Scribe

I'm just glad to be in the company of Gangster Hotline. That's my favorite part of the podcast.

Hey.

are not a problem at all. Thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure to be on.

Yeah, it can be hard to gauge.

Talk about what you're consuming if you want. Sure. I put some things down in the show notes, but you can correct me if these are the wrong ones. Maybe I'm confusing you with 1857 and I've just picked the wrong things. But here we go. Anyway, so. So in terms of paper, I use these endless recorder notebooks which is currently on the floor and I get them from Stu Lennon's place. They're the. I don't know if you've seen them, they kind of look like a moleskin, the hard copy one or the hardcover one, but they use Tomoe river paper so they're really good. I know some people don't like Tomoe river paper with pencils because it's maybe a little smooth, but I like them. I use a 5 hardback books all the time for work and these ones seem to offer the best for pens and pencils. So I use them a lot and then for my notes, just general notes and bits and pieces. I'm currently using a Lenore, which is a Write notepads, one which I actually forgot the name of and then spent this afternoon like googling things like write notepads, Raven, Edgar Allan, until I just find the one that it was called. So it turns out it's called Lenore and it's good. It has that strange graph paper that doesn't seem to come on any other ones, which I quite like. It reminds me of school we had. I studied in school. I was in mainland Europe as we call it. And all the school paper is graph or it certainly was where I was. So that's kind of.

Yeah, well I don't pay attention to it at all. So it doesn't really matter what it is. I've never really anything if it's dot, grid or graph or anything. It doesn't really matter. I should have said the Tomoe River. Endless. I always get lined for my work books because that has to be more sensible. But for notes it just goes whatever. So it doesn't really matter. So those are my two for. I don't know if I'm allowed to say pens but I am using a pen because they also are quite nice. I'm not a pen guy in any way, but I. I recently picked up the extremely long named Mont Blanc meisterstruck Le Petit Prince La grand, which is a mouthful but it's really nice. And as cheesy as it sounds, it reminds me of trips to Paris and being in Shakespeare and company and like everybody else buying a copy of that book when you go there.

Yeah, it is. You know, it has illustrations and sort of script lettering on the top from the book. So it's a nice one. And I'm. I've put in Mont Blanc royal blue ink, not because it's matching Mont Blanc, but actually because I'm moving house and every other ink was packed away. So that's the one that went into it. And then much more interestingly, pencils are probably what you're more interested in hearing. So I am using on my desk in a minute. I. I don't know about you guys, but I probably use about a centimeter of a pencil before using another one. So you know, the chances of me ever getting to Steinbeck stage are usually nil. But at the minute I'm using this tombow mono 100 which has a blue cap and then a kind of pearlescent finish almost like the black Blackwing pearl. And Bob Truby's site, he's called it the fashion Model. I don't know if he made that up, but I'm happy to go with it because he's a good guy and he knows what he's talking about. But it's really cool. I have another one that looks like it, but it's got a pink red cap. I don't know where the box has gone, but it's somewhere. But at the minute I'm using this blue cap one. I don't know if you've come across it before. I say it looks like a standard mono 100, but slightly different. I don't think so, but it's a good one. Bob's site says it's rare, but that was news. Yeah. Again, I'll believe him if he says it's rare. I'm sure it is. Then I'm using one of these black polymer, the 999 Alphas, which are great. I got ahead of the curve on that one. I have now boxes and boxes of them. I don't like to hoard, but I'll make an exception for this particular pencil. One, because I think it might. Might arguably be the best pencil ever made. But also two, because the prices are going through the roof and I don't want to spend the money that they cost these days trying to buy them. So I'm using one of those and then I've gone. The last pencil is a strange one, actually. It's. It came in just. Sorry, I have to lift the box out here while I'm looking at it because it's easier to describe while I'm actually looking at the thing. So I have this folder of pencils that I got and it's sort of a blue flip folder and it's from the Stadler factory and it. It's about 12. It's the factory tests. So when they are rolling all their. Their Norris or their Mars or whatever they're making off the production line, they have a set that they benchmark all the pencils against to make sure that they're actually still, you know. So a 2B is supposed to be a 2B and it's supposed to be a Mars or whatever. So they test them against a set that they have found are in house. And they're now missing a set because I have it. So I have a couple of sets actually a set from 1985.

Yeah, as far as I'm aware, they don't know what's missing. But the one. So the one I'm using at the minute is the. The 1959 2B test. So it's a completely natural barrel and what they do is they. They end dip about 2cm of it in the paint finish just to kind of remind themselves of what it's supposed to look like. But then on the barrel, on each of the sides, it has a lot of kind of code and lettering and things that obviously are relevant to them in house. Strangely, it looks like one of the sides is written in Comic Sans, which I don't believe is the case. You know, you shouldn't. You should never use Comic Sans. But they appear to have used it once. So I'm using that and when I get bored of that, I'm going to move on to the 1976 version, which is completely natural, but actually has a completely finished end cap, which you don't see on pencils that often. What I mean by that is there's no paint or lacquer finish on the end, but there's also no. You can't see the graphite. So it's kind of curved wooden end cap where they actually don't put the graphite all the way through the pencil, which is nice because it tends to mean that they've only made one or have some sort of fancy way of making it to cut it like that. So that's me. And what I'm using at the minute, it's say it's sort of a strange batch of things.

