Scribe

Hi.

Everything's good. Another. Another hot, steamy summer. It's getting pretty old, but yeah. Yeah.

We do. We have one of those units that hangs above the door and it's been kind of leaky. It's really frustrating. I can't wait to not have to use it anymore.

Yeah, definitely don't want to let that happen.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, we have those. We have. We have all the. Well, pretty much all the versions of them. The black ones, the ones with the eraser, the ones without the eraser, the jumbo one, which we actually, now that I think about it, we do keep that in the window and it gets really hot there and nothing's melted yet. So I think that's a good sign if it's thicker all the time.

I am. I thought I'd go with Japan theme. So I'm drinking a Hibiki 17 year single malt whiskey with a single ice cube. And I like it with a. With a drop of agave nectar or sometimes maple syrup. It kind of just like. Yeah. Makes it makes it a lot cleaner. And I'm writing with an old blaised out Ben Franklin 500. I've been really into old yellow school pencils and so this is my one from the past couple days.

Yeah, they're really nice. They're really dark.

Really like this one.

Yay. Great choice. It's a good one.

Yep, that's right.

Well, this pencil is kind of a strange one. I had never seen this pencil before until I found it. And I found it in only one shop when I was in Japan. I didn't ever see it again. And then I did some research and realized that it's just kind of the unicorn of mono pencils. And it's a type of pencil that's really distinctly Japanese. It's pencils like this are made for practicing penmanship. And even on the box, they always recommend that you hold it at a 60 degree angle. I mean, to the table they have a little diagram also. It's hilarious. But yeah, they're really strange. I had a customer tell me the other day that they're also used for writing things repeatedly with the intent of remembering them. That's why they're so smooth and that's why they're so thick, so that you can just kind of be sloppy about it and just get it done. But this is a really unique pencil because it's really dark, it's really smooth, it's not as smudgy as it really should be for a 4B pencil.

Yeah, it's nice. It's a lot like the Mitsubishi penmanship pencil. The one that comes in triangular and hex with the super thick core that comes in 4B and 6. I feel like that one's a little Less smudgy and has slightly better point retention. But I really like the way that this one looks and the way that it writes. It's just really wonderful.

Yeah, I did that, and then I ended up still needing more. We have a lot of subscribers now. We have, I think, as of last count the other day, we have almost 250 subscribers to our Pencil the Month club. So it's becoming increasingly hard to pick unique pencils because I have to find a ton of them. But, yeah, I bought a bunch of these in Japan, and then I have a contact over there who tracks things down for me and sends them over, so I need a little bit of help with that. But we will be stocking them in the shop soon. This week we'll have them in the shop and online so everybody can try it. It's really, really just a great pencil. It's really cool looking, too. I don't really know of any pencils that are this color combo with the yellow on the end.

It comes in 6b also, which I have not. I've not seen it and I haven't tried it, but. Yeah, that might be a little bit too soft. I don't know.

No, it looks exactly the same.

I think it deserves an A. Yeah. Yeah. I still. If I could take the. The graphite and the Mitsubishi penmanship and put it inside this pencil, that would be like the perfect pencil. But, yeah, I do really love it.

Cool.

Well, I did something that never happens, given that I live in Manhattan. I went to Target today. This is a really big deal, too. I went all the way up to visit a friend who just moved a block away from the Harlem Target.

No, we have one in Harlem on, like, it's 100 and something street. And then we have one in Brooklyn. That's terrible.

Oh, yeah, Target Envy. I'm jealous. I love Target. And Caitlin, if anybody doesn't know Caitlin, Caitlin is deputy pencil lady in the shop. Caitlin lives in Jersey City and goes to Target all the time and has found so much cool pencil stuff for us for kind of our back to school setup. In the store, she found these buckets that. These, like little metal buckets that we filled with erasers that are painted to be like a pencil. They're really subtle and really cute. But I was really excited to buy the back to school Ticonderogas in those in the fun colors, but was very disappointed to see that none of them are centered. They'll just look nice in my pencil cup, I guess. It's been a long time since I bought. Since I bought Ticonderogas in a store that weren't really old. So of course I'm disappointed.

Yeah, I did.

They look really cool. I just, I. I recently also found on ebay these. A box of the millennium Ticonderogas.

