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Alex Beam, journalist and fan of the Blackwing pencil, wrote one of the very few mainstream articles about the 602. Tomorrow, Mr. Beam will have a new article posted about the Blackwing at the Boston Globe site, so be sure to give it a read!
Update: Or you can read it now. And don’t miss the video as well.
There are still 2,800 Blackwings (the 602 type) in Boston? They had a very wise trustee. Now that everybody knows they might want ask Fort Know whether they have some space left. I am just imagining hordes of pencil fans, with KUM Longpoint sharpeners and similar tools in their hands, trying to storm the building…
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No need to storm the Atheneum any longer…The CalCedar Blackwings went on sale this morning! The price is quite decent at about $1.60 per pencil—less if you buy in bulk. I can’t wait for my shipment. I wonder, as does Beam in his article, if prices for vintage Blackwings will begin to go down now.
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I would be surprised if the price for 602s will go down. The Palomino BW seems to be a similar pencil, with the same name and a similar look, but it is not the same pencil. You could argue that the different 602 reincarnations are not the same pencils, but they are still more similar to each other than the Palomino BW is and they have a similar lead. In my mind the original 602 and the Palomino BW are at least as different to each other, if not more, than the old VW Beetle and the new VW Beetle.
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For people who actually write with the pencil, the Palomino Blackwing is a liberation from the impossible prices on ebay, especially because, in terms of function (that is, lead quality), the new version is possibly superior to the original. Only collectors will want to buy the originals. Maybe they will be willing to pay $40 a pencil. But working writers and artists won’t be among them. The market for vintage will be much, much smaller.
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I get your point, but am not sure whether I agree, especially with “liberation” as there were many other great pencils out there before the Palomino BW. There is some mystique surrounding the 602 that is a very important part now, at the core of 602’s image. Let me make another comparison, this time with a Leica. Think of the 602 as a Leica M9 and of the Palomino BW as a Panasonic-made Leica.
Camera: If you want a great camera you have a lot to chose from, e.g. Canon, Nikon DSLR, …
Pencil: If you want a great pencil, similar to the 602, you have a lot to chose from, e.g.Mars Lumograph 4B, or a soft Mono 100 etc.
Camera: You want a Leica, but cannot afford what I would call “a real one”, you can go for a Panasonic-made Leica.
Pencil: You want a Blackwing 602, but cannot afford what I would call “a real one”, you can go for a Palomino BW.
Camera: You want to real thing, the one with the mysterious feel about it, you go for a Leica MP or a Leica M9
Pencil: You want to real thing, the one with the mysterious feel about it, you go for a EF or FC Blackwing 602.
I do not think Panasonic-made Leicas made the market forLeicas smaller, I do not think the Palomino BW will make the market for 602s smaller.
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I’d have to agree. I think for many Blackwing fans there are better pencils that emulate it than the new Palomino Blackwing. For committed writers, I think that the softness of the lead is going to turn them away. Well not so much the softness as much as the need to resharpen all the time.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the new Palomino Blackwing and just ordered 2 dozen of them.
As for the broader market for the Blackwings, I think that with the introduction of the Palomino, there is more interest in trying out an original. More people are buying just one or two just to see what all of this blather is really about.
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That is a really good point. People might want to try out the original as you said and some people will hear about the Blackwing for the first time, now that mainstream media seem to pick this up to some extent, and might become new Blackwing fans. On the other hand people might not be prepared to pay so much any more, now that they know that there are still > 2800 left. Before each auction could have been “the last Blackwing in existence”, now we are sure that there is still more supply.
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