Scribe

Johnny.

We're the same age.

We're the same age.

It's fine.

Hi, I'm Caroline.

Hi, I'm Caitlin.

What are you drinking right now? Andy's already announced what gross stuff he's drinking, and I'm going to be about on par with him. I mean, before we did this, Caroline and I were downstairs drinking champagne, but now that we're actually podcasting, I am drinking the champagne.

Miller highlight number one.

Yeah, I'm drinking Miller High Life. And I am writing with my number one. Go to the general Cedar Point number two. And I am writing in my favorite notebook, the mnemosyne. I think you guys have talked about it a few times, and I also don't know how to pronounce it right. So if somebody wants to correct me, that would be wonderful.

Mnemosyne.

We say nemesine. A lot in the shop, but I'm pretty sure that's not right.

I'm still drinking champagne. I'm actually drinking miniature bottle of champagne that has been in our fridge since the day the shop opened.

Oh, no, it's fine. It's totally fine. It was one of those cute mini bottles that a friend brought me on the day that we opened. She was actually our first customer and it's been in there ever since. And so I'm drinking that and I'm writing with a craft design technology pencil, which is my favorite just general use PE because the eraser is really good and it's really pretty. And if anyone read my blog post, you also know that it's my favorite pencil to put in a ponytail. And yeah, I'm writing in my yellow Smythson planner that has a lot of blank pages in the back.

Best idea.

Either.

Yeah.

Sure, sure. I feel a little nervous going first because I wasn't quite sure what I should talk about for FreshPoints.

So I guess I'll start with a little bit of shop news. We hired two new people this week.

The first one, her name is Alex. She is getting her MFA in creative writing, so obviously she gets bonus points for that. But she also is our first girl who's really into pens. She's a big fan of pen addict. So we have kind of another voice in the shop, which is really exciting. But we also hired our first pencil dude.

You're honorary pencil dudes accounts, right?

His name is Max, and one of the reasons why we were kind of drawn to him is he brought in his own pencils that he made.

Well, they were made out of, like, two millimeter pieces of lead that would go on like a lead holder, and he had wrapped them in different colored origami paper, and they're really cute, kind of charming. So, yeah, first pencil dude. We're really excited about that.

I'm really excited about him. He's great.

He's very nice.

Yeah, he's very.

Full dudes sit around in our underwear

Oh, my gosh.

And the other shop news that is not particularly news to steer away from, whatever that was going to be, is we finally got comb sharpeners, and now we are stocking the masterpiece, and we'll hopefully be stocking the masterpiece for the foreseeable future.

Absolutely.

Absolutely. I finally have one for myself, which is really exciting.

Yeah, it really is. It's all a little superfluous, but very awesome.

And I have a little bit of personal that I wanted to share is, you Guys have talked to us a lot about stationery on the podcast. So this isn't necessarily about pencils, but I thought people would appreciate it. In the show notes, I shared a link to this Etsy shop I found that sells vintage stamps, and I didn't know that you could use vintage, like, old stamps as regular postage and got really excited and maybe bought too much stamps. And it all came packaged in this really wonderful little stationery. And it was just like, I need more people to know about this store. It's called Verd Studio. They're in Pennsylvania. It's just awesome. They do little themed packages. I bought one full of cactuses.

That's awesome.

Yeah, it's just like a. You guys talked, I think, on a recent episode about writing each other letters. And I'm like, now I need to write everybody letters with really cool vintage stamps.

I saw you have to use, yeah, probably about 5 stamps envelope, but like, yeah, there are ones that are like weird denominations, like 8 cents. I don't think you got one that was more than 25 cents a stamp.

