This transcript was generated from an audio file by AI, and may contain inaccuracies.
Transcript
Every time I press a button, I see naked people.
How did that happen?
Hello, and welcome to episode 53 of the erasable podcast. This episode is once again sponsored by CW Pencil Enterprise, purveyors of superior graphite. They have a great deal for erasable listeners, but we'll get more into that later. Tonight we're going to be talking about American made pencils in honor of Memorial Day. But first, I'd like to introduce my co hosts, the two very exciting stars to my boring stripes, Johnny and Andy. How's it going, guys?
Starry and fantastic. How are you?
God bless you, Tim, and God bless America.
Let's make America graphite again.
Did we already use that as an episode title?
Oh, gosh, graphite.
I don't know. I don't know. I feel like almost worked it in there somewhere. But make America graphite again. No, thank you.
Perfect.
I'd vote for that person.
Perfect.
All right. Well, it feels like it's been a really long time since we've talked. Has it been.
It's been two weeks and two days.
Yeah.
Wow.
It feels like it's a long time this time.
A lot going on in the last few weeks. I got a. Moved into a new classroom.
Yeah. You moved on up to the house Deluxe high school in the sky.
Yeah. Yeah. I moved into my new classroom. We're moving into a new house. My wife's on a trip all week. And so Henry and I are bachelors
this week, so I finally memorized your address.
Wild week. Thanks. That means a lot.
I remembered your last name finally.
Oh, I remember.
That only has one S.
Remember my last name? Mr. Andy. Voil?
Randy. Dr. Johnny Gamber, everybody.
Cool Gambit.
Johnny Gambit.
What a me.
Well, so happy to be sponsored by CW Pencils again for this episode. We'll get into their special deal for erasable listeners in a little bit. First, we're going to jump right into our tools of the trade. And, Andy, how about you get us started?
All right. Well, I feel like we should all say that. We're drinking America Beer.
Water. Water.
American water. American water.
Budweiser, since it is now for a little while called America. That seems like it would fit with our episode, but I just can't bring myself to do it. So I should say that I'm drinking a cocktail, Liquid headache. Yeah. Called the June Bug. It's a Mexican Coke with the first three and a half lightning bugs of the season mashed up in it. Mmm. That is. That is Johnny resurrecting the Joe cocktail.
I didn't do that?
You didn't know. Where did it come from?
I don't know. One of the Henry's.
In fact, I'm drinking.
Well, in fact, I'm drinking the Mexican version of Budweiser, which is Tecate, which is my favorite cheap Mexican beer.
That's delicious.
It's so good.
It doesn't give you a headache like Budweiser does.
It's true. Yep. And I cut up a lime wedge and just kind of like shoved it down into the can. So true. Mexican beer style.
Classy.
And I'm writing with a drinking straw full of the leftover lightning bug guts and marmalade.
Marmalade.
I put in a fountain pen, dip nib into it, and it just glows. Better. Better than Noodler's ink?
Better.
No. I'm writing with a general's copying pencil, which we will talk more about later in the last. The final pages of my Indiana county fair notebook. So, Johnny, how about you?
I am actually drinking alcohol for once. I'm having a Sam Adams porch rocker, good American summer beer.
And the cops are after you.
I hear about to be arrested.
It's an ambulance. I tried to mute it. I don't know if everybody can get this in all the parts of the country, but it's a German cycling style Rodler. But unlike the other ones, this one actually has sort of a normal amount of alcohol in it. So you can't sit there and drink six of them while you're cooking. Or maybe you can, I don't know. And I am writing with all three of our featured pencils, which we'll talk about later.
Dang, son.
Yeah, all at once. I've got really meaty hands. Looks really cool, though.
Nice.
How about you, Tim?
Apparently I am drinking the Memorial Day, which is sweet tea with floating charcoal briquette, which I love. I think that's awesome. And writing with said briquette. Just take it out of the drink.
Right.
Put it back in. I am drinking a glass of old Vine Zinfandel and I am writing with one of the pencils we'll talk about later, which is the Goddess by Generals. Very, very excited about. Yeah, very excited about that.
There we go.
How about some fresh points, Andy? Go ahead.
Boom.
I wanted to mention first that we all got a really awesome care package from June Thomas.
Thank you, June.
Who recently went to Japan and wrote about, like, the stationery shopping in Japan. She wrote something for Conde Nast about that Conde Nast traveler. She came back and sent us all a few goodies. So I'm going to tease that to you and then send this to you to try out. And we can actually talk about some of these pencils a little bit more later. But yeah, wait for that. It's a fantastic care package.
Oh, man. Yeah, I'm gonna lose sleep over this now. Like that new brass sharpener? Yeah.
Oh, the Pollux. Who has that in fresh notes? We need to talk about that.
I don't think any of us did because it's on everybody's mind.
Oh, you did awesome.
Tim's notes. Yeah. Anyhow, we need to get June on to actually talk about our trip.
Yeah, that'd be cool.
The other thing I was going to mention is the Drapolin, pretty much everything book came out, I think, since we last recorded or maybe right before, I can't remember, but I have a copy in my hands and I'm almost done reading it and it is fantastic. Did either of you get that book?
I haven't yet.
I did not.
It's $40, like retail price. But Amazon is, I think, still selling it for 25. It's huge and thick and has like embossed or what? No, debossed, where you press down. Whatever it is, when you press down full color. Like a bunch of his logos just stamped on the COVID like pretty much anything poster. So good. It's beautiful. And the insides are just kind of full of his origin stories and some of his early designs and pictures and it's fascinating. Just like, to stare at. I'm a big fan of Draplin's work independent of field notes, so this is really great. And he also came out with the. In true Draplin fashion, he came out with an enhancement pack. It's the Eeek. The what is it? It's Everything Enhancement Kit. I don't know.
Yeah, I don't remember.
Yeah.
Eeek.
Eeek.
