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Transcript
Bullet pencil secrets.
Hello and welcome to the other side of 100 episodes of the erasable podcast. Episode 101.
Woohoo.
I'm Johnny Gamber, joined by my co host and comrade Andy Welfle.
Hello. I'm very good. Happy to be here at 101.
Yeah, so it's erasable 101. This is like Back to Basics episode. Yeah, we should have done a tie in with that. We should have. Speaking of pencils 101, a little later we'll be joined by Randy Reagan, who is famous for his vintage bullet pencil restorations, for coining the term nubbins, and for his kindness. And also I think we're not just going to talk about the buying of bullet pencils, but the history of bullet pencils. So that's going to be super fun. Looking forward to that. But before we go back in time, perhaps we'll jump onto our usual tools of the trade. Yeah, sure.
Well, I feel like the last. Since we recorded last, I have been like all consumed with assembling Plumbago magazine. I haven't had a lot of time for reading, but like I have, I guess I have watched some television like as I've folded and stapled. I do have to talk a little later about this insane stapler that I bought for it, but I watched two of the. Have you ever seen the Pitch Perfect movies?
No.
So they are movie musicals. I guess it's kind of like Glee, only in college and in a movie and I'm a little bit obsessed with them. It has Anna Kendrick, who's really great in it, Rebel Wilson, who is like an Australian comedian. She's really fantastic and just a bunch of really good people. And it's like slightly musical too, so they sing a lot of like hits of today and yesterday kind of things and they kind of weave it into a. To a loose narrative. It's really good. I did finish because I was just really slow on it. I finished Summerland by Michael Chabon, which I talked about, I think, in episode 99. It's so good and it just surprises me so much that Tim has not finished it. Because he didn't finish it. He did not finish it. Maybe that was a secret. Sorry to out you Tim, but it's like made for Tim. It's like baseball and it's Michael Tabin. It's. Yeah, it's really good. So yeah, I. And then also during. I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about this on a analog podcast, but I. During Amazon Prime Day, I bought A new Kindle. Because my old Kindle is pretty old and was not holding a charge. So I got a new one. And it's amazing. Like, it just works really well. The UI is really good. It connects to Goodreads, which is what I use to, like, manage the things I want to read. Like my to read list. Yeah. I'm a big fan and I try to balance it out with paper books too. But whenever I'm traveling, just a Kindle's just the easiest thing to carry along with me.
I've never read an ebook before.
What I like about that over a tablet is that the Kindles have those E ink displays, so they're pretty high contrast and you can get them with a backlight, but you don't necessarily need the backlight if you're in a well lit room. So I don't feel like I strain my eyes because I don't have a backlight. So it's pretty good. It does look and feel as much like paper as I think you're going to get without actually being on paper. And just because I like having kind of like a couple different books going at once, this just makes it really easy and lightweight to read. So I'm a big Kindle fan.
Awesome.
Yeah. And I am writing with something I will talk about later, but it is a new twist bullet pencil that I have and I'm writing in in my Mercury Atlas 6 field notes.
Awesome. Yeah. So no, it wasn't Mercury, it was Gemini. Which one had Freedom 7?
Yes, that was the Gemini, right? I think so. Yeah.
Yeah, we saw that in Boston at the JFK Museum.
Ooh, that's cool.
It was on loan from the Smithsonian.
Yeah. And you were just at the Air and Space Museum, weren't you too?
Yeah. They have different iterations of the capsules there.
Yeah. Yeah. I love the Air and Space Museum. It's really cool. I need to go to the JFK Museum.
Yeah, it was cool. So they promised this new Hemingway exhibit. So, you know, of course I was like, stoked. But it was literally some pictures on the wall on the way to the bathroom. That's all it was. Because, you know, the Hemingway collection is there, but you can't go see it unless you have like a research agenda and make an appointment. So they're like, oh, we're going to put some Hemingway stuff out. But it was, you know, you could look at it on a. They didn't have any actual artifacts. I was really disappointed.
Yeah.
But, you know, the rest of the museum is cool and worth going For.
That's good to know. It's the Presidential library. Is that what it is? Or is it the.
Yeah, it's a presidential library and museum.
Cool.
And it's sort of sets out on a point in Boston Harbor. It's a really cool view. It's a really, really neat building. Yeah, it's definitely. Definitely worth checking out.
The only presidential library I've ever been to is the Jimmy Carter one that's in Atlanta. And that was pretty fun. But it was definitely like. Yeah. Not as. Not as cool as I think that probably the JFK one would be.
Yeah, it was really neat.
Yeah.
Cool. How about you?
So I have not been reading anything lately just because we were on vacation and then we all took turns with a stomach bug that, you know, the. The main symptom was just that your stomach hurts and you feel like crap.
Yeah.
Like, I can't even, like, throw up and get some relief. So. So we got into a new show on Netflix called Ripper Street. Have you seen the show?
I have seen about this show. I have not actually seen it.
Yeah. So it's a British cop show set six months after the Jack the Ripper murders with. And it has Matthew McFadden, who I like very, very much. And literally every episode has a guest star from Game of Thrones, which is pretty interesting.
You know, there's only, like, 15 British actors in the world, so they all seems like that. Yeah.
But it's pretty violent, especially for not an American show. But, you know, if you don't mind. If you don't mind that, it's very good. And I've been obsessed with 80s pop lately, especially early Madonna, and I really want to start a Madonna cover band.
Yes.
So I just need a drummer and also someone who can sing Madonna songs.
But other than that, you're there.
Yeah. I mean, I don't want to do some, like, filthy hipster thing and have some bearded guy singing the Madonna songs and be that ironic, like. No, not like that.
I think you could do it. I think you could pull it off.
Yeah. The stipulation is no keyboards, just guitars and bass and drums. We can do it.
Start training Charlotte to get ready for it.
Get on the drums.
Yeah.
Yeah. I've got a guitar player lined up and a bass player.
I feel like Henry's the drummer. He seems like the, like, hardcore one.
He. He wants to learn the bass.
Really?
I'm really happy about.
Yeah.
Yay.
I mean, as soon as he's big enough to put his hands on one.
Right.
And so that's really all I've been consuming lately. And I'm writing with a Staedtler Morris school pencil, which is a perfect match for the red covered resolution field notes book that I'm using right now.
Nice.
I'm really, really satisfied with how these look together. Yeah. Yeah. And I'd complained when they came out that I didn't like the paper in the resolution, but I've come to really like the texture. It's really nice for pencil. It kind of sucks for ink, but, you know, whatever.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Who needs that? Yeah, those are nice. Like bold primary colors.
Yeah.
Yeah. By the way, you sent me some of those NORA school pencils. They're really nice.
Yeah. The quality control, especially for such a cheap pencil, is really amazing. Yeah. Really happy about that. I wish that our school pencils, especially around back to school time, were that nice, but they're not, which we might talk about. So you want to jump into fresh points?
Yeah. First, I think I probably should just give a quick plumbago and 100th episode confidant update. So the plumbagos are going to be a little late. I underestimated the time that I had to assemble these things and the work that would go into it. So I thought I was going to get it all assembled before we record this on Monday and Tuesday morning. I'm flying to Vancouver for a week until the next Sunday. So I thought I was going to be able to get them all mailed out before then, and I was wrong. So really sorry about that. I don't want to entirely blame it on stamps.com, but I feel comfortable in blaming much of it on stamps.com. did you know, Johnny, piece of trivia, that there are two different kinds of indicia, which is like stamps now owned by Stamps.com, they're two different kinds of accounts. The kind of account I used to have is different from the kind of account I have now, and that you neither can transfer the money you put on postage between those accounts and the stamps that you buy for one account does not work for the other account.
What?
And it's completely arbitrary. So I was getting ready to. Yeah, I was getting ready to do all this and then I found out that, you know, I had loaded 250 bucks for shipping onto one of them and now I can't get them off and give them the other one. They told me that, oh, we can get you that money back in four to six weeks. We'll mail you a check. I'm just like, yeah, a check. So I was like, okay, well, I'll just, you know, I'll just use this new account that I have and, you know, just put my old stamps, like, because they give you basically a sheet of stamps that you run through the printer and you have to put in like an activation code in order to show that you're not like, reusing stamps. And so I tried putting in the activation code. It didn't work. Called them back, found out that it's the wrong kind of activation code. They have to send me new stamps. So they're mailing me these new stamps and they did not get here in time. So I'm frustrated and I would love to just go to the post office and buy like regular stamps, you know, like, you know, 50, like first class stamps. But the denominator, like the, the configuration of stamps I would have to buy would. It would require no less than four stamps. And I don't have time to put four stamps on all of those. So this has been my, you know, my patented rant about that. Yeah. So long story short, it's probably going to be into next week before I get orders mailed out, but they're all ready to go. I still have more plumbagos to assemble, but I have enough for at least for the people who ordered single issues of Plumbago. For those of you ordered more than one, it's going to take me like another little bit to put that together. So for putting those together, I did buy a giant freaking stapler. And only because I'm too lazy to use the typewriter bell, to not use the other word. It is a booklet stapler which like mounts to my desk or to a kitchen table and has like a little metal, like it looks like a stand. You, like, you put sheet music on, you put your booklet on that and there's a foot pedal and you push the foot pedal and it goes thump.
Oh, man, that's awesome.
Yeah, I'm very excited. It's very cool.
I want to come over and play with it.
We can just have a staple day. So, yeah, that is my plumbago update. By the time you're listening to this dear listener, we will have closed orders for confidants. And we did get plenty of orders in to meet the minimum. So I will have submitted those numbers and submitted the logo and it will take about two weeks for Baron Fig to create those and ship them to Johnny and then Johnny will ship them to you.
Two weeks is really fast. That's awesome.