Sure, I'll go next. So I think, as we already established, I was in New Orleans this weekend, had a very dramatic journey home today. Mom, if you're listening, everything's fine. I made it home,

So I'm not really one to buy tourist pencils or, like, pencils for landmarks or things like that, unless they're really cool. But I was really surprised to find that at the Cafe du Monde, like, the cafe that's famous for, like, the chicory coffee and the beignets. They have really cool pencils, and they're really well centered. They're actually really nice. I sharpened one today, and it's actually quite nice to write with, but the entire barrel of it is green and white stripes, like, they're awning. And they were really, really cute. I was really surprised because I'm usually a bit of a snob about those things, but I was so excited about that. And I think the ladies in the shop thought I was crazy. And my Boyfriend was a little bit embarrassed. Find pencils in a gift shop. But, yeah, they're really fun.

I don't know. I can't really tell when I sharpen them. They have very similar characteristics to the moon products pencils that we have made for our shop. So I wouldn't be surprised if they make them. Or they might just be made in China, to be honest. But, yeah, they were really nice for being gift shop pencils. I was really surprised and really excited. But, yeah, those are fun. And. Oh, I have. I have, like, kind of shocking news, or some of you might think this is shocking. Caitlin knows what I'm talking about. We received a product into the store today that is not a pencil. It's a pen, right? No, it's like a mechanical pencil and a pen.

No, you have to see it.

You have to see it. I promise I'll post pictures online. I'll post them on the group, like, right after this. I'm in the office. I've got them right here. But it's this company that approached us. It's a company that makes a lot of those artist edition fancy pens for museum shops and stuff. And they have this set that comes in a box that looks like a composition notebook. Beautiful. And they make these pencils. It's a mechanical pencil and a pen. They look almost identical. And it's a really nice mechanical pencil and a really nice ballpoint pen. And they look like. They look like jumbo hexagonal yellow pencils. And there's something. Yeah, there's something really funny about them. And they. Even the set comes with the pen, the pencil, the refill lead, and it comes with two replacement erasers for the pencil, which are like, hilariously jumbo versions of pink arrowhead erasers. It's really funny. It's a really lovely gift. Like, gift item or just like, if you're gonna. If you're a pencil person, you're gonna write with a pen, then maybe this is the one you should be writing with. But, yeah, it's kind of big news because we've been so adamantly against selling pens or mechanical pencils. But since they look like pencils and they're so beautifully packaged, we thought we'd make an exception. We'll see how it. We'll see how it does.

That's true. That would be weird, though, wouldn't it?

Mm.

That would be really pretty. Like, well, but it would. Like, where would the wood go? Would it be like plastic over wood over graphite? Like, that would be.

There's also something. Sorry, no, there's also something really entertaining about the fact that the company that makes them is called Acme Studios.

Yes.

I wish.

We should suggest that to them. Anyway, that's. Yeah. Our shocking news. We're going to sell a pen. Nobody freak out. Please nobody be mad at us.

We're getting hate mail now.

No. We get so much love mail. We get so much good mail.

No, I think that's all I've got.

Oh my God.

That's true.

We're on it.

Yeah, we'll make it happen.

I don't but I did see somebody recently comment about the classroom friendly saying that they found the marks comforting because they knew that their pencil was secure.

Yes.

Well, I can answer these. So Paper World is a thing that happens in Frankfurt at this crazy convention center that is humongous. And it happens once a year. And anybody can go. It's one of those rare trade shows where you don't have to be industry to go. You can actually just buy a ticket. I don't remember how much it is a day, but you. Yeah, you can just. Anybody can go. Just even as, like, as a spectator. And there are probably. Oh, gosh, I don't even know how many vendors. There's got to be at least a thousand vendors there. And it's across multiple halls and a humongous, like, humongous trade show center that has so many Moving sidewalks. And Caitlin and I probably walked like four miles a day just getting from point A to point B. And it also happens during the same time as a trade show called Creative World and another one called Christmas World, which, believe it or not, is Christmas World, is actually like all Christmas things. It's really weird. And the majority of the people who go to Christmas World are like families who go there as spectators because it's really fun.

It's like, super weird that these three things all happen at one time, but they.

