This transcript was generated from an audio file by AI, and may contain inaccuracies.
Transcript
Uncle Tim is here to teach about life.
Hello and welcome to episode 52 of the erasable podcast. We are here tonight to talk pencil butts. I'm Johnny and perhaps the biggest pencil butt here. And I'm joined by my two favorite pencil butts, Andy. And how are you guys doing?
Good. You said but.
I said but a lot.
Several times. Yeah.
So tonight's episode is sponsored as last week's was by CW Pencil Enterprise, purveyors of superior graphite. In a little while we'll talk about the deal they have just for our listeners for our pencil of the episode. So tonight we're going to talk about the non business end of pencils. The tip, the naked butt, the cap, the eraserless ferrule, whatever is on the end of a pencil. It seems like an odd topic, but if you're listening to a pencil podcast, probably not so odd to you if
you're still here after all these episodes.
Yeah, like, oh, who are you guys going to talk about? The pencil. But so tonight, finally. So should we start as we always do, with the tools of the trade? Yeah, go first, Andy.
All right, well, I, we're actually recording this at 10:51am California time. So it's not that much later on eastern time. So it's a little early for cocktails. Plus I think we've all had a couple of them last night, so this is a pretty. Well, Tim just had water.
You drink too much water.
Yeah, yeah.
You can practically drown yourself on water.
Yeah.
So I was out in the city yesterday and had a few cocktails and I'm taking it easy by eating a cherry chocolate scone and drinking coffee from a local Bay Area chain called Phil's. They have a lot of like pour over coffees. This one is called Silken Splendor, which is a great name. It's a really good like I always like to call it like a breakfast coffee. Like something that's very full bodied but not like it's not super complex or like acidic. So it's really good for like mellow morning drinking.
Yeah. Like instant heartburn.
Yeah, yeah. And I am writing, I'm writing with. Well, if I, I'm going to give away what I'm writing with for our pencil the episode segment. But earlier I was writing with a pilot friction pen and I bought them out. Yeah, okay. I bought them originally because it says erasable right on the barrel and I was like, oh, it's like we should hand these out and it already has our name on them. But have you guys ever Used these. They're like. It's like an erasable. Like one of those paper made erasable pens, but like 60 times better.
That's what I use in my grade book.
Yeah. Yeah. They come in different colors. Yeah, yeah. They come in all sorts of colors. I have a blue black one and a black one. And it works not by actually erasing it, but the heat from rubbing the rubber tip on it just makes it fade out. Is that correct? So I really want to just see what happens if I stick it in the freezer. Is it going to come back?
Yeah.
Resurrect it.
They talked about in the Pen Addict a long time ago. Yeah. That if you write with those and put it in your car and it's really warm, like it'll disappear and then if you put it in the freezer, it comes back. Yeah.
Unlike pencil, which is forever, never goes away.
Right. Yeah. Which is clearly superior. So, Tim, how about you?
I am. I literally got into our doc and copy and pasted what Johnny had in his. But yeah, I'm drinking coffee. It's iced coffee. Just some Starbucks iced coffee. And got some water here too. And I think. What, Andy, what color did you say you're using for the pencil?
I am using the pink one.
Pink one. All right, so we've got all the colors, but I'm writing with the same pencil. I'm using the green one today and still using my Chicago field notes.
Yeah, that's me.
What about you, Johnny?
I just finished my fifth coffee. It's 2 o'. Clock.
Good God.
Henry got me up early this morning. So now I'm having some Perrier and advo and I'm writing with what you guys are writing with, but I'm writing with the yellow one because I have here the last field notes Capitol Hill edition in my pack that I haven't used yet, the yellow one. So my tabletop is very bright, so I need the eye. So the pencil of the episode that we're doing this week is the Caran d' Ache zebra graphic G R A F I K pencil which comes in four neon colors. And like really, really neon, not like zip. And there is a grip section that looks like a zebra. So they're called a zebra. They come in green, orange, pink and really, really yellow. Yellow. So continuing our sponsorship with Caroline Weaver and the good pencil people of CW Pencil Enterprise, your go to source for lots and lots of hard to find pencils tonight. The deal will be if you buy a four pack, it's going to cost you 420 which is how much three costs. So you're getting a pencil free. You put in erasable in the comments section of your order. Of course, if you actually buy yourself
this one, Johnny, I think that we're going to have a special link for listeners.
Ooh, yeah.
Should I read you that?
Sure. Okay. Do you just want to start from the beginning of the section?
Yeah. We are continuing our sponsorship with Caroline Weaver and the pencil people of CW Pencil Enterprise. Your go to source for lots and lots of hard to find pencils. Caroline and Kaitlyn have both been on the podcast a few times and maybe you caught episode 49 where the pencil ladies literally stole the show from us. If you find yourself, you still haven't
forgiven them for that.
I'm still sharpening pencils to take to New York, take over the store. And if you find yourself in New York, of course you have to visit the gorgeous shop on Forsyth street in the Lower east side near Chinatown, and you can order whatever you want online. Or if you're like me, go to the store, come home, and then order more online. Probably do it again this week. So the deal for the pencils is we're going to have a special link and you follow this link and you get all four colors for $4.20, which is the price of three. So you get a free pencil, which is super score. Also, there are four. So why wouldn't you want all four colors?
Which one is the free one?
Well, we didn't talk about the orange one, so we'll say the orange one is free. Perfect for the oriole fans. It's orange and black. So this pencil is cedar pencil with nothing on the end. But the end is made, is finished really, really nicely. They're HB core and they're made in Switzerland. And there's a. The finish is matte, but there's a glossy black grip section that looks like a zebra and says graphic. So what do you guys think about these really, really, really bright pencils?
I. I think they're really. They feel really nice in my hand. Like, I like the zebra grift grip better than I like, for example, like the grip 2001s.
I second that.
Yeah, with the little dots on those. I don't know if these are going to be as Melty as the 2001s, but they're also hexagonal. So instead of triangular. Yeah, they just feel really good in my hand. And the paint, like, I feel like Caran d' Ache is the only one who is able to accomplish this. But, like, there's a thick lacquer of paint on here, but it doesn't feel like super glossy. It's like, has a little bit of like a matte finish to it. And I don't know of any other pencil that does that, you guys.
Huh.
I think, I don't know.
Just something I've been noticing recently is
that black, it's not rubbery. The Black Viking pencil, the element one does that speak of current cool stuff at CW pencils.
Yeah.
The old black Ticonderoga is used to.
That's true.
They were made in the usa. Those were so nice.
Yes. And it almost has that kind of rubbery finish of the Triconderoga. That piece of junk.
Yeah, but. But yeah, this is. It's much better constructed than that.
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, it's. Yeah, it's a. Yeah, it's a great pencil. And I'm usually, we were talking before the show that I'm not one to go for sort of flashy looking pencils, you know, super bright colors or just kind of odd design kind of things. But there's something about these. I mean, no, there's no, you know, being unbiased. I still, I just actually, when we got them from CW pencils, I didn't realize. I just was dumb and didn't realize this was going to be one of the pencils. Pencils of the episode. And I was just like, oh, wow, these are cool. Yeah, I like these. And I. And I, you know, went right to them, sharpened one, you know, put a nice long point on it and started using it, which is just not really in my usual wheelhouse. But I've. I've enjoyed it quite a bit. And just like you were saying, Andy, I think this is a. I like the, the zebra grip section better than the little dots on the.
Yeah.
And the grip doesn't really wrap around. It breaks up on all the corners.
Yeah.
Which I think just looks really, really cool.
Yeah, it does. Yeah.
Keeps it from looking like a tire track.
That's true.
Yeah. All four of mine were extremely well centered. Like pretty much.
Yeah.
Yeah. The older ones, we were talking about this earlier that they came out with that had like. I think Charlotte has one that's purple with a square grip section. They were horrible. Like, I never even saw one that had a good core. So I was suspicious when we got these. But all mine are perfect, like Tim said. So you were burned before, you might not be burned again. You probably won't be real salesmen.
They're all FSC certified too, so they're good for the environment.
What do you guys think of the core? I.
It's. I mean, it's hb, so it's a little bit lighter than usual, but it feels really nice. Like, it's not like some HBs are just kind of scratchy. This one is not, like. Lays down nicely.
