Editing The Pen Addict 96/transcript (section)

== Pencil Brands ==


'''Andy Wellfle:''' Sure. Well, I, I think my top favorite is, and I am just listing the pencils that are available now. Uh, there's a lot of pencils that aren't, that aren't made that, that I like, but, um, the, uh, that's a whole nother show. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Vintage pencils could take up. So, um, uh, the, uh, the Palomino golden bear, um, the one that I sent you, Myke is the triangular one. And unfortunately that's not made anymore. Uh, but the golden bear has been wrapped under the Palomino line by pencils.com. It's kind of confusing the way that branding works, but I like that because it is good, great quality for the price you pay. You pay like two 50 for a dozen and they're really good quality. It's like a little bit better than a, like a Dixon Ticonderoga, which often is kind of the standard by which I list things. So I think that's my favorite. Uh, and there's a really beautiful blue color on them too. Um, I like the Palomino black wing 602 a lot, the newly released or the new, the new black wings that came out. Um, and it, that is the one that is the hardest of the black wings. Uh, there's also a black wing classic and a black wing pearl, uh, both of which are a lot softer. Uh, but this one is kind of the best writing pencil and it looks like the original ever hard favor black wings, which I really like. And that's a little bit salty. That's, that's 20 bucks a dozen. Um, I like the general semi hex. Um, that's made by the general pencil company, which is just one of a couple pencils still manufactured in the U S. Um, that's a really good classic yellow pencil. Um, it writes really well at the semi hex means that it, you know, it's hexagonal, but the, the ends are, the corners around it a little bit. So it's a little bit more comfortable. Um, I actually kind of liked the Helix Oxford, uh, which Myke was using. Uh, that's a British pencil. Um, actually I don't know if it's manufactured in the UK, but I know the company's based out of the UK. Um, it's, uh, it has Helix.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Helix is what we use in schools.

'''Andy Wellfle:''' Helix. Yeah. Yeah. It seems like it's a very like basic pencily pencil. It's not necessarily for drawing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All school supplies. Like Helix are just everywhere for school supplies. Well, at least they were when I was growing up. I had like a Helix protractor and like, and it's not just you buy them for schools. Like they're in schools. Like they're, they're supplied directly to schools as well. That's cool. Yeah. So it's a standard, it's a very sort of standard kit.

'''Andy Wellfle:''' Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. Um, I really liked the pink wood on it. I actually, I don't know what kind of wood that is, but it's a, it has kind of a pinkish hue and it is a little bit toothier and, uh, and grittier, but I, you know, sometimes, sometimes I like that. Sometimes I think that, you know, depending on the paper I'm using, that feels good.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So that, that pink wood again is normal for me to see as a pencil. But I look at that and that's a pencil.

'''Andy Wellfle:''' That's cool. Yeah. I, I learned about them when I worked at, uh, pencil things. They sent me, they sent me a couple of them and, uh, I didn't realize they had a whole line of just school supplies. That's cool. Yeah. And then, uh, the last one on my list is that Triconderoga, which I talked about. Um, that's, uh, just a nice big grip pencil and it, it, it looks very distinctive too.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So let's talk, let's talk about the Blackwing specifically for a second. So I think the, the Blackwing as a product on its own right now, I think is, it kind of stands on its own. There's a, it's a Blackwing pencil and it's high quality and it's, you know, great performance and it looks great, but there's this whole, I wrote in the show notes. Yeah. I wrote this whole mythology around it and it reminds me of like the Moleskine marketing. Like, it's almost like, it's almost like too good to be true type, this mythos that has been created and lifted this brand, um, just by this whole true or not true in, in, in probably both Blackwing's and Moleskine's cases, um, stories behind it. And, and, and what, what's your take just from the, not the current pencil in like its current form. I think it, I think it stands on its own, but just like the history of the name and is like, is that a big deal for, um, it seems like it causes a lot of consternation in the, in the pencil community.