Yeah, it's like all in, like, the same weekend in the same complex, which is massive. And it's really neat because they have, like, all the art supply companies. They have even just, like, companies who supply really weird things to craft stores. And there are also. There's also like, an entire section of floor dedicated to printer toner. And I mean, some of the. Some of the big wigs don't show there. Like, Faber Castell doesn't have a stand there anymore, and neither does Koh I Noor. But for the majority, like, basically any company that sells pencils or any stationery in Europe is there. And some of the environment's quite corporate, though, so a lot, like, even we felt a little bit intimidated in some of the stands and some of the areas because it was the type of thing where, like, you had to make an appointment and guarantee that you were going to be a big account for them to even be interested. But for the most part, it was really, really fun. We got to see a lot of cool things. And we kind of wish that there was, like, a way that you could actually shop trade shows because there was so much stuff that we saw that we wanted to buy, but doesn't fall into the category of what we actually sell. But, yeah, basically that's what Paper World is. And Frankfurt's a weird city because there's not. I mean, it's a cool city, but there's, like, not a lot going on there. That's not super business. Yeah. And it's pretty clear that this. This convention center is a huge part of their economy.

Not as much as you would expect. Like, we ate, like, we had a couple sausages in the convention center. And besides that, I don't think we ate any more of that. But, yeah, German food is not the greatest. I will say that

So I particularly was really fascinated with this pencil we saw from Milan. Milan makes sharpeners and erasers, typically, and some, like, interesting mechanical pencils. They had one item in particular that I really want to stock for the store that is half highlighter pencil, half graphite. So I'm like, that just seems like the note taker's best friend.

They do make really, really cute erasers.

They make a lot of eraser sharpener combos. So you have, like, one end that's a sharpener and one end that's an era. We stocked a bunch at Back to School. The Milan touch was really popular. But, yeah, they do a lot of school supplies. I think their demographic is mostly school kids. I was just really surprised to see this half because Caroline and I are both really interested in these combo things, like the red and blue pencils we're a little obsessed with. So it was really interesting to see a half highlighter, half graphite pencil.

Before Caroline says anything, I just want to let you know that I've spent a lot of time with her and almost anywhere we go, if they have napkins, she's buying them. It's her other. Other vice.

another specialty store. It's going to be novelty napkins, for sure. I love napkins. Like, even, like, Caitlin and I went to Ikea once and I bought a ton of napkins. Like, I just. Yeah, I have a whole drawer of them in my apartment. We had so much fun. Because in Germany, because in any of the stationery stores, just in Frankfurt even, they sell, like, all your normal, like, school supplies. Kind of art supplies, paper, like that sort of stuff. But they all have, like. They all have carousels of napkins, which is something I'm not terribly used to. And then when we went to Paper World, there were so many stands or so many vendors that sold, like, notebooks and napkins and. Yeah, it was. It was. Yeah. My mom just commented that IKEA napkins are the best. She's correct. And I got that from her. But, yeah, it was really kind of fun. We saw so many cool napkins. So next up, everybody get ready. CW Napkin Enterprise. That's going to be a thing someday.

Yeah. I wish I could have bought all the napkins that we saw there. I would have been really happy to do that. I would have come home with a suitcase full of napkins. But that wasn't.

Oh, they had, like, a bunch that were just, like, pretty floral prints. Or we saw ones that were just, like, a photographic image of gummy bears. Those were really great. And I didn't buy them because Kaitlyn talked me out of it, and I wish I had, but not really because I don't need them. There were some that had things in German on them that we didn't understand. They were mostly just really, really. Just a lot of really pretty napkins.

Yeah. What's the acronym? Stash Beyond Life Expectancy. Caroline has that for napkins.

A little bit true. But, like, when I have parties at my apartment, though, people always comment on the napkins, so it's worth it to me.

