Scribe

Hello and welcome to episode 31 of the erasable Podcast. I am your host for the evening, Andy Welfle from Wood Clinched. And I'm joined by the companions in my workshop, Mr. Johnny Gamber. Hey, Johnny, how are you?

I'm very good. And Mr. Tim Wasem. Hey, Tim.

How's it going?

We're low key today because there's not a lot of booze or a lot of caffeine, so everybody's just kind of. We're just gonna. We're just gonna get through this episode one. One fresh point at a time, I think. Yeah. Today we're going to be talking about a lot of stuff we have. We technically have a main topic which is our top five pencils, which we put up on the site. But we're also going to be talking a lot about the Kum Masterpiece Sharpeners and also the Blackwing 725. So sort of extended fresh points and main topic. So let's dive right in. Tim, what are you drinking and writing with?

It's gonna like just. Just clean everything out. I think you want to throw up.

You know, Office Depot pencils really shine when you use them in a really nice sharpener.

It's like, now you have to use something else.

I didn't. I didn't know you had any of those.

Yeah. Johnny, how about you?

I personally, this is almost too disgusting to talk about. I would like to thank Johnny Camper for writing this. I am drinking the June Bug, which is a delicious cocktail from seven or eight ladybugs muddled into an iced tea glass full of grain alcohol garnished with a live firefly.

I got some of our. Yeah. That's so gross.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah. And it's June, so it's seasonal, actually. What's really weird is there's not a lot of bugs out here. I've been noticing that so far, and maybe that'll change. But there's like, some little gnats sometimes. But really hardly any bugs at all compared to Indiana, where there were just, like all of the mosquitoes. And I'm writing with a glass dip pen with firefly guts, the ones who died from making the June bugs.

Yeah, this is not a vegan friendly drink or pen, actually. Have you guys. We talked a little bit about in the group, and they talked about it in the Pen Addict. Have you seen that Kickstarter for that? It's basically a glass dip pen that you can write in wine and stuff with.

Yeah. It looks intriguing. Maybe you could use it with this. No, I guess I am the only one having any fun. I'm drinking my last anchor steam in the household and writing with, like, Johnny A Blackwing725. And I feel really bad for Tim, which we'll talk about. We'll get into. Tim, do you want to. Do you want to start us off in fresh points?

Wipe those tears.

Yeah.

That's gross.

Double gross.

Did you listen to the episode of Covered that Harry Marks did where he talked to the author of Tidy Up?

Oh, yes.

Yeah, I'll put a link to that in Show Notes, which, by the way. Yeah, which by the way, if anybody wants to get to the show notes or to listen to this episode online, go to erasable us 31, which is the 31st episode. Sorry, Tim.

Go on with what you're saying.

So can you, can you quickly kind of define the terms of what you mean by legal pad?

Okay. So specifically legal size sheets.

Because a lot of people will say legal pad and not mean.

They're like full,

Yeah.

Yeah, go. So my favorite pad of paper, besides like some of the super expensive ones, is that. I've talked about it before, the Ampad retro gold fiber paper. They have that at Staples and.

If I can find some, I'll send it to you. I. The thing is, is they're not long, quite long enough to fit that requirement, but they're, they're still like that top boundary, like top perfect bound notepad.

Let me warn you, Tim, that when you reach out to our listeners, they are so responsive. I now have literally two dozen kinds of index cards. And my review has sort of like spiraled out of control and so I've restarted it twice.

Kenny walks in and there's just linking things together. Yeah, there's just like so many index cards. They're all shoved in my mouth and suffocate me. Die of index card? No, it, like I started it and then June Thomas sent me a bunch. I was like, oh, I have to add these to it. And then Topher sent me a bunch and I was like, oh, I have to add this to it. So I was, I spent so much time writing it that I, I just like, this is a monster. Nobody wants to read this. And I keep cutting it down and cutting it down and redoing it. So I'm, I'm, I'm trying for as much as I've talked about index cards, someday I'm actually going to produce something about it. But legal pads can be your index cards.

