Back in May I mentioned in my monthly Confessions of a Pencil Lady post that we would be introducing a small selection of mechanical pencils in the near future. Well, my friends, that time has come. As of yesterday you can find a section on our website dedicated to our propelling friends and the same selection also installed in the shop in a lovely custom-made wooden display (made by our friend Gary). 

I've mentioned before that my hesitation regarding mechanical pencils mostly has to do with the fact that they have little relation to the wood-cased pencil that I know, love and have dedicated my career to. That said, so many of you guys ask for them so I just couldn't resist any longer. In true CWPE style, I decided that if we were going to stock mechanicals we'd start with a small but thorough selection of ones that are awesome because of their function first, design second. Because stories are important to me, I thought I'd take a moment to share a very brief history of the mechanical pencil. 

For just about as long as graphite has been a substance used for writing, some type of lead-holding device has existed. However, it wasn't until 1822 that John Isaac Hawkins (an engineer) and Sampson Mordan (a silversmith) patented the first "propelling" pencil in England. Mordan bought out Hawkins and continued on with his very successful S. Mordan & Co., manufacturing beautiful silver propelling pencils until the factory was bombed during the London Blitz. Early versions of a propelling pencil held tiny pieces of lead in sizes between .9mm and 1.8mm in diameter and worked by turning either the end of the pencil or the tip of the pencil to extend the lead. 

The mechanical pencil experienced a couple moments in the early 20th century too. First, in 1915, when the Ever-Sharp pencil was designed and patented in Japan and second in 1929 when Caran d'Ache developed their Fix Pencil, the first modern clutch pencil. 

In the US the most iconic surviving mechanical pencil company is Autopoint, which was founded in 1919 in Chicago. They're known for their old school propelling pencils in larger lead sizes including .9mm and 1.1mm (hint: if you're using an antique pre-1950s pencil and are struggling to find the correct lead size for it, the Autopoint 1.1mm is likely your best bet) as well as their Twinpoint double-ended pencils. 

Most mechanical pencils these days use a ratchet or spring mechanism, though there have been some modern improvements especially in the Japanese market, including pencils that you shake to release the lead and pencils that are auto-rotating to keep the lead continuously sharp. 

Finding the right mechanical pencil these days can be a bit tricky, I've learned, since there are so many to choose from. The two most important things to consider are the lead size and also the feel of the pencil. Do you want a precise line or a thick one? Is it important that the pencil is heavy or would you rather it feel weightless? Mechanical pencil lead comes in sizes from a tiny .3mm all the way up to a 5.5mm, though not all of them function the same way. For general use a .5mm or .7mm is usually ideal, while a 2mm is preferable for drafting. 

For our first few mechanicals, I've carefully selected a few that are iconic. These include two varieties of Autopoints and Caran d'Ache as well as some more contemporary favorites like a Uni Kuru Toga and a couple of types of Rotring. I must admit that my personal relationship with mechanical pencils is still in its infancy and as I learn and experience more I'll tweak our offerings accordingly but for now, I hope you'll give these first few a try if you're so inclined. And in the meantime, post in the comments if there's a pencil you really want us to take a look at! 

Photos: the mechanical pencil we're now selling, an 1840s S. Mordan & Co. pencil from the Met archives, an old Autopoint advertisement

Last night we hosted the second meeting of the Orchard Street Reading Society! We had a great time discussing Jesse Ball's experimental novel Census. 

Snacks: Book-related snacks are very important to the OSRS, and this time we had cider, peanuts, and un-grilled grilled cheese (cheese cubes and mini toasts) were all mentioned in the novel. Caroline also found some dried persimmons. "[...] but then I realized, the persimmon should go to the one who will eat it in a gulp when you turn away. Persimmons aren't for people who soberly wait for their apportioned amount. That isn't the kind of food they are" (p. 26).

Activities: Our readers made their own maps of the census territory (complete with lots of alphabet stickers, of course), wrote postcards to friends about the book, and tattooed each other with temporary tattoo ink. We also played a couple of games where we guessed what the census marks looked like, and drew pictures of what shapes we all felt like (these games make sense if you've read the book--I promise!).

"I just feel, she would say, that there are things I would never say to you--things you need to know.

