Thank You.

April 14, 2012 16 Comments

Dear Readers,

If this is your first visit here, please be sure to visit this page, which is the summary of my research about the Eberhard Faber Blackwing 602.

Not long after I started this blog, California Cedar’s first Palomino Blackwing* began making its way into the world, and I was excited like a lot of people and very supportive: I gave them some early photos of mine for free, which were used for some international PR, and loaned them some items to be photographed for their website. However, that initial excitement dwindled into ambivalence after some early misrepresentations were uncovered, but the benefit of the doubt persisted. Though not long after, that ambivalence eventually turned into disappointment—I, as well as others in the pencil community, noticed that the advertising campaign for the Palomino Blackwing was at times wildly inaccurate (if not purposely suggestive), and my site and its contents were in some ways becoming an involuntary partner to that enterprise. I finally began posting about these things along with other blogs in order to bring attention to what was going on. My intention was, and remains, to document as accurately as possible the interesting true story of the Blackwing, and to that end it was hard to understand the choices that CalCedar kept making.

For better or for worse it seems that this blog happens to be the only one of its kind vis-à-vis the history of the Blackwing 602 pencil. The blog itself is about two years old, but it represents about four years of work and countless hours spent researching, photographing, collecting, trading, and writing—all done just for doing’s sake; a labor of love. But because this blog has content unique to the Internet, it means that it gets the attention of those who would like to use that content. Most have done so rather innocently (personal blogs, sharing photos, etc.) which is fine by me, and some have been responsible enough to send queries or notifications, but others—including some for-profit companies—have been less honorable and have infringed upon my copyrighted work. But my complaint isn’t simply about scholarship and attribution, and it’s not at all about money. Rather it’s a combination of the appropriated work, plus how it has at times been folded into California Cedar’s questionable PR campaign, which in turn has distorted the Blackwing’s story, that has spoiled things (see this page for details). Everyone wants to be recognized for their work, but this is less about my wanting credit than it is about me wishing they would just do their own work and leave mine alone—just like how you’d want the person sitting next to you to stop copying from your test paper.

Knowing that a company—one with vast financial resources—was watching my every post (the CEO of the company has subscribed to this blog) slowly began draining my enthusiasm: it’s difficult to explain just what it’s like to work hard for each new and unique Blackwing-related “find” and to put the work into posting about it, only to realize it’s likely just to be taken or copied in some way (and sometimes even inaccurately to boot). And it puts me in a unique position: as a consumer, I share the opinion of those who think CalCedar’s marketing has been inaccurate and questionable at times, but I have no control over that. The best I can do for the Blackwing is to publish my own work and let people decide for themselves. But, when on top of everything else it’s my own work that is being copied—especially when it’s coming from a company that claims to be continuing the “legacy” of the Blackwing—that’s a bridge too far. My interest remains unabated, but I don’t want to continue this blog if it means being a source of reference for CalCedar’s designs—the Blackwing, and the work I’ve put into documenting it, mean too much to me.

 

I want to say how grateful I am to everyone who has visited here, supported this site, and contributed to the conversation. It’s remarkable how this immeasurably obscure thing—a pencil—could bring together so many kind and like-minded people from all over the world. I’ve enjoyed hearing from you and more importantly, learning from you.

I’m going to leave the site up and the comments open, and I will be cleaning-up and updating older posts as well as continue to edit and expand the “No Ordinary Pencil” essay, but I do not plan on posting any new Blackwing content. There’s always a chance there might be a new post, but if there is it will likely be about current events. I would have preferred to keep sharing my ongoing research about the Blackwing 602, to say the very least, but not everyone is playing fair—I hope you understand.

For anyone who thinks this is about pencils, it’s not—they’re just pencils. It’s about caring for something very deeply.

Thanks for all of your support, and I hope you’ve enjoyed reading.

All the Best,
Sean

Filed under General, News

California Cedar’s “Creative Legacy”

April 11, 2012 4 Comments

California Cedar has fixed the most recent errors, which I mentioned were originally copied from here but done so in an erroneous manner (see this post for the details). This is further proof that CalCedar closely monitors this site for information, but never credits it.

From Palominobrands (Click)

I know it’s too much to expect an “I’m sorry” from them for the copying, but I thought maybe a “thank you” or some attribution at least for doing their error-checking for them, too. Maybe a check’s in the mail. I wonder what would happen if I actually sent them an invoice. :) I don’t understand why it is so impossibly difficult for them to do their own work.

For a site that speaks so much about one’s “creative legacy”, I wonder what their’s will be.

Filed under General, News

The Day After Pencils

March 30, 2012 5 Comments

What is there about that piece of cedar, graphite, and varnish that says “the master fashioned me?”