That's awesome. What sort of sharpener do you suppose that Walser had that he could get so tiny all the time back then?

Looks like Johnny knows something about this.

when you just put that in show notes. Johnny, you said Robert Walser's microscripts. And then in parentheses guest post. It looked like Robert Walser was your guest poster. That's amazing.

That's awesome.

We have a Amazon affiliate link in show notes if anybody is interested in buying that book. We'd appreciate it if you did it through the affiliate link. Just because we can get a. A few more cents for the podcast.

Their office is actually on. It's in Palo Alto. On the way to where? Like on the way to my office and we used it before they. In my old job. They do a lot like, like with PDF put online, I guess. Like there were newspapers that had, you know, their issue available that way. So I think. I think you just say issue.

They're just trying to be cute.

But yeah.

Yeah. It's funny because Tim, you had just pretty recently gotten into pencils, I think. And I feel like we were talking through Twitter DM just like a lot. Just about pencils and stuff. Yeah.

And I had just guested on the Pen Edict podcast talking about pencils. And I was like, oh, that was so fun. And Tim was like, have you ever thought about doing a pencil podcast? And I was like, I thought about it, but I never thought I could pull it off because you can't come up with weekly topics about pencils.

far we've thought of maybe not weekly, but all sorts of bi weekly topics, which is.

Yeah, we could totally.

And I remember I referred to Johnny as just Gamber because I didn't. I didn't really know if he was. If like people should call him Johnny or if he went by John. I was like, I don't know what to call him.

So yeah, that was amazing. I'll post a picture of those also in show notes so everybody can see that conversation. That was an amazing find.

That's awesome. Johnny, how about you? What do you have? I know that you have some things that we're going to talk a lot about, so.

Do you have a sharpener?

So let me tell you, let me tell you now.

Yeah. Let me tell you, Glenn, that these sharpeners have completely changed my view of handheld sharpeners. So do you want to tell people kind of, Johnny, what they are and where they come from?

I just, I just don't understand why. Like it's basically the same technology as that two stage long point sharpener like the Palomino branded one, but it's made by Kumar. But yet it's so much better. Like the, the difference I think is, and this is just my, my theory is that second hole where you just sharpen the graphite, it's smaller whereas on the two stage, the other one, it's the same size. And I wonder if the blades better or if it's set better in the casing. And it always, always snaps my, my graphite when I try using that second stage.

Yeah. This is a good like, like half centimeter longer than the classroom friendly point. It's, it's incredible.

Neoprene case. I feel like it feels so tactical.

Yeah.

What I love about it is it's kind of an ocd, OCD person's dream. You can, you can, you can sharpen a pencil like from scratch into One long continuous peel. It's like peeling an orange. And you just, like, you peel it off in one piece. Like, you can sharpen the wood down all the way with just one long continuous one and you're done. It's like, oh, this is so great. So satisfying.

Yeah, it's, it's. It's amazing. Like, I heard, I think you Johnny, talk it up. And I was like, yeah, yeah, that's cool. Handheld sharpener. And then she's like, whoa.

This is amazing.

Similarly, I feel bad talking about it because you can't buy it in the U.S. nope. So hopefully that will change.

Yeah.

So pencils.com, if you want to co brand a sharpener with a Palomino, you should really do the masterpiece rather than the other Long point. Because yeah, this one is amazing.

Just don't eat it and you're fine.

Yeah, mine's made out of mercury. Like absorbs in my skin if I hold it for too long.

It's amazing. I actually. So that little plastic case, I took it out of there and I got one of those like mini Altoid tins and if you stick it in that then you have a little room. If you're sharpening on the go and need to dispose. Need to hold on to your shavings

Yeah, you can do that and then, then toss it when you get somewhere.

How do you like that, guys?

No, it's. It's fantastic. I again, I feel bad for teasing everybody and just up talking this when they can't. People can't try it out themselves but.

What's their, what's their Twitter account?

Yeah.

Volumes. Yes.