Yeah. Well, it's say that I. I know some people on the group have random number generators and things for picking stuff. I genuinely just go for whatever is in eyesight, usually. And this. So this is what we have at the moment.

Oh, yeah, that's. That's right. I forgot about all that stuff. So TV and actually the final episode is tonight and my girlfriend is watching it without me. I think we are re watching Broadchurch.

Which is so good. It's so good. I feel she's in a bit. She'd never seen it, any of it. So she's. Her experience is very different to mine because obviously I've seen it before. But actually, did you tell her it

Well, that's it. And you know, it's the fact that within the first five minutes, it's already more depressing than most TV has ever been

Moving on from that. Here we go. So we're watching that and that's terrific. I think we'll just go through all three series of that. I've been doing that. I've been trying my hardest to work through the James Joyce books, which if I don't. If you guys have. Have read or attempted to read Joyce much, but I think you. You have to put in a bit of effort to try and actually get something out of it.

Yeah.

Well, it's good. It has that, you know, he obviously has this modernist way of writing. And I like Dubliners because the way he writes, where he sort of sets it up and it's this completely normal scene and a normal day, and then he just does all this weird modernish stuff that's supposed to be interpreted as why your life is actually not quite as simple as the scene he's setting. And it's really interesting. And he was far too clever for his own good, which generally meant most people were irritated with him and didn't like his work. But I'm building up to. To attacking Ulysses again, which is. Is a big effort to actually get through. And the fact that you have to almost have read all of Hamlet and the Odyssey and all of Joyce's novels before you. You read it, it's kind of got a barrier to entry as well. So I'm trying to try to work through those. But I'm in the middle of Dubliners at the minute and it's. It's much easier to read and very enjoyable. And then I'm going to read Chekhov's five Plays, which the books is called Five Plays. But that doesn't actually give a hint of what actually includes. Let me see here. I can just load it up because I've for the life of me forgotten all the plays that are in it.

So I've looked this up. I'm in the minute. I've just been dipping into. If you ever read any of the Oxford University Press copies, they always have about 300 pages of introduction to these sort of classics. So I'm somewhere in the middle of that, so much so that I'd forgotten what plays actually were in it. But we've got. We've got things like Three Sisters, Uncle Vanya, which is the one that turned me on to the book that was actually in the West End recently enough. So I am going to attempt to do that if I can work my way through all the James Joyce stuff. But we'll see. I might have to take a break when I finish that. I think that's everything on my list. Okay, awesome.

Have you ever.

No, it's just, it just reminded me of that. Have you ever. I don't know if it's in America, on American television. There's, I think he's called the super vet or something like that. It's certainly. It's on British tv and it's the same idea. He, you know, you'll have a dog who has one leg and whose head has fallen off, and no other vet can do anything. And then he just makes Terminator animals. And it's incredible. He had, he, he is just the sort of the most advanced vet you've ever seen. He does all this stuff that no one else in the world can do. And his team. And again, you come out of that just being like, I really should have studied harder. And these guys are.

Yeah.

What are they? I don't, I picked it up. I know them.

Yes, they are.

That's it. We're keen to find out what happens next.

And I'm thinking mine are due in about three years.

From normally I like to give Nero's the money because I think they deserve it for what they do.

On this occasion, I had a friend in America actually has bought me them because at the time I wasn't sure if they were limited, not limited. What's going on? Have they made 10? From what I understand, they're not in any way limited. By limited they probably mean 100,000 or something like that. They're going to all distributors and all sellers So I think they'll just keep churning them out. Turns out I probably could have waited for. For Nero's. But yeah, in. In this occasion, I actually. A friend picked them up for me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I. I've always felt that. So what. You know, the only difference or the only similarities are they. They got the name, they registered it, and then they got someone who can make a feral that's pretty much the same shape.

Yeah. And they didn't actually make that many original. The Eberhard Faber. It wasn't really a. A line that, you know, they really. It wasn't like this huge sale. I think the people who are using black wings these days are probably, you know, 100 times the people that are using it. So, you know, so. So what? It's. I get it. I get that people are protective of the. The old brand, but they don't. I don't think Blackwing have to apologize about anything. It's up to them.

Nope.

Yeah, it's just turning 11:30 now. Wow.

Yeah, of course. So I am one of the, it's quite a few of us European Erasable members who are actually quite active. Yeah, I live in London, but you can probably tell from my accent I'm not born and bred in London. I was actually born in Northern Ireland and then I moved to London for work, but I went via Germany and Switzerland for various stages of my masters. So I've been in London for I don't know how many years now. Some, Plenty. And I work in what's referred to as the City of London with a capital C as opposed to the phrase the City of London and that is the equivalent of your financial districts in New York, like a Wall street style. So I am a disputes lawyer, so I do litigation mainly for fairly messy large scale corporate disputes.