"Also, she thought the person she was in her letters was someone she herself did not know until the letter was written, and then it was like she was meeting herself." (p 174)

Discussion: While not everyone loved this book, it generated some fantastic conversation. A lot of the discussion focused on the book's introduction in which Mr. Ball explains how he wrote Census about his brother, who had Down syndrome and died at age 24. The introduction shaped both our expectations for the fictional story that followed and our understanding of the relationship between the father-son story at the heart of the novel, and the device of the census that they have both committed to taking. We also touched on the relationship between reason and kindness, the importance of empathy, and the appearance of clowns in literature. Like I said: it was a great conversation!

Next up: The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery. I first read this book earlier this year on a quick trip to Paris and loved it (tears were shed on my return flight as I finished the book, which also takes place in Paris). In short, it's about two lost souls and the person who brings them both out of hiding. But of course in long it's about much more than that: the beauty of everyday objects and rituals; the joy of great works of art; the difficulty (and the reward) of opening oneself up to others. It's definitely less experimental than Census, so I hope all of you will read along. You can pick up a copy in our shop, or find one from an indie bookstore near you.

Next meeting: Wednesday, August 29, 7:30pm-9:30pm at CW Pencil Enterprise, 15 Orchard Street (Between Canal and Hester)

This months post is dedicated to something that has always kind of been the elephant in the room here. I'll get straight to it--the week that we were written up in the New York Times when we first opened, my sister Annie sternly told me NOT to look at the comments on the article on Facebook. Not that I was going to (I'm a Facebook idiot), but she was worried that in my state of tiredness and fragility that I would be upset by it, as most of the comments were about how this shop even exists, how it pays its rent, how it's probably bankrolled by rich parents, how there's no way that we can make money. She was right, that would have broken my heart. 

The thing is, when I first opened the shop our rent was $1,900 a month and I had no employees except my best friend Jackie, who worked on Sundays so I could have a day off. No, we didn't make a lot of money, but besides our overhead (which was nothing by Manhattan standards) and maintaining inventory (which is generally inexpensive) there weren't a lot of expenses. Three months in, after that article hit, I couldn't buy inventory as fast as it was selling. Of course things have slowed down since but the snowball effect that the New York Times article caused has allowed us a steady amount of free publicity even three years later.

Even so, I still have people in the shop and in my personal life give me the but are you guys really doing okay? thing on a regular basis. Admittedly, I'm a little bit offended by questions and remarks like that because yes, we are doing okay. We've always been doing okay and no, it's not easy all the time, in fact, it's actually really hard, but yes, we're definitely, 100% okay. We wouldn't have weathered the storm during our forced closure last summer if we weren't okay and we'll continue to be okay as long as things just simply keep moving. I'll also admit that the idea of having to fund a move and re-locate to a more expensive space scared the hell out of me but I ultimately made the decision to scale up a little bit, to grow our subscription box service to fit our new, giant fulfillment space, to hire more staff to get more done but every day I'm afraid that someday it'll all just stop. I know that sounds ridiculous and maybe it's just the skeptics getting into my head but I also didn't think I'd be suing my landlord over a negligence issue 2 years in. The truth is, this whole process of starting a business, figuring out how to run a business and keeping it sustainable is a million times harder than I ever though it'd be but the other truth is that we are actually making it work, even if it's in our own way. Anything can happen when you have a business but I've developed a pretty thick skin. 

Letting us know that you're happy that shops like ours exist is a much better thing thing to say than "how do you make money?" or "how do you pay your rent". Because shops like ours do exist and that's not without a lot of hard work to make sure that things are really okay. 

Photo: One of my favorite spots in the shop, the wall behind the desk where we pin and tape cool stuff customers send us!

If you follow us on social media, you know we love a good pencil pic. We are ecstatic to have a whopping 112,000+ pencil enthusiasts following us on Instagram! 

Our social media has always been a joint effort amongst the whole team. Some days you just need a new perspective or a new idea! However, as of the last few months, I've had the pleasure of being the primary pencil lady behind the gram. And I totally have a blast doing it! If you've stopped into the shop since then, I'm sure you've seen me kneeling on the floor, arranging pencils like a mad woman, and taking handfuls of up close & personal shots of our products. Okay seriously, how did I get this job?! Anyway, I figured I might as well share some of my tips 'n' tricks on how to photograph your stash. Because let's face it -- your stationery collection is probably growing rapidly. Why not use them for photoshoots as well?