What would you call the 602? Is that not glossy?

It's metallic kind of.

Yeah, like shark skin. Ish. Yeah.

Okay.

I like it. I think, you know, there was kind of a discussion, not really a debate going on about what the new, like, with the volume series, like, how reinvented this would be. Would it be using the guts of, like, an existing pencil or like an existing blackwing, or would it have be kind of like reformulated, reinvented or what? And I was kind of hoping for something where the graphite was going to be kind of reformulated or tweaked a little bit to, to be something new. But I can completely understand just understanding the very little about, like, pencil manufacturing economy that I do. Very little.

I should disclaim that the. The minimums that they would have to order in order to do that would be so high. So I. I completely understand why it's not. So essentially what we're looking at is just sort of like a blackwing that has like a facelift, basically. It has, yeah. And I kind of further was thinking about how, you know, if you look at this, underneath that glossy coat, you can see a little bit of white. And so I was like, oh, is this a, you know, a pearl that had just hadn't had the, like, deboss and then the kind of the gloss, the pearlescentness applied over it. Or is this like a. Like a blank that they painted over? Charles actually said in the group that the reason it has that white undercoat is because when you get down to kind of the tip of this, of this starburst gradient, it's really, really vibrant yellow. And it makes sense because if you paint a wall like a bright color, you have to, you know, you have to give it a base coat first. So I mean, I completely understand that it's. So essentially, I mean, it's a black wing that is. And I'm assuming that maybe like, the next one will be like the guts of a 602 or MMX or something. Like that. And maybe they'll just kind of, like, go like that.

But, I mean, honestly. Which is fine because they're black Wings are super great pencils. So some people were lamenting about how, you know, this is a lot of marketing hype for something that's just a. Like a similar product that, you know, just has different aesthetics. And. And I would argue that aesthetics really count, because whenever I review something, I definitely talk about how it looks and feels, too. And honestly, this looks and feels different. Like you're using a glossy pencil. It's gorgeous. It writes the same as a. As a Blackwing Pearl, but that's fine.

Yeah. I mean, field notes will, like, change out the guts of the paper, but at the same time, they kind of stick to standards. Like, the summer edition is always a little bit thicker. They use that Finch paper a lot. They've used. They use French paper a lot. So even though. And the difference is also in the nature of the manufacturing, I think, because you can. You can make paper such a smaller. You can use such smaller minimums for paper where you can reinvent it every time if you want to, and much easier than you can with a pencil because it probably involves less vendors or smaller vendors, I guess, whereas pencils. You know, there's so many different steps of this process.

Good point.

So I'm not. I don't want to sound like I'm shilling for pencils.com or anything, because they're not. You know, they're not paying us to promote this. We. In fact, we. We all bought our own subscriptions with our own money. But I feel like. Yeah, this is. This isn't necessarily. I don't think it was marketed to be. To claim otherwise. Like, I don't think that they. We had a discussion.

So we had a discussion about kind of the graphite that they used, and field notes used the word balanced.

Yeah. Sorry, guys. Pencils.com. actually, I should say palomino, because I actually had a discussion with Alexander from there about kind of brand guidelines. Because when I was there a long time ago, pencils.com was sort of the thing that you said when you talked about like who made Palomino black wings or Palomino or golden bear or whatever. But now Palomino is kind of the brand like the owner. The brand owner. And pencils.com is like the E commerce wing of that. So Palomino used the word balance when they talked about it.

Yeah, a tree. I actually asked them if they had like a brand guidelines document and they were like, that's a good idea. Sometimes people get confused because of all this stuff. So because like the pearl, you know, on the box they say smooth or balanced and smooth. And you know, the 602 is balanced and firm and the MMX is balanced and soft or not balanced, smooth and soft. I'm getting all my various adjectives confused. Yeah. So balanced is the keyword for the pearl. And so that as soon as I saw that I'm like, okay, this is, this is what this is. And they've confirmed it within the group. Charles said that it's interesting because we have sort of like a pipeline right directly into it in the group when people have questions. Yeah, yeah. I feel like.