So it includes this big orange slip case for it and a couple packs of custom field notes that he made just for that, of course. So that's pretty fantastic. I'm assuming they're up by now, but I guess I haven't really checked. I have a link in show notes just in case. The last thing I was going to mention, man, this went pretty quick. I went to Daiso the other day and I needed a couple more of those. Those little packs of like, metallic pencil point protectors. If you guys need any more, let me know. But I also picked up this brand of pencils they have there that somebody just posted about, called basic b a z I c basic products dot com. It is a 2B pencil that is kind of blue and black striped. The stripe pattern kind of reminds me of like a Norris school pencil. And I got 12 of them for a dollar and they are fantastic. I would a $5 for this or more. The wood is not cedar and it's a little bit off center, but not much. But yeah, these are pretty great. I will throw some in these packages that I will send you. But if anybody lives around a daiso, you should definitely go and grab some of these because they are inexpensive and they look cool. And yeah, they're. They're basic. They're made in China.
Nice.
Cool. Johnny, what kind of fresh points do you have?
Well, I finished that book called On Paper that I was raving about last time. And I have to say, for the second half, sort of the last chapter was about 9 11. I feel like ending a book on a chapter about paper falling out of the Twin Towers. Just like, really a downer.
Oh yeah, That's a little melodramatic too.
Yeah. And the epilogue was also about 9 11. I'm like, Whoa, God, why did you do this?
When was the book written?
2012, 2013. So a lot of it was really interesting, but the connections with the stories he was telling and the people he was talking to and talking about and their connection to paper was sort of left implicit way too much. Like at a certain point, I'm like, what the hell is this book about again? Oh, paper. So, yeah, if you get it and you don't like it, don't blame me. Unless you already did, in which case, blame me. I'm sorry.
This is a ringing endorsement.
Yeah, it was all right. I paid 10 bucks for it, so I can't really complain.
Yeah, on that note, it. Oh, I'm sorry, I should let you finish.
No, no, no. Yeah, I was going to mention this.
I started reading a different book about paper. One of three recent books about paper that come out that has come out. This one is called Paper Paging Through History by Mark Kurlansky, who wrote Salt, basically the history of. Really about the history of man, kind of told through the history of salt, just because Harry Marks started reading it. And we thought it'd be fun to discuss it. So more information about that later.
But.
But I'll have a link in show notes to both of these paper books. The one that I'm reading is Paging Through History by Mark Kurlansky. And Johnny, yours is just called On Paper, right?
Yeah. Which one are we reading with, Harry?
I think that one. I think on paper. No, no, no, no.
A paper.
Paging through history.
Paging through History. The other one's on paper the everything of its 2000 year history.
Yeah, that's the one I just read since 2014.
I see grandiose titles like that. I think about. There's an episode of Mad about yout where Paul Buckman is trying to make. He doesn't know what cumin is. He's trying to cook something. And he calls Richard Kyne, who plays Mark, his name, and he has like a book about cumin. And he starts reading it and he goes, the history of cumin is almost as important as the history of man himself.
I just watched an episode of the Office where Michael Scott's gonna apologize because of the obscene watermark on their paper. And he, like, gives the. And there. He starts out this press conference, but the only guy who shows up is the guy who writes obituaries for the local paper.
I remember this.
And he. And he's given the headline and he's like. And it just keeps going. Dunder Mifflin apologizes for obscene, you know, watermark on paper. And does the thing that great businesses should do. You know, like, it just keeps going and going and going. So. Sorry, hijacked that.
No, no, not at all.
Also. So in my home now, we have those striped Bic pencils that I kind of got a lot of crap for buying, but my daughter is obsessed with them. Actually, now Henry is too, because you can color, like, forever.
Where did you buy them again?
Where'd I find those? Walmart. Oh, so, yeah, two dozen for six bucks, which is kind of expensive for Walmart.
I checked at an Office Depot and they did not have them.
Yeah, I've been stalking my local Office Depot for those striped Ticonderogas. And eventually, yeah, the guy kept noticing me going in there and he's like, are you finding what you're looking for? And I asked him, he's like, maybe back to school. And I almost choked him. So you have no idea what you're talking about.
Almost choked up.
Do you get broadband in prison? Are we going to be able to continue this podcast?
Henry Hilton.
He's not worth a dad. He's not worth it.
He was clutching a blue and green striped Bic pencil at the time. Said, these are good enough, dad. But yeah, I don't want the Ticonderogas for my kids. I want those for me. Because they're pretty, but they're not bad. I feel like they're not as bendy as the other ones, the regular extra fun. I don't even know what the hell these are called. Candy stripe extra fun. Super duperlicious plastic pencil or something. But yeah, these are like almost human. You can almost write with them. But I like Wopex pencils.
So you pick head.
Yeah. Also, so yesterday I was killing time in a parking lot with Henry and we wandered into Michael's and there's weird bins they have on the other side of where you wait in line and they have cheap crap. They have double fat pencils by this brand called like Shabby Chic. So it's two fat pencils for a buck fifty, which probably seems expensive except to people like us. And they're surprisingly really nice pencils for being paper wrapped. And they all have roses.
They're covered in roses.
Yeah. Rose is being born in like seven or eight weeks. So it. Roses on the brain. Oh yeah.
Nice.
So she has some now in her box.
Perfect.
So like I say that in Baltimore.
Ease.
So in the next two to three weeks we'll probably get new field notes, new black wings and new. Right. Notepads.
Yeah.
So I was wondering if you guys wanted to spend a few minutes sort of waxing with some predictions because if we're right, maybe we win a prize.
Well, you know, field notes, you know, they always send in their kind of like reminder to subscribe, email that picture. That's always like, you know, this is not a hint about the upcoming edition. This is just a picture of a bird or whatever. This. And it always like has something very, very, very loosely to do with the theme, I feel like. And this, this edition was a typewriter, which is very exciting to me.
So I didn't see that.
Yeah. Who knows, who knows if it'll actually be a typewriter. But I went and I made sure that everything's up to date on their brand new website which now has like an account portal which is really nice. I want one of those accounts go into.
Oh, you can make one.