Yeah, they already have the stock. Jay from Baron Fig said he's he's reserved about 300 notebooks for, for us to use. I was like, you won't need that many, Jay. Thank you though. So we, yeah, we, we probably got about 150 orders, maybe a little bit more. We're recording this before we, we end it. Yeah. So it's going to be awesome. Thank you all so much for being part of this and helping to support the show. Yeah, yeah. So those are going to be really cool. I did want to quickly mention that I, I posted this in the group and I think I may have put it on my Instagram. But John Fontaine a couple months ago posted. He's from, you know, twist, bullet, pencil. He posted that he has these Cerakote twists, which means that they are made with a very thin layer of ceramic coating on the bullet pencil. Um, they do scratch, which I was kind of expecting. I was not expecting. Um, but they came in an olive drab which is a very like military color. Like I kind of feel like it kind of looks like a grenade.
Right?
Or like a. Yeah, like a, like a, like a gun or something like that. It's very tactical.
Yeah. You need to carry one of those government issue green notebooks that say memorandum on the COVID with one of those.
Yeah, they're very cool. I think he said he had a few left. So if you go to his website and order one of the white bullet pencils, we'll have a link in, show notes to that and just put in the notes that you want. One of the Cerakotes, he can put this together. But excuse me, I don't know how many he has left. I'd like it a lot. And last thing I'll mention. Well, I guess I have two more. I do want to discuss this one with you. But I will mention by the time you're listening to this, I will be in Vancouver, Canada for a week, which I'm excited about. I'm going to try to meet up with some Vancouver erasable people, including John Morris, which should be fun. I have a really hilarious present for him.
Is it a secret?
It's a secret. I'm sure he'll post in the group about it. But yeah, it's really funny. Yeah. So I'm excited to go to paper. Yah. If you need anything from Canada, Johnny, let me know. Or if you can think of any like Canadian. I'll see if I can find any weird Canadian stationery. It's mostly the same as American stationery but spelled in the British way though. But yeah, that's exciting.
Calor Pension.
Yeah, I probably should mention too that I, I just like, while we started recording, got and opened my new Baron Fig Archers, which they just came out with last week. I think they announced it, they're going to announce it today or tomorrow. Right. So I think I am comfortable, we're comfortable in talking about it, but maybe I'll just mention. I'll talk about what this is. It is really cool because it is a collaboration with Caroline Weaver, who we all know and love. It is, it is called the element is the name of it. And what, what makes this an element on the barrel? It's this sort of like hand dipped pencil. And it comes in this like this like pale pink color down toward the like point and then up probably the top half or maybe the top even. Like, like three fifths. Even is, is this like brown, gray color? Would you say that's brown or would you say that's gray?
I see gray. Okay, but I can see how you could also see brown.
I see brown. And especially so when Les posted her like kind of like teaser Instagram of it, it looked really brown. And so maybe you're right. Yeah, it kind of looked like chocolate. Yeah, it looks like a something I
would want to eat.
But in the brown or gray part it says Baron Fig, you know, times Caroline Weaver. But it also has a bunch of little glyphs on it. I see a tree stump. I see a droplet, which I would take to mean maybe like paint. I see. Oh, you know what that is? I bet that's wax. I bet the droplet is wax. And because right above it is like a pot, like a clay pot. And then above that is something else which I. Okay. And the diagram has this too. So foil stamping maybe? It looks. Yep, it looks like foil. And then above that would be a, like a, like a paint maybe. And then above that is. Gosh, I don't even know what that is. It's maybe like the graphite stick perhaps. I don't know. What do you think, Johnny? What do you think about this?
So I really like this pencil.
Yeah.
But the way that whoever makes it for Baron Fig has hand dipped them, I feel like it runs a little counter to their designs because their designs are so clean and so precise that the handmade looking dip, which I know has its merits, I don't think helps the design of this pencil which was so carefully done.
Yeah. Like when, when there's. When they're kind of sitting in the box like very like precisely. And they're all lined up and you pull it out. Like, there's even, like, a quarter of an inch difference on some of these. The dipping.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But they're so pretty, and the colors are really, really nice. I really like the colors. Yeah. And I did notice on mine that all of the leads are, like, totally spot on for centering, which doesn't always happen unless you buy black wings. Yeah. So that's. That's very good. I really like that.
Yeah, I'm pulling mine out too, and it looks like probably mine are as well. Um, I. I mean, I just opened these, so I haven't even had time to sharpen one up yet, but I assume it's the same, like, the same core as their other archers.
Yeah. And it's got that nice, spicy smell. They use a really nice cedar.
Yeah. Um, I gotta wonder, like, you know, I think, you know, I don't want to give a. Give a tease, a spoiler, but, like, we're going to have. I think next time we have Caroline on in the future, we should ask her about this a little bit, because I'm really interested to know kind of like what. Like, where she stops and Baron fate begins. Like, you know, they collaborated. What did they do?
Good question.
Yeah. Yeah, that'll be interesting. But, like, the. The graphic on the front, too, on the box is really great. Like, there's. Oh, okay. If I just would have read. I could have read what all these glyphs mean. There's graphite, glue, foil, paint, clay, water, and wood alone. These might. They may seem like ordinary materials when they're forged. When forged together, they create the extraordinary. Um, so, yeah, there's. And there's this cool little, like, diagram of that. Like a. Like a breakdown of a. Like a breakout of a pencil, which is really neat.
Yeah. I feel like that. That would actually be a really cool tattoo.
That would be a really cool tattoo.
That. That graph. Yes. Yeah. One day I'll get one.
One day we're all going to meet up and get our tattoo.
Now, see, you said it on a podcast. Legally binding.
And we told Caitlin last time that we were so done. Cool. So that is kind of my fresh points wrapped up. How about yours, Johnny?
Yeah. So was it three weeks ago? I was in Boston, and I got to meet up with Les and Dee and Dee's wife for coffee and stationary adventures.
So jealous.
I think we had coffee twice. We did have coffee twice. Well, Les and I had coffee twice.
Nice.
Before I started cutting back. But we got to go to Bob's slate, which is cool, because especially when I was there the other times I had a child with me. Which means, number one, they might not be that interested.
And.
And two, they can't reach everything. And three, like, please shut up and hold still. Daddy's looking at pencils. So that was, like, ultra fun. Like, get to browse the stationery store with people that like it as much as you do.
Yeah.
And get it. And also, I think in their presence, I probably held myself back a lot
more, which is good.
I thought Melissa Chapin was maybe joining you.
Yeah, she had a dental issue. She had wisdom teeth out.
Oh, yeah.
Which did not sound like fun. But we'll have to meet up another time and go to the tea shop again, which is really, really good. There's a nice tea shop. So where bobsled is situated, across the street's a good coffee shop. And like a few doors down is a really good tea shop. And it's right off the subway. It's like heaven. It's perfect.
I've never been to Boston, but I would sure like to go.
Yeah. So that could be where we go get tattoos, because so from what I understand, tattoos were illegal there until fairly recently. So whenever I walk around up there, people are like, staring at me because I have all these tattoos.
Really?
I have, like, one Boston, Sussex tattoo.
Not just getting a tattoo, but like, presenting a tattoo.
I guess just getting them was. Les explained it to me, but I forgot.
Yeah.
Yeah. And also, I suppose up there, there's a lot less short sleeve weather than we have in Maryland.
That's true. How far is that by train for you?
It's seven hours. Okay. If you take the. Well, eight hours if you take the weekend train, which I did not realize that was not that fun.
Yeah.
You could take the Acela in six.
Yeah.
Huh.
Okay. So that's probably. That's probably about the same length of time it would take me to fly. So.
Yeah, to fly from here is like, a real hassle to go to Boston. Plus, you don't go up that high, and it's a really bumpy flight.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. I bet not. I bet.
So we flew. Yeah. I've flown from Philly to Baltimore before, and you can, like, look out the window and, like, watch the wings flap. I'm like, this isn't really that fun. And that especially would be way quicker to take the train.
Yeah. I always get so confused about all the states lined up on the east coast. Like the West Coast. There's only, what, three states? Right. It's really.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And where the coast Is is weird here because Maryland only has a little bit of coast, but then we have the bay, so we actually have a ton of coast.
Yeah, that's true.
Delaware. We should just take it.
Just take over Delaware. Yeah. Who's using that?
Yeah. So speaking of Maryland, we need to talk about the right notepads release in time for our summer release episod episode. But their summer release was out. It's called the Lawn and like, it is freaking awesome. I feel like right notepads always really nails summer. Yeah, there was the. Was the 2016 one called the Kindred Spirit.
2016? Yeah. Kindred Spirit.
Yeah. It had fire. Last summer they had the Chesapeake, which is like as Maryland as you can get.
Yeah, yeah. Water, land.
Yeah. These have grass blades letter pressed on them and they come with a sticker sheet full of stuff you might find on a Baltimore lawn. But so I saw a draft and they cut out the rat and they cut out the Virgin Mary statue, which is disappointing if you've seen John Waters pecker film full of grass. I grew up in that neighborhood.
I was going to ask you about that grass. I have not gotten mine yet, but. So the grass is like letter pressed on. Right, like you said.
Yeah, it looks really awesome. It's really intricate.
I was hoping for something like that rather than just like, you know, like, you know, offset printed on.
Yeah, they're really cool. I don't know why people aren't talking about them more. I think maybe we're oversaturated, but the belly band is the pattern of a picnic blanket, which is freaking perfect. Like, I really, really like these books. And they went back to their lines minus the margin. So you've got a saddle stitch book that opens up wide, that's a little wider with phenomenal paper in it. So they're super pocket friendly. I really like them. And they went light with the COVID stock, which I also really like. I don't like 100, 120 pound cover stock. It feels like I'm carrying a dictionary in my pocket.
Yeah, that thing will last. Yeah, those flamingo stickers are really cool.
Yeah, that's really a Baltimore thing. My mom has some in her yard. I was going to take some pictures from my post, but I think when I was writing it was raining because it's been raining here non stop. Yeah. So if they'll have the link in the show notes. If you don't have them yet, like, get some. Because I have it on reasonable authority this wasn't a giant run, so get them while you can. Get them.