Oh no, go ahead, go on.

Yeah, yeah, they did a really good job. It's, it's definitely sort of. I mean they do. Have we talked about this before but they, they sometimes get a little heavy handed and like overstate something. So it's. They talk about how this is, you know, a pencil that, you know, defines a creative culture, all that stuff. But honestly, this is a really cool addition. Within that they say it's a limited edition. I have no idea how many, like how many they made. I mean when you think about it, everything's a limited edition except maybe like plain old Ticonderogas that will go on forever. But I guess, I mean the old ones are limited edition too because you know, they're so much better.

I have to say, the packaging and sort of the unboxing experience was amazing.

So I got a sleeve because I requested a little bit early to try to review. Didn't really come early because of the mail, but that's a different thing. But anyhow, they sent me one of the ones they were sending out to retailers, and it had a little, like, really gorgeous, like, letterpress sleeve on this heavy cardstock. It has that. That same, like, the graphic of the pencil kind of debossed into some, like, thick, plush cardstock. I gave feedback that the sleeve really should come with the subscribers, too, not just the retailers.

The reason they didn't, which. Which makes sense, is that they wanted people to have a little bit more of, like, a surprise of what they'll find inside as they open it. But I think that thanks to our group and everybody else on the Internet, you know, people already know what it's going to look like when they get it.

Do it.

Yeah, yeah. The archived.

Yeah. The archive pencil came in this cool little tube with these little rubber end caps. It looks. It kind of looks steampunkish, a little bit like you have. What do you call the thing like in Romeo and Juliet? The apothecary.

Apothecary. I can't say. Kind of looks like, you know, you have a wall just, like, lined up with pencils and a little bit like that and a little bit like David Rees.

You can. So I feel a little bad. I made the mistake of sending Tim his pencils through FedEx ground because that's we have that at work and it's super easy to mail it off. But next time Tim, I will send it to you a little faster because six days is unacceptable.

Tim and I are splitting a subscription. So. Yeah, it's.

So yeah, it's. I'm looking forward. I understand that they kind of already have the next two kind of conceived of and planned out. I have no idea what they are. I can't wait to see. I sort of wanted to spend a little bit time. I actually really enjoy in field nuts when they sort of like, you know, somebody leaks some. Some quick hint about something. I really love the kind of the Apple rumors esque way that people will just like speculate about it. It's good fun. I just think. I think. And so I came up with some theories of what the 7 I thought the 725 meant. I actually remember seeing. I looked up the significance of like 7-25-725 and one of the things listed was the Newport Music Festival taking place where that really like changed the way folk music is because Bob Dylan played, you know, on a electric guitar. And so I remember seeing that and just not. Not thinking about it at all like I should have because I know they're really into music. That's something that is really important to Charles and Grant and Alexander and everybody else.

Yeah. And somebody who was in the group who said that they actually like thought about that.

Dr. Hans was like, I believe him. Yeah, I do too.

Smart guy. I thought it was there. Yeah.

Yeah. I was hoping because the other Eberhard Faber pencil that was in that was model number 725 is this Sapphire blue indelible pencil. And I doubted that it would actually be like indelible. But I was hoping that it might be like sapphire blue or something really bright and blue.

sports, probably.

Yeah, I think it was. What's his name? Well, we talked about this last time, but Brad Dowdy pointed out that maybe, you know, he saw, like, the Dodgers Blue 42 in the group. And of course, immediately, like I said before, I. I immediately went to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. But baseball fans, that would be really awesome.

Can we get a. Can we get a Rolly Fingers pencil?

I saw somebody work with a Rolly Fingers T shirt with that. Like that same picture you sent me with the mustache.

I really want one anyhow. Yeah. So, yeah, that's. That's probably. Does anybody else have anything to say about the 725. It's 25 bucks on pencil dot com.

So it's not. It's not cheaper or anything, but it's.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes. We need to get a hell of a sharpener subscription.

Don't steal our idea, guys. We're doing the Dollar Sharp Club.