Oh yeah, yeah.
I thought it'd be special if I got one.
I don't even want one anymore.
They need to do membership cards like, right. Nopeds does make it special for subscribing, although Butcher Blue and Butcher Orange say
they pretty much did ever.
I cried when I opened mine. They had my name on them. You think I'm kidding?
No, I do not.
So they keep saying like, you know, it's something people have been asking for a lot. And then it was harder. I can't help but think it's going to be Larger field notes.
I was thinking either. Well, larger field people have been asking for like regular edition larger field notes.
Yeah. I wonder if they'll just like craft, but hey, here's five of them or something. Or maybe they'll be like a three pack of the larger papered ones.
The.
The thing that's gaining a lot of traction over in field notes, I think is glow in the dark field notes, which is true. I feel like people have requested glow in the dark field notes, like for a long time. Even though it's not like a majority of people. It's just like. It's probably just one guy or something.
Yeah.
What would the typewriter connection be?
I don't know. I have more.
They just did some sort of reactive cover recently. Yeah, they did the snow blind.
The snow blind? Yeah. This is like the opposite of snowblind.
If they did the Olympics edition, that would be perfect. Because who knows if people are still going to be excited about field notes for 2020. I mean, I hope they are, but they might not be.
It just looks like dirty river water. Like in Brazil. The moment you open it, it just spells up a fl. Supposed to falls apart.
Yeah. I mean, would it be on the nose if they did a six pack of red, white, blue, gold, silver and bronze? Ooh, I mean, I would love that. But maybe people think be on the
nose a little too much.
I'm 100% down for that.
It comes with a ribbon. Oh, my God.
Yeah.
If you're a subscriber, you get a stand to put them on, like gold, silver, bronze. Now they're going to steal my idea.
Yeah, they are.
I want one free set.
Let's wait four years or I guess two years for the winter. That's amazing. That would be amazing. I'm sorry, guys. If you did not do this.
Stand them up on that.
Jim and Brian, if you're listening, you need to cancel their run and just start making these right now.
Hell yes. Just think if we're shooting the video, they get to go to Rio. That would be awesome.
It's actually gold leafed, like silver and bronze leafed. So each pack actually would cost 50 bucks.
Available only to subscribers.
Well, my. I have a. I mean, I just have a hunch that with the Black wing subscription, I'm. I'm waiting for a single digit black wing to come out. So I'm going to guess that's me. My prediction is there will be a. It's going to be a black wing and then a single digit number like black wing five or something.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, man.
What would it be? It should be the Johnny 5 edition.
The Blackwing one. Yeah. The shortest, loneliest number.
Yeah,
Sorry.
Or The Black Wing 5.
Johnny 5.
Jackson 5 edition.
Yeah, the Jackson 5 edition.
Yeah. They have. There have been six. They could just make it called the Black Wing 7 to be like this one. Oh, no, there haven't been seven. They should make it.
They should make it purple and have it be volume. The print symbol.
1999. Oh, yeah.
Oh. Or 1999.
Black Wing 1999.
Yeah. See, people should consult us before they put these out. We got very good ideas.
Full of ideas, guys. We're full of something.
So we've had. So far, we had a. A writer, a musician, a. Well, I guess another writer, but, like a filmmaker. Yeah, well, a filmmaker and then the mirror. You guess. You call him like a.
Like a natural environmentalist.
Yeah, Writer slash father.
So they haven't. They haven't done a strictly visual artist, you know, like a.
Like, audition.
Yeah. Ansel Adams or Andy Warhol or Chuck Jones. Salvador Dali. Chuck Jones, Yeah.
Yeah, the Dali edition would be cool. They'd probably smell like he didn't bathe.
There's a mustache on it.
It's made of, like, plastic, so it droops. It looks like it's melting.
Or it's just made of wax and actually does melt.
Like a bake pencil.
I hope everybody's writing this down because we're amazing ideas.
This brainstorm is out of control.
Okay, what about writing notepads? Sonny, do you have a fair.
I might have an idea that I can't share on my hair, so that's not fair. But I think somebody needs to do, like, a freaking Popsicle edition.
A what?
Popsicle edition.
Explain yourself. What do you mean?
Somehow put a stick on the sun, bitch and make a Popsicle out of it. I just want to see somebody do a Popsicle.
Or Brainstorm is just falling to pieces.
It could be like, you know, the handicraft edition that comes with a box of Popsicle sticks and a little tube of glue.
It's a notebook.
Make your own cover.
It's both jump to conclusions, Matt.
So I. I don't. I did a little interview with John Moses, who's their photographer, last week about pencils, but he was very tightly sealed with his lips. Hmm. But then I talked to Chris last Friday, and he blabbed the whole thing. I'm just kidding.
Let's start a.
We'll do a crowdfunding campaign to provide them.
I've received a hint But I have to keep it to myself.
Do we have any idea about the timeline of these announcements?
Well, right. Notepads usually announces them in the mid month and puts them out at the end of the month. So they're probably going to be the third field notes usually does.
Field notes is like early. Blackwing is about a week after field notes.
If they go back.
They usually do.
I'd bet field notes would be out or at least we'll know what it is next time we record. Yeah, if you're a subscriber, you'll get it two weeks after that. The crowd.
Yeah.
FedEx. Smart post.
Let's see what their. Their Twitter account usually says, like soon or something. Oh, man. Don't see?
Black Wing is like the most tightly sealed lips of everybody.
Yeah.
No hints like, hey, look, it's a number. I know it's a number.
I think Charles, like steals everybody's voice. Like Ursula the sea witch so nobody can actually.
I don't even know what that means.
Come on.
Like the Little Mermaid.
I've never seen the Little Mermaid.
What kind of American are you?
Somehow I avoid watching that. But I've seen the Tinkerbell movies 20 times a piece. They're much better. They're very good. Girl power, pro nature. Yeah, Better.
I'll watch that tonight. Yeah, yeah.
Watch the Never Beast. You'll cry at the end.
I did.
Seriously?