That's cute. We have a setting for our Kingsley machine that we stamp pencils on. We have, like, a napkin fixture to put on there. If we ever want to personalize napkins

Yeah, I can make you napkins.

So we still think it's really funny that we had to go all the way to Frankfurt to meet Charles, because we're both based here in the US and so, yeah, it was nice. We had coffee with him. It was nice to put a face to the name. Well, that was just kind of the story the entire weekend was that we met so many people from so many pencil companies who we just hadn't. We just hadn't met before, but we'd corresponded over email for so long. And so that was really fun to meet all the actual people that we'd been working with. And especially we went to the V Arco stand at Paper World, and they were part of. They were in the creative world, though, because they fall more under, like, art supplies more than writing materials. And so we went there and we were just. We got there and we were just looking around. They had, like, a really well designed booth, and we were just looking around, and then one of them came up to us and was like, Caroline. And I looked at him, and he looked at me, and he pointed to my tattoo on my arm, and he, like, recognized me from my tattoo. And it was. It ended up being the two guys that we've dealt with since we started this business. And that was a really fun moment. It was really. They were so enthusiastic and just, like, clearly so passionate about what they make and what they do. And that was a really fun interaction. I'm really glad that we got to meet them in real life, but, yeah, it was. I feel like half of what we accomplished during this trip was meeting the actual people behind the products that we sell.

Not really. I feel like there. I mean, there are a couple companies who, like. Like V Arco and a few others who are a little bit skeptical of us. When I first sent them crazy emails. And, yeah, meeting them in real life was kind of nice because they. They were. Yeah, they were excited to meet us. But no, I don't. I don't really think so. I think we're. We're still pretty much in Europe, Especially, like, an undiscovered brand. Yeah, it was a lot of fun, though, especially when we met people and they were, like, wondering why we're inquiring about products, and we're like, yeah, we run a pencil shop in New York, and they're like, what if that's a thing? And we're like, yeah, it's a real thing. It's a very viable thing. It exists and we sell just pencils. But yeah, it was a lot of fun. It's kind of fun to see that

That's a good question, Caitlin.

So Caroline and I have talked about this a little bit. There's not a lot of surprises in pencil at some point, at least from what we saw. There weren't a lot of. I mean, it was more that. For pencils in particular, we weren't seeing a lot of brand new things that we were getting really excited about in terms of like a new pencil item. One thing that we were really excited about that is coming out hopefully in April. We'd heard of it back in Christmas, but we knew that they wouldn't be ready in time for Christmas is this really, really gorgeous limited edition sharpener sharpening machine from Caran d'.

Yes, yes. Their basic sharpening machine, but it's coming in a red powder coat finish. It's really, really lovely in person. They made. Caroline, do you remember the number? It was like 4400 and something of them. Which is the height of the Matterhorn.

Yeah.

Yes, yes. That's how many of the limited edition sharpener they made. The height or the altitude of the Matterhorn.

Yeah, I mean, there's not. I don't think that there. There aren't really a lot of new things. I mean, I don't know, like, for a couple of vendors that we've dealt with for a while, like, I've noticed that, like, softer pencils are definitely becoming more of a standard for writing, which may just be. Which, I mean, was a thing and kind of is still a thing. But a lot of the pencils we tried, a lot of the pencils we picked up were much softer than what we're used to by American standards. We did see a lot of cool new things at Caran d' Ache that we will be getting. They have a new addition to their graphic line, which are their kind of more fun pencils that we're getting soon, hopefully in the next couple months. No spoilers there, but they're really, really neat. I mean, I. Yeah, I don't know. There. There were. I mean, there weren't a lot of surprises, honestly, but There. Yeah, as far as sharpeners go, like, we did see a lot of cool sharpener things from Mobius and Rupert. And also we. Yeah, we met with a couple other sharpener vendors and we saw. We saw some things that, like. Well, not really anything prolific, but just things at KUM that aren't generally available in the US and that sort of stuff. But we saw some really awesome notebooks, which we'll be getting. Yeah, it was just kind of all over the place and I think a lot. It's also kind of difficult to be a vendor from the US who is dealing with companies in Europe because a lot of times like that they. They have these events like Paper World mostly for the European market. And so it's kind of difficult for businesses like us who are not in the European market. We're in the U.S. either things might not be available in the U.S. or they take a bit of work to get here or.