No, no. So unfortunately not for two reasons, because in the uk, unlike in America, the way the system works is you have the joint, the barristers and solicitors are joint, so that you do your own advocacy, even though. So, you know, you take on the case and then you actually go and you do your own advocacy. In the uk, they basically decided that you physically can't, you can't be good enough to do both at any level that they think you should be able to. You should be able to focus doing the solicitor side or you should be able to do the advocacy side. So what we, what I do, I'm on the solicitor side, I prepare everything, I spend years fighting it. And then we get counsel or a barrister, they get called to stand up and read the bits, read the bits, read the bits. They go off and they research and they do all their case law researching and all the bits and pieces that they're very good at and we do the rest. So it's a job that takes up an awful lot of my time, which is why pencils are a good hobby, because they actually don't require any time whatsoever. You can be an expert in about two minutes and there's no practice required and you don't need to walk them or anything, so it's pretty easy.

Not yet.

I haven't got that insane just yet, maybe.

You know what, it's. There isn't even a good story to this, but like most people, I always loved back to school. I thought that was the best part of primary school, you know, getting. I would start getting excited in summer, the summer break, when you knew that you were going to go and find the bits and pieces that you were going to put in your pencil case. And for me, it was always yikes. Um, like they were just, you know, you've got everything else and then you've yikes. And I still stand by that, that still is actually true. And it was in particular, it was the, the yikes. Treads. I think they were threads, either treads or threads. The kind of black and silver. Yeah, ones with the black.

Yeah, those ones are the best. And they were like, you had those. There was the knuckleheads and the triangles and all the other ones, but they, they all sucked compared to the silver treads. If you had those, they were it.

I would like one of those. Yeah, they are. It's easier for you to pick up a set of Blackwing 602s than it would be to find a good set of. Yikes. It just doesn't happen very often, certainly to the level that I would want them. If you're looking kind of a collecting set or something like that, it's almost non existent and usually I think it's because 7 year olds were using them and not, you know, 25 year old who were looking after these expensive pencils in university or design. It was just some kids who, you know, I can still remember I getting a set and snapping them all in half straight away so that I would have twice as many because they were terribly made like just, just awful and you could actually just snap them without trying and they, because of the ridges they would just break.

So because of that I think they're incredibly hard to find. So I got into those then I didn't think about pencils again for most of my adult life. Certainly didn't think of them, of any of anything that I'd want to actually have a lot of. And then I remember seeing a couple of different ones that really interested me. I came across this pencil and it's the only one I've got of it and I still have it because it sort of has a personal significance to me. Now it was this brand one, called it a deer brand. I think they were made in China so probably not very good. But they actually look like cedar to me. It looks like a 60s or 70s pencil and it was yellow, it had gold lettering but almost the entire length of the barrel. A standard ferrule and a pink eraser. And I remember just thinking to myself this isn't a Norris. You know, like 99% of the pencils you see are Staedtler Norris or I guess Ticonderogas in the us. But I'm just being really interested that someone actually had taken the time to do something better than just make an Auris. So I, I looked at those and I decided that it might be interesting to see what else was out there. And I remember googling around and just saying well let's just buy like, you know, whatever the best one is. It's a blood like the pencil, it can cost more than like I don't know, 10, 10 pence, who cares, you know it. I can probably buy the best one for nothing. And so I came across the Mono one hundreds, which was quite a jump then to go from this, you know, stubby deer brand half pencil. So I just thought, you know What? I'll order 12 mono one hundreds. They will probably last my lifetime. And I will never need to buy any other pencils again because I bought

Terrific. So that was great. And then as I was Online buying those, the 24 was released. And I remember going, hey, that's. That's kind of cool. That's got an interesting feral. It's. They've come up with this backstory with, you know, Steinbeck and on. I'm not sure I care, but the pencil looks really good, so maybe I'll get some of those. And I remember at the time you certainly weren't buying them in. In the uk. It just, it wasn't happening at that point. So I ordered some and then I was left with 24 pencils, which seemed completely strange. And then at that point, I guess I. I think I considered myself a collector at that point because I didn't think that anybody would be stupid enough to have 24 pencils of two varieties. So that just seems crazy. And I started looking around for, you know, maybe there are other. Other people who like this kind of thing. And that brought me to, I think, the Erasable podcast possibly first rather than the group, I think. And one of the first things I listened to actually had TJ on. And I remember just being like, for goodness sake, there's actually two Northern Irish people who are interested, like, what is going on here? This is just so strange. And then from there, I guess it probably ramped up a bit because I have been packing pencils for days to move house. And so there are quite a few more. And, yeah, so that's where we are now. I remember when I started it, I thought to myself, you know what, let's not bother with vintage or advertising or any of that. Let's just get some of the modern ones and that'll do. And I don't want to get too caught up with all the different brands and varieties. I'll just get a couple. And then that obviously fell by the wayside and I started looking into a couple of vintage pencils. And now we're here.