Yeah, they're really awesome. I was really excited to get those. But, yeah, it's been a. It's been a really Ticonderoga week in the store. We've had lots of fun, vintage Ticonderoga things arrive. And we've also been talking about it a lot because we are planning an event that we're doing next month that I'm really excited about that's going to be at the Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn, which is where Eberhard Faber is buried. And we were. We had a customer in the shop a couple months ago who I was just talking to, and she told me that she's the events coordinator there and that she knows that Eberhard Faber's buried there. And we kind of joked about doing an event and now we're actually doing it. And while she was kind of working on the program, one of her colleagues told her that Joseph Dixon's also buried there.

Yeah, they're both buried in the same cemetery. So we're on a Sunday afternoon, we're doing. I'm doing a talk in the chapel at the cemetery and then we're doing a trolley ride up to Eberhard Faber's grave and we're going to do a grave rubbing.

Yeah, it's going to be crazy. I think we're going to try to do a grave rubbing in a. In an original Blackwing 602.

Yeah.

I think we will. We will document it heavily. We're taking all four of us in the shop, are going. We're just closing the shop for the day. We're just going to put a sign on the door that says meet us at the cemetery with the address and

Hopefully. Hopefully people won't be too mad at us.

No, we were. We couldn't decide who was going to work that day because everybody wanted to come. So we're all going.

No. I saw them today. I had never seen them before. I opened the box and looked at them, but then didn't buy them because they looked kind of terrible.

to buy those on my next adventure uptown.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

People ask me that all the time. I really had never thought about it until people started mentioning it to me. Maybe. Maybe. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know which one I'd go to either. I'd have to think about that. I think I could be convinced.

Yeah, I think it'd be so much fun.

I really like the. The Tri Rex. The regular. Just the regular sized one with an eraser.

I love that one for school. That's definitely one of my top recommendations. That eraser is really not terrible. It's pretty good. And it's. It's really comfortable to hold because it's that weird bevel triangle. And for being a really. For being a really inexpensive pencil, I think that one's pretty top notch.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I could get them for you.

We could do that.

Yeah, that's right. I love, love the design of that one. It has two tiny little bugles painted on it. It's adorable.

You're.

Oh yeah.

We try really hard. I am not very good at those things. It's taken me a long time to figure it out. I'm so bad at it.

Yeah, no, I'm the least photogenic person in the universe. I can't do photos and Caitlin convinced me that it was okay to just not have my face in it at. So that's what we went with. Figure like most people who even read that blog probably know what I look like anyway. They don't need to know what I look like.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, it's. It's really, really different. I. Yeah, yeah. So I. The reason why I went was for the International Stationery and Office Products trade show, which is massive. It's just this huge trade show where they have. They have vendors from all over Asia. And I kind of. I kind of just. When I first started my business, I kind of just googled stationary trade shows and just made a list of all the ones I came across. And this one, there was. There's almost no information online in English at least, about. About this trade show. And I. I just kind of thought, oh, it's a. It's a good excuse to go to Japan and maybe try to find some things. So I just did it. And yeah, it was. It was really strange. I had to have an interpreter because none of these businesses, most of the representatives from these businesses, none of them spoke English. And so I had an interpreter with me the whole time I was there. And we went to this trade show and saw so much washi tape. There was just washi tape everywhere.

I really, really got obsessed and really wish somebody would open a washi tape store next to mine. That'd be awesome.

Oh, that does sound great.

It was just really distracting seeing the washi tape everywhere. I couldn't handle it. But we. I met. Met a bunch of pencil. Bunch of pencil people who I hadn't been able to get a hold of. And I just kind of thought forever. I thought, like, I'm emailing these companies and no one's replying. Are they trying to ignore me? Or whatever? And then I realized that it really honestly is just a language thing that they just often don't. Or maybe I write really confusing emails. That's probably a lot to do with it. But it was just so much easier for me to just go there, show up in person, and with it, with an interpreter, just do business that way. But yeah, there were. There were a lot of really strange things there. We saw these ballpoint pens that are like two ballpoint pens glued together like next to each other. And so the idea is not so that you use them both at the same time, but you write with one. And then when you want the other color, you just flip it over in your hand so you don't have to get another pen.

Yeah, it's really strange. There was like, really everything at this thing. They had a stall that was this company that just sells like every. Like they sell receipt paper, like for storage, but in every color in the rainbow. And I just thought, like, I can't believe that that exists.

