little bit as it's sort of been expanded to like, you know, bigger companies have taken over smaller companies. Is, you know, in Office Depot, a box of Office Depot pens and a box of Office Depot paper clips have the same design on them. And that's kind of sad really, because, you know, in the old days they would look completely different. So I don't mean to like wax nostalgic about something like that because time goes on and people merge and people aren't buying that much stuff anymore. But that's a big part of it for me. Some of it has to do with just an interest in things, things past, combined with an interest of writing. So, yeah, that's pretty good.
Pretty similar for me too.
Yeah. Toffer wanted to know what the most interesting object in the book for each of us is. And I might add a caveat to say that not including pencils. Do any of you guys have a.
Did you say that again? Sorry, you were cutting out a little bit.
The most interesting object in the book.
Post it for sure.
Yeah, it's really cool.
Yeah. Post it notes and I mean, this is magic glue. I mean, kind of so over obvious for me, but I was super fascinated by the chapter about the paperclip and the gem. Talking about the gem and that whole process of like how there was this kind of gold rush of people who were like, oh, we could design something better than a needle.
Yeah.
And just kind of flooding all these designs. That was kind of fascinating. That like, I love any idea of a. Some design that can't sort of can't be improved upon. Kind of like how people talk about Helvetica.
Yeah.
Type, you know, being kind of like a perfect font that the gem. It's like hard. It really is kind of hard to improve on the gym. So I thought that was really, really fascinating.
Yeah. I really loved how he just kept tying things back to his desk tidy.
Yeah.
So I would love to kind of see that in person. It looks pretty cool.
Yeah, I agree.
And Johnny, you said paperclips. No, you said post its.
Oh, post its.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think in another life, I must have been a chemist who was really interested in glue because whenever they talked about adhesives in their books, like, this is so cool.
Yeah, that was pretty fun. Trying to think. Randy Reagan asked a question that's related but maybe slightly separate from. I'd love to hear the answer to yield. If you were stranded on an island and could only have one pencil, what would it be from you guys?
Oh, I actually thought about that when I read it. I have one if you guys don't have one. The general cedar point. It's the perfect mix of smoothness and point retention.
Yeah.
If I'd be a good one.
Yeah. If I had to factor in, like, I had a limited number. If I had an infinite number of pencils I was taking with me, like I had, like, more than I would. More than enough, then I'd probably take palomino hb. But if I was limited, like, I needed something that was harder, that would last longer, It'd probably be similar to Johnny's, but not quite the same. But the forest choice.
Yeah, that's really good.
Which I probably have enough to live on a desert island for the rest of my life because of my bulk purchase.
I don't know. I was thinking about. I was thinking about that and I guess if I was going to be on this island for the rest of my life, maybe I would want one of those forever pencils. But they're so crap. They're so crappy to write on. My life wouldn't be very long because eventually I'd just like try to slip my wrist or something.
What about a Sharpie? Liquid ink? Why don't you take one of those?
Yeah, there you go.
Liquid pencil.
Exactly.
You could use it to kill animals.
No, I would probably take. Oh, gosh, I don't know. Yeah, something. Something slightly. Slightly harder. So probably a. Because it would need to last a long time. So maybe. Maybe a Wopex in that case.
Yeah, Wopex would be a good choice. Durable, you know?
Yeah.
Trying to think what else we have here. People talk about dulcette. The word dulcette. Because Lenore said something about how she misses. She's going to miss our sweet dulcette voices. So Here we are, Lenore. Dan Bishop asks, you should all discuss the mechanical pencil hate. Some are very hate worthy, others not so much. Was there mechanical pencil hate in the book?
No, I don't think so. I think it's more us.
Yeah.
And for me, it's not as much hate as just boredom. They just bore me. Like, I don't like using them. They're too sterile for me.
Did we do a mechanical episode? A mechanical pencil episode?
Not yet.
Not yet. I think we could. Because I think I could have some. I could come up with some interesting things to say about it.
Yeah, I got a few things to say. But we've talked about them in pieces. But yeah. But yeah, for me, mostly they're too sterile, too boring. For me, they're too mechanical. If I may.
Yeah, you may, sir, you may. And kind of the last thing from here that I'll mention. Peter Giori, we talked in a previous thread a little bit about what we would consider to be the standard pencil. And that's something that maybe bears an entire episode discussion on. Just like. Because I took that to mean like a benchmark pencil. So like a Ticonderoga or a golden bear is just kind of like middle of the road. Something you can. It's basically like the bread box. When you're talking about how something big. How big something is, you know, bigger than a bread box. Smaller than a bread box.
Yeah.
And where he was talking about pencil is something that's like universally widely available and solid quality, which I honestly don't know if that exists. Something that's universally available.
Yeah. As far as universally available, it's down to like a handful of pencils. Right. I mean there's not that many. And I think the Ticonderoga definitely needs to be like stricken from. That needs to be banished because it's like so crappy now.