Time's running.
Also. Yeah, they have some stuff on sale on their website, too, including chesapeake for, like, 8 bucks.
Oh, nice.
Yeah. Can't beat that.
Wow.
If you live in Baltimore, you'll get them in a day, so that's cool.
Johnny just, like, runs them to your house.
Yeah, yeah, those are on sale. The fall ones from last year on sale, and the Morse ones are on sale.
Yeah, I see. Yeah, the Sakura ones are sold out. That's interesting.
Yeah, Those are so sweet.
Yeah, they have. Okay. Yeah, the fingerprints ones, fingerprint ones, the Chesapeake Bay ones, and the Samuel Morse ones are all. Are on sale for $18.
Yeah, I think the Morris one was a big run.
Yeah.
If I understand that one right.
Yeah, that one was one of my favorites. And just, like, the style of it, like, it was just the way. Just like the genre of it was so good.
Yeah. That one, I think had their best pencil, the telegraph pencil. Those were so perfect.
Those were good. I don't know. My favorite pencil still, I think from. From Right. Notepads is the gold field. Like those little. Little tiny ones.
Yeah, I don't think they sold out yet.
Yeah, they still have in three packs for five bucks.
Nice.
If I didn't have four packs of them, I would consider. I have a bunch. Yeah.
Wow. So it's back to school time. So I have another kid going to school, so we did some back to school shopping, and I have small reports to report back, and that is if you go to Staples. They're my first. Ticonderogers are made in China now, not Mexico. And even in the package, you can see how much nicer they are. So I'm really, really happy about this. I hope this is a thing now the finish is nicer. The cores among all the packs that I saw at Staples were, like, perfectly centered, which is my pet peeve. The color was a little darker. Really, really nice. Was really happy about this. Hemi was happy because, you know, pencils.
Yeah.
And so I picked up some of those new USA Titaniums at Walmart that are USA Golds with a fancier feral. And, like, so they're. How much were they? Five and a half bucks for three dozen. Which is not terrible.
Yeah.
Or nine bucks for a 60 pack. And I just think it's cool there's a 60 pack. But so what Ticonderoga does around back to school time is they sell these big packs of pencils, and they say premium wood, but they're not cedar. And if you open them up, you know, they're not first quality Ticonderogas.
Yeah.
Because you know it's what they made for back to school. And I was really disappointed to see that the USA Golds and the USA Titaniums were not cedar this year. They say premium wood and there's the references on there too. 87% of teachers who have ever heard of them recommend them for the classroom because they're trying to push Ticonderoga out.
Yeah.
So interesting. But also kind of disappointing.
What is. Does premium wood. Is that. Is that code for a different kind of wood or does it just mean that it's like just sourced from elsewhere and it's not cedar?
I don't know.
Like wood or is it a. Okay.
But they look like white pine. They kind of look like what's in a statelornoris.
Yeah.
They said the wood is US sourced.
I feel like this is a. This is a Charles Berlsheimer question.
Yeah. I was gonna send him some of the titaniums and ask if he could identify them.
Yeah.
Also the quality control on them is not that good. But the core is really nice. Like really smooth. Really dark. So they're worth getting. But don't buy as many of them as I bought. I'm gonna do it. They're gonna.
Did you get the 60 pack?
I got one 60 pack and one 36 pack. So I think the 60 packs is gonna go for. You know, my kids school spy list are like so many boxes of pencils. Here's a really big one.
That's funny.
Yeah. But I mean if you. If you and Tim like to try them, I'm very happy to send you some. They're very pretty. The silver stamp looks really good.
Yeah.
It's the cedar thing that bugs me.
Yeah. I wouldn't mind trying one. I do. I. I need. I haven't been to look at any back to school shopping yet. Like I'm still sort of in denial that it's time for that. Even though I. I no longer like going back to school. Has no like relevance in my life. Like I'm. I'm never going back to school. But. Yeah. It's still sort of like it makes me just like it's the end of the summer.
Yeah. To see how big these lists get is kind of alarming. One of Charlotte. I think it was Charlotte's the school supply. There's a wish list for the teacher including electric pencil sharpener. Okay. I think you probably have one if you're a teacher. But. Huh. Yeah. Yeah. So you want to call up Randy?
Let's Get Randy on. I have a feeling this is gonna be. This is gonna be a lively one. So, yeah, get ready.
Awesome. So now for our main topic, we move on to our conversation with famous bullet pencil lover, bullet pencil restorer, and bullet pencil historian, Randy Reagan. Hey, Randy.
Randy. Hey, guys.
Well done.
Thank you. It's great to be here. I'm so happy.
Randy is a longtime member of the Erasable Group. I think you were among the first hundred to be part of that, weren't you, Randy?
The first hundred. I wasn't aware. I'm early on, but I didn't realize. Wow.
I have no actual analytics to back that up. That's just what it seems like. You've been around for a while
before we hit you with a barrage of questions. Do you want to introduce yourself a little bit?
Yeah, well, sure, you bet. I'm actually, my name is Robert. Robert Reagan, but my friends and family call me Randy. And online I am. Well, slash was a D list celebrity in the world of genealogy, you know, family history, looking it up, that type thing. And that kind of leads into part of my love for bullet pencils. The history connected with the pencil nerdness. But yeah. So I've been around a while and I got this for you because this is going to happen, Johnny. This is going to happen to you, Andy. You decide to settle down and raise some children, this is going to happen to you. So it's. Here we are. It's 1995. Right. What were you doing in 1995?
Guys, I was 12.
Okay. So what were you doing, technology wise? Technology.
Technology wise. I was right before. No, it was right after I got my first computer. Yeah.
Oh, man. We had to typewriter.
We had aol. I don't think I had the Internet yet.
Oh, yeah. Aol, right, right. What about you?
I used pencils, paper and typewriters.
Really? You weren't big on the computers yet. Okay. Okay.
Johnny doesn't actually know what a computer is right now.
I didn't start using them until I was in college, halfway through. Yeah.
That's okay.
Yeah.
What about you?
My typewriter?
Well, that was the thing I had, you know, used computers and stuff since the 80s and I was on what they call BBSs. Do you remember what a BBS bulletin board service. Yeah. So I was. That.
I was in a Star Trek bbs.
One, One, that's great. And two, I believe it. So. So I was with my wife at a friend's house. Right. I'm 35 years old in 95. Okay, 35. You know, I'm still ready to change the world.
Yeah.
I saw the World Wide Web through the original, you know, the big one, the web browser. You remember Netscape? Oh, yeah, yeah. The gray background. Click here and there's pictures. And my wife said that my eyes got as big as saucers because I saw. Since I was involved with the genealogy, family history, so much. Like I write how to courses and kind of the Internet's my specialty and everything. And listen, it's gonna. It sounds like I'm boasting, but believe me, it all comes crumbling down.
I do have to ask. Randy, as a. As a fellow Hoosier, did you ever take advantage of the Allen County Public Library genealogy services?
Oh, absolutely. Yes. World's largest collection is the family history. Well, the family history centers connect like a hub to the family history library in Salt Lake City. And then the number two largest resource is Allen County. Absolutely.
That was my home library, my very favorite library.
Oh, I bet.
Yeah.
Good for you. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, so I saw the potential to put, you know, like the courses and genealogies stuff online. I was friends with other genealogists. One in particular had a course on deciphering old handwriting and tombstone rubbing. And I just. Oh. And I just knew and I did it and I sat there and figured out how to do web pages. Here's some trivia for you. Do you remember the first big HTML, you know, web page maker software? Do you remember the first big one? It was also from Mozilla.
Oh, man, I. I used. I used a Mac when I started, so I just used, like, Claris. So. Yeah, I don't think I did.
It was hot dog.
Hot dog.
Hot dog.
Yeah.
So anyways, I'm making my pages with hot dog, and it took off. Remember, this is 95. That's like 100 years ago in the Internet world. Yeah. Anyway, so anyway, so I was on top of it, and it did great. And I've been doing courses and stuff for years and years, Right?
Yeah.
But what's happening is. And this is it. It's gonna. It's gonna happen to you. It's gonna happen to you, Johnny. I promise. You got the three adorable children I've seen. It's gonna happen one day. One day it's all gonna pass you by, and you're gonna be like, what?
I think it already has passed, Johnny by.
You're not gonna be able to keep up with her. And you're gonna say. You're gonna say to your kids, well, now, remember, I did. I did the erasable podcast kids. You know that we did over 500 episodes. And they're gonna look at you. They're gonna look at you with love and kindness in their eyes and shake their head, oh, dad. And then they're gonna do their own little podcast that's gonna be a three dimension, 3D, holographic. Like the Jedi Council on this, you know, that's what it's gonna be. And they're gonna look at you with love and pity. That's exactly what's happening. It's like they look at me, dad. Oh, and I'll hear about some new app or something. I go, hey, have you. Have you guys heard about that? I have a two boys. One's 23, one's 15. Have you boys heard about this? We've been using that for years, dad. I'm like, oh, my God, I'm losing. I'm losing my edge. And I was a. I was an Internet pioneer.
Well, welcome back to the. The cutting edge of Internet audio streaming.
There we go.
Yeah. So. So, speaking of. Speaking of that. So we know you like genealogy, you like technology. It all kind of comes together. What got you interested specifically in vintage bullet pencils?
Well, here's what happened. It's four or five years. When did Erasable start? When did you guys start?
Officially, a little over four years ago.