They just had everything. And it was in this huge convention center that is bigger than the Javits center or anything I've seen here. And they had all these other trade shows going on at the same time. So it was just a bunch of super ridiculous stuff things. But yeah, that was. Anyway, that's boring. But I. I spent. I went. So I had enough time to just kind of roam around Tokyo on my own and try to go to all the stationery stores that I know of in Japan or the ones that have been recommended or ones I had found through extensive research. But yeah, honestly, I was a little bit disappointed that I didn't really come across many pencils that I didn't know about already. I was really hoping for some. For some surprises. But this mono KMKKS is really the only one that I found that I really had never seen in my entire life. But they. The thing about Japanese pencils that I. I mean, I'm really partial to Japanese pencils. I love them and they're just really special because they pay so much more attention to the design of them and the way that they're finished and the quality of the paint. They have so many layers of paint always just because. I guess it's just a lot more important that it be aesthetically pleasing. And the graphite is always so much smoother. And it's. I think with most Japanese pencils, it's because they use a little bit of polymer as well as wax with their graphite mixture. And so it's just a completely different type of smoothness, which I really appreciate. But yeah, there was a. I went to Itoya and they have a pencil testing station where they have all the pencils. And that was really fun because I've never seen like a proper pencil testing station anywhere outside my shop. And so it was fun to kind of be in somebody else's shop because in my shop I use all the pencils, but I never really sit there and like, try them all out. Like. Like I would as a customer. And so it was fun to do that, to really kind of remind myself what the difference is between a Japanese pencil and, I guess, pencils from Europe or the US or anything.

Not fair.

I love that on the backs of them they often write what its purpose is. I've been meaning to take all the ones and flip them around and take an Instagram of them all together because there's so many, like general writing, office use, school use, Master writing. Master writing, yeah. That's the best one, the master writing one. I love that one.

Really? Not many at all. Probably like 10% or less. Really? Yeah, yeah. The. I mean the standard pencils that they sell in the stationery stores that are mostly just. Mostly just like Tombow Monos or Unis, not the High Ooni or any of the higher end ones. Usually just like. I forgot what, like the Uni Star I think they call it. And they have all these like all these models of Mitsubishi versions of the Nanodea. And also the tombow IPOs that are. That are super, super designed and really cute and made for kids. They have a lot of those. But those. None of those have erasers either. Really. There just are almost no. No pencils with erasers. There.

Yeah, I've never actually used that one before. That's one that I always forget that I want. This happens all the time. I see a pencil and I need to stock it, but then I just forget. I'm going to actually make a note of that.

Yeah, I'd love to try it.

Oh yeah, they do. You're right, they do.

I'm never in that part of town, so I never go there. But there's the other Tombow pencil, the Tombow 2558. It's a yellow pencil, but it's kind of orangey and it has. Yeah, it has that kind of like purplish, feral. I love that one. That's a really, really good Japanese pencil with an eraser. That's. That's a good one. I just. Yeah, I. I have a hard time sometimes explaining to people in the store that the eraser thing is really just. It's really American. And any pencil that's made outside of the US that does have a ferrule and eraser is pretty much made for the US market.

Well, I think in general, everything in Japan is so orderly. And as far as. As far as kind of etiquette goes, it's so, so old fashioned, which is kind of refreshing. I appreciate that. But I think that has a lot to do with it. It's just a certain way of life that things are done a certain way, the way that they've always been done, and that's how they're. They're just handled. And so I think as far as. As far as, like writing instruments go, like, they. It's just. It's just kind of. Kind of what's expected. I mean, in the stationery stores there, the biggest section, even more than for writing instruments, I noticed that often the biggest section is for planners and date books. They're just like aisles and aisles of that stuff. Like refills for every planner you could ever want. That. That's. That's just something that I feel like they haven't gone totally digital with the. Yeah, the idea of a calendar or a planner that you use every single day to record everything. And so I think at the very least, that's something that most people still use. And I think it's just part of their culture. I think, like, the Japanese products are always very well made and very designed for. Very well designed for the most part. I think they're quite proud of that. And so I think in Japan, too, like, a lot of the people I met were all so excited to show me what they were writing with and always, like, always kind of treasured those things. And they just kind of take a lot of pride in that, I think.