All right, I'll let you know.
So, all right. Notepad said in their hint is that it's gonna be very summery. So.
Okay.
That could be many, many, many things. Most of which are awesome. Unless they mean summer school. I probably don't mean summer school.
Chris is going to develop a type of paper that's actually hot to the touch. So like notebooks, you pick them up out of the box.
Damn, those notebooks are hot. Oh, my God, we're having a fire.
They're magic. They give you three months off.
I've already got that. So I get another three months? Yep.
Heck yeah.
Keep buying the packs, you'll never go back to work.
I think it's actually a popsicle edition and Johnny's just trying to make it seem like he knows a lot.
No, this is a diversion.
Field notes of the neon ice. I pictured a popsicle stick. Yeah, I've never gotten a popsicle stick notebook and I really want one.
Like a field notes or write notepads is going to come out with one that you can just lick and it tastes like a popsicle.
Oh, damn. And it also turns your tongue blue. Like a Popsicle would.
Oh, that'd be so gross.
And you die.
Imagine what goes into that.
Yeah, they'd have to do it. They'd have to make your subscription auto render like blackwing does. So when you die, they just keep getting your money. Yeah, yeah. But my Black Wing subscription was recently renewed, so hopefully they'll be coming out soon.
Mine too. Well, I thought I was renewing it and I had it hooked up to a card that had expired. So I was like, oh, I'm just going to hook it up to PayPal. And I managed to cancel my order and then hook it up to PayPal. And then I got a thing saying, hey, your order is going to start with the Q1 2016 edition. Like the 24. So I emailed Alexander real quick and I was like, no. So I think he got it set right. But I don't know how to use the Internet.
Apparently it's tricky.
It is.
Every time I press a button, I see naked people.
How did that happen? Okay, Tim, how about your. I'm sorry, I don't want to.
No, no, all good. We're going to have to start selling these Nick people.
Let's silence Johnny and move on.
Woohoo, baby. The first thing I was going to mention is that in our. I got a package from CW pencils and some of the pencils we're going to be talking about here very soon, but mine are better than yours. Just gotta say that my general badger is one of the general's badger. And my badger is better than your badger.
Your badger brings all the boys to the yard.
Damn right it's better than the title My badger is better than your badger because Caitlin customized my badgers after listening to the last episode, I got the box and I opened it up and there was a note in it that said I was listening to the newest episode while stamping some pencils. And so she sent me two badgers and two Musgrave harvests that have a gold pressing in the back that says, your life is in our hands,
which
is a throwback to the Incredibles conversation. So I have four pencils that say, your life is in our hands. And I love them so much.
They really are. They really are the best. And I'm not just saying it because of the sponsorship.
That was such an awesome surprise. My wife walked in the room because I, like, I. I guess sort of let out a burst, like a burst of laughter, like a. Or something like that.
Oh my God, are you all right?
And she walked in and said, what's going On. Look at these. Hurt yourself. Let me explain. 20 minutes later. Yeah, yeah.
And your wife was like, great.
Yeah.
Wow.
Okay, I'm gonna go out of town for the week, so I'm gonna give you some time. So I am so, so excited about this. These are awesome. Thank you, Caitlin. Very exciting. Your life is in our hands on the. The Musgrave Harvest and the general's badger. Super cool. Really excited about that.
Badger. Badger.
Mushroom. Mushroom.
Oh, my God.
Did you ever see that video?
No.
My kids are obsessed with it.
It's an old throwback to, like, Ebaum's World or something like that.
It's Weebles.
Do you remember that?
All those weird ones about.
Oh, we're talking about. Oh, well. Oh, yeah.
That particular guy.
Yeah.
Narwhals. And there's one about a unicorn that scares Charlotte.
Let's see if I can make this sound happen. Nope. Nope. Don't want the ad. Can you guys hear this?
Nope. Okay.
I don't know how to play it through the microphone, so I'm just going to put a link in. Show notes. Sorry, John. Sorry, Tam. I didn't mean to interrupt.
No, sorry.
Is that it?
No, I don't know what this is.
Sounds like a bidet. Someone recording in the toilet.
John, are you using the bidet?
No, I don't have a bidet. My brother has a bidet at his house, so oddly. Just checking.
Well, the other. The only other thing I was going to bring up, which I think we're all excited to talk about, was the new brass long point sharpener, which is from. What's the. Mobius and Rupert. Is that what it's called or Mobius. Yeah, Mobius and Rupert. They're the makers of the awesome brass bullet sharpener, which I think a lot of people are pretty familiar with. Makes a kind of a medium point, but it's a really solid sharpener. It's. It's a knurled on the outside, so you can grip it really easily, but it also. You can just throw it in your pocket because it's not going to tear your pocket apart because it's just really well designed with rounded edges. Really great sharpener. So they've actually got. If you get this right, that they have two coming out.
Yeah. I think one's long point. One's a curved point.
Yeah, once. Yeah, that's it.
So they actually have three. They have the bullet one with a hole in it for a keychain.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Which CW has. And I have one on the way, like right now.
Sweet. Yeah. So, yes, there's. There's three new ones. The ones especially excited about is there's a long point which I. What. When I see a picture of the point, it looks pretty similar to the kum. Single hole long point. Like the. The point that it puts on it. I'm sure this one's going to be a lot more reliable. But then the. The tapered point. Is that the word you would use, tapered or concave or. What is it? Whatever. The one. It's similar, which I saw. Andy, talk about this. Similar to the Janus sharpener or. It looks something like that. Is that right, Andy?
It looks like from what I've seen of some of the mocks, it doesn't look quite as dramatic of a concave point as the Janus. But I really want to get one in my hands so I can figure that out for sure.
Oh, yeah. I'm really excited and I'm really curious to see about replacement blades. Is it a normal blade or is it actually a curved blade or is it actually a concave point? Or does it just appear to be a concave point? Like, you know, just because of the dimensions of it or whatever? I'm just really curious about that.