'''Andy Wellfle:''' Yeah. It's, it's interesting cause it, it does get kind of political about that. Um, so, so the Blackwing, the, uh, Palomino Blackwing, I should say is kind of a, a relaunch, a revamp by pencils.com, uh, of, uh, by California Cedar who runs pencils.com of the, uh, Eberhard Faber Blackwing, uh, which was a pencil that was started to make it made in the thirties, uh, and when it was being manufactured all the way through to the nineties. Um, and it's really distinctive. It has a, um, kind of a rectangular, uh, ferrule and a rectangular eraser on it that's being held in by a clip. So you can actually pull the eraser out a little bit and kind of clip it back. So you, you have a really great eraser. So that original pencil, um, got kind of famous just because it, it's was, it was mentioned in like memoirs by Stephen Sondheim. He was a big, big, big user of this pencil. Um, it's, it's attributed to, uh, to being used by a lot of authors and celebrities and some of them are documented and some of them are a little bit more sketchily so. Um, but they, they went out of business kind of suddenly in 1998. Uh, the machine that broke, that made the ferrule broke, uh, is the, uh, the reason that they gave for not manufacturing these anymore. So, uh, all of a sudden the price, people would sell them on eBay. People would hoard them and sell them on eBay for like, like literally $40 a pencil. It was really, really salty. Um, I actually, when I started pencil blogging and collecting, I bought a few of them just because I, I had to know. Um, and I wrote a review on my blog. Um, it's called the realist review of the black wing. And I mean, I, I mentioned that it was, it was indeed a really good pencil, but it was not worth $40. It was just, you know, nothing, no wooden pencil is worth $40 unless, you know, unless it's of significance, you know, to you or, you know, if, if it's worth it to you, then, then sure. Um, but I, I know back in, uh, in 2010 or 11, I can't actually remember, which is, which is pretty bad. Um, California Cedar, uh, basically, oh, uh, Eberhard Faber, which was later bought by Faber Castell or merged with them. Um, they let the trademark lapse, the black wing, the black wing trademark, um, and, uh, pencils.com picked it up, um, and kind of started, started using that and manufactured, um, their own black wing. It's the Palomino black wing, um, which Palomino is the brand of a, uh, um, of a, uh, another pencil that they make. That's really good. Um, so anyhow, it's, they picked it back up. Uh, it went out to, uh, it was the classic. They, they released it. Everybody loved it. It's a big deal. Uh, boing, boing, like really mainstream, like kind of internet culture blogs picked it up. Um, and I know, uh, Mark Fraunfelder, there's a big fan. So people, yeah, people love it. Um, it's, and it was very, very soft. Um, the, they released the black wing 602, which looks almost identical to the original. Uh, the first black wing that pencils.com released, uh, changed the book. They changed out the look a little bit. Uh, the 602 was released. It was more for writers than for sketchers, um, they found, uh, or drawers. And, um, then after that, they kind of completed that out with the black wing pearl, uh, which is a white pencil and it's somewhere kind of in the middle. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I've used the 602 and the pearl. I, I definitely like the 602 just, uh, from a writing experience.

'''Andy Wellfle:''' Yeah. And, and I mean, take it as you will. It's a, it's a really good pencil independent of the kind of the marketing behind it. Uh, right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's what I was trying to separate. It's, it's, it's, there is actual substance behind.

'''Andy Wellfle:''' Absolutely. And I, I know, I mean, it's, it's made in pretty small batches in Japan. Uh, I think that's why, um, why it costs a little, uh, like quite a bit more than other pencils. But if you are somebody who is serious about using wooden pencils and you really want some cool ones and you want some that are really just definitely conversation starters, uh, a Palomino black wings, a really good one to buy. I, um, I gave a few of mine to a friend who runs a winery and, uh, he ended up buying a bunch more and, uh, they, they got stolen off the desk like crazy. People just, just love those and would take them home. So yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' From a writing experience.