So I. Well, right now I'm using the. I'm just actually googling this right now to make sure I'm correct because I get the numbers so confused. The one that I love right now, and I've been recommending a lot for kids in school if they want a really nice pencil. I love the Mitsubishi 9852ew. It's kind of Mitsubishi's version of a yellow pencil with an eraser. But the, the naked one is so pretty and it's. The text is printed in green and it has a really nice black eraser and a kind of like deep purpley, feral. It's just a really nice quality, very, very simple pencil. It's just so simple and perfect and the box design is really, really great.

That's the one that says master writing. Yeah, that's. That's kind of my favorite Japanese pencil right now, just for everyday use. But that's also lately been a really popular pencil for taking the LSATs with in the shop. So we've been recommending that one a lot.

Oh, that's a really hard question. There are these notebooks that I found that I really, really liked. And still, like I said, business customs are so formal there. I'm still waiting to finish off things with some of these companies that I met. But there's this notebook that I will be getting eventually that is made by a calendar company. It's made. The paper inside the notebook is that. I guess it's not in the US it's not really a standard type of thing. But you know, like those, those calendars that you sometimes see in like Chinese or Japanese restaurants on the. On the table or something. Those calendars have the very, very thin paper. It's like very thin and kind of.

I don't know what that is.

That sort of thing. Yeah, exactly. And this company makes these generally very inexpensive calendars out of that sort of paper. And they're making notebooks out of them. And the idea is, because it's really thin, the idea is that the notebooks have 365 pages as calendar would for 365 days of the year. And so they did this. It's cool. And they did this one set. I think it's fairly new and I'd never seen it before. They don't, they've never sold to anybody in the US So it would be like brand new. But they, they do this one that is actually a set of four notebooks and there's one for each season. And they're very simple in their design. They're just, they're. They're. I think they're stitch bound, but they're, they're soft cover and they're different pastel colors. And on the edge of the paper, on the COVID it just has the name of the brand and gold foil. And then it has a little icon like a snowflake for the winter one, like something very subtle.

It's really cool. I kind of like the idea that you buy. It's not one notebook like your planner is that you use every day. It's just like a little collection. And at the end of the year you have this little collection of notebooks. But it's great paper though. It's really good for pen and pencil. Pencil doesn't smudge very easily on it, which is nice.

Oh, there's actually an eraser that I really like that I can't tell you what it is because I can't read it. And I've tried to look and I bought one for the first time. There's this, there's this Japanese supermarket that I go to sometimes. It's on like the third floor of a random building and it's kind of, kind of dodgy. But they had this eraser once by the checkout and I bought one and I saw them in Japan in all Sorts of colors. And it's a. It's kind of like a. It's a nice little size too. It's like. And it. Like an inch and a half by a half inch by like 1 inch. It's a great size. And it's. It's a plastic eraser and it's kind of crumbly, which is sort of nice sometimes for a plastic eraser, I think, because sometimes they're. They're kind of like, you kind of have to use a little bit too much pressure to get them to work. Well, I really don't like plastic erasers, but I love this one. And I. I will tell you as soon as I figure out what it is. Or maybe I'll. Maybe I'll put a picture of it on Instagram and ask somebody, ask for help. If anybody knows what it is, you'll

Yeah, it's great eraser. But they. They have a lot of those really good, like, clicky erasers that are super, super fine. They have ones that are just very thin and rectangular that are really nice. And a lot of those erasers in the shape kind of like the. That Staedtler one that's at Target right now, that's kind of rectangular and square. You know what I'm talking about?

Yeah. Love that shape. I'm not. Didn't buy any sushi erasers or any of those novelty ones. Not really into that.

Oh, that's a good question. I hadn't realized until I went there just how much more common it is to find a B or a 2B pencil for writing. I saw almost no HB writing pencils when I was there. Or at least definitely. Definitely. Far fewer than a B or a 2B. I don't know that there are any particular trends. There's a lot. They have so many stationary things over there right now are pastel colors. I saw so many pastel colored things, which I thought was a little bit peculiar. I guess that's the. That's what they've forecasted to be trendy pastel colors. Yeah. Which I'm not crazy about. So I was kind of bummed out about that.

Yeah. They. Because they make them what they. I kept seeing the pink ones and the blue ones, which to me seems kind of like Gender separate, which I'm not. Not really a fan of.

Shockingly, no. I. So many people tell me in the shop that they're like, sharpener was confiscated or. Some customers told me yesterday that tsa, like, had to investigate his lead holder once. And I've never had any issues. I travel with lots of sharpeners, and I always have lots of pencils. Especially this time, I had. I had probably half a suitcase full of pencils.