Our travel budget. We have a lot of, like, dream trips planned. But yeah, we. We do what we need to do. But yeah, if it were up to me, we. One of us would be traveling all the time, 20, like 365 days a year. One of us would be on the road finding new things.

But, like, what I've learned though, through discovering new things and buying for this company is that there, I mean, there aren't often new things, but there are very often better versions of things that already exist. And that's what I'm interested in is finding. Finding things that are better versions of stuff that already. That people already used to or things that already exist. And I think that we found a lot of awesome things in that respect, and we made a lot of headway on some projects we've been working on. And a lot of what trade shows like Paper World are about is manufacturing. And so people go there just to find people to manufacture stuff for them. And so we did a lot of investigative research into that for certain things we want to work on. And yeah, it's one of those things where now we're not a huge brand, but we're big enough that people are willing to listen to our opinions. And that's really nice.

Yeah, specifically, I Don't know if Caroline mentioned this or not yet. Karen D' Ache makes what's called a fixed pencil. It's a 2 millimeter mechanical pencil. And we'll be carrying a couple versions of those. That's very brand new for the shop. We're finally foraying into non wood case pencils. There's also a couple products from E M which is. Is it a fourth generation family owned business? Caroline?

Fourth generation in Germany. Yeah.

That they make really, really beautiful handcrafted wooden products. We're going to be carrying a few new items from them that are really exciting. You might know them from the pencil extenders that we already have.

Yeah. So we'll be having a few new things from E M as well.

Okay.

What else, Caroline?

So the, I mean obviously we're not big fans of mechanical pencils, but we love the idea of a clutch pencil because it's something that's very like historically used for architectural drawings and engineering and those types of things. It's a lot closer to woodcase pencils because, because you actually have to sharpen it with a lead pointer. And we learned a few months back from the CEO of Caran d' Ache who paid us a visit. His name is Jean Francois. He's a lovely, lovely man. And he told us that the Caran D' Ache fixed pencil, which is a 2 millimeter clutch pencil. Well, he told us his story while trying to convince us to stock them in our shop. But he told us that, well, I guess right before World War II, they started making this pencil because they were afraid that if another world war were to happen that they wouldn't have enough resources to make woodcase pencils. And so they developed a pencil that didn't require wood should that happen. And so that's where the fix pencil came about. And they still make them to this day, basically. And when we were at the Caran d' Ache factory, we even saw like some of the, some of the much, much, much older ones and they're more or less unchanged. And we're stocking those soon. And they're also doing an addition in a couple months by Mario Botta, who is an architect. And they're really, really cool if you're really into designing things. They're gorgeous when the packaging is amazing. And they come with, they come with colored lead too. So you don't just get like the, the normal HP lead that the fixed pencils come with. It also comes with like I think yellow, red and blue. But that was Kind of a fun historical fact. We learned. We learned lots of those things from Caran d'. Ache. They're really good at educating us.

The best ever. Like, I cannot even. I know probably a few people who listen to this podcast read our blog posts about this, but our visit to their factory was truly a dream come true. It was unbelievable. And I just. I still think about it, like, it's been a couple of weeks, and I still think about it, like, every day, how wonderful it was.

How many what?

Like 300.

It was really like that. It was like visiting Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. Like, I wish. I wish we'd recorded not. Not the Factory, but Katelyn and I like our reactions while we were like giddy children. We were like, I haven't felt so much like a child for a very, very long time.