Yeah, I. I'm still. I don't know what my deal is. I'm still not a subscriber, and that's just stupid.

Can't beat that.

Yeah. How do you guys feel about the. How all six of them come together just in one package rather than like two separate ones?

For field note collectors rather than users, it's probably got to be frustrating because you can't have one you can hoard away. Like, you have to either hoard that one away or spend another 20 bucks to do it. Yeah.

I think so.

Those stickers are awesome.

So I don't want to spoil my fresh points, but I had some good karma because I. I had the. The Workshop edition that I got that in, and I did a little unboxing video that TJ is turning into a wooden graphite video. And so I was like, oh, I'm not going to use these for a while. And I knew that I was going to be meeting Mike Harley, so actually. And Mike kind of often laments that his subscriber pack doesn't come very soon, like, quickly because he's in the uk. So I met Mike, which I'll talk about in a little bit, and I gave him my national crops, or not my national crops, my Workshop companion set. And he's like, oh, thank you then like, literally the next day, Aaron Drapin came to. To speak it at Facebook. And so I. I attended and I actually introduced him and. And the other. His other co speaker. And afterwards to say thank, Draplin just handed me a pack of the workshop companion edition. So I sort of like made it back, I guess, which is a lot.

Yeah.

When they're touched by the master.

Yeah, brand new.

Brand new paper. I think that the COVID is brand new too.

Yeah.

Never. No, I might.

You know, sometimes when I travel, I just bring along just like a bit click or something like that because it's cheap and easily losable and if I leave it somewhere that I know, I'll never be able to go back and get it. It's fine.

Would you put it in, like, a bullet pencil form to just make it a little bit better, traveled, travelable?

Carry around a reb.

I. Man, I've had a big week. It's interesting now living in a place where that can be kind of a hub. Like, people didn't come to Fort Wayne, Indiana, and so everybody who I met, well, I guess Draplin came to Fort Wayne, but that was super rare. And now for many different kinds of reasons, I've met three people through who I follow or am interested in through just the pencil. Internet. Wwdc, which is Apple's big developers conference, took place in San Francisco last weekend, last week. And Mike Hurley, being mainly a tech blogger, was here to meet up with some of his friends and to, you know, just to be in, like, kind of the epicenter of the tech news world for a week. So I connected with him. I was like, hey, Merlin Mann, who's this podcaster, who is a friend of Mike, kind of just sort of like a podcasting hero to me. He does this improv comedy thing once a month called Three Ring Binder. And I went with my friend Jake.

Bill Bray from work, and also as a listener. Jake and I went and Mike Hurley came, and I knew he was gonna be there, so we got to talk a little bit. And he's awesome. He's super warm. He was surrounded by, like, physically warm. He was very warm. He radiated off a lot of heat.

It's that epic beard, I think.

So I tried not to touch him too much. No. So he. We talked a lot. It was amazing. Just because, like, there were so many other, like, tech podcast greats there, like Marco Arment and Casey Liss and John Syracusa and Matt Alexander. Probably most of the people who listen to this wouldn't listen to those as well. But if you do listen to tech podcasts you know who I'm talking about.

Was just like, in. Just like tech podcast mecca. As Matt Alexander, who has a show with Mike. As he pointed out, when we were in this tiny basement, he was like, if this place burns down, Squarespace is going to lose a lot of advertiser. Yeah, it was fantastic. And I wish I could have hung out a little bit more with Mike, but he was super, super busy being just a member of the media and being there, just trying to pack all this stuff in. So he might be back in the States. He's applied to go to XOXO Fest, which I also have, so who knows if any of us will get in, but if. If we do, that'd be fun. I also met Aaron Draplin. I. This is so. This is gonna. I can't make this not sound like a humble brag, but I swear, I'm just. I'm just saying what happened. So Draplin has been to Facebook before for a design lecture series last year before I worked there. And he's very good friends with one of our creative directors, Josh Higgins, who previously worked on the Obama 2012 campaign. He's super cool. Originally, we were going to do a lecture series with Josh, but he realized all of the people here really know me because we're co workers, essentially. He got Draplin back. They just kind of lobbed questions at each other and given kind of my history with field notes and Draplin and my interest in that. The people who organized it asked me if I would introduce them. I was like, oh, hell, yeah. So I did. And afterwards, Draplin and I got to talk a little bit.