Step 1: Choose a color scheme.
One of the best ways to get an aesthetically pleasing pencil pic is to ensure you're purposeful with colors. You don't necessarily have to be monochromatic, but you should most definitely choose colors that compliment each other. If using colored sheets as backgrounds, make sure you're taking this into consideration with your scheme. Think of this as creating an art piece!

Step 2: Choose your products.
Once you have a killer color combo, it's time to choose your subject. Obviously our main focus is pencils, so we often try to utilize them in all of our shots. It's fun to throw in a notebook, an eraser, a pencil case, or a sharpener to add depth to the image. 

Step 3: Plan.
Do you want to use your items to create a pattern or do you want more of a "lifestyle" shot? Personally, I love a good pattern. Not only do these types of images look excellent in an Instagram feed, but they also work as a sort of optical illusion. On the other hand, lifestyle shots give your subjects a purpose. A great example of this would be pencils spilling out of a pencil case. An extra helpful tip: always be spatially aware by ensuring that your subjects have a balanced amount of space between them. 

Step 4: Ready, set, go!
Okay, you're ready! Begin laying your items onto your background. Repetition is your friend when trying to make patterns. I find it's easier to photograph when I use the entire (or most of the) background, allowing the products to flow over the paper. This helps when framing my photo as I can quickly shift between wide and shallow angles.  

Step 5: Take your photographs.
Okay pro, you're ready to roll! My big tip for photographing is to always use natural, even lighting unless you're splurging for some professional photography equipment. On our Instagram we only post square cropped photographs, so I always shoot my images with a square crop. (Yes, you heard right, I usually just use my iPhone when photographing for Instagram.) In short -- try different angles. Get closer, get farther away. Have fun! As you can see below, I take many many photos each time.....

Feel free to test out your very own flat lay photograph using CWPE purchases/other stationery goodies & tag us on Instagram. We always love to see you guys enjoying the pencil life! 

Over the course of 2018 we'll be highlighting pencil history from a new country each month. As we endeavor this year to get the best currently available pencils from every country that's still making them we thought we'd share some of the stories that make them special.

I was gifted a few Nataraj pencils when I was in college and, naturally, researched where they came from. I was first struck by the wood they were made of, which was noticeably different in appearances than the cedar I was used. When I decided to open a pencil shop they were among the first pencils I attempted to chase down. Many follow-up emails later, I finally convinced their manufacturer, Hindustan Pencils, to ship them across the world to me. The minimum order quantity was massive, especially for a shop that wasn't even online yet. I came home from Christmas that year (2014) to find 5 very large boxes stacked in my dining room--the super of my apartment building kindly put them in there while I was away because they were too big to fit in the package room. It was tens of thousands of pencils that I was afraid I wouldn't sell (when I opened the shop I had to get a storage service to store them for me because it was that many), but many orders later I can confirm that my relationship with Hindustan is an important one, not just because we've been able to make their unique pencils available easily in the US but because our customers love them. They're the best evidence that a great pencil doesn't have to be expensive (have you tried an Apsara Absolute?!). 

Anyway--Hindustan is the largest manufacturer of pencils in India, making 8 million pencils a day. Their newly re-vamped website even has a ticker that counts how many pencils have been made on any given day. They're not the only one though, another brand great called DOMS makes pencils in India these days too and many others have existed in the past and there are likely more still in operation than I know about. It's a fairly large industry but it's also a young one. Pencil manufacture has only really been a thing in India since the 1930s  (Hindustan was founded in 1958), which is rare considering that most other well-known pencil brands have been around for at least 100 years. Many of the early pencil manufacturers in India were selling pencils in competition with imported ones from well-established brands in Europe. After gaining independence from Britain in 1947 the Indian pencil industry began to grow with a little help from the government and has expanded exponentially since. 

One thing that I love about Hindustan's business practice is that they are committed to keeping things local and sustainable. Every product they make is made entirely in India across many factories in 5 different cities. The wood that they pencils are made of is harvested locally from private land and farms. The pencils are made from vatta or poplar that is indigenous to India. Though Hindustan's brands (Apsara, Nataraj and SiVO) are mostly found in Southeast Asia and Africa they are very much a global brand, exporting their uniquely Indian pencils all around the world and making private label pencils for other brands. 