Yeah, we can. I definitely. Yeah. I feel like I want to get some in my hands and do a little test run, but it looks like it's slightly concave. But that could just be some weird digital picture that. Oh, it's on Lexi Hilliker. Am I saying that right, Johnny?
I have no idea. I think it's like Lexi Callagher, I guess.
Lexi Callagher.
Yeah. But.
But yeah, I'm not sure if. And if it works like the Janus does, then when you screw the blade in, it's a little bit bendy and it just kind of like bends down against. Against the. I don't know what you would say. Like the holder. Yeah. So there's a lot to be determined, but I can't wait to try it out. Yeah.
This one looks like this is the Pollux, right? Yeah. From. From the shape of the. The brass itself, it looks like most of it's straight. And the part that hits the graphite curves, I'm looking at this, Right. That could be a little more stable.
Yeah. Okay.
Well, if they make it, it's probably going to have incredible quality control.
Yeah, that's the voice.
That couldn't be. No offense.
I wonder how much they're gonna cost. I'm really curious about considering the. The brass bullets cheap. I mean, you can get those on Amazon for six bucks or whatever.
Yeah, they know the keychain's like 650 or something.
That's what I'm wondering. I can't imagine it would be 650, but I. I can't imagine it'd be like, let's say more than $20. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I was expecting it to be maybe in the $12 range, which would be awesome.
Yeah. Hopefully not as much as an Elcasco.
This episode is sponsored by CW Pencil Enterprise, purveyors of superior graphite. If you listen to the show, you're definitely not a stranger to Caroline Weaver and her amazing shop. We talk about it all the time and how it's tailor made for pencil heads like us. If you find yourself a pencil lover and in New York City, you have to visit their gorgeous shop on Forsyth street on the Lower east side. Of course, you can also order to your heart's desire@cwpencils.com Today, CW Pencils is offering a 15% discount on all their Generals products, which is awesome. Exclusively for Erasable listeners. Everything from the Big Bear Mini Jumbo to the Cedar Point and all the lesser known pencils in between, like the Pacific and the goddess, are all 15% off now through June 4th. To take advantage of this offer, just build an order@cwpencils.com we'll put a link to their full offering of General's products in the show notes. But before checking out, enter the offer code erasable. That's E, R, A, S A B E. All caps into the promo code field and they'll assign the discount. This offer is good only for General's products and is limited to one time per customer. So stock up, make a nice big order. Many, many thanks to CW Pencil Enterprise for supporting Erasable and the pencil community at large.
Thank you so much.
This is awesome. Yeah, this is a really amazing deal. I'm so excited. I'm totally taking advantage of this one. I've already got my cart.
Oh, yes.
So stocking up yesterday. And so we were gonna. We were gonna talk about the General's assortment as the pencil of the episode, as sponsored by CW Pencils. They sent us a. Yeah, just a little assortment of Generals products. Things that you wouldn't normally see. Generals is a pretty. I guess on the grand scheme of things, it's a pretty readily available pencil brand. I mean, places like Michaels and Hobby Lobby, you can find General's pencils, but you can't find the sort of odd. You know, there's some. Some stranger ones that just don't show up. And I don't even know how else to get ahold of them other than CW pencils. Which is a perfect reason to use this. This coupon code because the one that stuck out to me, which I've got. We've got to talk about first, is the Goddess, which really took me. Took me a ways back to when I first met you guys. And we've talked about this in the show before, but when I was bugging you because I found around Ticonderoga at my church and I was trying to get you guys to help me figure out how I could get more of them. It was definitely before the podcast and it's in the same ballpark. It's a yellow round number two pencil called the Goddess. Very, very simple look to it. The number on it is 692. So it's the General 692. I enjoyed that. What'd you guys think about it?
I love how old timey it looks. It just looks like. Yeah, it looks like it's just straight out of the 30s, I think.
Yeah. It looks like a vintage pencil.
Yeah. And the idea that it's still made and cost 80 cents is super great.
It has one of those vintage names. Sounds like there's a story.
Yeah.
Meaning.
Yeah, says the goddess of round pencils came down.
They used to make One called the 690 that was a hex pencil and then they replaced it with this one. I looked it up today, so. Interesting.
Yeah.
They also, the first version of this had the plastic ferrule. I wonder if that's when they changed it.
Oh, interesting. So, yeah, it's hard for me to like accept like old timey looking pencils that are not hex. But this is great. It writes really well. Writing it to jot down show notes right now. In fact, it seems definitely like pretty clearly hb. I don't know what you guys thought about that. Like number two.
Oh, definitely. Yeah.
I feel like all of their number two pencils that aren't the semi hex all have the same core. I mean, I have only, you know, tried it. I don't have like a scientific test,
but yeah, I mean that sounds like it could be about right.
Yeah.
But it's a nice score. I like it.
Yeah.
It feels like a general score.
I'm trying to see the. The feral looks a lot like the one we'll talk about for the Pacific, except gold instead of silver. And is. Is the diameter a little bit bigger maybe?
Yeah, it feels a little fatter the way it fits the ferrule is a little odd.
Yeah. Yeah.
What do you think of that, Tim?
The ferrule?
Yeah.
Yeah, I like it. It's a little plain, but I mean, mine looks good. You know, the center was pretty on the pencil. And the eraser, you know, general is always rocks the best erasers.
So the eraser is big.
It's long. Yeah.
It does feel. Yeah, it does feel kind of like wide and big.
Yeah. But I mean, I've erased with it and there wasn't any problem. I mean, you know, it wasn't snapping off or anything. And so I think it's just. They're so sturdy. They'll hold up. Yeah.
Yeah.
Trying to erase my copying pencil marks right now.
I have a lot of these and I feel like the stamping on them is all, like, a little off.
I kind of think that's part of the charm. Right. Because it's clearly not like screen printed on or like foil wrapped.
It's clearly a round pencil, which is not easy to stamp on anyways. Yeah.
But the finish is good.
Yeah.
The lacquer is nice.
I just love.