Definitely. It almost feels. It's kind of the. I guess, called the European hp. It's. It's a little harder, like the German. Similar to, like, a German pencil, which. This one's much smoother even than just. I don't really have a whole bunch, you know, a lot of pencils to compare them to as far as the German HBS, but I have Castell 9000 and. Yeah, the Norris. You know, things like that. And this is much smoother than both of those. This is my favorite of that little pocket of the pencil world.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It brings to mind the natural score, which is one of my favorites.
Yeah.
But it's, you know, the opposite. Instead of naked cedar, it's.
Whoa. Yeah.
Smells good too.
So that's. That is cedar then, right? So fsc.
Yeah.
Yep. Cedar. That's awesome.
I assume because it's so sustainable and, like, environmentally friendly, the grip part is made out of zebra leather.
That's just my recycled zebra leather.
Yeah. Recycled zebra leather.
Scavenged some kill sites. Yeah. You guys have these drones that find zebra carcasses and collect them, chase off the lions.
Like, we're making pencil grips out of these.
Back off, Mufasa.
Leave no part unused. Oddly enough, there's an ingredient in zebra's eyeballs that they use to make the paint so bright.
I noticed when. Just kind of like, looking at the barrel of this, especially when you put a long point on it, that there. It looks like there's several different layers of. Of paint on it. There's like, a white layer on the bottom, which I assume they do, so they can, like, get it really to pop.
Yeah.
So, yeah, it's like primer, like, thick white. And then the color on top of that, it's nice. What's your favorite of the colors?
That's a good question.
Mine's the green, the one I'm using today. Yeah. Just never use green pencils. And I really like that one. The orange is a close second, though.
That orange is so bright and nice. I like it a lot.
Yeah, I'm gonna go with the yellow. Yeah, if you're gonna do it, do it.
Just go all out. What's Charlotte's favorite, if I didn't know.
Oh, pink.
Yeah. Of Course.
I mean, her favorite will be all of them. Sorry, Daddy.
They're mine now.
Can I please have them take my blood? Go ahead. They know how to say it.
So I went to a cocktail party last night for one of my co workers, and his. His daughter was there, who's maybe like, oh, six or seven years old. And I brought a host gift to my co worker with that was just the trio of black wings. And he gave them to his daughter, and her eyes just, like, lit up and she started going pencils. So she immediately went and got a notebook and started drawing things with it.
So that's cool.
I have no experience. Experience. The joy of a child getting a new pencil.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
Yeah. Overall, I'm a big fan of these. I think these are some really cool pencils. And I feel like that says a lot coming from me, because this is something that I probably, to be honest, never would have bought.
Yeah.
If I just on my own. But having them, you know, having a chance to use them, I mean, I might. I'll probably. Probably buy them again. I just really enjoy them.
Caran d' Ache is like, you know, they have such unique stuff. Like, the Swisswood pencil is just. I mean, it's weird, but it's so unique.
The smokin soy sauce pencil.
Smoking soy sauce.
Brown sugar.
Yeah. But, like, they have that blackwood and then they have that other one that I can't remember. Zebra wood. Is that it? The later one.
Well, well.
And then there's all the, like, the fancy ones.
Exotic wood.
Yeah.
Which apparently they're fake. They're just dyed.
What?
Yeah, Gunter had a thing on Lexicalagher. Apparently they're. I don't know what kind of wood it is. They're one kind of wood, and they dye them to look like other species.
What, like, are they, like, stupid expensive? I forget how much.
I don't know.
The same reason some field notes cost that much. People pay it. Collectibles. I don't know. I don't get it. I wanted to get some of those. I'm like, that's really cool. But they're not real, because some of them are gorgeous. They're beautiful.
Yeah. Oh, that blue wood one. But.
Yeah.
It's scandalous. Well, these are. These are obviously dyed.
These are the real deal.
Yeah. And they have a bright fluorescence, so
these are capital L. Legit. Yeah.
Yeah.
Definitely too legit to quit.
I can't wait to put part of one of these into a bullet pencil. It's like, it'll be like pulling a lightsaber out of it.
It's so bright.
Really good with black ferrule and eraser.
That's true.
Yeah.
I've got a black. A black twist bullet pencil that I want to put this yellow one inside of. Just, like, pulling it out. Like. Like scare people when I pull it out.
Surely get that reaction.
Yeah, pretty sure I will.
Awesome.
Cool.
So, Johnny, where can people. How do people get these again?
Well, we're going to put the link in the show notes, but if you don't want the deal and for some reason you only want one or two, you can just go to cwpencils.com and search under brands for Caran d'.
Ache.
Or again, we'll have the link to those for a regular purchase. Also in the show notes.
Cool.
Or you can go to work and get them, which is cool.
So definitely this segment is just a good way for Caroline and Caitlin and Alex and everybody at cwpencils to just kind of like, help us and you discover new interesting pencils they have. As Tim said, these aren't pencils that we probably would have bought otherwise. But now that we did it, we're pleased it's punched to have them.
Success.
Yes. So we'll try to bring you at least every episode. We have another couple lined up after this. Just some interesting pencils to try out. Maybe a good deal for you guys. And yeah, please help support this show and help support CW pencils and get some pencils at the same time.
Everybody wins.
Win, win, win, win, win.
Except the pens. And that's all right.
They lose, we're winning the war.
Boom.
You guys want to move on to fresh points?
Yeah.
You want to go first, Andy?
Sure.
I actually only have one. I was trying to think.
It's sad.
It is sad. You guys have heard me talk a lot about Mido, which is a Japanese stationery and gift store that is out here. There's two. There's three of them here in the Bay Area, and then there is two of them. There are two of them down around, like, Pasadena, Louisiana.
Ish.
And it's amazing. They have, like, black wings. They have the full line of, like, tombow pencils and high uni pencils. They had those recycled tombows that I think I sent you guys that are just fantastic pencils. And they have, like, amazing paper and all sorts of, like, crazy little Japanese gifts. Gifts. Not gifts. They might have those two. I don't know.
The brick and mortar gift.
Yes. That would be amazing. So the mito. The Mido, unfortunately, In Westfield Mall, which is the big. The big mall that is right on Market street in the very, like, touristy section, it is going out of business, which is very sad. We still have another one in San Francisco in the Japan Center Mall, which in my opinion is the better one because it's big and they separate out the gifts and the stationery. When Gary Varner was here, we hit up both of them. But I'm assuming that the rent in Westfield Mall just got too high for an independent stationery store. So everything is 30% off right now through the end of the month. And the good little scavengers that we are, Katie and I went there yesterday and bought a bunch of rhodia notepads for 30% off, which is pretty amazing. Yeah. Got some black wings. Because even though I have so many black wings, I just feel like I can't pass up buying black wings if given the chance.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Were they on sale?
They were. They were. Everything was 30% off.
That's awesome. What'd you get?
They didn't have any limited edition stuff. I'm guessing they went through those already, but I picked up an MMX, two pearls and three 602s.
Man, you're stocked up.
One, two, three.
And I. I mean, I have all
those dozens or just singles?
Just singles. Okay.
Oh, I thought you bought too many dozens.
Like, whoa, there's so many of them. I was mostly just buying singles because I was. I figured a lot of these I'm just going to give is like, just give out to people in the next couple weeks. But then I also bought some interesting, like, little sets of like, writing paper, Japanese writing paper, and these really great little craft paper notebooks, or not notebooks, envelopes that are just a little bit bigger than like a field note size. They're just like, really pretty and well made. It's like one of those packs that if you. That come in like packs of eight and they cost like $25 normally that I would never spend that much money on, like, on that otherwise. But got these. And then I also got those pilot frixion pens. And I really, really love those Les pens.
Oh, yeah?
Yeah. So I. I've never used one of those. They're. They're great. They're. They. Remind me, have you ever used the. What are they called? Pigma pens?
The Pigma. Microns.
Yeah. Microns. Yeah.
Yeah. I think they're way softer though. The lepens. I mush them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Late pens.
They're kind of like that, like a Very fine tip felt tip pen. But they're much skinnier and just very simple looking. And it's one of those, like, Japanese companies that have like a French name on the pen. Le Pen is such a ridiculous, like, fake French name, but I love it.
I always see them at Books a million. I need to try one out.
Yeah, they're really saturated.
They're really good colors too. I have one that's called Oriental blue, which is like a. Oh, that's my favorite. Yeah, that's a beautiful blue. And I just bought an olive green one.