Okay. It was a little over four years ago. I discovered you guys, and I discovered pencils, and for me, yeah, pencils, whatever. Pencils are pencils or pencils. And I'm so upset that. That it took me so long to figure out that if you write or draw with a quality pencil, like a quality 2B pencil, 2B's are some of my favorites. The dark, smooth, silky lines, it's like, oh, I've been missing out. I've been missing out. And so when I joined Erasable, I was learning about pencils, and Les Harper is what the name she goes by now. You know, everybody knows Les, right? Yeah, I love Les. I heart Less. She was so helpful and kind to me. We did, like, a trade or something back then. But she just overwhelmed me with kindness and with the great pencils and, you know, with knowledge and stuff. And she's always been available to me on private message. And I've also dabbled in watercolors, and she's a wonderful artist. Right. So I've asked her watercolor questions. She has been amazing to me. So I just. I heart less. And she kind of helped give me a boost. So then, of course, field notes. Right. And so Aaron Draplin has this one video that originally came out. I think you can still get to it easy enough. Do you remember the video where he, he talks about all the old memo books? Agriculture? Yeah, that's a good video. That really helped me connect to field notes. And that was right around the time crops came out, you know? Yeah, so. So I, I was digging on that, I was digging on that and then I heard that Aaron Draplin likes to go junking a lot, right? And then he would get what they call these bullet pencils, but the erasers, always petrified and nasty and oh God, are they. Oh. So but he would get them and just, you know, use the pencil part or whatever. And I even heard way back, I don't know if it's rumor or field notes lore, if they. He actually tried to get a bullet pencil made for field notes. I don't know. But anyway, that's why I became aware of it. I saw some in the group and I started checking them out. And then. So activate pencil nerd powers, right? And then activate the genealogy powers. They merge together my, you know, two hobbies and loves in one. Because my big thing about bullet pencils is they were literally there as history unfolded. Like, I'm not a big antique guy to like go look at antiques, furniture or whatever. I mean, it's okay. But these little guys were there. And the heyday was the 30s, 40s and 50s. Those were the big 30 year heyday spread. Even though they go earlier and they, and they went later. Yeah, but, but so, I mean, so they're in the little souvenir shops, they're in the mom and pops. All kinds of different people are using them and handing them out. So as they're sitting there in the little shops being sold for a dime or a quarter back then, what was on the radio, you know, was it used in the 30s about the prohibition? Was it news about the war in the 40s? Was it Elvis on the radio in the 50s? So it's like there's such a historical thing and there's just, to me, something special about them, you know. And I know that they're big in agriculture, you know, seeds and corn and hogs and cattle and sheep and all that type of thing. But I know, I've heard people talk about them because I live in, you know, the Midwest, in the heartland here in Indiana where corn is prevalent. And I've everybody. Oh yeah, I've. The old farmers, they know. I've heard people say that they're used to. Everybody used to walk around with A bullet pencil. The farmers anyway, you know, and they're in their overalls and. Yeah, that type of thing. So I just kind of got hooked on the pencil, the history and then the pencil part of it. But also there's a practicality. Yeah, if you pay two or three bucks for a good pencil, yes, you could buy a pencil extender, but it's just so much cooler to use a pencil. I mean, to me, you know, and to be able to enjoy it and carry it around. And I had a shop on Etsy a couple years back and I would do what I. The 21 day bullet pencil challenge. And I challenge anybody to do that today. I would just carry it. I mean, make sure you have it with you for sure. And you'd be shocked at how often you use it. And I know a lot of people carry around, you know, pencils and stuff with them and whatever, but. But do you have it when you, you know, you ran to the grocery store real quick on Saturday when you're in your jeans, did you carry your fancy pencils with you then? Probably not. But if you got a bullet pencil with you, you're never going to be without it. And you'll be able to. I can't do a good Gollum voice, but you'll be always able to. To protect the precious. You must protect the precious.
Good job, Johnny. I knew that was coming.
Awesome. I love it.
Yeah, well, they're. I mean, I just love that they were. Yes. Something that were just so, so common. But it also kind of like makes my heart hurt a little bit to think about how many were just like, have been thrown away over the years. Right. Like, I. I have a friend who, you know, she was clean, cleaning out her grandmother's farmhouse after her grandparents died and she, you know, grabbed. Grabbed a handful of some of the coolest ones and like, gave them to me and said, andy, I know like, these seem like something you like. I know you like pencils. Like, these are amazing. And she's like, yeah, there are a bunch more, but got tossed before I had a chance to get to them. And I'm just like,
yeah, I don't think we know anyone who knows more about the history of bullet pencils than you do, Randy. So can you talk a little bit about what bullet pencils are in general, where they came from and who used them?
Yeah, sure, you bet. If you do that, though, you got to kind of also look at the history of the pencil as well. And I think it's fascinating that Napoleon, back in the 1700s I don't have the date written down, but he had, there was like shortage of the graphite for the pencils or whatever. So he had one of his scientists on it. And you could Google it. It's fascinating. And he is the one who actually this is. He was doing it working for Napoleon, right, One of his scientists. He's the one that came up with a mixture of the graphite powder and the clay. So to me it's like, okay, okay, so here we are. Even the war theme keeps coming up. The war theme keeps coming up. Okay, so the World War. Well, here, let's go back to the Civil War. And the Civil War. I keep hearing talk about pencils. And if you look at Google, you know, Civil War bullets or whatever, you'll see they have different shell casings of different sizes and there are some that are small. I always think of the, you know, the musket balls is what I think of. But no, they actually had these little shell casings. And so there are references to bullet pencils being used in the Civil War. And that got me thinking as a prepare for the, for the podcast. I wanted to tighten up on that. And it's like, oh, holy cow. If you go to Google, you ought to do it, guys. Go to Google, type in Abraham Lincoln's pencil, and you'll see a picture, picture of Abraham Lincoln's pencil. It just looks like a pencil. And that's like that. He wrote a dispatch to General Grant like a week before he was assassinated with the pencil. So these guys were using pencils and in the Civil War. I've got, I've got a quote here I wanted to share with you here. By the way, have you ever watched like PBS or whatever where they show the letters that they wrote back and forth to Civil War soldiers, to their wives and everything? If you. Oh, boy. If you ever want to get inspiration for a love letter, just go see them. Hey, I got a super quick quote. Okay. This is from Charles W. Hill. This is in 1863 to his wife Martha. So Charles Hill, he says, I gotta try to do it with my Southern gentleman accent is pretty poor, but I'm still. It's not gonna stop me from doing it. Okay, great. It makes the man feel strong to know that he is the world to somebody. And that's, that's to his wife. So obviously his wife had written him something along that line. And he's replying, and that is just some beautiful stuff. So I looked up another one and it is to. They're online. You can see Letters, you know, that were written back and forth, they've saved them, they put them on the Internet. And this one's between Milton Barnes and his wife Rhoda. And he actually mentions the pencil. And what he is doing is he is. He's upset about the. The mail, like the mail service. I mean, getting letters home was a rough gig, right? That's a rough thing. And so a quote from him is this. It says to his wife. This is him running to his wife a few random pencil marks to assure. To assure you of my welfare and send off in a hurry without any assurance that they will ever reach you, such as the looseness of the mail arrangement and every other arrangement in this department that we have all along since voted the army of Ohio with the headquarters at Knoxville, one grand humbug. So I got a humbug. I got a mention of pencils in Civil War. So they didn't just write home and pen. And so if they had these pencils, they certainly had to protect them somehow because, you know, they're out in the weather getting soaked to the skin. So it makes sense that they would take some of these casings and you use that as one of the methods to protect them. Yeah, yeah. And then it goes on to World War I, which was. And you've mentioned this on Pencil Revolution on your site, Johnny. You'll see it on the jungle is neutral World war. World War I is 1914 to 1918. And remember the 1918. Because in 1919, Eberhard Faber did something very wonderful, which I'll tell you about. But they. You'll see on the Internet if you research it, what they did was they would get the. The shells, like the point three or three shells from the British rifle casings, and then they would stick bullets in there. And they were the perfect size to. To use to stick bullets in. So it would be natural that the soldiers would use them again to keep their. Their pencils dry. It became a popular thing. And so. But it just took off because in 1919, I have one, actually, if you, if you go to the Erasable Group and you just research my last name, it's not spelled like, just. Just as a keyword, just use my last name. It's spelled R a G a N. It's not spelled like President Reagan's. You'll see one of my recent posts, and I post some rare bullet pencils, you know, knowing that the podcast was coming up. And one of them is the Ebroht favorite, the little flat carpenter pencils that are so beautiful.
They have like an oval barrel.
No, they're. No, they're flat, but on the end they're a little round.
Okay.
Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, a little bit round, but they're. They're flat. You know what I mean? When you see them, you'll know what I mean. But they. There's a. It says on there, you know, Eberhard Faber, patent 1919. So the year after World War I is over. Eber, you know, Eberhard. I always say it, right. Eberhard Faber is doing patents. Hey, by the way, if you want to go to pencil nerd heaven, go to Google patent search and just type in the word Faber and the word pencil. And look at all the amazing stuff they came up with. They were just so innovative.
That's a great idea.
Wonderful stuff. Yeah.
Real quick, I should probably mention for everybody, Randy referenced the Jungle is Neutral, which is a really, really good blog that back in 2013 had some really great history posts about bullet pencils and, like, restoration posts. So there'll be a link to that in show notes. Yeah, so. So we kind of know where they came from. But where did bullet pencils go, Randy? And why don't they make them anymore?
I know the answer to that. I know. Yeah, I know the answer. And I. For the listeners, I told them ahead of time, this is bullet pencil secret.
Don't worry, nobody listened to this. So you can say. You can say.
They will. They will. No, it's interesting. I had. Because I'm just such a nerd. I just am. I had a burning question. I wanted to know why in the heck they didn't make him anymore. I mean, I really wanted to know. I couldn't find him. Doing research. I'm good at researching online. Nobody could really tell me. And I just really, really wanted to know, and I found out. But I've got to warn you, I'm going to tell you. I'll tell. I'll tell y'.
All.
But it's like if you see a magician reveal his trick, you're gonna go, oh, no. Well, it just makes. Brings you down to the cold, hard world. That's what it does.
Yeah.