I have no idea why it still works in India when it's failed elsewhere but Hindustan still runs proper advertisements in India for their products, something that is a serious rarity in any other part of the world these days. Their commercials are really wonderful, check out this one: 

And this one: 

I personally love this brand and these pencils because they're modern and earnest in their approach when it comes to manufacture and marketing. People tend to believe that older brands are more worthy of trust (especially when it comes to "old-school" or analog things) but I think that Hindustan has proved that theory wrong by creating products that in only 60 years have become a respected part of the cultural fabric of India. 

 Photo: A screenshot from the most classic Nataraj commerical--where a Ruby 621 races other pencils. The rest of the pencils break and the 621 wins the race. 

May has been a pretty easy month for us at CWPE--I'm happy to report that nothing crazy or particularly challenging has come up and that for once we got our subscription box packed up and ready to ship AHEAD of time. Apart from some trouble changing a lightbulb in one of our huge globe lamps yesterday (have you seen how high our ceiling is?!) it's been smooth sailing. Yesterday also marked the last day of our first ever intern, Antonia, who has been with us every Wednesday since October. It's sad to see her go but Caltech is calling! Our next challenge will be finding an intern who comes close to being as awesome as her. 

Distractions and updates aside--I thought I'd take this opportunity to write about three things that we're going to be rolling out in the next month or so that might come as a bit of a surprise to those who know our shop well (and to me as well). But let me explain: 

1. A pen

A few weeks ago, Alyx and I were sitting around the shop on a slow afternoon and came up with the idea to stock a single pen--a Bic Clic, our favorite cheap one. This came from a conversation about all of the people who come in here and say "Do you sell any pens?", which is almost always a joke. We thought it'd be fun to have a joke pen to offer them in return. We quickly drafted up a handwritten bit of text to put on it and wound up with a cute Bic Clip in blue, red and yellow that says "I went to a pencil shop and all I got was this lousy pen", a nod to stupid, cheap souvenirs of decades past. We'll be selling it strictly in-store only and won't have it out in the shop like the rest of our stuff but will be hanging it on the wall in a custom made shadow box frame instead.

2. Individual colored pencils

One of the biggest gripes I've had in the past three years of selling pencils is the constant debate of whether or not to sell individual colored pencils. Let's face it--they're a pain to buy and keep in stock but in the past few months I've realized that they just might be necessary. I've mostly been encouraged by the way that Caran d'Ache does their individual pencils in their shops and in their display at the MET. They're kindly going to help us do the same in our shop. We're going to set up a table with tiny cups built into it to store all 120 colors of our favorite Supracolor pencils. There will also be empty tins for customers to fill with the colors of their choice, something I really enjoyed doing last time I was at a Caran d'Ache shop in Geneva. These won't be sold online because, to be honest, the idea of making 120 product listings is terrifying and probably not worth it (but of course you can always email us if you're looking for a specific color and we can make it happen!). 

3. Mechanical pencils

This is the one that pains me the most. Maybe I shouldn't put it that way--I don't really have a problem with mechanical pencils, I just personally don't really enjoy using them. I've always maintained that we don't sell any mechanical pencils because their only relationship to a wood-cased pencil is that they contain graphite, and that I'm not an expert on them and don't feel comfortable selling them if I can't talk about them convincingly. Well, the time has come when I can't deny the many many requests we get for them. My approach for this is like my approach for most things we sell--we're going to quality over quantity and we've done a sizable amount of research in deciding exactly what we're going to sell. With a lot of help from Antonia, who knows A LOT about mechanical pencils, we've selected 7 new ones (in addition to the Caran d'Ache Fix Pencil that we already stock) of varying price points and lead sizes that we think are going to fit into our store nicely. We've even commissioned a lovely, unobtrusive wooden display for them. These will be in-store and online along with their various refills sometime within the next month. 