I'm a very light packer, so I left a lot of space for pencils. And nobody said a word. I was shocked.

I'm really, really excited about Kita Boshi Pencils, which I will be getting soon. I'm expecting the first.

They are really awesome. And I'm expecting the first order in hopefully soon. They are a really small. I didn't realize how small that company is. And they're really small. They're run by family. It's. I met the guy who's the, like, the president of the Kitobushi pencil factory. And he. He's so funny and so nice. And, yeah, they just gave us tons of free pencils and just talked to us for ages. They. We had a hard time leaving that booth every day that we were there because they were. They were so friendly. But they. They have really great checking pencils, like red. Red ones and red and blue combination ones. They make them in both that. In both, like a true red and that vermilion that some European brands are and a lot of Japanese brands do it in. Those are super nice. I'm really excited about those.

They're just outside Tokyo. They're, like, technically within city limits. I think their pencil factory is actually open to the public.

Yeah. You can go on a tour there.

I didn't really have time. It's just one of those things that I'd want to, say, spend a whole day doing that. And I'm. I'm hoping to make these trips a yearly thing at least, and so that'll just be something to look forward to next time.

Yeah. Hey, guys.

Yeah.

I really want to go to Paper World. I don't know. There are a lot of trips I want to take. I kind of wish I could just. Just, like, take. Take two months off and do them all. Just travel for a whole two months. But I can't do that. Not yet, at least. So I'm thinking I really want to do a trip to Portugal just because I get emails all the time about really cool stationary things in Portugal, really cool new brands, products, notebooks, just everything. And I love the Arco Pencils, which come from Portugal, and that's a really interesting, really old company. And I would love to visit their factory and maybe do a bit of research on Portuguese stationery, because I feel like a lot of that stuff never makes it outside of Portugal or at least outside of Europe. And so I think there's a lot to be found there. I'd also really love to go to India to visit the Hindustan pencil factory. They make the Apsara pencils and the Natraj pencils. They emailed me about that recently and I would love to make that happen because. Yeah, their pencils are really different to most other ones and that's. Yeah, there are some things I'd like to investigate there.

Yeah. They make. They have so many beautiful paper products there and they're. And the Viarco pencils are really great. I think, I think that Viarco is definitely the most innovative pencil brand that I think exists right now in the world. They're always coming up with really strange things. They do those scented pencils that are really wonderful and they have this pencil top. It's like you could spin it like a top. It's really fun. I have one on my desk and they have a magnetic pencil. They have all these really neat things.

It's a terrible website. Yeah, it's really terrible. But it's okay. Their products make up for it.

All of the above.

Yeah. I just really like learning about these things and I think that like, the more that I know, the more I can share with other people. People even if I can't get all the things in my shop and if I. I mean, I don't want to ever have a pencil empire or anything. I like it. I like to keep it small. I like it the way it is now. But I would eventually really part of. In like my 10 year plan is to open a store in Tokyo. So that's, that's something that I want to start thinking about in a few years. Maybe I need to find someone in Japan to run it for me.

That's the big hurdle. But I'd love to do that. I also think maybe these things will all be useful for my master plan, which I don't know if I should be Talking about this on a podcast. My master plan is to have. As if that's still not true. You guys are really famous. But no, my master plan is to have a TV show.

I really want a TV show where I travel the world in search of the most interesting, like, just the best paper products, like stationary things. Just everything. I have a great. I have a really great name for the show picked out already, which I won't say on the podcast, but if you want to know, I'll tell you in the shop. Yeah, so I'm. If anybody knows anyone who's a TV producer, send them my way, because I have a lot of plans for that.

Exactly. That's the plan. But I don't. I don't know if that'll happen. I'm working on it. I have a lot of years left in me.

Oh, goodness. Not that I know of. Really? I. Yeah, I don't know. I can't think of anything. Yeah, I think we covered a lot of bases.

I am on Instagram @wpencilenterprise. I'm on Twitter wpencils, and my website is cwpencils.com.

Oh, my shop is on Forsyth street in Manhattan between grand and Broome. Kind of in the Lower east side, but kind of in Chinatown. It's kind of in the middle of, well, no man's land, but you can take the B or D train to get there. You can see the giant pencil sign from the exit of the subway.

long past summer if I could just

oh, I said.