Oh, nice.
Yeah.
Did you try the gray one? No, I haven't seen the Liquid pencil. It's cool.
Ooh, I'll have to check that out.
I mean, I kind of feel weird writing it.
Don't say, Never say Liquid pencil again. Just reminds me of that awful Sharpie catastrophe.
Did we talk about that on the show or is that before erasable?
I'm pretty sure we did at some point.
Yeah. It's so bad.
Yeah. Yeah, it's gone horrific.
So that is. Yeah, that's one thing I did yesterday. And then I gave some of those black wings to. To my co worker and his daughter, like, for the, for the gift. So. Yeah, it's. Yeah, it was. It's sad to see them go, but I was glad to get like a discount on some otherwise super expensive, like, Japanese stationery stuff. They. They also. I bought a couple Rhodia pads that are. It's like Rhodia colors. And the outside is like this purple and orange, the orange being like the Rhodia color. And then the inside has this really, like creamy vellum paper. It's probably not going to be very pencil friendly, but it's a gorgeous, like, color.
So nice.
Yeah. I also can never pass up the. The Rhodia paper that's like, it's called the number 16. It's basically like a 5ish size. Yeah. I just have so many of those. But I can't help. I can't help it.
Well, they last a long time. They have paper.
They do. They're so nice. Those are. That is my only fresh points for this episode. How about you, Tim?
Well, first thing, it was just kind of a fun sort of side note, something I noticed this week. I'm a big fan of Pixar movies, always have been. I always end up seeing the new ones that come out and now it's. I hadn't watched many in a few years and now Henry's hit the age where he's starting to watch some of these?
Yeah.
And actually I took one into school because it was the last day with all the students in, so I just put on a movie. We. We watched the Incredibles and lots of different Pixar movies I've noticed, have pencils in them. See, like they do it really well and you see pencils all over the place. But in the Incredibles there were two things that stuck out that just like tickled me when I saw them. But there's a part where Mr. Incredible sort of. Have you both seen this movie?
I've seen it a bit. A long time ago.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, so he's had to stop being superhero and he's working at this insurance company. Hates it. He comes home and there's basically this iPad waiting for him that has a secret mission for him. And it's like this will not be repeated. And he starts, he's trying to write something down and he grabs a piece of paper, he reaches and he tries to grab a pen or something to write with, but it's like an exacto knife and he throws it aside. Then he grabs a pen, he clicks it open, he starts to write and then he like makes this grunt because he can't get it to write and he's like trying to. To scribble for a minute, struggling to get this pen to start writing. And then he finally throws that away and grabs a pencil and then writes it perfectly like size as he's.
Don't you want to go to Pixar and just see what pencils are and all the animators desks.
Yeah, oh definitely. That'd be so awesome. And the other pencil find in there, which is. I put a picture in the show notes. Found the best one I could get but it was the. His little boss, the guy who's. I forget the. The actor's name who does the voice. But he was in the Princess Bride. The guy who's inconceivable.
Yeah, that guy forget.
But yeah, he plays his boss and he's has four pencils lined up very evenly on his calendar. They're all sharpened the exact same amount. Yeah. And there's a close up on the pencil as he's sharpening it and written on the side, it's got the name of the company that says your life is in our hands. It's this insurance company. I really want to have that made. Like make a custom pencil that says your life is in our hands. On the side. Her life is in your hands. In your hands, dude. Amazing. Double meaning or double reference. So that was Just a random point. Just thought I would share because I was excited about those. Yeah. He sits down at his desk, and one of the pencils rolls away and he puts it right back onto the line where he has them all lined up, like, nice and perfect.
I assume that's what Johnny's desk looks like.
It would be a shoebox overflowing.
The only other thing I was gonna bring up, which we didn't talk about because it was just sort of, I guess, coincidental timing and just a little bit too late, but the jumbo golden bear.
So the day after we published the episode. Yeah, yeah.
So whatever. So that was. Those came out. And did either of you order any?
I haven't yet. I've been lazy. I need to. I need to order that and then a couple other things from them. But, yeah, people. There's been several people in the group who have ordered them, and they seem to just really love them.
Mm. Yeah, I've noticed. Yeah. Positive things. I haven't ordered any either. I don't know if I will or not. But, yeah, I'm curious to see what they're like. I mean, I know they look nice and they're round. They're these round. They look just the same color scheme as the orange jumbo with the blue eraser.
Yeah.
But the erasers with golden bears aren't that great. I mean, they're fine. They do fine. But I'm wondering if the big blue eraser that's on these is the same or if it's like a. You know, if they had use a different eraser technically to put in there, if it's going to be a different.
Yeah.
Makeup or just a different size. So that'll be.
I so wish they. They made a blue one.
Yeah, me too.
I think Charles said to somebody in the group, like, oh, hey, if you're willing, if you're interested in ordering a couple thousand gross, we'll be happy to make a run of blue ones.
Yeah. Think about that for a second.
Together. Yeah.
Yeah. So those were interesting. I'm curious how they look an awful lot like the. In makeup and the size of the ferrule and everything. A lot like the right notepads jumbo to me. So I wonder how similar. Which. That's just an awesome pencil, and I already have like a dozen of those, so. Yeah, maybe someday I'll order them. But I just was wondering what you guys thought if you were planning to order them, because I know. Yeah, I know several people in the. In the group ordered them and already got Them and yeah, turn seems to be pretty positive overall. I just.
Yeah, that was such crazy timing. Like if, if we would have recorded like one day later, we would have. We would have known that we could have put that in there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's, it's fun to see something new. Is the first time since we've done the show, I think that something new has popped up in the. This sort of standard line.
Yeah, yeah, you're right.
The non, like, limited edition blackwing line.
Yeah. I think right before we started recording is when they switched to the blue and black and the graded pencils. That was before we started recording. So this is the first kind of new thing they've come out with besides the special editions. Like something that's just going to be a standard.
Yeah.
Which is. Yeah, it's cool. I was curious. That's all I got.
Cool. So I started that book on paper. I think we talked about it briefly. Like it'd be a good book club book. So it's really, really, really interesting. It's a little less technical than Petroski's book. Obviously it's not an engineering book, but. Yeah. If anybody wants a good spring book that'll glue you to the pages. Even though it's not a novel, it's pretty good. I've kind of been reading it when I was supposed to be doing something else a few times.
And you said, Johnny, that it's not specifically geared toward like, writing paper.
Yeah. There's a lot of stuff about all the other uses of paper which is probably going to be the most interesting thing about it. So that's really cool. I'm learning a lot of stuff about paper that I did not know, like what rags are, so. And linen. So that's cool.
Yeah.
Like what? Like rags are.
Yeah. How rags fit into pencil or papers. It's just pulp. I assumed linen paper meant that there was actually some kind of weaving going on because I'm not very bright. Oh, it's just pulp. Okay, that makes sense. So I don't want to spoil the book. And plus, that could be a good book club book one day.
Yeah.
So, yeah, I found a copy for 10 bucks, the remainder section. So that was a score.
I'll put a link on, show notes to the Amazon one and it'll be an affiliate link. So if you're interested in buying that book and getting a little bit to us, please do get one for your friends. Yes. But also, if there's an independent bookstore that you prefer to frequent, you should totally just buy it there?
Yep. Have them ordered for you.
Yeah.
And if you're in Cambridge, the Harvard bookstore had them downstairs for 10 bucks. They had quite a few last time I was there. Although that was like a month ago. A month and a half ago. Sweet.
Speaking of books and ordering online, on Tuesday, my draplin book should be here.
Oh, that big giant book?
Yeah. Have you guys been seeing pictures of,
like, the COVID No, I haven't seen anything.
There's people in the nuts group have been posting it, but I'll post some when I get it. It looks gorgeous. It looks like everything Aaron Draplin coffee book should look like. Oh, cool. Apparently there's a spot on the inside where, just like in field notes, there's a spot to sign your name. Apparently there's a spot for, like, an autograph section. So if you find him and take it to him, there's like, this predetermined spot. Just like a. Just like a draplin thing. Yeah.
Oh, goodness. Oh, man. So, like Andy, I got to make kids smile with pencils this weekend. For two of my favorite kids who are really creative, we had. We got to use our kids.
We only have two kids, so.