So in. In. In 1919 again, the year after World War I, three brothers, three of the Sanders Brothers, not related to Harlan, you know, from the chicken, Not. Not Kate, not the colonel. Three brothers in Nashville, Tennessee, developed this company of promotional items. Today they're called advertising specialties, but they to this day call them promotional projects. And it's the Samco line. So I found the Samco line online And I said, well, geez, if they go back to 1990, somebody can probably tell me something. So I called them and I got passed around on the phone and I said, can you just hook me up with, like, is there like an old gentleman there? You know, there's an old guy there who knows what's going on, who's been around a while. And they go, oh, we know who to send you to. And by golly, I got sent to James Sanders, who goes by Jimmy Sanders. Jimmy Sanders iii, his grand. His grandfather is one of the founders. It's been a family business, and he started full time in the family business in 1974. But remember, it's a family business. So he's a kid running around this factory. He goes, oh, yeah, bullet pencils. I remember those. When I was a kid, I'd run around and they were doing the bullet pencil. So it's like I got. Oh, I got the right guy. I got the right guy. He not his family company, not only, you know, produced them and sold them, you know, to, to different companies and everybody who would, you know, buy them, because everybody use them. Everybody could think of or imagine use them. I said, he's. So he told me some amazing things, and that's what I'm going to share with you here. Also, also, when I said, when I use the term pencil nerd and that I was part of the pencil nerd group, he was very bemused by this statement. He got a kick out of it. He's all, I mean, this guy's old because you could just hear it in his voice. And then there was a Sam Com. This is about, I don't know, 2014 or 15, but they've changed the name since then to, if you want to look it up, it's easy to find Sanders Marketing Group. You can buy pencils to this day from them, but not bullet pencils. Yeah, so. Yeah, go ahead.
So, yeah, I just googled, you know, Senko on like, bullet pencils. And I see that it's that. That particular style of bullet pencils where it's just kind of like flat, like plastic ish. With maybe like, like, it seems like it's usually the kind with like, red and black ink advertising something. Does that seem to be right?
Well, they, they did. They did different kinds back then anyway. Well, they, they still offer specialty pencils to, you know, today. Yeah, but. But these were the, the solid bullet pencils, which, you know, we kind of know and love and see the most. So here's what happened. Yeah, also he Told me something interesting. He says bullet pencils were wildly popular. I mean, they sold the holy heck out of them for years and years and years. And he said there were two other things that were real popular. One is, was the ball toss. And one was something called a pow wow puzzle. And I have looked on ebay for years for a pow wow puzzle and I've yet to find one. So I don't know what a powwow puzzle is. I don't know. But I. I don't know. So here's the thing. Yeah. And also back then, if you've seen they, they had bullet pencils that. A hole in them with the little chain keychains and they had a little tag. I've got some of the little tags and I even have one with a canceled 3 cent stamp on it. Back then you could the little tag, write the address, put a 3 cent stamp on it, drop it the mail just like that. They would hand stamp it. And he said that they would, the tips, with the tips, you know, the, held the nubbins, the metal tips, they would come out all the time. So they lost a lot of tips in the mail. So they quit doing that. But here's here, here's why. Here's, here's what happened. The, the oversized erasers, the big ones, he called them plugs. Okay.
Yeah.
And he said, and what happens is, is they would order the ones. I have seen many of them. I've seen the, like the souvenir ones, you know, especially. That's a good example. Like some of the souvenir ones I've sent you guys, if you were to peel that label off and you could only see it, if you peel the label off, right. The, the graphic car with the celluloid around it, it will most likely say Japan imprinted into the metal beneath that. Oftentimes they'll do that. So they got them from Japan. And then when they got to the US and these factories like his, they, they had people. It was labor intensive. I've even bought bags of nubbins and metal tips out of old factories that have shut down. And it had to be from exactly what he's talking about because you get the body with the artwork, you know, for whatever the customer order and whatever it says, whether it be artwork or just text. And then they would, they would stick in the erasers and then they would put in the nubbins in the metal tip there in the US and he said that oftentimes that the diameter of either where the eraser goes in wasn't exactly right. Or the diameter of the metal part between the body and where the tip goes in is called the coupler. The coupler. It wasn't exactly right. So they had a real problem with that. And so, you know, they always had to deal with. And I'm sure they had to reorder sometimes. So as that just kind of kept going on, they were still selling bullet pencils like crazy. But so then the labor cost increased, there were price increases in the product itself. There were continual manufacturer problems. And then here we go. Here's what the final nail on the coffin, the ballpoint pen became popular. And you get to get yourself a little ballpoint pen, a little screen printing on it. You don't have to have a whole labor team.
And then it's all Bix fault is what you're saying. Killed the bullet pencil.
Yeah, absolutely.
TV killed the radio star.
That's it. And so that's the demise of the, of the bullet pencil. And yeah, they, they. He said that they retired him in the early 70s. So.
Yeah, yeah. So there is a. And I don't even know if they're actually made anymore, if people just have such a high stock. But at some point I bought a. Like, a lot of. They called them umpire pencils. Like little like white plastic sheathed bullet pencils. But the bullet on the end of it was plastic and the white sheath was so thin that out of the gross that I got the 144 of them, I bet that probably 80 of them are cracked already.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
So bad.
Yeah, yeah. And. And to me, the. I got a. I got a tip for anybody who wants to buy any like off ebay or something. To me, the, the downfall of bullet pencils is the ones you've seen them, because those are the ones you see. I think most commonly they're just one plastic tube. They've got an eraser stuck in it. And they're usually the white plastic especially so translucent. You can see the eraser inside. And it's got. And it's got the metal tip stuck in and that's all you got. And it's just. It is cheap, cheap, cheap. I don't think anybody really wants them or cares. And if you, A lot of the sellers, like on ebay or whatever, they will pad their lots with these, oh, here's 50 bullet pencils. And 45 of them are these little cheap pieces of garbage. And then the others will actually have the, you know, the hardware, the ferrules and stuff on them.
Yeah, yeah.
So, yeah. So, but I've got. I've got an old advertiser. I've got in my hand right now an old advertiser kit they went out with. This is from the 30s. It's got 14 bullet pencils in it, different styles, you know, the salesman would use. And the. The legendary upcoming site that will. Will eventually be up, I promise. But I have a big vision for that. But I mean, it comes. This comes with a booklet with all the different, you know, stock art and everything. This is like really old, you know, from the 30s, stock art. It's wonderful. I'm gonna put every page of that up there and like have the different styles. But I've got. There's 14 of them in this little kit I've got. And not one of them, not one is that cheapy little plastic tube thing. Yeah, these are magnificent. They are beautiful, you know, with all the hardware and everything.
Yeah, yeah. So. So plastic is one style. And you mentioned a little bit the older metal ones. Can you talk about the different styles of bullet pencils that have existed through the years up to the 70s when they disappeared?
Oh, absolutely, sure. Now the older one. Well, the real. Let's go. This is only where I could guesstimate. Oh, by the way, in that rare post, if you look at one of my recent posts that has the rare ones, there's one that is longer than your average bullet pencil is usually about 4 inches long. Closed. Okay. Some are a little smaller, but this particular one is longer. And it's not officially a bullet pencil because one end, it's a. It's brass. It's I guess about 6 inches long. One end is a bullet pencil, you know, with the. At least that you can put in the nubbin. And the other end is where a pen nib is. So it's this part pen nib and part pencil. So I think that was a precursor to an official bullet pencil. And then the very early ones had. You had this little. They look like bullets, but they were wrapped in leather and I mean. And I mean thick leather. Thick leather. I have some of those and they're like embossed with whatever you know, the attraction would be. Usually those were for touristy type places. But they were the leather embossed. Yeah, but it's thick leather. So that was kind of weird to write with. And then in the Eberhard, like I said, Eberhard favor came. Came out with the little flat. Beautiful. They're just gorgeous bullet pencils. And they're. And they're very, very, very expensive. And they're also almost impossible to get refills for. And anytime that the little flat miniature carpenter pencil refills come up from. From A.W. faber. It's a fortune. You're going to pay a fortune to get them, unfortunately.
Yeah.
So. But then, like, then I basically have. I have the selection of what I see the most. This is minus the little cheapies, you know, just plastic body ones in my hand right here. I'm looking at them right here. The ones, I call them the slim collar ferrule. They have an eraser, but the feral is just like a little slim collar. And they're very elegant and beautiful. And I found that as I've, you know, you have to always replace the eraser. It doesn't matter even if it's new. Old stock. I've got some that are new and never distributed. The erasers, forget it. You got to replace them. But the, the rubber inside, once you get inside, is like bright pink bubble gum. And it's. To me, it's like the rubber is rubber. Erasers were different in the 30s than they are now. You can tell by that bubble gum, you want to just chew it. Of course you aren't going to do that. But there's different. Right. They look like actual bullets. They don't have an eraser. And they look like, you know, a bullet casing. But of course they have artwork around it or the company businesses. And they come in multicolors. And then they have the kind that had, you know, the ferrule and coupler, I think you're used to seeing.
Yeah.
Multiple, multiple colors. But. But you have options. So there's silver tone and then there's brass. And you know, I don't know how much real brass is in there, because if you had real brass, I mean, that's the heavy stuff.
It's gotta be a. It's gotta be a plating. Like, I have, I have a couple. I have one actually from. From Fort Wayne that has like a green like the ferrule and the like tip that's below the barrel is like green. And I'm pretty sure that's some kind of electroplating.
Yeah, I agree. And fortunately it responds very well to like, brass polishes.
Yeah.