I've written about this before, but after 3 years in business, we have a lot of customers (way more than I ever imagined) and this thing is no longer a personal project where I feel comfortable just stocking the stuff that I personally love to use. I realize the importance of selling the things that fulfill the requests of our lovely customers, even if they're not always things that I would buy. I guess I've been a selfish shop owner, but I think that's part of the reason why this place has been such a hit--that its vision is cohesive, thoughtful and direct. That said, there's always room to grow and there will always be new things to try. Stay tuned over the next month or two as we roll out these new things!

One of my main responsibilities at CW Pencil Enterprise is handling all the custom pencil orders. I've emailed and spoken to dozens (if not hundreds) of you over the past two years about the best text and color combinations, how many letters we can fit on one side of a pencil, and regretfully about all the special characters we don't have. As a result, I've spent a lot of time in front of our 1960s Kingsley Hot Foil Press. And while I love that machine, we decided at the end of last year that it was time to move on.

(Me with the old Kingsley machine)

Fast forward to this spring, and we have a brand new pencil stamping machine! It's from a company called Aamstamp and it doesn't have the vintage charm that old Kingsley does. But it DOES have a brand new type kit: when type kits are new, all the letters are the same height, which makes it a lot easier for me to stamp long phrases without crushing your pencils. It also has some features that are more exciting for you guys as well, like a longer type tray and some new characters. The new machine holds a temperature better and allows me to make pencils faster.

Read on if you're interested in the nitty gritty of how our custom pencils abilities have changed.

What's the same:

We're still using a set of 10pt News Gothic, all capitals, so your text is going to look the same as it was before. We're also still using gold foil by default, and the blank  #2 hexagonal pencils we get from Musgrave in Tennessee. 

What's different:

We have more space! I'm not estimating about 28 characters, give or take a few depending on your phrase. We have a few new symbols now too! Like before, we have numbers (0-9), periods (.), commas (,), dashes (-), single and double quotations (‘ “), colons (:), and ampersands (&). Now we also have exclamation points (!) and question marks (?). Sadly no hashtags/number signs (#) or at signs (@) yet--maybe one day!

As always, you can email me (alyx@cwpencils.com) with any questions you might have about what is and is not possible. I love working with you guys on your custom orders, and I hope this machine means that we can do more creative things together in the future!

Over the course of 2018 we'll be highlighting pencil history from a new country each month. As we endeavor this year to get the best currently available pencils from every country that's still making them we thought we'd share some of the stories that make them special.

When it comes to pencil history there's a story about a company called L&C Hardtmuth that can't be avoided. You probably know it as Koh-i-Noor (the name they go by now)-- I've always know about their products mostly because of the cool woodless pencils I loved when I was in high school. Through their footprint in the US has more to do with art materials that aren't wood-cased pencils, their history is important to the story of the pencil.

L&C Hardtmuth was founded in Austria by Josef Hardtmuth in 1792, who was known as an innovative stoneware maker. In 1840s the company relocated to Budweis, in what is now the Czech Republic. This was during a time where, as we know well, the pencil business was still new and growing all over Europe. With his knowledge of ceramics, Josef Hardtmuth is said to have invented and patented the kiln-fired graphite and clay pencil core at the same time as Nicholas Conté, a claim which I can't confirm either way. This is a bit of a trend with Koh-i-Noor historically--they were consistently coming up with new ideas at the same time as other major players in the pencil business, both claiming ownership of them. In most cases, it's the Hardtmuths who are forgotten or discredited. When writing my book, The Pencil Perfect a couple of years ago this was a subject I struggled with researching. On a personal level, I wanted this "underdog" of sorts, this smaller Czech pencil company to rightfully claim all of these innovations but the truth is, there's no proper documentation to verify any of it 100%. I choose to think that there's some truth to all of it and that these stories are still worth telling, even if they're overshadowed by those bigger and more influential. 

All of that considered and set aside, Josef Hardtmuth was a really smart man with a lot of ambition and imagination who was right on the cutting edge of all of this new technology. This includes the pencil grading scale--as Koh-i-Noors written history claims, it was L&C Hardtmuth who came up with the idea of the European pencil grading model. "B" stands for Budweis, "H" stands for Hardtmuth and "F" stands for Franz, the member of the Hardtmuth family who is said to have come up with all of this. Though this challenges the commonly believed story that it was the Germans who came up with this ("B"for bold, "H" for hard and "F" for firm) I like to think that the Hardtmuth's were the first.