Yeah, and here we are.

You know, I think it can be anything, really. People could argue that, you know, the last volume is essentially vintage. You can't get it. I don't agree with that, but I could see the arguments for it. For me, it's. I don't think I just collect vintage pencils. I just collect pencils that are interesting to me. It just so happens that most of those pencils are sort of 1870 onwards, rather, rather than 2020. And so, yeah, you know, I know that certainly in the. If you ever look on the vintage pen groups on the Internet, on Facebook, and they are crazy for, you know, is this vintage, is this antique? And they have all these stupid fights about what kind of dates it should be or a particular rule that you have to follow. But for me, it, it doesn't. It's, it's. It can be anything you like. I know that obviously some people really go after the Japanese stuff and they can be quite easy to tell what is and isn't available now because they clearly change things as they go along. And then America is very easy for vintage because most of the pencil companies don't exist anymore, so that's very easy to find. And then the British stuff and the European stuff, which is really where I'm primarily interested in. It just goes back so far and there's so much has happened that vintage can literally be well over a hundred years worth of. Worth of history right up to, I guess, when, when, for me, when Stadler closed their UK operation, which I can't remember exactly when that was. I think it was.08 possibly. I guess anything for me after that might be. I'd be less inclined to call it

2008.

Yeah, I think that's about right.

I think a lot of it is to be. I once heard something along the lines of that deep down, all lawyers want to be historians, but essentially they just, they just realized they'd also like to earn more money. So. And that's not. No disrespect to historians, I would love to be one, but I'm fascinated by history. I think it's incredible. And when you look at the Development of industrialization even or something like that. Pencils played a lot as it goes through and they're so. They were sort of there during all the stages. You know, they were actually in people's hands when these things were happening. You know, someone drew the Titanic with a pencil. It's an easy way for you to start looking into history. So you know, I like that kind of thing. I. If we've seen on my blog, as it turns out, people actually read it according to WordPress, which is surprising. But I also have interest in things like the great exhibitions that were happening around the world. Actually it started in the uk but they were going around the world. I know all this sort of Victorian history that it just seems so, so near. But so far, you know, we've come an awful long way in how many hundred years is it not? And I guess it's just. It's just trying to find the backstories for these things. Not in. In the way that for example, I'm not overly interested in advertising pencils history and the company that its advertising or something like that. I know that Chris's blog that I think is on a hiatus a minute. They did a great job of. Of that side of. Of things. For me it's more the. The history of the actual companies and what was going on. Like I've got. I had some posts and draft in the minute on the blog and there's two that stood out for me. These are just tidbits from the post so they're not giving the whole post away. But I saw this argument going on between. So when Hardmouth were in the uk they were moving around quite a bit because they landed in and started making pencils and then World War I kicked in and they were Austrian and that did not sit well. Oh yeah, it turns out that was a really bad thing. Yeah. And so you had all these fights going on and I remember I saw these newspaper clippings where the company Thomas de la Rue, who I think they make banknotes, they may actually still make banknotes, but they were the distributor for Onoto pens at the time, whereas Hardmouth were actually a distributor for Waterman pens. And they ended up having this fight in the newspapers where essentially Delarue were saying that Hardmouth were essentially funding the war for the enemy. And if you buy a Hardmouth pencil or you buy a Waterman pen, you're putting money in the pocket of the enemy and it's a disgrace. And the thing was these open letters were purely just advertisements. They were trying to get you to buy their pen because the Waterman was their main competitor. And it makes me laugh when you look at it, because Thomas de la Rue were obviously making pencils as well. And through all these open letters they were arguing that, you can't trust these Austrians. We're going to war with them. We shouldn't be giving money out. We should be buying only British and all this kind of stuff. But I actually have some Delarue pencils that say Made in Bavaria in them on them. And. And so they. They weren't even making their own pencils in. And. Yeah, and. But yeah, so it's. Yeah, it's just. For me, it reminds me of.

Yeah, yeah.

USA, certainly. It certainly happened in the UK as well. Like Hardmouth, for example, got this beautiful building and it's actually about 10 minutes walk from my house that was Koh I Noor House, and it's absolutely beautiful. And they got it as this new flagship store that they would sell pencils and their Waterman pens and everything from. And then they got kicked out of it and it was taken away from them during the war because they weren't allowed. And they were only actually allowed back a number of years later and they had to go in through Scotland. And then they set up. They set up a branch in Scotland, I think it was in Edinburgh. And then eventually sort of creeped back in. But they never got this lovely building back. They actually. I think it must have been rather sad for them. They got a building about five doors down and so they would always see this beautiful building, but they didn't actually spend much time on it.

Yeah, it really is.