Because I polish my. My goal is I want it to look like you step back in time and bought it, you know, back then. That's my goal. I think patina is overrated. I mean, if you leave a little tarnish, sometimes it's okay. But. But I mean, I buff these things out with the brass to where it looks almost like, you know, the gold on your. On a man's wedding band. I mean, that's my preference. Unless somebody wanted something different and I custom did something for them. But. So you have those. And then they charge more for the brass. And then sometimes even the metal tip is brass or brass plated, you know, as we say. So those are really the high end ones. And some of them are just beautiful. And then they have some with different shapes. There's some that, like, I have one here in this kit. It looks like a screw instead of an eraser. It looks like the end of a screw. You know, like you would put a screwdriver in.
Yeah.
And then the. It has metal with the little twirlies, like an actual screw. And another one. If you've never. Have you ever seen one. If you ever do see one that has a globe on the top, it's like just around. It's a round metal globe, a ball. You go, what is this? What's. Why is there a ball on top of the. What that was for is to dial the phone. Remember the old phones? With the dial, you put the old. It's easy. Yeah. Telephone dialers. And then write with the other end.
Yeah.
Yeah. Well, you know, there's variations.
Yeah. You know, my favorite style of bullet pencil, which is a little bit of an obsession, would be the souvenir ones. And I feel like most of the ones I've seen are the style that have like the. Like the feral in them. Although you found me, Randy, that Oakland San Francisco Francisco Bay Bridge one that's in that, like that. That other style, you know, without the. Without the feral. What did you call it? The slim collar one.
That. Okay, that was. That was a plastic body one. Yeah, this was this. But it was a nice plastic body one. Yeah, the plastic was real thick. The color was beautiful. And my question is, is where. Where are these? Because you. You got to understand that I look like. I've looked at both for years. I looked at bullet pencils every day.
Yeah.
You know, online from. Not just ebay, from. For collectors. And I've had to have seen over a million bulletproofs. I had to by now. Seriously. I'm not joking. Yeah. So I've never seen that style that you have with the thick plastic. And also the Golden Gate Bridge is a huge mystery. Like, I have, say, take the Statue of Liberty, of course, that's a popular. I mean, the Statue of Liberty, for heaven's sake. So all. All these years, I have multiple. You know, I'm going to put them on the site to show all the different ones. Tons of different artwork. Some are horizontal layouts, some are vertical layouts of the Statue of Liberty. And they are. And some of them are just beautiful and magnificent. There are all kinds of different versions of artwork. I mean, and styles. Bullet pencils, too, of the Statue of Liberty. Now, the Golden Gate Bridge, it was opened in what, 1933, I think, or 34. It was a golden gate, was in the 30s. Where are they? Yeah, I don't. I saw one. And you have it. So what. What's up? California. Yeah, I don't. I. Yeah. That is truly a Scooby Doo mystery to me. Because you figure it's the Golden Gate Bridge. There has to be some somewhere. And I have never seen. I've seen one.
I definitely have.
Yeah.
I definitely think that, like, when I lived in Indiana and I would go, like, to antique shops there, I would. I would see way, way more bullet pencils than I've ever seen out here in the West Coast. And also way cheaper, too. Like, you know, out here, if somebody has like a big, like, rummage bin with bullet pencils, and they're like, oh, yeah, that's $13, $15. We're in Indiana. They're like a quarter.
Right, right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. So, I mean, speaking of. Of these vintage bullet pencils, like, I. I often. I'm a little bit afraid to carry them around in my pocket because, you know, they're old, they're. They seem a little fragile. But can someone pretty easily carry a vintage bullet pencil in their pocket, you know, today, even without breakage or deterioration or. What are some of the kind of things they need to look out for if they don't have an expert restored bullet pencil?
Well, here's what I would suggest. And also, and I hear, I see a lot of posts sometimes where somebody will say, like in the group, you know, you know, I think I want to get a bullet pencil. And to me, it's like the old lady.
You can't have just one.
Yeah. Are you kidding me? Here's a box of chocolates. Would you like one? No. So I would suggest. I would suggest if you can't, if you can find your Holy Grail, you know, from your town or your state or an attraction that you went to as a kid with your parents, that's kind of like your Holy Grail, you might want to keep that house or office.
I have ebay alerts set up for Fort Wayne bullet pencil, Indiana bullet pencil, San Francisco bullet pencil. Yeah.
That's very smart. Yes, Very, very smart. Yeah. And if you see them by the way, get them. And if some seller selling them for too high but you. It's. You've never seen it before. I promise you may never see it again. They did runs of bullet pencils as low as a hundred so that it could be one of a hundred and that. And are you gonna fight to ever see another one? Who knows? Yeah. Yeah. So. So yeah. And then. Oh, geez, I'm sorry. You got. You got. You got me going there, but. You got me going there. But where was I lost? You better edit this out. Listen, you're gonna make me look.
No, it's quite all right. No, we were talking about what to consider when you know when you're carrying one around.
Yeah, okay. Right. Okay. Maybe you remember some of the posts where I post some the restores on erasable. Maybe you want to buy that color. Forget what it says. If it's a pretty red, you know, and I charge you what, 10, 12 bucks. Get it? That's the one you want to carry around in your pocket, you know, just in case. If you got one ultra special kind of protect the precious. The precious in this case being the bullet pencil. But other ones, sure. I would suggest just don't put them in your pocket with your same pocket with your keys or in your purse with anything metal or just stuff that's gonna scrape against it because you don't want the. They're often got the clear celluloid wrapped around them or some sort of, you know, clear coating. You definitely don't want to get that all scratched up. Yeah. So. Yeah, so, but. But they're. They're feather light and I think the biggest danger is washing them. It's forgetting that you had them. If you. If you carry them in your jeans anyway or pants, biggest danger would be washing them. But yeah, just. Just kind of keep an eye out. Don't put it with your keys. I've never really had. Had that much of a problem. I've carried them all over. And if you really want to nerd out. I mean seriously, nerd out. Cody Williams sent me a bullet pencil leather, you know, sheath. And it's like. It's like if something you would see somebody. I guess if people will see it. I connected to my messenger bag. I think they would think it's pepper spray. But I do know that pencils dot com. I don't know who's making it for them. They do sell some of the little sheaths and it'll always Protect your bullet pencil. So, yeah, have some for home and office that are special. Get some that are just a certain color and if you want to go on ebay and you can get them the cheap plastic ones, you can get those for on ebay all day long for about a buck. But yeah, they're just, they're not exciting.
Some self respect.
Yes. Are we not pistol nerds? And also, and also the. I know you were talking about John Fontaine and Metal Shop. That guy, that guy has got it going on with the. His product is beautiful. You know, the machine turn and all the stuff he comes out with. I've got some of those. I've got the timber twist. Those are a joy to use. And of course you don't want to get it scratched up either, but you know, carry those around. So don't just have a bullet pencil, you know, get a couple of inexpensive ones. Get, you know, a blue one. If blue is your favorite color. Try to find your holy grail. Get some, get some of the ones from Metal Shop. Those are awesome. And whatever else comes, somebody comes out with quality, you know, down the line. But, but my gig is the Venice because there's the history and there's something special about them. And they are light. They are, they can be fragile. It just kind of depends. But I've really, I've had really good luck carry them. I just, I put them in my pocket that doesn't have the keys. I've never had a problem.
Cool.
Yeah.
So you've posted a lot of sales of huge, lots of beautifully restored billet pencils. So you obviously know what you're doing because not only do you get them so beautifully restored, you've got them sort of, you know, in large numbers. So could you share some of your pencil restoration secrets with our listeners about giving away all of your magical tricks?
Unless you want to build a pencil secret. Yeah, I am, I am, I'm glad to. And I told you guys I would do it for erasable because if somebody asked me or something, I'm going, no, you go listen to erasable number 101. And you've got to listen to me rant on, rant on a babble. But I'll tell you. And also sometimes I see a talk get going about restoration in the comments and I, and I'll say, hey, let's take this to private message and one person who's awesome, who actually restored pocket knives and his pocket knives were beautiful, but he says, you know, I, he thought I was like, you know, doing it because I Didn't want to. I thought he was going to like start restoring bullet pencils or something. No, no, no. I did it because I do it because I love the people in Erasable. There's. I mean, and if somebody makes a comment that I know is not right, I don't want to be that guy that's like, no, that's not right. And be Mr. Know It all or, you know, or make them look bad. You know what I mean? So it's like, let's take it to. In this case, hey, let's refer to episode 101. And then let's take it to private message. Because I don't want to. I don't want to make anybody feel bad because sometimes people will make comments like they're fact. It's like. And I know say, no, that's not quite right. You know, I say, I think I've broke the 500 markets. I think I've restored at least 500. I have.
That's awesome.
I have. I have many more. But so. So I really do know what I'm talking about. So here's the thing. The biggest secret is everybody wants to know about the eraser. Now, I know some people know because I've seen it in the comments. You've got. You're either going to carve an eraser out from scratch, you know, which is really a pain in the butt, or you're gonna try to find eraser close because it's much easier to shave and shape it down. You know, shape it down with sandpaper or whatever your favorite thing to shape is with. I mean, if it doesn't take too much, maybe even a nail file, but you want it to look good. And for me, I mean, I know they, they sell odd. I've seen people do some restores with. They get from mechanical pencils. You know, the white ones for me there gotta be bubble buck bubblegum pink. Because I want it, you know, I'm restoring it and I want it to look like you step back in time like I said. So jumbo pencils. Jumbo pencils is where you get the erasers from. There's two. I have two that are kind of like my control erasers. One is from the Musgrave Choo Choo, which is a mighty fine pencil, by the way, just in general. The other is the JR Moon Big Dipper, the red one with the eraser. They sell them without the eraser. You get the eraser now. And they said, well, I just ordered some erasers. No, you will not. No, I Order them in gross. I order them in gross. And then I'm sitting down. Okay, let's watch some movie family or whatever. And I'm sitting there and I will my little miniature metal cutters. And I'm carefully, you know, twisting the metal like the sardine can around the ferrule carefully. And I'm extracting erasers one at a time from. From the junior moon. So. So you have to get the eraser somehow right now. And I'll. Only erasable people know this though. If you've seen my post, you've seen. Okay, here's there. This one is EF dash whatever the number is ef. Right. And the other one is ce. That's a code that was only for me. But since it's erasable people, I kind of share it with you. You know what EF means? It means the eraser fits and I have a limited supply.