Yeah, yeah.
That. That is definitely not it. I'm tempted to say the. The right dudes natural you can get most places being like a good.
Well, is that available outside of the
U.S. i don't think there is one that would be world.
Yeah. And that's what. Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
I don't even know how many pencils you can get across the world in general.
Black wings.
That's it.
Yeah.
I was fantasizing the other day about being able to go to a target by a dozen forest choice. Like.
Yeah.
At a target. Like, how amazing would that be that you can go and get.
They have that.
They're only 250. Yeah. That one's okay. Yeah, but like, imagine like they're pensacolic. They're super expensive. Imagine if Pencils.com hooked up with Target or somebody like that. And you can go and get. Spend four bucks even and get a dozen golden bears. Yeah, people would do that. I think they're cool. They're cool looking.
Didn't have they do a partnership with Forest Choice and whole foods like 10 years ago or something like that?
No idea.
Oh, I don't know.
A good while ago.
Yeah.
Huh.
Sounds like something I heard.
Yeah, I'm too young for that. I don't shop. I was in diapers at that point. I'm sorry.
It turns out I was a lot older than. More older than Andy than I thought. I thought I was only like a
year or two older than Andy.
Like 30 years older than me. How old are you?
I'm staring down. I'm staring down 36 this summer.
Okay. I'm 32.
I'll say it that way.
No, we almost have a 35 perfect gaps between all of us then.
Yeah, 20.
I'll be 28 in August. 28, 32 and 36.
Yeah.
Like four year. Four years between each of us.
Yeah.
Don't say 28 and 36 saddens.
That was your age, boy. The older you get, the more they're just like the same.
And Tim's the one with the gray
hair and a dark brown beard.
Yeah.
Look at the two tone.
That's why I keep my hair cut pretty close on the sides lately.
I found some gray hair in my eyebrows, which makes me feel really old.
Were they like 4 inches long?
Yeah. Getting in my eyes. Found a gray hair in my ear. Oh, God, no. All right, should we. Should we wrap this up?
Yeah, I think when.
If we.
If and when we're able to have James word on, we'll have some more kind of extended conversation about this book. But if you have any questions you want us to keep talking about. Cheers. Questions we can talk about on the Facebook group or we can maybe bring it up on another episode. But it was good to talk about it. I was happy to get to do something like this. It was a good kind of change in format and subject. So I'm glad. Glad you thought of this, Andy.
Cool.
And if folks have good, you know, suggestions for what our next book should be when we do one.
I was going to. Well, I suggested this. Yeah. I was thinking about the Confessions of a Comic Queen that we talked about a lot. Oh, yeah, yeah.
What a good excuse to buy that book.
Yeah. And. But maybe even like a classic book. Like, you know, pencil or. I don't know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've noticed. Yeah, Both.
A lot of pencil stuff in it.
I was actually thinking about that the other day.
Cool.
All right, excellent. So where can folks find you gents online, especially Aver Andy.
First,
my website is@woodclinched.com which is tragically has not been updated for a long time, which I keep saying that and I keep meaning to. And sometime someday I will. I have two things I need to write for it. Other than that, find me at awelfley on Twitter or oodclinched on Twitter. How about you, Tim?
You can find me on the writing arsenal. So that'd be www.thewritingarsinal.com on Twitter writingarcenal or imwassum. I'm also on there on Twitter and then on Instagram at thewriting Arsenal. What about you, Johnny?
I am@pencilrevolution.com on the interwebs, which I actually updated recently. So I'm really proud of myself. I'm on Twitter pennsolution and on Instagram ensolution. And you can find us at Erasable Us. You can find us on Facebook. I don't remember the URL, but if you search for groups for erasable podcasts, there's only one and it's a closed group.
It's facebook.com groups erasable.
Sweet. Awesome.
And if you're not a member, you should think about becoming a member. Just to read all of the awesomeness. This episode will be@ erasable us 29 and, you know, show up in your itunes. We're on Twitter raceablepodcast. Also, we like to promote the use of the hashtag erasable podcast.
Yeah.
Which needs more representation on Instagram especially.
For sure.
There are a lot of good pencil pictures. Gather them all up a little bit.
Yeah, yeah, just throw that. If you're doing posting something about pencils, throw that on there. Regardless, be nice. Yeah, I have a nice central place to go and look at all the cool pencil porn on.
Not actual porn, guys.
No pencils.
I thought this book was porn. It's subways. Can't wait to read the next one. I couldn't sleep. Yeah.
So, yeah.
Thank you for listening to our podcast for almost 30 episodes now, which is awesome. I think you could listen to our podcast for almost two days straight and not stop. Not repeating episode. Yeah, fantastic. Because we never keep it to an hour, which is good. Until next time, keep your pencils sharp.
Did you hear that?
That was amazing.
Did you hear that?
I did.