It says goddess and then there's a little, like round cross section. Cross section. And then it says general and pencil company. All in all, like one over another. Oh, man. I just love that look of it.
Yeah. This one's definitely in my. My cart to take advantage of the. Yeah, the sale I'm gonna get. I get a few more of these to stock up. Yeah.
How about the other one?
The Pacific?
Pacific. So, yeah. What did you guys think of that one?
It. As Johnny said it, like, it does seem like it. It has the same core because it writes almost exactly like the goddess. And the yellow is very, very close. I mean, it's maybe. I. I'm guessing it's probably the same paint that they use.
It's much thinner the way they applied it.
Yeah, it is a little bit thinner. It has a green stamp on it. And again, it's just like, just gorgeous looking. It says Pacific in, like, this really great, like, script font.
So I have a question for you guys because maybe you can help out with this. But the Pacific, the Badger, and the supreme are all three yellow pencils with green stamping the Generals produces. And they're all. All like, school grade but really hard to find. So are they the same pencil?
I don't know. They are super hard to find, which I do not understand. Like, who is buying them if it's not us? Right?
Yeah, I don't think I even have a badger.
What do you Suppose. Yeah, I would say I got mixed up because I don't have a Pacific, but I've got a badger here.
What do you suppose that there's some big companies that they make these for and they just have kind of like made them under these names throughout the years?
Yeah, but who would they be? That's what I'm trying to figure out. I don't know. I feel like it would be hard for that to get past us. But anyways. Yeah, they're almost impossible to find. But thank. Thank the heavens for CW pencils.
Yeah, they have gotten a hold of them somehow.
Amazing, right?
Yeah. Supreme is nice. I like the Supreme. Yeah, quite a bit. Yeah. But how about the. So you both got. I lost my spot. So you both got the Pacific, but we all got the copying medium.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yep.
Okay. So we also got a copying pencil which is a really sharp looking pencil. I'm sorry, I did not mean for that to come out. But it's the generals copying medium. Indelible USA575 is the. Is the marking on it. And I've kind of got some poor lighting in here. But it's kind of a gray. Blue color. Yeah, blue, black. It's really, really cool looking. And it's indelible pencil with a. I think you could also say that it's kind of a blue. Gray. Yeah, more. More on the gray side.
It's that kind of like purpley bluey gray shade. Yeah. Smudges nicely.
And just to recap, one of you want to explain the indelible pencil.
I think Johnny, you should go for that. I need to call upon it real quick.
You do what?
We need to call up Anna real
quick and make her a drink.
Yeah. Remember to hit record.
So indelible pencils have powdered aniline dye mixed in with the lead. So there any moisture in the air or if you actually wet the paper, it gets absorbed into the fibers of the paper and you can't erase it. So that's why they're called indelible and they're called copying because you could wet the sheet and put another sheet on top and the dye in the lead would be activated and you would make a copy of your paper before Xerox machines or now if you're like really bored.
But how do you do that without ruining one or both of the copies?
Man, I have no idea. Maybe paper. Well you know, having just read the paper, the paper book. People just had better paper back then. It was a higher rag content, it
would survive and people had Blotters like you would use for a. Like a fountain pen or something like that. So I wonder if you just had to, like, use one of those blotters to do it.
That makes sense.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I wonder even if there was a certain holder you'd use to, like, line the paper up, stick it on, like, a little silk screen, and you can dabble some water on there. If not, we should make one and use copying pencils for stuff. Yeah.
Tattoos. Yeah.
I thought. I thought this was a vintage pencil and didn't sharpen mine until right before we record it.
Yeah, they all have that look. It's like they haven't changed anything ever. And it's. I didn't.
I didn't think anybody still made one until I was doing the. The show notes. And the page on CW mentioned they were, like, the only one you could still buy.
The newest that I've seen are the Sanford no Blots that I think took them over after. After Eberhard favor.
Right?
Yeah, I have a bunch of those. I mean, well, some of those.
Les in the chat says that you use a thin paper and an atomizer to spray water on it or a sponge to make the copy, which makes sense.
I don't know what an atomizer is like.
Oh, like you spray perfume with or something.
Yeah, that's kind of.
Where do you buy one of those?
Yeah.
All right, cool, cool. So again, the. The deal with CW pencils that you should definitely take advantage of because, like we're saying, a lot of these Generals pencils you can't buy anywhere else. You just can't find them anywhere else. So there's no better place to go than CW pencils. So they're offering 15% discount on all their Generals products exclusively for erasable listeners. Everything. Everything Generals is up for grab. So use the offer code erasable in all caps. So before checking out, enter the offer code erasable eras A, B, L, E and all caps into the promo code field, and they'll assign the discount. So this is good for all Generals products, but it's limited to one time per customer. So make sure you get everything you need on that first order. So there are no regrets.
I should probably mention also that this is the first time we did the promo. You got the free big Dipper just by putting in erasable into the order notes. This one actually should be a promo field, like a coupon code field.
Okay, cool. Yeah. Yeah. So take advantage of that. Thank you, CW pencils. You are awesome. Thank you for my incredibles pencils. Thank you for sponsoring this episode, guys, you, you all are awesome. So thank you. In honor of Memorial Day for our main topic this week we decided to cover American Pencils to focus on them once again. We've done this before, but it's been a long time. I think Johnny pointed out that it's been almost a year and a half since we did our top three American pencils. So what we're gonna do is talk a little bit about American pencils. Kind of the heyday of American pencils when things were really at their height here in the American pencil making world. And we'll, you know, we can mention our previous top three and then say if there are any changes so. Or you know, in the, in the last year and a half, which I think most of us will have in some way. But Andy, why don't you get us started? Tell us what your previous top three was and then your current top three.
I was listening to that, to that episode earlier to try to figure out what they were and it was when we talked about Gus Chiggins, which is pretty great.
Oh yeah.
Gus Chiggins.
Cinnamon and gravy.
And I sort of realized what a really weird time that was for me. Specifically because it was right after I found out I got the job at Facebook and I was going to move to California.
Oh yeah.