Yeah, I've met him before, and we talked pencils, but this was super cool. He was. Yeah, he's such a great guy. He's crazy, but, yeah, he's awesome. You know, he does those posters that are. It's basically a state, but they. There's like little. Little logos and graphics that make up each state that he makes. I previously had one for Indiana from him when I. When he came to Indiana. I live there. And this time I bought the California one. And he. Yeah, he was. He's awesome. So last, but certainly not least on Saturday, I met our own Gary Varner, who is pretty awesome if you're in the group at all. You know Gary from Notegeist. He's very, very active in the group, and he has advertised on the show. He was a guest on the show when they first opened. Do you remember what episode that was? I Can look it up. Yeah, yeah. As soon as. As soon as note guys opened, he came in on the show and talked. We basically did a stationary tour of San Francisco. We took the bus around and went to Muji and Itoya and Maido and I'm gonna not pronounce it right. Kinokanoya. So that place that Dr. Hans likes a lot. Yeah, we went there, just hung out and had fun. He's a cool guy. He's here for a conference. Yeah.

Yeah, it's something I stuck in the mountains. Hey, you're the most central, like geographically of either of us, so.

If we have a meetup.

Yeah. I'm just gonna invite myself over one day, be like, hey, Tim, I'm staying for three weeks. Is that cool?

Yeah, Me and Rosie can hang out. Yeah. So it's been a big week. I don't have any more meet up plans, I guess, for a while, but yeah, that was super cool.

Oh, yeah. So if you're.

Oh, man. If we didn't have such a good show title already, that would be it. Yeah. And if we have any listeners in the Bay area and you want to like meet up and have coffee or go to Itoya or something, like, let me know. I'd love to meet up. I try to get up to San Francisco most every weekend. That'd be fun. So, yeah, that's all of my fresh points. They're all pretty much in the show notes. I have. I met Mike. I met Draplin, I met Gary. So that's about all for me. Yeah. Should we kind of launch into the main topic?

All right, let us talk about our main topic. I sort of feel like our 725 and our Kum masterpiece discussion could have been sub main topics. This is the official one. So we recently got kind of the urging of Tim put together our top five pencils of right now and we have a place on the website for it. It's called the graphite lists. It's erasable Us top five. And we just basically took our top five pencils, wrote a couple sentences about it, and we're going to kind of treat it as a living document, an evergreen document, if you will, about just what. What it is that's in our. In our top five kind of recurring.

Yeah. So it's. It's interesting. We're going to kind of maybe compare them. It sounds like Tim is pretty steady with this, but mine are definitely different than when we. In our first episode where we talked about our top five pencils. So here, 30 episodes, more than a year later, we have these kind of put together. And I'm trying to find a way to be able to have, like, have comments on this page, but it's not a blog post, it's a page. And Squarespace isn't good about letting you put comments on pages, so I might try to find some other means to allow people to post their favorite to this page as well. We had a good list going in the group, though.

So, yeah. How about you, Johnny? Do you want to start us off with your current top five and then maybe talk about what it used to be in episode one?

I can list it off when you're done talking about it, though.

Get it at Flax Art and Supply.

No, Fred Meyers.

Yeah.

Hey, Johnny, I should have asked you this. How does the KUM masterpiece do with Wopex?

Yeah, yeah.

The 2H sounds ridiculous. Like the HB is hard enough, light enough.

Yeah.

Hopefully your racist neighbor doesn't listen, or else maybe you can just be like, no, no, I'm talking about my other neighbor.

Isn't F the grade between HB and B?

So, Johnny, do you mean to read your. Your top five from March 2014?