Okay, so one of my favorites. Let me have a look here. I don't really have too many things that I would be like, this is an absolute must for me. Apart from those. Yikes. Treads. Those are some of my favorites. Let me just see. I have these drawers that I haven't cleaned out yet. So I just see what's in those. Oh, I have These, I have some poly grids. Those are cool. They're the. You've probably seen them. I've two boxes here and so I've got the Faber one and then I have a Hogarth and Haze one which I think I did put that one on the group once. They're pre Cumberland Cumberlands. So I don't know how much pencil history you guys know. I'm sure plenty. But Cumberland pencils were arguably some of, some of the finest back when pencils were sort of starting out in the uk.

Borrowdale. Yeah, they had this Borrowdale mine in Keswick and so Cumberland, a lot of pencil manufacturers started in that area and Hogarth and Hayes were one of the very early ones. And I came across this box of polygrid pencils that all have the square core and it's sort of a two part pencil where they actually sandwich the two pieces together. And so those are for me, those are really. They're kind of a jewel in my collection because you will not find another set in a hurry. I actually got them on ebay which was a near miracle because that kind of side of collecting doesn't happen on ebay very often. And the beauty was it wasn't labeled well at all. It was, you know, someone who had just found some pencils that their grandmother had or something and then just put them up as pencils my grandmother had. So I jumped on that because I could see what they were. In fact, actually I think I wrote about these, if I should know, because it is my own blog, but it's

Well, I've only written about 12 posts but yes, I have actually. So there is a set on my blog there's a post about these polygrades. So they're quite good. I have some of the Faber polygrades as well. You've probably seen those ones before. Yeah, everybody is. More likely I've seen those ones. They've started getting crazy prices for them. I've never, I should say I've never sold any pencils for money. I just, I don't really agree with it in a way or I don't really want to get into that. I just, I don't think these things were ever supposed to be very expensive. So I don't really like the after sale market of pencils and I think we could all do our best not to get suckered into it. And so yeah, I don't sell anything. I'd rather just work out a trade with someone or just give them the pencil if they really can't find it. Not that I'm going to give anybody one of these polygrades, but I'm sure I could give them something else if they really wanted. Yes, go ahead.

Yeah, I guess I've been rambling. I've probably forgotten what it was to do with favorites, wasn't it? Yeah, oh yeah, that's right. I guess jumping away from the kind of British and European stuff, I've always loved the pentels. Most people certainly on our group jumped into pen, got interested in pentels once it was too late. Whereas you've got your Mitsubishis and you've got your tombows and you can get them and it's fine. And actually, to be perfectly honest, A vintage mono 100 writes exactly the same as a modern day mono 100 no matter what anybody says. So it really doesn't make any sense to collect old Mono one hundreds that aren't a different cut, you know, barrel color, they'll be the same, but with the pentels they're gone. Which instantly makes them collectible. And certainly to me, as soon as you tell me that it's gone, I want it. And then I guess, you know, the, the 999 series in all the shapes and forms I've always thought are just a spectacularly good pencil. So not only are they collectible because they don't exist, but they actually are, are better than nearly everything else, largely because of the polymer core that they used. So you know, they, they basically just designed a thick version of their mechanical pencil lead and shoved it into a wood core or sorry, a wood body and said, there you go. But what it means you can do is if you use something like a, an El Casco or trying to think of another concave sharpener that actually works, I don't think there is one actually. But if you do that with this palmar lead, you can actually lean extremely hard on them. They just will not break on a needle point. And I find that all these long point sharpeners that everybody uses at the minute, they sort of are largely pointless, not to be too punny with that, but they really are because all you do is you snap the first, you know, couple of mil off the, off the lead straight away unless you are extremely delicate, which most people aren't because it's pencil. But with these polymer pencils you can, you can do all that and it's really quite good. And I had a particular liking for the. The craft design technology 17 pencil, which was Pentel 999 that just had a new. They basically craft design technologied. And so they just give it the kind of mint green finish. And those got. Then replaced by the. The camel ones once Pentel gave up, essentially. And those are a good one. They be one of my. I always like to keep one on the desk as kind of a daily writer. I definitely stocked up on those. I don't like to hoard anything, but I stocked up on those ones when they were out.

You know what? I don't really know. I take up space in my house.

The tent is probably their main role. I'll use anything with a few exceptions in that if I only have one and it's not sharpened, I'll not use it. If I was to get a second one later on down the line, then that's fine, I'll use it. But I don't necessarily agree with this. Pencils are to be used. They were, but they maybe aren't now. You know, that's. It's just not the way things change. Yeah. And I don't think that these pencils certainly from early, you know, 1901, 1902, that kind of time. I don't think it's quite as simple as just saying, well, it's just a pencil, you should just use it. It's there to be used.