My head was in a really weird spot. So that was a year and a half ago. It's crazy how things have changed.
But pickle shoes. Sure I do.
I just remember going to work and then watching that clip with my co workers. So yeah, so it's funny, a lot of things changed except apparently for most of my choices. I think that. So last time I picked the Palomino golden bear in blue. The Musgrave test scoring 100. Johnny, he wrote the Musgrave test. Boring 100. And then the general semi hex. This time around, I think it's still the Golden Bear. Like I, I feel like I consistently go toward that and use that the most out of a lot of different pencils. Not, not just American made pencils, but I've also sort of fallen in love with that cedar point, the general Cedar point. I bought a couple dozens of the number ones from, from Gary and I go to that a lot and I notice a lot of my co workers have those as well. They're pretty great. So just they. It smells so good. And the black, the black ferrule and black eraser on it just looks so good. I think that's probably my second. And then it's Such a weird, ugly pencil. But I still love the Musgrave. The Musgrave test scoring.
Man, I'm off this show.
I think. I think. Here's the trouble is, I think the reason I like it so much is just how weird it is. Like, it looks weird and the type is weird and has, like, the thinnest coat of silver paint over the sharpest edges.
So it's not like a freak show of a pencil. It really is.
It's just like the little. You know, how you know when you get like, you see like a litter of puppies or kittens or something, and like, the little pitiful one is the one that you want.
Poor thing.
I think it's that.
I think it's.
That really is what it is.
So question. Have you bought any in the recent past? No, because mine were all cedar. Like, the saving grace about that pencil was that it smelled really good. But everything I bought from Musgrave in the last year has not been cedar. My most recent harvest, I sharpened it. It was some kind of crap wood that was not as good as dollar pencils at Target. Really.
Okay.
So I'm wondering if they stop making that out of cedar, will anybody find any reason left to use that piece of crap of a pencil?
So the reason I thought it was where it actually performed was it. It balanced the darkness versus point retention really well. Like, I. I think it holds a sharp point for a surprisingly long time for how well, how dark it writes. So I guess if it still does that, it's still okay. But I definitely need to get a hold of one made within last year. Maybe you don't. You can't make me not like it.
I feel like the thing was so smeary that all of the wood that was exposed on mine started turning black
before I sharpened it. See, I didn't. I didn't have a smeary problem with it. It's been a little while since I used it. I should break it out and do a. Just. See, it's been a while.
I feel like it was like, weirdly Nietzsche and everything about it hurts. Everything about it's ugly. So become stronger. Using this piece of crap of a smeary, ugly, hurtful pencil builds virtue. You're like 10. Have a good eraser.
You're like a pencil eugenicist.
Johnny, why do they make this pencil?
Pencil, super pencil. Okay. No, I like it just because it's such an ugly duckling. Except it will never blossom into an amazing, beautiful swan. It'll just always be ugly. And I like it eventually it'll just
get really short and you'll throw it in the trash.
It is not the Uber pencil.
It's the unter pencil. Crap.
Johnny, Johnny, how about you? What were. What was your previous top three? And then let us know of any changes.
So last time I had general cedar point and this was before the number ones route. The generals Kimberly and B. Which is really a nice pencil and the right dudes. America's pencil in natural. So I'm sticking with general cedar point, but I'm going to stick with the number two because I feel like the number ones are just. I don't find that much of a difference between the number one and the number two.
They're very similar. I think. I think, yeah. Wouldn't it be funny if they just changed the marking on it and release?
Yeah, sure.
Reprint it.
It's wider, but I don't find it to be smoother or darker.
I thought it was a little darker but not smoother.
Maybe not worth my trouble, but the general cedar points, the ones I have from about 10 years ago have different ferrule and the leads are smoother and nowhere near as dark. So I wonder if they just mess with stuff. So
stock up
the Big Bear with the eraser, which you can get a cw. I think they're like what, a buck thirty? Something like that.
Do you want to tell us what your pencils last time were?
Oh, I already did.
Oh, you did? Sorry, I was not paying attention. Sorry.
God, Andy, the Big Bear is one of those like. Could you fit any more writing on this pencil? Pencils. It's got a picture of a bear and all of this writing. It's like basically sharpening twice. You start losing text. But I enjoy that it has a gigantic feral and a big eraser. It's a semi jumbo, sort of along the lines of a laddie, but it's made in America and of cedar and it's awesome.
I feel like it was designed by committee. Like everybody, everybody wanted their to be put on it.
Put a bear on it?
No, it's gotta iron it out.
So my father calls my son the bear. So now he's got one he's obsessed with. I want a bear pencil.
So error with a man bun.
They have a non eraser version, but I think it's ugly. Yeah, he does have a man bun. I'm gonna put a pencil in it and get a good picture. So as a side note, if you follow me on Instagram, my kids were coloring with those extra funds and my daughter was like hey, take a picture of us with a. Behind their ears. I'm like, yeah. Yes. So it's like a weird family portrait of my kids and their crazy hair with pencils behind their ears, I guess. A brick wall in my dining room. So it's a. I feel like for a mini jumbo pencil, a lot of times people put a core that's along the lines of a jumbo pencil in a mini jumbo pencil. So it's harder. I'm sorry. Softer and smeary and no point retention. But this one has very, very good point retention. And it's very smooth. And darkness is average for an hp, I think, but the smoothness is perfect. It's a really good pencil. For the third, I have to go out of the General's brand and go with the Musgrave bugle, which could only be better if it was made of cedar. It's one of those.
What is it made out of?
I have no idea. Is it Basswood? Probably basswood. Musgrave makes everything out of base wood now.
Sucks.
They probably made them out of seed or two years ago. But it's. What are they, 25 cents at CW pencils?
They're so cheap.
They're naked, but it on both ends with a very thick, clear lacquer and white letters. They're so nice. They're really pretty. I feel like they don't really wax the core much, but I like that it's not waxy. It almost feels general. We can use a lot of General's cores. They don't have a grit. They just have like a. I don't know. Like, I mentioned in the last American episode that Stephen had a really good article on pencil talk, but unfortunately, pencil talk is gone. When he talked about the Kimberly that a lot of General's pencils have this. I don't know, it's a weird, less smooth, but not gritty texture to them. Any sense at all.