It's the General's layout pencil, the blue Palomino with no eraser, the Cedar point pencil that's still on there. Something German like a Statler Mars or a Norris and a fat Dixon pencil. So those are. It looks like your. Looks like the Cedar Point has. Has lasted the year.

Tim, how about. How about you?

It's the pencil that launched a creative culture.

And, you know. And you know, I love that green over the Ticonderoga green feral.

Yeah.

republic one.

You're og.

Yes.

Yeah.

Well, Tim, your. Your old list here, you had a field notes pencil. And I don't think we ranked them in this like, we have kind of now. Yeah, we had a. You had a field notes pencil. You had the Blackwing 602. You had the Dixon Ladee. You had the Forest choice, and then you had the Musgrave Testing 100.

It was because it was so round.

Yeah. What about you, Andy? Mine, actually, the. The first two are the same of my old list and my new list. I don't think it's any wonder that my new number one is the Palomino Golden Bear, which, you know, the very first pencil that I ever, ever reviewed at all for the Internet was in a. Was. This was among them. It was a palomino and a golden bear and a prospector. And at first I didn't like the Golden Bear because I had one that just splintered and I think it had maybe been dropped and the lead had not kind of fractured, I think. So they replaced it and it was amazing. It just blew my mind. It's not the best quality pencil in the entire world, but it costs $2 and it costs less than $3 a dozen. And it's an amazing quality for that price. So it performs really well. It's so great to look at. I like the blue one the best. I just love that blue color and then that orange eraser. And honestly, I really like the new. When they took it under Palomino and made it in the usa, so just made it even better. So this is by far the top of my list. And I always, always have a Palomino Golden Bear somewhere around me. I do miss the triangular ones, though. Second on my list is the Palomino Blackwing 602. It's a better performer than the Golden Bear, but obviously it's very iconic looking. It's very. It's gorgeous. It writes really well. It's also $20 a dozen instead of $3 a dozen. But it's. Yeah, it's a fantastic pencil. And it's. And again, it's. I think I said it's the kind of the flagship pencils atpencil@pencils.com. so it's the one that kind of bears the legacy of the, you know, the old Eberhard Faber one. I also had the Mitsubishi hi Unique to be. This is kind of a new one on the list. I started using it after I moved out here and I started going to a mito store. They have this here. It's really nice. It's. It's. I'm. That maroon color is growing on me. It's super high quality. It's not. It's not cheap. It costs actually maybe even a little bit more than a blackwing. Is that accurate? A little bit more.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's. It's here on. You can get it JetPens in 2B. It's. Yeah. 235A pencil. So it's not cheap, but it's so nice. It's such. Such good quality and aesthetically, which does count for something. It's gorgeous. It's. Yeah. So nice. The Japanese just know what they're doing. They. You know the. The Palomino black wings made in Japan too. The Musgrave test. Scoring 100. Tim actually converted me over. I think. I think you. You sent me one of your silver ones once and I. I used it to kind of a nub and kind of one go. I think I was journaling. Journaling a lot and I. Yeah. So I have bought a bunch of those since I like to keep them around.

They just really, really have a high quality point for like they did. They lay down thick and dark and have a high quality point like that.

Yeah.

So the. The reason I went with a Musgrave over that is just because it's so weird looking. Like, it's silver. It has some weird font on it. So it's very. It's kind of unique looking. And like I said before, like I. Aesthetics for me counts for a lot. The. The Musgrave one is. It works so well, but it's. It's just kind of boring looking.

And one that I've. Is pretty new to the list that I just. Just started using because I think I just kind of broke into the pack that Johnny sent me a few months ago. The Norris School pencil. I just love, love that like bright red cap on the end. It's a yellow and black striped, has that big bright red cap. It's nothing special. Europeans. The designer in my, you know, on my team is German and she's. People are like, oh, what's that pencil? And she's like, it's just a Statler. Like it's, you know, it's something that is everywhere in Germany. It's A school pencil, but it definitely stands out to Americans. And, yeah, I'd love to look at it. So, yeah, my original top five was. The first two were the same as the Palomino golden bear and the Blackwing 602. I had the Midori Bullet pencil in there because I was using that a lot before I had other bullet pencils and since has kind of fallen away. Had the general semi hex on there, which I still like, but I just. I don't think I've used much of. And then I had the Helix Oxford, which I still like, but also haven't used much. The Helix I like because it has that kind of, like pink wood and it's. Yeah, it's just very British.