My pencilled revision of a quote attributed to M. Aldric,
who was originally speaking of Stradivari instruments.

A sense of loss imbues many of the posts on this blog, in varying degrees of intensity and transparency. It can take the form of outright disappointment, or nuanced nostalgia. It can be interpreted as obstinacy about the future or as deference to the recent past. All of it, however, is largely unquantifiable—it’s as intra- and interpersonal as it is intra- and international. But there is something tangible at risk of being lost to history, and the rapidity at which it may happen only amplifies the magnitude of its potential loss: centuries’ worth of pencil-making knowledge and craft.

I am speaking primarily of American pencil-making—the houses of Faber-Castell and Staedtler et al. seem as healthy as ever. But to say “American” pencil-making is in effect to include Europe since several of the most well-known manufacturers have familial roots that reach deep into European soil and history. With the virtual collapse of the American pencil industry, the artistry and science founded in long years of practice could all but disappear. Ironically though, this is in large part the fault of the pencil-makers themselves.

Rightfully so, the specifications, formulae, and techniques developed and employed by manufacturers were and are considered trade secrets, which were literally and figuratively kept “in the family.” Manufacturing plants in 19th-century Germany were run more like feudal cities, where no one worker would be taught more than he needed to know in order to complete his specific task. This way, no one could piece together enough of the “secret”, then share it with other manufacturers, or even start a company of their own. Very few technical papers on the engineering aspects of pencil-making have been presented at conferences or published in peer-reviewed journals. This culture of secrecy makes sense from a business standpoint, especially since it concerns an item as generic as the pencil. But with so few people in-the-know, and with so many great companies having folded, it’s much easier now for that knowledge to die with the remaining few who have it.

For example, the American side of the Eberhard Faber Company. Where is all of their “stuff?” You know, all of the templates, graphics, research, prototypes, catalogues, signs, product samples, photographs, etc. I would imagine the family has a great deal of it, but is the rest all gone? What did Sanford “get” as part of their deal in 1994, or Faber-Castell in 1988? Where does it all go? That’s more than 150 years of history—not only of Eberhard Faber and pencil-making, but of America too. Where is it?

To be honest, I don’t really know what the explicit benefits are in attempting to document this information. Instead it’s just more of a gut feeling: knowledge that has been acquired through long years spent in patient dedication to craft, which was then made manifest in sublime achievements of artistry and engineering, should be preserved. I don’t mean some kind of International Pencil Museum in Den Haag (though that’s something I’d probably like to visit), but rather some centralized and concerted effort dedicated to preserving the history, craft, and science of the pencil.

Maybe there already is such a place; other than in our hearts, that is.

Filed under General, History

Basteln mit dem Musikaliker

March 28, 2012 6 Comments

(The title and contents of this post are an homage to the “Basteln mit dem Lexikaliker” series. Two of my favorites are here and here.)

Frage: What can be done if the Blackwing’s petrified-Chiclet eraser breaks?

Antwort: PEZ to the rescue.

I defy anyone who says they can tell them apart:

Filed under General

Persistence and Memory

March 26, 2012 11 Comments

I like wood-cased pencils.

I like the way they look, the way they feel, and the way the write. I like having to sharpen them. I like learning about who made them and the times in which they were made. And oddly enough, I like them because they don’t last—not if you use them, that is.

I have a handful of hard-to-find pencils that I do not intend to sharpen or otherwise use, which I guess technically means that I have a “pencil collection.” But I have never identified with pencil collecting per se—I’m neither looking for that perfect Thoreau specimen nor trying to complete a set of 1965 Microtomic pencils or something. In other words, just looking at pencils doesn’t really do it for me. Instead, I have developed an affinity for using a relatively narrow selection of well-made, high-quality pencils that are unfortunately either discontinued or impracticably expensive, or both. This means that the few I can manage are usually well-looked after, even though the very act of enjoying them means destroying them.

An 1854 article from Illustrated Magazine of Art titled “Pencil Making at Keswick” touches upon this notion—that to “use them is to lose them.” It also goes a bit further by extending the metaphor upward to the person holding the pencil. If nothing else though, this quotation—only a single sentence—is a paean to the comma:

And we might conclude by moralising on the fact, that as it is by the wear and tear and destruction of the agent that its worth is developed, so it often is that men, in striving and labouring for society and the world, are themselves exhausted and consumed, and the elements of their physical constitution pass away, to mingle with, and to be absorbed into, the universe at large.

Filed under General

At Starbucks

March 19, 2012 11 Comments

Out-of-Breath Kid: “Hey, dude, gimme your pencil for a sec.”

Me: “I, uhh…um…pencil?”

(Note to self: bring decoy pencil when out in public.)

Filed under General

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