Well, they're not mine, although one of them is betrothed to Charlotte. Unbeknownst to him, his father forgot to tell him. I asked him. He looked at me and said, what are you talking about? Talk to your dad. But Charlotte and I curated pencil boxes for them for their birthday and, like, all kinds of really cool stuff in there, so that's always fun. And speaking of kids stuff, I got a lot of flack and jabbing for this in the Facebook group. But there are Wopex colored pencils, and you can get them at Office Depot, and I have them, and they're awesome.
I don't know about you, Tim, but I just threw up a little in my mouth. No, just kidding.
Didn't sound like it.
I'm really interested to know, like, how they feel.
So they feel like exactly what you think a colored mopex would feel like. They're waxy and hard and not crumbly. So the pack that I bought has some sort of limited edition box for adult coloring. It was with the adult coloring stuff, so a lot of those have those really, really tight spaces. So these hold a point. So. Well, they're probably really, really good for that. And 10 bucks for a 24 pack of, you know, nice German colored pencils seems like a good deal to me.
Yeah.
Does it come with a special sharpener? New.
So you're probably in the same boat as you are with regular Wilpex Braxton, which means knife is work, knife is best.
Yeah.
And some trappers. My deli 0635. I think that does sort of long point. That does a really nice job on Mopex pencils. If you're careful, the auto stop will work. So that's cool. The Dal 133 does a pretty good job. You sort of back off the point jester. But Matthias on Fleishchef had these up maybe like a year or two ago where he was looking for the perfect colored pencils that you could write with and that these fit the bill really well. So I was trying to write with them on sort of tooth your paper. And you can just write sentences in color, which is awesome.
That is awesome.
And then I'll smear. It's neat. It's cool. In field notes paper. You know, you could barely see them because field notes paper. So smooth.
But what did I use here?
This is a graphite from Claire Fontaine. They sort of sell them with Rhodium, their sketchbook. But yeah, that worked really, really nicely on that paper. And a regular Wopex looks like a black marker on that paper. It's really cool.
So speaking of big box store pencil packs somebody in the group posted, I didn't pay a lot of attention to it. Ticonderoga has like multicolored stripes now.
Yeah, that's what I was looking for that morning, but apparently they just came out. Huh. And they're also the striped Bic extra funds now, which I also haven't been able to find. It's too bad.
It's too bad they're such crappy pencils because they're so beautiful and I want to buy them just to like, have them.
I thought somebody said that they saw some extra funds that were listed as being improved. Oh, that's interesting. Charlotte's had one that she's using all weekend.
Even more fun around kids like them.
They don't very often.
It's true.
And like, I guess kids at school probably writing on pretty crappy toothy paper. Yeah, like, Taekondaro is a shave right down. So, yeah. In that case, these delicious colored wob x will be good for the kids who destroy their colored pencils. Although the kids are probably gonna have trouble sharpening them, so there's that. But in addition to Office Depot, I think Amazon has them for 11 or 12 bucks, so I'll dig that up. Maybe we can do an affiliate link for that too. Yeah, buy them Buy all of them. All the pencils. So moving on to our main topic, pencil butts or pencil ends, so we can stop laughing. So we're going to talk about the different things that you find on the end of a pencil. Because of course, if you're listening to a podcast about pencils, you've probably discovered that not all pencils have an eraser on the end. So we're going to divide it up by different things that are on the end. So we'll start with ferrules and erasers, which is actually less boring than it sounds. You want to take that, Andy?
Sure. And we'll finish up with gems and rubies.
Oh yeah, that's true.
Feldspar. Talk about sandstone, guys. Igneous rocks and romancing the eraser. That's a good episode title. If we didn't want to have butt in the episode title.
Yeah, it'd probably be a good idea.
So I think that as an American and as somebody who grew up in the 80s and 90s with pencils, most of what I had access to and were familiar with had ferrules and erasers on the end of them. And probably most of the listeners of the show who are from the US are most familiar with these. But essentially, as we all know, a ferrule is a little metal band that goes around the end of your pencil and kind of crimps to the eraser to hold it into place. And what I really love about ferrules and pencils, besides, like they provide a really nice, like, counterbalance when I'm writing, I think, Tim, you like that too. I know, Yep.
Yeah, I'm with you on that one.
Yeah, it just like kind of weights the end of it, so it's just a little bit springier when you write. Besides that, there's a lot of different, like varieties of ferals. Just sometimes like the crimping styles are different. There's an old Eberhard Faber ferrule that has like this little wavy, these wavy lines on it. And I don't even know which one it is, but it's gorgeous. They're definitely. I feel like in old pencils there was a wider variety of like, cool looking ferrules.
Yeah, there's that wheel, the crazy wheel one had like basically like a, an axle and a wheel shaped eraser that like spun around.
That's so cool. Yeah, yeah. So there's like, there's different colors and even nowadays you can find ferals with like maybe a stripe of paint on it. The golden bears has a, have a little Stripe on the feral, which is just gorgeous. And I think. I think the Mongols and the Ticonderogas are probably the most famous of the stripes. Mongols having like the copper feral and then like a black stripe. And then Ticonderoga is of course having the two green stripes, which is pretty iconic.
I think my personal favorite feral is on the old Blaisdell special grade. The calculator.
Yeah.
That white gold. Yeah. The whole thing's, you know, the top and bottom half or the top third and bottom third are all, I guess you'd say, ribbed or whatever. It's got like texture to it. And then there's.
Yeah.
That bright white stripe around the center.
Oof.
That looks so cool.
I'm actually pulling out. I just was looking in the pencils I have right here to see if they had any but the wavy stripes. And there is one. But I have zero idea what pencil this is. It says hello fun744 number two on it. Hello Fun. But it has that kind of old timey cool.
The Chung Hua. What number is the one that's striped yellow, red and black? That one's got a really cool ferrule. Really wavy.
Yeah. I also really like. One of my favorites is the field notes pencil. It's not my favorite of the pencils, but the ferrule is kind of like this brushed aluminum and it's just super clean. Yeah, they have a really good one.
So I'm partial to a 2004 Murado classic. Highly polished brass with a red stripe crimped instead of glued like the new ones.
Oh yeah.
That could be like one of my favorite ferrules ever.
Yeah, it's a good one.
It's good looking.
So yeah. There are some pencils with erasers that don't have ferrules. The Itoya pencils, it looks like the eraser is just kind of glued on and it's just flush with the barrel of the pencil. And they seem pretty secure. I don't think they've come off. But not all of them. But most of them have a ferrule on them.
And the Kaba ones. Yeah, those just things are really pretty.
Yeah. I need to pick up some of those. Yeah.
And I have those weird extra fun pencils from Bic that have a plastic ferrule.
Plastic ones? Yeah. Somewhere I have a World War II pencil that has like a bakelite or plastic ferrule on them because all the metal was being conserved for the war effort.
That's like the best piece of trivia ever.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
You said to people like, are you serious? Like, yes. Pencils are that interesting.
Yeah. It's like even as little metal as it takes to make a feral. They conserved it for the war effort, which is pretty awesome.
It's not the best quality, but I do like the look of a forest choice feral.
Yeah.
They kind of. You can just sort of pull them off.
But that dark green against the natural is gorgeous.
Yeah.
Aren't they glued down? Are they crimped? The old ones were crimped.
I have one right here.
See how hard it is to pull it off? You can put it back on.
It's. It has crimps in it. So if it is glued, it's in addition to a crimp. Ooh.
Double duty, heavy duty.
Stepped it up.
There's the wopex. Of course. Their ferrule is really weird because ferrule is usually round. So they crimp them onto a hexagonal pencil, and they don't really fit that well.
Yeah.
But on the wopex, it's round with the eraser. And then somehow they get it to be crimped as a hexagon around the hexagonal barrel of the pencil part. Really, really cool. It's a nice detail.
I really love when you get, like, a triangular pencil and they don't just, like, put a round ferrule on it. They actually, like, have a triangular ferrule.
The lady tririte.
Yeah. The tri rights. Unfortunately, the crappy tricondarogas do that.
The grip.
Tricrapteroga.
Yeah, tricrapteroga.
Sorry. We're gonna do our worst pencil episode again.
In this time, let's do an after Dark episode. Just about the tricraft erosion.
Yeah.
We have to bleep a lot.
Well, no, that's the whole point of an After Dark episode.
That piece of bleep.