Yeah. It's not. The context has changed. There's no stopping you. But the reason I have it is not because I need a pencil. If I needed a pencil, I just lift the Norris. There's no reason to do that, but I'll pretty much use anything. Actually, it was quite nice with that Hogarth and Hayes polygrid set. It came with two hbs and the original user had actually sharpened one. So I was able to. To use one. And I think the set is borrowed graphite actually. So it was nice to kind of use that very historical piece. And actually the whole. The rest of the set is intact. Wow. So that. That was cool. But other than that. Yeah, I'll use. I'll use pretty much anything. I certainly don't have anything that is too precious other than like you say, there are. There Are pieces that are. That are old and that are probably more a display item. I do have this kind of infamous to myself, the pencil room. Which is. As I'm the only person who goes into it. It's largely irrelevant to the conversation. But they are all in there and they were. I have this endless battle with how to display pencils because there really isn't a good way to display pencils. There might be a good way to display 10 but there really isn't a great way to display the amount of pencils that I assume that the three of us have. It just becomes ridiculous. But I do. So I guess explaining how the pencil room is set up. It has. I can't remember the brand name. There's this company that makes little filing cabinets that have 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7 drawers in them and kind of a metal. It's of some famous company. I want to say Kirby but I don't think that's right. So I have a lot of those and they basically store all my boxes. Dozen boxes. So they. They all get kept in there. So if I. If I open the one that I'm sitting beside. This is the first drawer of that. So everything in here is. Is not in any way organized. So I have got on the top here this is A box of 1937 Staedtler Mars Anniversary editions. Then I have a box of black polymers. I have a box of 602s the actual ones. And then I have what looks like 10 or 15 boxes of those train square pencils. So that's just sort of dumped in that drawer. And then in the next drawer here. Let's see what's in here. We have got two boxes of Pentel Tufts. I'm just saying what's on the top here. Each of these drawers have about four layers of boxes in them. Looks like a box of royal sovereigns. I have. Oh, these were cool. This is. Did you see. It was probably a couple of years ago Tombow did an anniversary edition where they recreated their hop made pencils. So it was. It was kind of nice. They're actually exactly the same as. As the normal ones but with very little difference. But it was kind of a nice collector set. So that's. I've got one of those in there then. What are these? Mitsubishi 3690. I have no idea what those are. Oh yeah, these look like and they say master writing. They're like the 9850. 52. 52, 52 is the yellow one. Is that right? So they look exactly like that. Only they just say 3690 instead.

Yeah, they are weird. They've got the little JIS logo on them. So they're a little older.

What's in there? So that, you know, it's just sort of whatever. Whatever's next. So anyway, that just carries on then. This is a graph from Faber Castell drawer. It would appear. I like those stuff. So I have a lot of their pencils. So that's in that then. So those cabinets exist then. I have these drawers on a desk. I once put up a picture of one of the sets of drawers on the. On the group actually. And the way those work is they would be kind of. They're like a four paper drawers and they come in sets of say 10.

The only one that I don't have that I'd like to have is one of those ridiculous Jupiter sharpeners.

Which are completely ridiculous, but are very clever in that they will sharpen any pencil regardless of the barrel shape or the thickness or anything. They're not picky, they will do anything. But. And I do see them come up, but they have a tendency to. There's a little shavings drawer or a shavings bowl that was sort of a detachable piece and most of them don't have that anymore. It seems to get lost. So it really wouldn't feel like I bought the right one until. Until I had that. And then there is a. Made a draftsman sharpener. I'm not even sure when a long time ago. It's sort of a Bakelite desktop sharpener and actually Ed from the group has one and I've used his and I'm extremely jealous of it.