I was going to say Everhard Faber, but I guess, I guess this makes sense.
It means eraser fits. I have a limited supply of the size from the Choo Choo. Just a limited supply.
Okay.
And so. And I've been sharing those with erasable people that once the site's up and everything, I. By the way, I just. I got to interject real quick. I'm offering erasable members because I only posted erasable very. The very best. As a matter of fact, I think I'm spoiling them because if I think if I post I have a grading system, you know, like near pristine and excellent, then I have good. And if it's good, that means there's. It's good, it's okay.
But it's like a diamond trader but for bullet pencils.
Exactly, exactly. But I, I have no fair. I have no poor. No, no. If it's fair or poor, it's. It's to the parts graveyard. That's it. So. So they're gonna be. But good as the lowest I'm gonna go. There may be, but I've been posting the best of the best and I really tried to pull out all of my EF's where the eraser fits. Like you're here. Here's a replacement eraser for you. But if you see one that starts with ce, that means custom eraser. That means I had to take one of these erasers and custom shape it to get it to fit. Because remember I talked about the calibration problems. It's so true. I've had the exact same pencil in my hand. Like for. I don't know, just say Colorado Garden of the gods. Okay. And it's the exact same artwork. It's made by the exact same company. But guess what? One eraser will fit, and then the other one has to be custom done. There really are calibration issues on both ends where the eraser goes and also the coupler with the metal tip. So it is really a fine art to get it to work. Right. But those are my two control ones. But also I've had to do them from scratch. And also the most expensive ones, I hate doing this. The Midori. You can order like the Midori replacement erasers. They're like big wads. Bubblegum. They look like bubblegum because those are. Those are bigger than the JR moon and bigger than the choo Choo. And so if I have to put one of those In, I spent $3 on an eraser. So, yeah, I price my restores by what it cost me, what the grade is, and how much time vested. And, you know, and if anybody wants to restore bullet pencils, I mean, to sell them, go for it. Because this, this is a labor of love. And like last year I had like a major illness and surgery and blah, blah, blah, but I had time where I had to recoup and stuff. So I put a lot of time into restoring and trying to, you know, trying to do something constructive, you know, and get that going. And I. And also I think a lot of people say, oh, well, you sold a lot of bullet pencils lately. But you don't need to understand, I've got thousands of dollars and literally thousands of hours already vested into this. I'm just recouping some of the money. I'm. I think I'm always. I will always be a loss. It's a labor of love. So.
But anyway, for the. For Reagan, for Randy's sanity and for his. His wife, his family's sanity, please buy his bullet pencils.
I mean, great, but. But I want you to. I want you to buy your own, too. Because sometimes on ebay, if I buy stuff, I. I buy in lots, and I have my own price point. I. And I work with dealers. I got some of my best ones from dealers. But if you see someone on ebay that, that are special to you, you know, it's like, oh, my. That's my hometown. Get it? Yeah. Because even if cost you, like, if they're charged stupid amount of money.
Yeah.
If it's really important to you, go ahead and get it. And. And I just told you the. The thing about the erasers, you got to shape them, but there's a whole. You know, I have a whole process and a cleaning method. Tell me. Tell me what you want to know about. About that. Exactly. They're clean inside and out. The chips are clean. Here, let me give you an example. Picture a bullet pencil that somebody said who lives in the South? I'm from the South. It's very humid. Okay. Lives in the South. They've had their bullet pencil on a coffee can for 20 years. You know, they clean out and whatever. They're selling it on ebay. And it looks okay. I mean, the racer shot. Of course it looks okay. Yeah. Inside, sitting around, you know, in that humid, humid air all the time, or in some basement here in Indiana with no, you know, it's not admitted with the humidifier. Right. The. You open it up and the pencil may be swollen. And I've. I've. I've figured out the closest I can come to the scent. It's like I always use my boys to test something. Hey, boys, what does this smell like? We've. We've narrowed it down. We've narrowed it down to a cross between oil and monkey butt. That's what it is. That's what it is.
Smell. A lot of monkey butts.
Yeah, a lot of monkey butts. So. Oh, that. That cannot happen. So it's. They're clean inside and out. I mean, in an OCD fashion. Lots of. Lots of TLC goes in there.
I'm really interested to know what you do because. Because a lot of times I see, you know, that the, like, little decal where, you know, the design is applied is, like, a little faded or maybe it's coming up a little bit. But the ones that you have are never like that. Are you. Are you reapplying decals or are you. You just can't use those particular ones.
Oh, no, no. If. No. If I could recap. If I could reapply decals, I could change the word a little bit. No, no. They. They've got to be in kind, in a halfway decent condition to work with. I can. I can do magic with them. Believe me, I can clean them. And sometimes there's a seam in them, which is okay, but sometimes there's a second seam which picks up dirt and gunk. And that's the scariest part of doing restore because it's. I'm lubricating it with a cleaner, and I'm there with a fresh blade. And it could go wrong. It could go wrong. And so that's when I hold my breath, and that's the most tense Moment of it. Because once that line is gone, it changes the way the whole bullet pencil looks like. This looks great now, but I've had it where it dug in too deep and it's like, great. This has gone to good or worse. And so there are some tricks to it, but. And I try to. I have to use solvents and stuff a lot too. And. Yeah, you've heard of Tarnex. Okay, Tarnex. That does not work. Don't even think about Tarnex. But rubbing compound for silver tone works pretty good. The brass polishes for the brass works pretty good. If anybody uses Dremel tools, you know that if you go buy Dremel parts at the hardware store, they're ridiculously priced. I ordered like, the little polishing felt polishing wheels. I ordered them in bulk from China. And I've used. I don't know, I've used like six or seven on one pencil before because it was just that, you know, dirty. I love. I haven't taken enough before and after pictures, I don't think. But I love taking something, especially with a lot of brass on it. That's just nasty.
Yeah.
And just bringing it to life, it's just. It's almost magical to me. And I really do kind of go overboard because I. I really want it to shine. I want it to be like a new penny shine. Yeah, it's kind of me, so.
Well, you do it. You do a great job.
And.
And I wanted to talk a little bit about. Unless you're. Unless you have anything more you want to add to this part.
Oh, no, just, I. I just want you to know that. Oh, no, no, you're fine. No, no, I, I talk. You said this show's 45 minutes. I need to shut up. So I didn't do. But, no, but really, sincerely, a lot of TLC goes into it. I. I feel like kind of a part of me goes into it. I think anybody feels that way about something that they work on as like a kind of a piece of art, and this is just a restoration. I didn't make the bullet pencil, but by God, I'm gonna make it the best it can possibly be. And I. And I just want. So whoever does come around restoring this stuff, that's. That's fine. Go for it. I mean, I have no problem with that. This is bound to happen. Yeah, but if it says restored by Reagan, maybe. I mean, I worked on that. I worked on it. So just. Just sticking an eraser and a bullet pencil isn't restoring it. I mean, it Takes a lot of work inside and out, and they're little tricks and stuff, but it's. It's mostly time. It takes a lot of time. If you're not patient, you don't want to restore pencils. Yeah.
So real quick, I want to bring up just, Just as you're restoring them, I think that, you know, the word that I most associate with Randy Reagan is, of course, nubbins.
Yes, yes.
Can you tell our listeners a little bit about what a nubbin is and works, what works best in a bullet pencil? And also, I think that maybe. Maybe you have a claim to fame here, you know?
I hope so. Wouldn't that be great? I would like to see that one day the kids on a field trip, you know, like, past my grave. Yes. This is the man who coined the term nubbins. They're all going to be looking at their phones and yawning. Nobody cares. And forget about all the genealogy stuff I've done. And to be trying to be a good father and a good husband.
He's known for his nubbins.
No, for my nubbin. I don't know. I. I thought it was. I thought I'm. I'm kind of goofy, like my kids say. This is my goofy dad. And I. I don't know. I just. I like to have fun. It's not to embarrass your kids.
I figured as much when. When I got. When I got a package from you. And, you know, there on the envelope was a. A picture of this, this orange cat, may he rest in peace, named Captain Field Notes Nibbles.
Yes.
And I was like, okay, this is. This is a character.
Yeah, he. He is missed. Yeah, he. He passed away unexpectedly. Oh, my gosh. That was. That was a hard loss for the family. He was very special. And, yeah, he will be missed. He will be missed.
But your field notes will remain unmolested now, though.
Yeah. Yeah, he was a mess. Yeah. Yeah. Let me tell you. Let me tell you about the nubbins. Of course, a pencil stub or nub. I. I call them nubbins. I just. I just do. And I'm really glad that. That it stuck. And I love when I see other people use the term nubbins. It makes me feel good. But here's the deal, like I've said, you know, I promise you, every. You get a bullet pencil, the tip could be different. I have a control pencil that I use. My control pencil is a golden bear. I'm fond of golden bears. I like the blue ones. Like, I Said I really like the dark lines of a 2B.
Yeah.