So. And I think maybe one of the most famous of the unusual ferals would be, of course, the blackwing feral. And for what is the kind of official reason. Who knows if it's the actual reason the original Eberhard Faber black wings went out of business. Is because. Or went out of production. Is because the machine that stamped those ferrules broke. And it was the only one like it on earth.
They said it was the machine that made that little tiny thing that went in the ferrule.
Oh, the eclipse.
Yeah. That makes it sound fake, that it's that little tiny thing.
Yeah.
It seems like you could make that. Yeah.
Or you could just stuff it, like make the eraser a little bigger and just stuff it in.
So cram it in. So, of course those ferrules are a little bit bigger. Makes the pencil a little bit longer because it has enough room for, like, an extendable eraser to fit down in there. But it's definitely iconic. A lot of people think it looks like a paintbrush. Yeah. I just love that. I don't know what else to say about ferals and erasers because that's like. That covers most of it, I think. Have I missed any interesting, like, styles of feral that exist out there?
I don't think so.
Yeah, I guess the original pencil erasers that you had to sharpen where. Oh, yeah, the eraser was inside the wood. Like a pencil.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Like that. That just went on. That just sold on ebay.
Yeah.
You know who bought it, right?
No.
Sean from blackwing pages. He made hosted. I was. I bid on that auction, and I got it up to $30 for the eight of them. And then I was, like, too rich for my blood. And then I saw a blog post on blackwing pages about it, which is awesome. Yeah.
Cool.
What about. What about dipped, Tim?
Yeah, so if there's no ferrule eraser on the end, that's where we get into a bunch of different options of what they'll do with it. And what we're calling dipped is basically there's no. Nothing is added onto the end besides just dipping it into paint or lacquer of some kind. And there's a lot of different ways you can do this. I think the most iconic one that most people. I think most people would agree on is the Norris.
Oh, man.
Yeah. I think that as far as dip pencils go, that's kind of the gold standard because it's done so beautifully. They finished the pencil, and then at the. On the sides of the barrel pencil at the end, they have this yellow and black striped pencil, and they dip it into this really vibrant bright red.
Yeah.
So it's definitely white and then red. So it's layered.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right.
There's a really great how it's made episode. Well, it's not how it's made, but it's something like that where you get to watch the whole process.
Oh, that's awesome. Who made that gif of the going across the sharpener belt? That was from that video.
Oh, yeah. That was really cool.
Watch.
Put that in the show notes. I will. Yeah. So the. I guess the one thing about dipped is that unlike the ferule and Eraser. It's totally aesthetic. There's no function to it. But the point is just to sort of add some color, make it look nicer, put interesting color combinations into a pencil. What are some of your favorite dipped pencils, guys?
I have to be honest, and sometimes I can't tell the difference between a dipped pencil and a capped pencil, which we'll talk about, but I really love. I'm trying to remember which tombow mono it is, but one of them has just sort of like this vertical white stripe that.
Oh, is it the mono? Just the regular, like the ones you can get at Dick Blick.
Yeah.
In openstock.
Yeah. The hunters.
Those are pretty.
Are those the J's?
I don't remember.
I can't keep track.
I really. I think those are gorgeous. And I'm a little bit afraid that might be a cap rather than a dip. But what about, you know, those great mono? The tombow mono? Yeah, the blue ones with that orange.
Oh, no, I was thinking of the blue and white one with the yellow and dip.
Oh, yeah, it's yellow, I guess. Yeah. The kmkks.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Beautiful.
Yeah, it's like. Has this gorgeous, like, blue and white color scheme until you get to the end. And it's just like this. Just one little accent color. That looks so good.
Yeah. And that accent color really ties the pencil together.
I think you're right.
Yeah. And one cool thing about dipped is that I would say of feral ferruled, dipped, capped, it's the only one you can do by yourself. So I've seen a lot of people. I know, Johnny, you've done this where you do your own end using. I've heard of people using, like, nail polish.
Yeah.
We used sentinel polish by accident. My sandals were like bubblegum.
I tried to do it once and it was a failure. I tried to do it with a forest choice just for fun because I had some around, but it looked horrendous.
What are dips usually made out of? Is it just paint or is it like an enamel or what?
I think it's like a thick lacquer.
Okay.
It's sort of soft sometimes. Just has a little bit of give to it.
You know what else has really nice of those dips are they're really long, like the apsaras. Like they have that.
Oh, yeah, the actual gold.
Yeah. And it has just like a really long, like maybe 2/3 of an inch dip on it. So it looks really nice. And then also I have one here, the nataraj glow, which is like a gold Pencil that has like a. Like a really like dark red and silver dip on it, which is really pretty.
Another one that's just has a. That the end dip adds a really cool effect to which there are lots of pencils like this. But I'm pretty sure this isn't a capped pencil. Like 90% positive. But the item seven, is it item 17 pencil?
Oh, yeah, that.
That's that mint.
Oh, the older one. Yeah, yeah.
Which. Oh, man, those are nice. Which adds a really cool effect because it's the same color as the rest of the barrel. And so it's just like the. It looks as if the whole pencil was just dipped and then it looks really sharp, really smooth. So that's a favorite of mine too, which I only have a couple of those. Big fan of that. So that's dipped dip's pretty simple. It's just usually an accent color that's added onto the end of the pencil just if they don't want it to look. I guess you'd call it unfinished.
Yeah, I guess I feel like in the US like they're so infrequent that you really, like. It just looks just gorgeous. Like people. It really stands out to people. I guess. We didn't even mention the. The original California Republic Palomino hbs that are. That are dipped on the end. Oh, yeah, yeah. Like, it's not an accent color. It's just the same, like color all the way through. But like, that looks.
I've never tried those. Are they in dipped or they capped?
I think they're in dipped.
They're those like, sort of hybrid ones where there's like a really small piece of plastic just around them off and then they dip them.
Oh, okay. I'm so confused. Like, I feel like the only way to know would be destroyed.
How do you classify this? Yeah, they come up with some like, Darwinian classification for printing taxonomy.
This is.
This is our pencil taxonomy.
So if we move on to cap, like, that's a good starting point. They're like the Faber Castell 9. The Castell 9000. The grip 20.01. They sort of put like this really small piece of plastic just to sort of round off the end so they don't have to dip it as many times and give it a really thick butt like the Norris has. So I don't know if it's like to save paint or money or aesthetics or why they do that, but it's sort of a different experience. Then they have the Mitsubishi High Uni and is it the Mano 1? Hundred from Tombow.
Yeah.
The black ones, they have like a piece of plastic on the end that's sort of part of the pencil. I'm not sure how they're attached. I've never broken one off. So I think they have a cap.
There's like a little. I think there's a little nub inside of it or something that like they glue so like fits in into the hole. Yeah, it's like putting a cap on
your tooth or something.
Which they're really.
Yeah, yeah.
Pretty. They're pretty, but at the same time it's just like, is this an excuse to use like a little bit less wood? Because they're not like longer, they're just like, oh, this is like we're making 11 pencils instead of 12 pencils or something. The amount of wood of 11 pencils
that have that on there that aren't like really expensive Japanese pencils. But I'm trying to.
That's where. That's definitely where I've seen most of them. I mean, you don't see them with American pencils, actually. Would the Kimberly be technically a capped pencil?
Yeah, those are the metal capped. Yeah, I think they're the only one. Wait, does Prismacolor still put a little metal cap on the end of the turquoise drawing pencils?
I think they do. And some of those indelible pencils had it too.
Yeah, the Noblets had the coolest looking ones with a little stripe.
Yeah. I was actually right when Tim was mentioning the Kimberly, I was writing in our internal notes, like, don't forget about metal caps too. Mostly among old pencils.
And Kimberly, these are so pretty.
Just really.
But then with the, the ink pencils, they were functional because that stuff was really toxic and if it got wet, it would run. So they had to put something on the end.
Yeah.
Not business in. Eat that stuff. It's terrible. So we talked before, we've talked before about why people lick pencils. It was for the indelibles to activate that dye and it was really toxic. People should have been doing that. Pencils are actually toxic.
Sleeping on their bed sheets made of asbestos, using their lead paint.
So can you guys think of any other kind of caps?
I don't know, like. I guess we'll talk about like eraser caps, but yeah, yeah, that's. I'm just kind of looking through a lot of the pencils I have sitting out here and most of them. Yeah, they're just kind of like those plastic end caps or they're somewhere. It's not really capped, but the wood is just like. I don't even know I have it like a koh I noor, like the magic. The magic pencil with, like, the crazy, like, different colors of, like, in the. In the core. The end of that is just, like, wood that has been sharpened to like, a little bit of a cap point. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
The older Viking pencils used to look like that. Yeah, I like that effect a lot.