Yeah. I've. I've been lucky enough to actually go round to his and have a dip into his collection and it's really got some impressive stuff in there. Stuff that you just would not see anywhere else, I'm sure of it. But he has one of these draftsman sharpeners and the way it worked was it would. It was sort of a two step sharpener in desktop form, you in one movement. And so what it would do is it would. It would start cutting away the wood first using the crank and so you can actually have these, you know, inch long flat tipped points that you just. There is no other sharpener on the market at all that will do this. It does the equivalent of. If you were to get a masterpiece and take the stop off the end and just use the single, the first hole, it would do this with a crank sharpener but in a very nice finished way. So I'd like to get one of those. But they never come up. I saw one come up that was essentially. It looked like a car had run over. Was just. The Bakelite was smashed to pieces and that still made good money on ebay. So to get a really nice quality one, it's very hard. But yeah, so I, I'd like to get one of those. Other than that there's, you know, I'm not really that picky about accessories. I, I don't go in for point guards. I never really have. I don't see the point. They. I know I gotta keep doing that. It must be the most overused, unintentional pun on this. But for me I, it doesn't really bother me because I just, I just throw pencils into my bag most of the time when I'm going somewhere and if the point breaks, well then I'll just, I'll sharpen it again. I'll not worry too much. And then I, I don't like putting things in my pockets and I kind of, I just don't see why I would put a notebook or a pen or a pencil or anything in my pockets. I really hate it, I think just always feels so bulky and you just have these strange like lumps sticking out of your legs when you have things in pockets. So I get that, you know the point protectors are handy because you don't stab yourself. But for me they, they just have no, no use. I did, I'm about to contradict myself but I did go in with Ed actually and we bought about 50 point protectors recently. And the only reason we bought them was they were very old kind of brass looking ones and they were, they came from the first run of Conte pencils when Conte using the crown logo. So sort of 1850 onwards to certain 1900. And we spotted a, it was a listing on I think possibly French ebay that someone had these attached to little pencils and we bought the whole lot and split them and then actually ended up throwing all the pencils away just keeping the, keeping the little point protectors. But. So those are quite nice because a lot of vintage pencils may have originally come with A point protector. And if you can find one that's of similar age or linked to the brand, it's quite nice to sort of marry that back up again. But I certainly wouldn't use them for actually using them. And then I guess there are some. I'm interested in some of the old catalog products that never really, you know, you don't see these kind of things anymore. I think they're probably just too expensive to make. People wouldn't want to buy them. So you'll see on some of the old Faber catalogs, certainly some of the hardmouths as well, were. You might have had a very nice boxed set which also came with a paper knife or something like that for erasing with a knife, which I've never really understood how that works. I think you just scrape the paper away. But they came in nice sets. You know, I think a lot of these manufacturers, they had a sort of a fancy goods division rather than just, you know, making it for draftsmen or making it for artists. And so they really got into the kind of desk object side of things, which I think, like Graff, von Faber, Castell are really the only people doing this still. No one else is really making something that I would think is fancy enough that that kind of counts like that. So it would be nice to get those. But it's. It's really purely because it's so difficult to get them. You know, it's. This is. This is really the whole point of collecting as well, isn't it? Just trying to find, you know, the point of collecting is not about having the collection. You know, I hope to never have everything I want because I think as soon as you. As soon as you do that, you know, what's the point? It's really why. I guess I don't like the idea of. And I appreciate I've just gone way off topic here, but carry on, if you're happy enough for me to do so. I don't agree with buying a collection.

I think it's weird, you know, and I don't want to be. I don't want to be. To mean to say, the modern black wings, but they're a perfect example of where this happens a lot, where someone gets interested in pencils, someone. They get interested in black wings, and then they complete their collection within 24 hours of being on the Internet.

Yeah, if you want to throw enough money at it, you can have them. But I don't think that's that's the point. I think modern pencils these days should be collected by generations in 50 or 100 years time. You know, I think we're supposed to collect the stuff that was 100 years ago. So I just think, so what? That's why I don't really collect modern pencils at all. They just don't appeal to me anymore. And that's not to say they didn't, they did, but they just. They don't anymore, actually. Interestingly enough, this. I was, I was watching a movie sometime this week. I've really forgotten what day it is, but. And it was. They talked about Johnny. You might know this kind of stuff. It was Lacan's fantasy theory. I don't know if you ever came across this one. And it said this basically without getting too like into Freudian fantasy theory, which it's quite linked to. So I think that's a different podcast, but. And it was essentially saying about how when you're trying to collect things or when you're doing things, it's to do with them. I actually have the quote here because I thought it was really cool. I'd written it down and it said, in order to continue to exist, desire must have its objects pertain, perpetually absent. And it's not the it you want, it's the fantasy of it. And I think that applies to collecting. You know, it's about always on the hunt to try and find these things because it's thoroughly underwhelming. When you find it, then you're just like, now what? Absolutely. You know, you find the best thing you've ever wanted and then you've got it. And then it's not really. It's not a big deal anymore. And so, you know, that's why I kind of hope to never stop collecting. Because I think if you do that, then you, you've missed the point somewhat.

Yeah, I think so. I think, you know, we've. I, I'm certain I fall into many of the traps. I'm sure you guys have done the same. Whether or not you count them as traps or not. It's open for discussion. But you know, I think, I think people realize how cheap these things are certainly the stuff that's available at the minute. And they instantly go and buy every single thing they can see on Amazon. Oh yeah. Followed quickly by every single Indian made pencil they can find. Because they just go, these cost $5. I'm buying 50 boxes. And then what? You know, then they end up in a cupboard because you don't use these anymore because they're not that cool. You know, you want to use the kind of nice new things and they don't have that much value. They are good pencils, but they're not great.

And so you end up like, you know, what am I gonna do if 96 ticonderogas.

And you go, wow.

Exactly. And you know, you say, well, they were cheap, so I bought them. Well, how does that work? It would have been cheaper not to buy them. It's not a good reason. You know, I just think if you were starting out, I think people waste a lot of money at the start buying stuff that they probably. It was just the excitement of getting wrapped up and starting a collection, wherein in hindsight I certainly would have maybe sat back and thought about what it is I want to, what I want to get. You know, I have, I have boxes upon boxes in, in a cupboard of all the Indian pencils and all the modern day tombows and all the. That kind of stuff. And I don't think I'll use any of them ever again, let alone even take them out of the big plastic bucket that they're in. It's, it's pointless. So. Yeah, it's a, it's a difficult one. I sometimes, I don't know if you ever get this impression. I sometimes feel that the word collecting or collector gets a, it's like a bad word in the group sometimes.