Yeah. Yeah, I like that name, that navy blue. So we.

Yeah. What are some of the ones that seem like it? They.

Oh, yeah, I know what it is.

Is there any really weird ones on that list? You don't have to say names.

Yeah.

been on Johnny's list. Maybe it will be again.

I like to. Yeah, I like to like, sharpen it and look at it and smell it and use it, but I don't. I don't use it all the time because they are pretty expensive.

Do you send it to Chauffeur to feed his addiction?

What have you guys speaking. This is. This is slightly off topic, but it just came through on Caroline Weaver's Instagram of those. Oh, man. It's that pencil set with like, made out of like maple and. And cherry wood. She posted it. I have to pull this up.

Yeah. It was not an exotic wood.

At least if it is. It's not the, like that Cran d' Ache one. It's. It's a Japanese brand or. No, it's a. It has 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 pencils. And they come in like this maple frame and they're. There's one made of Japanese cypress, one made of rosewood, oak, walnut, mahogany. It looks like Maybe it's a little bit. It's maybe like the Japanese version of the exotic wood pencils.

I think so. I just put the link in. Show notes, Tim, if you want to look at that. Yeah, it's gorgeous. I may have to invest in this just because it's. It's a nicer display, in my opinion, than the rare wood ones from Caran d'. Ache. And also, hopefully there won't be $30, which maybe it will be.

Yeah.

I don't think so. If they are, they're maybe just in the. You have to go to New York and buy us just some. Buy something.

What are they?

Never mind.

Yeah, I should have, like. There's teak in here and there's African padauk wood. Mahogany. Yeah, I should have known.

and maybe like a patron with super deep pockets who can just. I'll bias these.

What company is this? I didn't. Can you post a link in show notes to the.

She has 3,000 followers on. 3,100 followers on Instagram. She's awesome. She's so awesome. Anyhow, so, yeah, we've probably wrapped up and over our time allotted, so. Yeah. Anything else we should mention about this top five list? If you are not in the Facebook group and you want to contribute to your top five list, you can leave a comment in erasable US31 and I will, come hell or high water, figure out how to get users to submit on the actual top five page. So that will be a thing that happens eventually. Anything else before we sign off?

Okay.

Tim, where can people find you on the Internet?

Cool.

All right. I am Andy Welfle. I am online@woodclinched.com you can find me on Twitter at either awelfley if you just want to see a lot of cat pics or oodclinched if you want to see more pencil y stuff. Yeah and we are the Erasable podcast. You can find our website show notes links to the show recordings at Erasable Us. If you are on Facebook and are so inclined you can come join our amazing Facebook group. Incredible people. Such a great community. It's at facebook.com groups erasable. If you just want to get updates about the shows find us at facebook.com erasablepodcast you can get us at Twitter raceablepodcast on Twitter. We don't have a company Instagram but you can hashtag raceablepodcast on Instagram to get your stuff kind of like seen and noticed and what else? We are on the itunes directory if you would be so kind. We would love it if you would give us a rating and a quick review. It helps people find find us on podcast directories. I actually just got an email today. We are now in some other pod directory dot com. I don't know what that means. I think somebody added us. I went and claimed our username Real quick. If you want to show some store swag, go over to erasable US shop and you can buy a sticker, a little 2 1/2 inch hex sticker to show off your pride. Put that on your laptop or your notebook or what have you have you? You can also get a tattoo if you wanted to. We'll post a picture of that. No. So yeah, the Erasable Podcast. Please don't erase us from your podcast directory and we will see you soon.

If I could just count the times this has happened before. Oh, I said.