It's really. Yeah, yeah, it looks nice. It's like, unfinished. It's a naked tip, but not, like, completely. Speaking of naked tip pencil.
Yeah, take it all off. Sorry.
Go on.
I was gonna say one more thing.
Yeah.
As far with the capped is, it seems like we don't see a lot of them, but they do tend to be on the higher end pencils. Like, you're not gonna. Maybe that's why they're not as common, just because they tend to get thrown on as just like a little, like, putting tux, which I describe the Mono 100. It's just like basically putting a tuxedo on a pencil.
That's a good point.
They just want it to look fancy. So. Yeah. The kimber bun of the pencil world. Yeah, I like that. So. Sorry.
No, no, not at all. A lot of pencils that you can get generally in the U.S. among, like, mid and lower line, like, run level pencils, if it doesn't have an eraser, it's generally unfinished. Just has a naked tip on it. And in that case, you know, it's just the same as, you know, as the writing end. I kind of like them. I think they look okay. They look just very, like, minimalist. And. What am I trying to say? Just, like, lightweight. They're very lightweight. The muji pencils that you can get mujis from anywhere else but the US Are untapped or uncapped and unerraser. So they just have a naked tip. A lot of them are, especially when. When you just want to focus on making, like, the graphite and the wood very well. So what? There's a lot of, like, the big dippers that we were talking about last episode. Most of them are. There are some with an eraser, but the ones we were mostly talking about were untipped.
Yeah. I think that illustrates a good point with these, that some of them, like that one, are not so well done. A lot of paint overlap. And the ones we have this week from Caran Dash are, like, absolutely perfect on the end. Yeah, all four of mine are completely perfect.
So one thing. Yeah, What Johnny was mentioning that if Sometimes it's a little bit sloppy. If it's not like a natural wood pencil, if there's paint on it, sometimes the paint just kind of like bleeds over to the. Just over the end of the pencil. I don't know in the manufacturing process, like how to prevent that except to like be careful. And also like, if it gets painted before they get like cut up into like pencil length pencils. Well, I guess they're on planks, so they're already that size.
Yeah, Yeah. I don't understand how it works because for like to take generals, for instance, the layout pencil has a perfect end. It looks really good. But. But the drafting pencil has overlapped paint.
Yeah.
Why?
I don't know why that is.
Yeah.
A factory made certain machines or certain pencils are made on certain machines. And I can imagine some sort of, you know, like those that we were talking about. That gif of the erase the pencils being sharpened.
Yeah.
That there's some sort of similar machine that as they roll through it, sort of sands off the end of it.
That would make sense.
Yeah, just a little bit. They just kind of roll past and it cleans off any paint that's stuck on the end because they're super smooth as well. So it's. They have to have processed that end somehow.
Yeah, that makes sense.
And a lot of unsharpened pencils come with overhang and some don't.
Yeah, I guess. I guess it also could do with like the viscosity of the paint and how fast they move through the like painter and. Yeah, sanding off the end makes a lot of sense.
Yeah.
These karan dashes, they are perfect and like perfectly smooth on the end. So it's probably like an extra step in the process that just costs an extra little amount of money. But like Swiss. The Swiss care about their pencils precision. Yeah. So it's. Yeah. These are. These are gorgeous B naked tip pencils as well. Trying to think of some of my other favorites. The JR Moon Trirexes are. Well, there are some with eraser tips, right?
Mm.
Yeah. These here that I have are untipped.
Here's the Dragonfly.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, that was a really nice.
Is that Mitsubishi or Tombow? Tombow. Dragonfly. Yeah. And their other. Oh, gosh, all these stupid numbers. I can't remember these numbers.
Oh, the 9800.
Is that the forest green one? Yeah, yeah, that one's really nice.
I have a Mitsubishi 9800. Ew. Right here with matured wood. That's uncapped or Untipped, naked.
And the Musgrave Bugle is a really good. Untipped.
Yeah.
Yep.
I have one of those too. That's really nice.
And they're like a quarter, which is
awesome considering, like, that's the price that you pay for like a golden bear or something like that.
Yeah.
So, yeah. How about. Oh, and another thing you can do with an untipped pencil, a naked, naked tip is you can. If you're left handed and you want to see the writing right side up, you can just flip it around and sharpen the other end because it's just the same. So then you can see, you can see your. Your text right on it.
That's true. I. Sometimes I've. I've. You can also, if you just like naked ended pencils and don't like to have a ferrule on the end of your pencil. I've done this several times where I just pull the ferrule off and sharpen that side, like where you've pulled the ferrule off and then you. You have a nice clean naked end on the other side.
So if somebody's tuning in right now, they're just like, what are they talking about?
Yeah.
If you're. If you like naked pencils, if you're into that sort of thing.
There is no video feed for this one.
It looks really cool with the Palomino HP when you take the ferrule off and sharpen that side because once you've sharpened it a few times, there's no writing on it. So it's just a nice solid, cool blue color. Because all the writing so close up to the top. So that makes for a real sharp looking pencil.
I'm gonna do that.
Nerds.
Nerds. That's what we do. And it's a good transition into my next silly little end possibility, which is sort of silly. It's silly in one way, not in other ways, but the double sided pencil, which I've been calling the Darth Maul pencil. So you can do that on your own where you sharpen both sides. But what I actually had more in mind were things like the bicolor pencil. The two colored pencils that you have blue on one side, red on the other, black on one side, red on the other, whatever it is. So some don't have any sort of finish on the end of them because it's actually a whole new pencil. On the other side you can get multicolored pencils. And then I've seen. Is it. Did I hear that? Is stenographers.
Oh, yeah, they're usually two ends.
They use the two end pencils just so they can keep writing because they're trying to take down everything everybody's saying so you're not having to stop and sharpen. You can just turn the pencil around. And I think I've heard that architects are known to do that as well just because they need such a sharp line. Back when they were actually using pencils, you know, now they're probably all using mechanical pencils or, you know, computers.
What?
Logan's not a pen.
So that you need such a perfectly sharp line that you're gonna have to switch a lot. So it makes sense to sharpen both sides so you can just keep switching, keep switching, keep switching.
Yeah.
So that's the Darth Maul option.
You know, you should take the. The pink zebra graphic and sharpen that on both ends and then paint the middle, like black or something, and it'll be like your light. Your Darth Maul lightsaber pencil.
There you go.
I wish they had like a just like, bright red one instead of the pink one.
Yeah, that'd be great.
In addition to the pink one, I
found some Japanese pencils before at the. The BMA, the Baltimore Museum of Art here, where it's 3/4 a graphite pencil, and on the other end you sharpen it and it's a rainbow pencil. Ew. They're really cool. They had two. Charlotte and I bought the only two. I've never seen them again. And actually I lost it. So I can't look up who makes it because I forgot. So this is a big tease. But they exist.
They're out there somewhere.
Yeah, they were really really fun because they're cedar and they're really, really, really well made. They had a nice graphite core.
Yeah.
What do you. What, incidentally, what do you guys prefer for your red and black or red and blue pencil?
It's your favorite one. The Caran d' Ache one is, like, amazing.
Yeah, I think I don't have one of those.
Oh, gosh, it's so good.
Which is the one that I have, Johnny. I think you sent it to me. I don't have very many of them.
Yeah, I just picked up some from Mitsubishi, but I haven't used them yet.
Okay.
Oh, I need to.
I need.
That's the one. I need the big one. I need to try. But Johnny, you said. Andy, I think Johnny sent us some of the generals.
Yeah, that's the one.
The round one used.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Those are sweet. I love those.
Yeah, those are Good. They're a little ugly. I taste. Yeah, they are.
The print is all really badly done,
but I need to find a reason to use the red and blue ones. I. I have a few of them, but I don't really use them, so I don't know a lot about them.
So Charlotte and I were coloring a week or two ago and she kept going inside to get blue crayons and red crayons. And I was like, what are you doing? So she was drawing pictures of her brother being mad, and the blue was for tears and red was for his face. So I was like, charlotte, I'm gonna make your day. And I went and got her a blue and red pencil. She's like, this is perfect. You have sort of melancholy children. They might enjoy this.