Everything changed in 1889 at the World's Fair in Paris when L&C Hardtmuth debuted the Koh-i-Noor 1500, their brand new polygrade set of drawing pencils. It was named for the Koh-i-Noor diamond and was made in 17 different grades, which was unheard of at the time. The thing that was most shocking about the 1500, however, was the way it was designed. The pencil was painted with 14 coats of rich yellow painted and dipped in 14-carat gold on the end. It's important to realize that at the time the world's best pencils typically weren't painted at all--it was assumed that if a pencil was painted it was to cover up inferior wood quality. If a pencil was made with high quality wood it was left as is to show off the wood grain. 

The Koh-i-Noor 1500 was such a success that it was also shown at the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893 and was an instant hit with the American pencil market. L&C Hardtmuth eventually set up an office in New Jersey and changed their business name to Koh-i-Noor Hardtmuth. American pencil companies started painted their pencils yellow to mimic the color of the superior Koh-i-Noor too, which is mostly likely why the color yellow has become synonymous with American pencils. It's believed that L&C Hardtmuth originally chose the color yellow because of its connotations of royalty and respect in Chinese culture, as the best graphite was coming from China in the 19th century. 

These days Koh-i-Noor is still a celebrated pencil brand, especially for their proprietary Magic pencils and quality drawing tools.They're one of the only manufacturers in the world who still make proper natural rubber erasers, too. They've become a great example of an iconic brand whose history is full of legend, mystery and drama. Did Koh-i-Noor Hardtmuth really invent all of these critical pencil developments? Who knows what the real truth is. What we do know is that things were different in the 19th century--news travelled slowly and it's very possible that many people just happened to be doing the same thing at the same time. 

If you ever find yourself in Prague, be sure to visit one of Koh-i-Noor's three shops, one of which is in the zoo!

One of the best things about my shop is that you can find pencils from places you didn't even know make pencils. Before I first opened the shop I sent a LOT of emails to companies I knew about or had researched and got replies from about 30% of them. The ones who replied were a little confused but willing to sell their things to me and by the time I was ready to put the website online I had enough brands to support my concept. Since then I've still been chasing that 70%, a number that has multiplied as I've grown to know more. 

These days sourcing goes one of two ways: either a brand has heard of the shop and reaches out to me to sell their things or I have beg and plead to get the things that I'm after. It's not easy anymore because we already have all of the things that are easy. This year I'm making it my mission to add a few specific countries to the list of those represented in pencils in our shop and man, it's proving to be very difficult. For every 10 emails I send I maybe get one reply, which often tells me that they can't sell to me because I'm in the US or that the thing that I want is no longer available. For the other 9, who knows what happens to them when they go unanswered and possibly unread. Maybe it's a language difference (or not, on my second attempt I always translate the e-mails) or maybe these websites don't have active e-mail addresses on them (though I do try to gather as many e-mail addresses as I can from various resources) or maybe they just think I'm insane, or it's a scam or they're simply not interested in participating in my wacky microcosm of pencils. 

I've given up on my dream to stock a pencil from every country still manufacturing them (it's more than anyone realizes, I can guarantee) and some of them aren't good pencils anyway but to the ones that I really really want: what do I have to do? Maybe there's nothing I can do and I need to just accept that. After all, I do have *most* of the pencils I think are the most interesting/best ones out there but I so desperately want to expose all of our customers to the deep cuts--the ones from far far away that few know about or have tried. To be honest, it's occasionally frustrating when I get e-mail from people wondering why we don't stock a certain pencil because the answer is usually because they won't sell them to me (or because they're just not very good). 

Now that I've whined about this, let me say that I am lucky to work in a very very small industry where people are generally so so so so supportive and the encouragement I get from the companies that I do already stock is enormous enough to make up for not having the rest. But, where's the fun if I don't have something to chase after? I guess I'll be chasing all of these elusive pencil brands for as long as I'm doing this and that's fine with me. One of my totally ridiculous dreams is to have a travel TV show about stationery, a Netflix-style docu-series about me traveling the globe in search of the most fascinating stationery stories and the items that go with them, maybe then I can get their attention. 

Photo: a recent example from my inbox