That makes sense. Yeah.
It's like they don't put as much wax in there, but the graphite's very smooth. So I feel like the Musgrave is along those lines. Like they could have stolen the core from Generals. I believe that. Except that somebody uses cedar.
Yeah.
Yeah. Those.
Those are my top three this time.
Yeah.
How about you, Mr. Tim?
All right. Last time for my top three, I picked the general's layout, the general's test scoring 580, and the Eberhard Faber American, which I don't think that was very fair because I don't even think they make those anymore. But they definitely don't make those anymore, so. But things have definitely changed. I'm with you, Andy. I added the Cedar Point number one to my list. The only one that stayed from my previous list is the General's Test scoring. 580 definitely stays the lesser of the test scorings. Sure. Yeah. Greater in number but lesser in pizzazz.
It's a pencil you can use without wanting to break it in half. That's actually their marketing copy.
I love the comment from Pearlbug in the chat. Said, I like the way the TS100 writes, but I don't enjoy writing with it. It makes my hand itch. Yeah, there's something vaguely poisonous about it.
That silver ink is actually made out
of
asbestos or something.
Neil, the only. And then the third one, which is a new one for my list, which Johnny had on his first list, is the USA Gold Natural from Right, Dudes. So that one's definitely, definitely on my list since they took the lacquer off of it and now it's just free and clear. Or almost free and clear. Not as much as it was before. So those are definitely my strong top three. I feel like Generals is just about as good as it gets. Yeah, they're definitely as good as it gets in the. In the States.
Yeah.
Which kind of brings me to the last point I was going to make after we went through our. Our list is just to give kind of fun facts a little bit. And this comes from Henry Petroski's book I was reading up about kind of the heyday of American pencils, which was in, I guess would be like the 20s and 30s. Things were really at their peak. And there's this thing called the Lead Pencil Institute I was reading about. In 1933, the institute had 10 members. So these are a group of manufacturers that made up 90% of all American pencils. And it's just kind of crazy. They're making a huge amount of pencils. And here's the list of companies, and you just add up all the ones that still exist. Okay. Eagle Pencil Company. Eberhard Faber Pencil Company. American Lead Pencil Company. Joseph Dixon Crucible Company. Wallace Pencil Company, General Pencil Company, Musgrave Pencil Company, Red Cedar Pencil Company, Mohican Pencil Company, Blythesdale Pencil Company, Richard Best Pencil Company, Empire Pencil Company and National Pencil Company.
Wow.
Yeah.
So there's three of them that still exist.
Three. Yeah. So only three of those still exist.
Which.
One thing this is the last thing I was going to mention is that we kind of complained about how choices are going down, it kind of seems like, or there are a fewer things available kind of than it seems like there were back in the day, which is actually not true that it says here in 1940 or 1934 that it was already shrinking, that they're like four of them were making 75% of those that we mentioned. And one way of alleviating some of the pressures on the industry as a whole, Petroski writes, was to reduce the staggering number of different styles and finishes in which pencils were being manufactured.
Interesting.
Yeah. So actually, back in 1934, they were already doing that. Capitalism was already kind of shrinking things because they wanted profits to be at their highest and all that. And so things were already compressing. Four companies were sort of taking over and the choices were shrinking, which I think that's kind of ebbed and flowed over time. But at one time, America had the by far the most or the just most prominent pencil makers. And that's definitely fallen off to now. We're left with those three generals, Musgraves and Dixon, which Dixon doesn't even make them here anymore.
So I wonder how many of those, really just two, were bought by, you know, somebody else and just kind of like subsumed into their company, like Empire and. Well, who was it?
Who?
The US Pencil Company. And I want to say, like, Empire maybe merged and was bought by Barrel or something like that.
Yeah, I'm sure that's definitely the case. You know, and when we get into our episode on our episode on the book the Pencil, Andrew Petraski, we can revisit this and talk about it again. Yeah, just kind of fun fact that it was. It's not a new problem or not a new phenomenon for choices to shrink. And, you know, that kind of frustration that that's been going on forever.
We just got to make Make America graphite again.
Oh, gosh. Yeah. All right, well, thanks for listening to episode 53 of the erasable podcast. Thanks again to CW Pencils for sponsoring the episode. Remember that you can use the promo code Erasable. That's E R A S A B L E in all caps. Put that in the promo code box, the official promo code box at CW Pencils when you're making your order. And you can use that to get 15% off any. Any General's Pencil Company pencil. And they, like we were saying earlier, they've got a lot of cool ones that aren't available anywhere else. So take advantage of it and stock up on your general's pencils on Memorial Day. So this is episode 53 like I said you can find the show notes at erasable us53. We encourage you to please join our Facebook group keeps growing and growing. It's at facebook.comgroups/erasable and to like our page on Facebook which is facebook.com erasable podcast. You can follow us on Twitter at Erasable Podcast and we are also on Instagram at Erasable Podcast. So Andy, where can people find you on the Internet?
I am all over the Internet@woodclinched.com or on Twitter @AWEL AWF as in Frank L e. How about you Johnny?
I am on the Internet@pencilrevolution.com on Twitter ensolution and on Instagram onnygamber. All one word. How are you Tim?
You can find me on Twitter imwassum and I'm on Instagram imathywassom. So thanks again for listening to episode 53 of the erasable podcast. You can find the show notes again at erasable us53 and please use the awesome promo code from cwpencils that is erasable all caps in the promo code box to get 15% off all Generals products. Thank you so much to CW Pencils and we will talk to you soon. The intro music for the Erasable Podcast is graciously provided by this Mountain, a collaborative folk rock band from Johnson City, Tennessee. You can check out their music at www.thismountainband.com.
wonder I can taste the days below half summer if I could just count the time this has happened before All I said.