Or if you're a Cubs fan.
Yeah. Especially patriotic. So for our last category, we're just going to call this Add Ons, because, you know, it's 2016 and sometimes you find something kind of bizarre on the end of your pencil. So one thing that's showing up a lot these days is a stylus tip, a capacitive stylus for using on touch screens. So I know Karen Dash makes one, which I haven't tried, but there are some Norris pencils.
There's a Norris I've seen around.
I've never held one. And they're fat pencils too, apparently. So we should dig some of these up. Okay.
Do they make. Do they make stylus tips that you can add on, like that you can slide onto your pencil?
You know what they do? Faber Castell has this new thing out where it's sort of. It looks sort of like a point protector. It's a rubber tip that you slide onto your pencil and then you can use that on your touchscreen.
Oh, nice.
Seems kind of weird. I would imagine you'd break your pencil off inside of it, which is what always happens with their grip. 20.01 point protectors to me. So I just kind of don't use it.
Do you have to put it on the. That side? Can't you put it on the backside? Ah,
Tony, you've been doing it all wrong.
I'm good at microphone. I smacked myself in the head.
I'm still waiting for somebody to find, like, come up with a rubber that's capacitive and erasable. So that has not happened yet. But with an eraser that just has like a capacitive tip built into it,
you could shape it.
Yeah. That has not.
What's that thing called? The pencil from Staedtler it's sort of like the Faber Castell perfect pencil, except that it's plastic and it's really just a black Wopex pencil with a stylus on the end. So, you know, I'm in heaven. I love them, but I don't think they've. They're very popular. Yeah, they're kind of expensive. I don't think if there are any more. I know there are a lot of ballpoint pens that are coming out like the bit crystal and the monstrosity, that Inkjoy. Oh, oh, and there's a Bic 4 color pen with a. With a stylus on it. Yeah, yeah. Give them a Target six bucks. Go ahead, give them.
Just if it does all those things, it probably doesn't do any of those things very well.
So. There are also a lot of pencils I've seen that are round and black with black wood that have jewels on the ends. Like Target had some of the dollar bins where the jewels had already fallen off before you bought them.
Yeah.
But I've seen some at the art supply shop where it's actually a crystal and they're really nice.
They're Swarovski crystals, aren't they?
I have no idea. Yeah, but they're pretty sure Charlie has a bunch. I may or may not have some that are mine.
At some point. Don Bell, the guy who ran Pencil Things, who I had my first pencil blog with, he was trying to get into that jeweled pencil business, a whole business of jeweled pencils, and supply them to drugstores and big box stores and things like that.
Beautiful presents. You could do your birthstone and everything.
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know whatever happened with that, but yeah, those were popular for a while.
Yeah, they were neat.
They weren't my. Those are my style, so I never really got into it.
I always thought they would look better on a natural pencil.
Yeah.
We could talk about crazy erasers that are sort of attached to pencils.
Yeah, there's a whole, like enormous world of goofball erasers you can put on the back of your pencil.
Before we do that, though, we should talk about just your standard erase eraser cap, you know, like, you know, you can buy 12 of them for like a dollar.
Yeah. Like the Pentel High polymer.
Yeah.
Oh, those are so nice.
Yeah, those are the best.
I'm so partial to the pink ones.
Yeah, I always love those. When I was, when I was a kid, they, like, you could get. Yeah, you could get neon colors, start in the 90s they were not as good as, like the. The pink ones, but. Yeah, they just always looked extra. I don't know, like you were getting down to work or something.
Yeah, and they have those ones from Bloom. There's an umlauts. Bloom that they used to have CW pencils where they look like one of those eraser caps, but they also function as a point protector. But I don't think they carry them anymore.
Interesting.
Yeah, I bought out like all the stock of them from art things in Annapolis. They were. They were selling them for a dollar a pack. They had three packs left. I'm taking these all. Hell, yeah. So if they get any more, I'll get them. I have a bunch. I can send you guys some. They're super neon, like, really neon. They look really good with these pencils, actually.
Yeah.
Yeah, that'd be cool.
But should we. Should we talk about the crazy pencil toppers that we. We got?
Oh, yeah.
Yes. Oh, yes. Yes.
So we got an email from a designer at Kiekerland. What's her name, Johnny?
Laura.
Laura Kellner.
Yeah, Laura. She's awesome. She was like, hey, what's your address? We have some things to send you. And I thought I was getting like a little eraser in the mail or something like that.
No, no, it was like a four pound box.
Yeah, yeah, there's a. There's a couple. Well, first there was some cool. Really cool, like, standalone erasers of animals, like endangered animals. There's like a gorilla and a polar bear and a rhino and you. And they're just like expert polar bears.
Blue is.
Oh, my God.
Yeah, they're just like expertly molded. It reminds me of those Moldorama things you see in some museums. Do you know what I mean? They're like a wax mold and it comes in like a bust of Abraham Lincoln or something like that.
Oh, yeah, like in Wonder Falls.
Yeah. And, yeah, they're just gorgeous. I haven't opened them yet because I don't want them to get dirty because they're so beautiful.
They smell really strongly, like eraser. They're really cool. My kids, like, totally lost it when I opened the box. They claimed which ones were theirs.
But why would you want to use it? Because you're just going to rub away some of the art. Yeah, but that's my problem.
Use their butt. Not the face. Not the face.
This butt's all smudgy and graphic.
Not the face. Don't touch the face.
But we also got some pencil toppers that are erasers. There's, I think there's the eraser heads, which are three Reservoir Dog style faces.
Yeah.
There's one with, like, sunglasses and a mustache. And there's one that's brown hair and, like, has, like, squinty Robert De Niro eyes. And there's like a balding guy. Unshaven, balding guy.
It's Kevin from the office.
So, yeah, my hook is that they lose their hair as you erase with them.
That's true. Laura's like, I'll let you guys fight out as to who is who of these eraserheads.
We are all. All of them.
That's pretty great.
And then the microphones.
Yeah, the microphones are super cool.
Sorry, I'm stepping on you.
No, please, please do.
So there are three gigantic microphone erasers we should all be using right now.
Yeah, I've got one on my.
I'm pretty sure that's what Johnny was using last week when we couldn't hear him. He was just talking into his pencil. Dude.
Dude, these things didn't work. Yeah, I was trying to erase with my. With my blue microphone, which also did not work.
There's like an old timey. I don't know what you call that. Like, the. When I always see this microphone, I think of like the one that, like, drops down out of the sky for the wrestling announcer.
Is that a ribbon mic? The, like, shiny, chromey, like the one in the middle. Yeah, yeah.
And there's a news, which is like a newscaster. One that has the little border underneath the actual microphone part that says the news on it. And then kind of a standard microphone that you'd see on stage at a concert or something. Just the silver top, black barrel or whatever you want to call the bottom part. These things are amazing. I mean, they're really cool looking. They are enormous, though.
Yeah. I have to say, fit your eraser needs for, like, college.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they're. They're a little on the heavy side, but they're really well made. They're really pretty.
You know, we can. I feel like for a pencil podcast, we could stick one on a pencil and like, use that as some sort of visual prop.
Yeah, yeah, it looks good. In my due deck. In my due deck. Pencil. Pencil stand. I put some microphones on the tops of those pencils. And that looks super cool over there. Just sitting there looking at it.
Speaking of Dudek, have you guys seen the new. The new block that has, like, a little planter in it? Yeah, you have. We talked about the group. Yeah, yeah.
I wanted for sharp. Johnny was Yeah, I mean, I guess he. I mean, he can do anything. Yeah, you could probably make a little slot for your double hold sharpener. Like a masterpiece. And then one for, like, a granata.
I was thinking of one where you could slide a classroom friendly into it.
Oh, that'd be awesome. This could be, like, the most fragrant block ever.
Mike, we have some ideas for you.
I've got blueprints that I used a really fancy blueprint pencil for. I might be kidding.
You just slide it right in, like, all the way up to the. The face plate part, and then just pull it out, empty it.
Oh, okay. What is that piece of furniture?
Come over here while I convert you $600. Take a solid piece of walnut and make an eraser port for.
Would have a little brush on the side for you to brush the eraser dust off of your workspace.
Little vacuum cleaner in there, too.
Oh, man,
that would be so awesome. Anyways. Yeah, so what other. What other topper, like, sort of oddball toppers do you guys know about?