But for an HB pencil, Golden Bears are the bomb. They are very nice pencils, but it's a certain, it's kind of a medium size. Okay. As far as the diameter around medium size. I can take a metal tip and the golden bear fits right in. Or I could take a metal tip and I have. It's kind of loose, you know. So I highly recommend. I mean it costs like a buck or two at the dollar store. Yeah. Get a little roll of medical white medical tape. But the paper, the paper kind of medical tape because it's super thin. Yeah. One little eighth inch of a strip, wrap it around the end and see if it fits. And if it doesn't, wrap another little strip because it's super thin. So you could really fine tune it. And then, and then you can get your little nubbin to fit nice and snug and it'll be perfect. Now I can get, I can get other tips where the golden bear is. It's. It won't go in. I mean. Oh, for heaven's sake. So what you do then is you go to the pencil sharpener and you just sharpen a couple little turns, you know, or you could, if you want a pocket knife or whatever, you go through the effort, but a couple little turns just to get it to where you can kind of. It'll get it starting to kind of squeeze it in, you know, you can do that. That's my control. But there I've seen some. And it works pretty good most of the time. That way there's, there's my control. It's going to be the golden bear. It'll fit if I'm lucky. Usually not. Maybe a little strip of tape or maybe, or maybe you have to, you know, just sharpen the end a little bit just to get a little, give yourself a little, a little leeway. And that's why when a while back I posted some with custom fitted erasers and nubbins because like here, this is going to fit this pencil perfect. You know what I mean? Yeah. So I had to, you know, make sure each one was perfect. But it is easy to adjust. And another thing, strangely enough, if your nubbin is too long and it's like if there's an eraser on it and sticking the eraser, just, just sharpen it a little more.
Yeah.
If you sharpen a little more and for some reason it's so simple, you don't think about it. So you sharpen it. But. And also Black wings are. Are wider around, you know, circumference or diameter, whatever. They, they are bigger around than the Golden Bear. So with black wings, oftentimes you will have to, you know, do the, the sharpening trick or. I know in John Fontaine's metal shop, his Nubbins are the Blackwing 602. Yeah. And he's got. I'm not sure what he does. Does it with, but he, you know, shaves the. The edges down so it's going to slide right in or to our twist. Right in, I should say. But same thing, just with a black wing, you're almost guaranteed to. You're gonna have to, you know, do the little trick on the end so you can get it just to fit in your nubbin. Right. And with. I don't know what you guys think about the, the general cedar point number one. I love that pencil. I personally love it. And so I got a bunch of them way back when to use for nubbins. And those are those and this. How do you say it? Staedtler, Statler, whatever. The norca, those two pencils are the thinnest in diameter. They are thinner around, you know, around than the Golden Bear. And so those almost always require, you know, a little bit of. A little bit of tape to fit. But your pencil stubs, nubbins. Your nubbins from your pencils that you love and have paid for and used. Don't put them in a jar, for heaven's sake, just fit them, protect the precious and put it in a bullet pencil and you could get it to fit easy enough. So those are some little tips to get your little numbers to fit.
I do think, Johnny, isn't that one of our official stages of a pencil is when it reaches the bullet pencil stage? Like it's the one right down past the Steinbeck stage?
Yeah, that sounds right.
Yeah.
So you've been hinting about a website that's going to be chocked full of all of this information and additional information. So can you tell us a little bit about that to sort of whet our appetites?
I will. And first, I want to apologize for mentioning it too soon. No worries. No, no, no. I should have shut my mouth because like I said, I had. I had some medical stuff happen, blah, blah, blah. And that threw me off for over a year. And it's like, oh, this guy's going to do a site. Sure he is. No, I really am. Here's my thing, though. If people think about, oh, this guy who restores bullet pencils, he's Gonna put a side up. He's just gonna put up bullet pencils to sell. No, no, no. It's a two part thing. There's the educational part. Remember I'm the guy that put up all these, you know, genealogy tutorials and stuff. I can, I can do the tutorials. I mean, I'm down with it. And I got all kind of wonderful stuff to share. I'm gonna go deep, deep, deeper than you want to go on bullet pencils, believe me. And all the stuff, these advertising stuff, you're gonna see each and every one and you're gonna see all, all these wonderful things. Lots of stuff to see. Lots of different styles. Like I said the example would be take the Statue of Liberty. Here's a bunch of ones that they've done over the year. The different artwork. I've got that for the Statue of Liberty and other landmarks. But it's educational so you can really learn about bullet pencils. I want it to be a nice resource and so it's actually more like a site. And then I got to connect the store and for a while I was leaning toward, with the woocommerce and there's a whole nother learning curve and like I said, I'm turning into a Luddite. It's so frustrating. So, I mean, it's like maybe I could hire my kid to do it. But anyway, but so I, so it's like here's the site with all the, all the just educational information and I'll connect a store to it where I can sell some, you know, some restored bullet pencils. And. But I do want to say, by the way, thank you guys and the other administrators for letting me, you know, put the posts up to sell them. And I want to thank the erasable people who have actually got them from me that they are, they really are supporting that upcoming mythical site and they are really, because I can put my energy toward that versus, you know, my next genealogy course or whatever. And so it's, it's really a help and it's been a, it's been a long time dream of mine to do this and I'm, I'm mad at myself for not having it done already. But just know that it's going to be a good resource. I'm not just going to put here, buy my bullet pencils, you know, I'm not going to. That's not what it's all about. You're going to learn about bullet pencils. And I just, it's a labor love. It's fascinating to me.
And I'm excited. It'll be a resource rather than, you know, just a shop. Because there's.
Yeah.
There's so much stuff I'm really interested in knowing. Like, you know, you know, so many of those souvenir pencils look like they're made by the same person. Like, who was that person? Where did you get this? You know?
Yeah, right.
Yeah, so much.
Who did the artwork?
Yeah, yeah. So much interesting stuff like that out there. Yeah, yeah. Well, before we. Before we wrap it up, Randy, is there anything else you'd like to add that we have. Not that we have not mentioned so far?
I think. Yes. Okay, listen. Hey, you can edit this out.
Okay.
I've got pencil trivia. I got pencil trivia. Are you ready?
I'm ready.
Okay. Just like I said, I was doing some research. I just wanted to get my date straight. Because I'm thinking, when was World War I? Exactly. So, you know, I wanted to get straight and I come across some pencil stuff and I'm like, oh, this is fun. I didn't know that. So if you don't know it, I certainly didn't know it. So why are pencils yellow? I mean, that was the big thing for the longest time. Either you guys know why they're yellow?
I do.
Yeah, it was. You want to go ahead?
Oh, go ahead. No, you go ahead, Johnny.
It was a association with the Orient. That's why. Also they had names like Mongol and Mikado.
Racism, that's why.
Yeah, yeah.
Narrow minded American. Yeah, yeah. Back then it was it, I think. Was it Siberia where they had this really, really great vein of graphite.
Yeah.
And everyone just assumed Siberia meant the east, even though it's nowhere near Japan.
And the first yellow pencil was. Was it a Koh I Noor Was the first yellow pencil?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, man.
Yeah.
Hey, pencil Jedi. Truly you are.
Yes, I will take that.
Very, very good.
Yes.
Yeah. I am so impressed. And what I've got is since the late 1800s, when the best graphite was produced in China. And so the sellers, they knew that and they were pitching, you know, that, hey, our pencils are from China with the best.
Yeah.
So the yellow associated with Chinese royalty. You guys are right on. Here's the. Here's the second one. They only got two. Here's the other one. I thought. I did not know. I thought this was fascinating.
Yeah.
So before erasers, there were pencils. Before the rubber or whatever, the erasers were created, there were pencils.
Yeah.
So what did. What did they use for erasers?
I Can take this before.
Yes, yes.
Bread.
Yes.
Still bread. Yeah.
You're. You're the man. You guys are the. You guys.
It's almost like we have a podcast about pencils.
Yeah.
You know, I. I did not know that. I said I'm gonna ask these guys, and if they don't, though, I don't want to. You know, if they don't know, I hope. I'm sure they do, but you can edit that out.
I'm trying to think of where I've. I heard that, but I think it was in that Mark. That Mark Kurlansky book. Is that right, Johnny? I think he talked about it.
He talked about a lot in the Petroski book, too.
Yeah. If ever you want to read a really good book, Randy, there's a book called between the Pages. Is that what it's called? Between the Pages?
I think it's just called Paper.
Paper. Okay. It's by Mark Kurlansky. I'll put a link in. Show notes about the history of Paper. It's really good.
Yeah.
His other books are really good, too. I just got the milk one for Father's Day that I haven't read yet. Yeah.
Yeah, I have not read it. I will check it out.
Yeah. Cool. Well, thank you for being on. This has been really fun and, like, super educational.
Oh, yeah, It's a pleasure. It's such a pleasure to. You guys are like my pencil heroes. I appreciate it. I love talking to you. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it, guys.
Yeah.
So can you tell our listeners where to find you on the Internet and social media?
You bet. It was gonna be. It was gonna be. Here's my site. But listen, like I said, just get good erasable searches. Just do a search for Reagan, my last name, R A G A N. You're gonna see some of my recent posts, and I want you to see them, not to buy them. There's a few left. And forget that. Just look at the rare ones, because I got some of the. The very rare ones and very old ones. And then in the next day or two, the podcast may come out first or not. I'm gonna put up a special post of some more, and they're gonna be very affordable, very nice variety. A lot of the stuff we talked about, I've set them aside for this reason, and they're already restored in the whole thing. I just need to. It takes time to take pictures and put them in the post and everything. And I tell you what, I will put a post up that if you want to be tagged. Like when that post is made, I already got a bunch of people that they say please tag me for your next post so I can go look real quick. They want to kind of be the first because they go quick and they're one of almost all of them are one of a kind. I mean, so many of them about I'd say about 80, 80, 85% of the go out the door I've seen once and may or may not see again. So if you really it's one that you really like, you probably ought to get it. That's not a sales play. I mean, that's just the way it is.
Yep.
Yeah. So yeah, just look for me on Raceable.
Okay, awesome. How about you, Andy?
I you can also find me at the Erasable Group, but I'm also@woodclinch.com and you can find me on Twitter and Instagram as wellfley. How about you, Johnny?
I am@pencilrevolution.com and on social media ensolution and we of course are the Erasable Podcast where you can find on the Internet at erasable us. This episode, episode 101 will be erasable us 101. You can find us on social media raceablepodcast and of course we're on itunes and all of your favorite podcast readers. And if you want to give us great reviews, that would be super awesome and we'll talk to you next time.
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 out their music at www.thismountainband.com.