Yeah. Like, seriously, we should have taken videos. We. Yeah, it was. It was ridiculous. And we. We saw so many things, and it was for both of us. It was our first pencil factory that we visited, and I think it has really set the bar very, very high. I think this was the wrong pencil factory to visit first because they make everything with such care, and they do it all in Geneva. Like, everything is made in Geneva. They design their own equipment and have their own equipment manufactured just for their factory. And they even have a special formula they came up with for the glue that they make, which is also made in Switzerland. And, yeah, it was truly a dream come true. It was an amazing visit. And especially because they. They don't really do public tours, and so there wasn't any sort of, like, there were no safety parameters at all.

That was totally what it was like.

Like, there was nothing. And so we were with. It was the two of us, and we were with two. Two, like, lovely gentlemen from Caran d'. Ache. Us and our. Our friend from Caran Dache, the Thrill in Urs. And this tour guide, Mr. Muller, who was an engineer for Caran d' ache for 40 years. He's retired, and he came to the factory to give us a tour, and he was just, like, reaching into every machine and just pulling stuff out and handing it to us and just, like, kind of encouraged us to touch everything, even though it may or may not have been safe.

It was really Cool. And beyond even seeing how all the pencils were made. We saw how the pens are made. We saw everything.

Like actually, yeah. Really, really was. And they took us to a beautiful lunch in their cafeteria, which is. Which blows any cafeteria I've ever been to out of the water. It was just. It was the best day ever. Basically.

They took us to Fondue, which was very interesting. It was ridiculously cheesy in absolutely every literal sense of the word. From the second you walk in, it smells like hot gruyere.

And of course it was delicious. But you left smelling like hot Gruyere. It was great.

It was delicious. And I'm even lactose intolerant and gluten intolerant and it was still worth was. It was fantastic. I feel like that trip was just like. Like we were on a plane and then we were on a plane again. It was. So. Yeah, we didn't. I feel like we didn't have enough time, but I guess there will be other trips.

Oh geez.

Yeah, you're putting us on the spot. I. Well, I mean we're. Well little plug here. We're coming up on our one year anniversary of when we opened up a shop here in New York and oh yeah, I feel like that's in March. It's really soon. It's like March 11, less than a month from now. And I think especially on this trip to Germany and to Switzerland, like I really just realized like how. How far this, like how far this shop has come even since the first time we were ever on Erasable. And I remember that day. I remember when you guys found out about us and I hadn't told you yet because I was embarrassed and so scared. And it was before we opened the Physical Shop. And that's kind of like what made all this happen. And I kind of had a. I had a nice, like moment of reflection when we were on this trip that it had been a year or even less than.

so many awesome things have happened. And I feel like I owe a lot of that to this group and to Caitlin and to you guys. And I just want to say thank you for that, guys.

Thank you.

We're working on it. Well, we'll obviously be doing some online promos and in store promos, but we will have a party in New York probably around National Pencil Day, which is toward the end of March. So if anyone is in New York or wants to be in New York around that time time let us know and we'll send you an invite to our party. We're having a party. But I think I have some very

Find some work people and. Yeah, yeah, find some work business and we'll be here. We're having a party. We all. Well, this is silly, but yeah, I ordered a whole bunch of novelty erasers, like the Japanese kind that are really detailed, that are in the. In the shapes of cake slices. I don't know what we're gonna do with those, but I saw them and got really excited, so it's amazing.

Yeah, we have some fun things planned. We're not gonna do anything super crazy. It's only been one year. When it's like 50 years, then. Then we'll do Crazy

So you should give us napkins.

Everyone send us napkins.

Wow.

Yeah, absolutely. Cwpencils can be found at cwpencils on Twitter and Cwpencil Enterprise on Instagram. Do you want our personal stuff?

I think we've all been friends long enough that that's okay. All right, Well,

I can be found CaitlinElgen on Twitter and Kate Elgin on Instagram.

My Instagram is marblesonpaper, and I don't have my own Twitter because I don't know how to do these things.

All I said.