You know, people don't want to admit that they're a collector when actually every single person on there is a collector, whether they want to admit it or not.

Yeah. I, you know, I, I've. In terms of hoarding, you know, there obviously is a, definitely a difference between hoarding and collecting.

They always say it's to do with what you do with the things. So it, it has more of a logic behind collecting than hoarding.

I personally try to not Buy more than one or two boxes of any pencil.

Ever. Even if they're available because, well, I don't, I don't need them. I'm not going to sell them. So there's no financial incentive for me to try and flip, you know. Oh, good. I've got, you know, I bought 50 boxes of 211, so I'll just try and flip them. I don't have that, so I don't really, I think that kind of hoarding ideas, you know, it's personal to people that they do it because there's something, there's something inside them that makes them do it.

But to me it doesn't, it's not really a collection, but they are, they are collecting in a strange way.

And then, you know, you also have the, I guess the hybrid guys who are, who are doing a money making business really, where they're, you know, they're flipping them even just to pay off for the ones they want or to try and kind of, you know, make a tidy profit on these things, which are getting silly prices.

Yeah. Yeah. I left that group a long time ago when I realized that it was just, you know, people trying to outdo each other. I just don't understand that it's so toxic largely. It's why I don't agree with the quarterly system on anything. I think that that quarterly idea forces people to do this because you're, you're creating something that's limited and will be gone again and replaced by something else in such a short period of time that force people to rush into buying these things and as many as they can buy at the time to, you know, flip or to say that they have as much as they have and I don't see the point that they're not collectible in that way. It's, you know, I think I've always preferred, when you look at some of the older brands that they, you know, they created anniversary editions, you know, every 50 years or something like that, or every hundred years. And they really put the effort into, to making something really special. And you know, they got, you know, a lovely new case for them and lots of nice imprinting on them. Apart from the Musgrave 100th anniversary. That looks terrible. But it's great. It's one of my favorites because it's so shoddily done that I kind of love it. But yeah, it's hard to get really engaged in quarterlies. I think we start collecting for the wrong reason. I think we're starting to collect collectibles at that point instead of collecting pencils.

It's been. Yeah, you're right. It is Beanie Babies. And I think it's. It. It's important not to lose sight of that. You know, it's if. You know. All power, too. If you want to. You want to buy six dozen of each of these. And I know I'm sort of unintentionally targeting Blackwing, but, you know, they are the big players at the minute, and they are largely responsible for a lot of the pencil after sale market at the minute, whether we want to agree with that or not. But, you know, it's forcing people into a spiral of putting up prices for things. You know, we're. We as people. Pencil people are creating the aftermarket prices.

And we've. We're actually making ourselves suffer. But anyway, that's probably another conversation that

You went on a blog binge with your quarterly editions, didn't you? It was.

Congratulations. It's got more years than I have posts. Actually. Johnny, did you ever find. I think you were looking for that Musgrave pencil, were you? Or was it a different one?

I didn't realize they made about 10 of them. Oh, geez. They made like a set of 10 wraps that all have this, you know, like, happy birthday font that looks like it should be on a balloon or something. But it's their hundredth anniversary pencil. It's an odd one. I don't know why they made it like that. I thought they would have. I think if they could go back in time, they probably wouldn't have released that like that saying. It's like pushing this legacy brand idea.

And they really did, didn't they?

Really change that. I really respect Musgrave, I think. I think Henry is just like the dawn of Pencils. I think he's incredible, you know, Like, I think he's my favorite episode on on this podcast, I just, I don't think I've ever come across anyone who genuinely loves pencils as much as that guy. Like, it's just there, you know, it's so legit.

Yeah, sure. Well, thank you very much for having me to begin with.

I say it's. The conversation's probably been slightly disjointed. I'm not sure we stuck to any script. I think you did, but I certainly probably didn't. But hopefully there's something you can use in the edit.

If you want to find me. Where am I? I'm really only active on the group. That's about it. If, if the group wasn't there, I probably wouldn't be on Facebook at all. So if you want to talk to me properly, that's where you'll find me. And then I have the pencil fodder.com blog, which is such a.

You know, it's. You guys stole all the good names, So I had, I had to go with that. But it's. It is alive. It's on a slight pause because the two posts I'm running at the minute require me to go to the British Library to get a particular document and I'm not allowed because we're obviously on lockdown. So once that happens, it'll. There'll be a few posts in the hopefully near future, but that's it. I'm not on Instagram, I'm not on Twitter and I'm certainly not anywhere else that I know of. Anyway,

Andy?

Yeah, I'm just glad to be in the company of Gangster Hotline. That's my favorite part of the podcast.

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