I have one somewhere. An old Japanese pencil. And, like, when I say Japanese, I think it was a Japanese pencil for Japan. There's no English characters on it all, but it has, like, you know, those little Japanese dolls that are made out of wood and it has, like, a little face and. Oh, yeah, I have one with one of those at the top of it on, like, a little, like a little short chain, so it just kind of, like, flaps around. I found it just at a random, like, rummage sale and bought it. I have no. I don't know anything about it, but it's cool. It's just like a fun little, like, ornament topper. Interesting. Yeah.
I have. I remember when I was in school having something that looked basically like those flailing arm and inflatable tube man things that you see, like. Yeah, it was just like, made of this really soft, like, jelly, like, material. Material. Like, like real soft.
Oh, I know you're talking about.
Yeah. And so you would sit on the end of your pencil and you'd write, and it would just like, wiggle and shake its arms, like, while you wrote, which is not distracting at all when you're in fourth grade.
Not at all for you or for your light classmates.
Yeah.
So do you guys remember the. The treasure troll? I GUESS it was 25 years ago when they were big. And then they had the mini ones where you basically put your pencil up their butt and back your pencil.
Remember those? Yeah, Those are so bizarre.
My sisters were obsessed with trolls, and
they had they were pretty adorable.
Yeah.
I mean, I hope, I really hope they don't come back. No, I don't know. Maybe. I do.
I really hope they don't come back.
My kids will have like 50 of them. Daddy, look at our trolls.
Oh my God.
Another thing to spend your money on.
Yeah. So I got a really cool pencil from Dr. Hans last time I saw him. That's monkey themed and it has a monkey pencil topper eraser, but it's not on the top. It's sort of hugging it like a branch. It's really, really, really neat. So I'm saving it for Henry because we call him monkey boy.
His hair is getting crazy, like in an adorable way.
Yeah, he's a haircut. He sweats a lot. Or kid.
Yeah.
But there are a lot of like back to school pencils that they have at it's usually Office Depot and they're open stock and sometimes they're referry like a furry cat and then has a cat head eraser on the top.
Oh, I've seen stuff like that. Yeah.
Charlotte has one that's green and it has a pink rose on the top. It's an eraser. It's really, really cool. I mean it's complete piece of crap, but, but it's really neat.
Yeah, man. If you guys want to go on a wild ride, go to Amazon and Google pencil toppers. There's some goofy stuff out there. Oh, man. These like animal heads that look like wild animal heads that kind of look like what I was talking about. Those things that like wiggle and like shake while you ripe. There's like seahorses that wrap around the pencil. Oh, yeah. Like those, like those weird balls with the tendrils on them.
This is interesting. I'm seeing one chewable, Chewable pencil toppers for autism adhd.
Yeah, that was really interesting.
Chewy tubes, Fidgets, Oral motor chew. That's interesting.
Yeah, the ARCS Crypto bite made in the US Chewable pencil topper tubes. You know, you slide them onto the back so they can chew on the pencil without getting like, you know, chips in your mouth or something.
Actually a really good idea.
I, I, it is.
Yeah.
I really like these US toy brand 3D star pencil toppers.
You see?
Yeah, those are cool. Yeah, you always have a point. There's, there's some on the second page
that are the $6 for 48 of them.
What? Yeah, I might click that.
Yeah, those are awesome.
Oh, man. There's Lego pencil toppers.
Emma Card.
Like Lego pencils with.
Oh wow.
Like a Little attention to Eric. Oh, man.
Yeah.
See the. The hats? Oh, those are cool. The pencil eraser hats. There's, like, a fedora, a top hat, a bowler. Like, all that you can put on the top of your pencil.
Breaking news. Jeff Bezos just made another $2 billion because Andy, Johnny, and Tim bought all of the pencil toppers.
So they have chess pieces, and I'm seeing different chess pieces.
Yeah, you can play chess with pencils. Ooh, that's what we need. A due deck block that has the same amount as, like, a chess block.
Oh, my God. I just peed a little.
Do you see these ones that have. You put it on the top of the pencil and it has threads, and there's actually, like, a wing nut you can, like, slide onto it. I guess it's just something to fidget with. As if something else to fidget with.
I fidget a lot at my desk when I'm, like, reading something on the computer screen. I would be so into this.
You'd be all over those.
Yeah.
As I was saying, there's a whole crazy world.
Oh, they have those little koala pencil huggers. Do you remember those? Like, you pinch the arms and they
just close over the grabs on you.
We still put them in each other's ears. Mean trick.
Right, dudes? Right, Dudes makes drumstick pencil toppers.
Yeah. Yeah.
So those are pretty cool. I love that. Our podcast is basically just people listening to us window shop on. On Amazon. Somebody posted on my.
On my timeline on Facebook the other day, pencils that had, like, a little poop topper. It looked like a little pile of poop. Yeah. Okay, we should. We should let these poor people go if they're still stucking around.
Should let them. Yeah, free them. Absolve them.
Free them from having to. From just looking at Amazon.
Well, I hope you enjoyed our homage to the other end of the pencil. We don't usually talk about as much. Yeah, so we were talking about this. We'll be back soon with a good eraser episode, because somehow we've never done that.
It's crazy.
I think we've been too nervous because we've got to do it right.
Yeah, there's so many out there.
Because podcasts actually aren't erasable once they're out there.
Yeah, it's our namesake. Like, we're not named after pencils.
I have to mention one more.
Yeah, go ahead.
And I'm gonna put it in the show notes. And I think this needs to be the image. The Roman eagle pencil topper. It's a pewter eagle that you stick on the end. This is amazing.
Eagle.
Hey, I'll put the link in the show notes. Oh, man, I'm seeing it. There's a winner right there.
So this actually reminds me, before you go, 10 bucks shipped. That's amazing.
There's a gold plated one too.
My friend Jake went to London and went to see the Tower of London and like the crown jewels and he bought me a pencil from the gift shop that had the pencil. The topper was like a little crown jewel, like crown.
Oh, nice.
Super cool. Yeah, we totally need to use this eagle list.
Sorry I jumped in there, but that was just. I was overcome.
Excellent for Renaissance, Norse, Viking, Icelandic, Scandinavian Dark Ages, Viking ages.
Excellent for Tudor keyring, medieval keyring, knight keyring, pewter keyring, Dark Ages keyring, sca keyring.
You can use it in the kitchen, in the bathroom, in the bedroom, in
the second bedroom in space. Great for costume, medieval costume, cavalier costume, Renaissance costume. Oh, man.
Do you guys want to tell our listeners where they can find you online?
Sure.
Currently you can find Amazon looking the
Roman eagle pencil chocolate, which I am
now obsessed with and I'm going to have to order at some point.
Andy's great for Twitter, Pinterest, Snapchat, Facebook.
Do they have one of the new Instagram logo?
Oh, I don't know. They should be. I'm sure everybody's throwing up in their mouths a little bit about it. I think it's fun. But man, people lost their who cares stuff.
The world is over.
Yeah, who cares? Well, I'll go first. You can find me on Twitter at Tim Wasem and I'm on Instagram timothywassom.
I am on Twitter at awealthly A W E L F L E and oodclinched.com or oodclinched on Twitter as well. If you just want to see me talk about. Basically just retweet Erasable podcast tweets. How about you, Johnny?
I am@pencilrevolution.com on Twitter @PennSolution and on Instagramnygamberl. We are the Erasable podcast. You can find us on the web at erasable us. This episode will be erasable us 52. So we've got one episode for every week of the year. You can find our Facebook group, which is still growing constantly@facebook.com groups erasable for almost literally 24. 7 Pencil goodness. Our sort of official mouthpiece is fish facebook.com erasablepodcast which is our page. You could find us on Twitter and Instagram raceablepodcast. And please make sure to rate us on itunes and Overcast Give us lots of stars so everyone listens to our podcast and we can take over the world. Many thanks to CW Pencil Enterprise for our sponsorship. And to reiterate, you can get all four colors of the zebra graphic pencil for the price of 3. 3 through the special link that'll be in the show notes of the website. And speaking only for myself, I think they look kind of silly when they're not in the set, so get them all.
The intro music for the Erasable Podcast is graciously provided by this Mountain, the collaborative folklore rock band from Johnson City, Tennessee. You can check out their music at www.thismountainband.com.
If I could just count the time this has happened.