At school, the pencils were those grotty stubs which invariably had to be sharpened with a pen-knife, because a sharpener would tease out every grain in the cheap wood.  Early on I decided that biros were, for me, useless.  In the height of summer there would be too many Bic blots on the page, and I never did get on with the plastic barrels.  They felt horrible in the hand.  The only use for them was as pea-shooters: a rolled-up, slightly soggy piece of chewed paper could inflict annoyance from some distance, while the weapon would be undetectable by a teacher.

Or so I’m told.

However, I did develop a love for real ink pens.  Even at school I had several.  There was an Osmiroid, which fell apart, and a Conway Stewart (stolen), and I used a Sheaffer for some time (it’s still here in my desk).  I had a Parker in stainless steel (also in the drawer).  And meanwhile my collection of pencils grew.

Even now, I love my pens.  I have two really nice Cross pens, one with a fine nib and red ink for editing and revising manuscripts, and my old medium nibbed gold that I used when I was a salesman, but it’s my Conway Stewart pens I really love: a Churchill, a Drake, and my very own Michael Jecks pen in Dartmoor.  I use them as often as possible.

But it is the pencils which I have to have about me all day every day.  They are just so practical.

No, I do not write my books longhand.  It would take too long.  I depend upon writing long screeds of text, usually up to 1,000 words in an hour, for long stretches, and with the best will in the world, I couldn’t do that with pencil and paper.  It is so much faster to type.

But where the pencil comes in is everywhere else.

I sketch characters’ faces (badly), with all their more obvious defects so that when I am writing I can glance across to their mugshots and remind myself what they are like.  The pencil is always in a pocket for those moments when an idea occurs for a new novel or a development in the existing one.  I will always carry an A5 or A6 notepad with me, and they are full of scribbled comments, notes on ideas, or other people’s conversations (with rings round incongruous or odd expressions I haven’t heard before).

In short, a pencil is enormously useful.

There was a (no doubt apocryphal) story about NASA.  When the Berlin Wall crumbled and NASA and the Russian space agency decided to work together, there were several meetings at a high level.  At one, an American, trying to impress his counterpart, spoke of the sums spent to manufacture pens that would work in space.  Their solution was the excellent (used to have one of these, too) Papermate with the two heart symbols on the clip.  The idea was, as you pressed the rolling ball onto paper, it pumped some ink forward.  It was brilliant.  Not only was it genuinely space-age, it would work upside-down or anywhere.  It cost millions of dollars to design and manufacture, but it was a work of art.

The Russian wasn’t impressed.  He shrugged.  ‘We used pencils.’

But, and it’s rather a big “but”, there are problems with pencils.  For example, what do you do on an aeroplane when your pencil becomes blunt? You aren’t allowed to carry knives on board since 9/11.  So, in the old days you had to remember to carry the sharpener onto the plane with you, along with the pencil, and probably a rubber eraser too.

Except I am a professional writer, and if there is one thing a pro like me will do, it is lose things.  Carrying three items onto a plane won’t happen.  I will forget one of them.  It’ll either be in the cargo hold or on the desk at home.

Which is why, some years ago, I bought a Faber Castell Perfect Pencil.

It was sleek, aluminium, and lovely.  The thing with these devices is, the pencil can be kept in a pocket perfectly safely, with the dangerous tip covered by the cap.  Ingenious.  And then, when you need to write, pull the cap off the sharp end – and write! Simple.  But rather more brilliant is the fact that when your pencil is growing short, you can shove the back end of the pencil into the cap, and it becomes an extension tube for the pencil.  Oh, and if you pull off the top of the cap, it holds concealed within it a sharpener – http://www.cultpens.com/acatalog/Faber-Castell-Perfect-Pencil-Gift-Set.html

If the Russians had wanted to improve on their space agency’s pencils, this is how they’d have done it.  Elegant and very effective – and no ink blots.

I used that Perfect Pencil for about six years, and I would guess I used it every single day in that time.  I made sketches of the moors, I wrote notes, I planned meetings and stories with it, I corrected my children’s homework with it.  And, yes, I loved it.

And one day a couple of years ago, I went to do a radio interview in Plymouth, and I lost it.

I don’t know where, but somewhere it fell out of my pocket.  To this day I regret its loss.  The feeling of dull horror – well, OK, raging fury with my own stupidity, if you prefer – was with me for a long time.

But every disaster is an opportunity.  If there was one thing slightly wrong about that pencil (don’t get me wrong, it was just about perfect), it was that the barrel of the extender was a little, just a teensy bit, too wide for my comfort.  It was OK, and it saw out several pencils with me, but it was just not quite ideal for me.

So that is why I bought the next level up, the Graf von Faber-Castell model – http://www.cultpens.com/acatalog/Graf-von-Faber-Castell-Perfect-Pencil-Platinum.html.  This one is superb.  Shining silver, it is thinner, with that distinctive Faber-Castell look about it, a tube with a slight flare at the open end, rising to a more pronounced flare at the cap.

It cannot be improved upon.  It is, quite simply, perfect.  A gorgeous design superbly executed.

And because my children need to know how to use pencils properly (and aren’t allowed to carry penknives at school like I was), I’ve bought two more Perfect Pencils for them from Cult Pens.

But theirs are plastic.  I’m not that generous!

Michael Jecks

Dartmoor-based Michael Jecks is the author of thirty one novels in his best-selling Templar series.  His latest, City of Fiends will be published in June 2012 in hardback and Kindle from Simon & Schuster   www.michaeljecks.co.uk

The Perfect Pencil range starts at just £3 – find your new favourite pencil here.

All orders placed between 3 November and 20 December 2011 that included any Staedtler product were eligible for entry into a prize draw for an Apple iPod Touch.   The winner is Emily from Oxfordshire, who has already claimed her prize. Congratulations to her.   It’ll be with Emily tomorrow, just in time for Christmas!

We’ll be running lots of draws and giveaways in 2012 so don’t forget to Like Us on Facebook or Follow Us on Twitter to keep up with the latest chance to win.

This week sees the launch of the latest addition to the Pilot FriXion pen range.  If you haven’t yet come across the FriXion then you’re missing out on one of the most significant pen developments in recent years.

FriXion rather brilliantly solves the problem of erasable ink.  In the dark ages of our schooldays ink could be ‘erased’ using an ink eraser – the coarse, tough, typically grey eraser often found at the other end of a white pencil eraser.  These seemed to work primarily by wearing away the paper surface, taking the ink with it!

Why does pencil erase and not ink?  Because ink soaks into the paper fibres where pencils lay down a coating of graphite that doesn’t bond very tightly with the paper surface.

Erasable ink was launched in 1979 by Paper Mate in Erasermate/Replay series (later also in the Eraser Max) after a decade of research.  The ink in these pens is erased much more like pencil – the ink bound quite lightly to the paper, so could erase reasonably well using a medium-soft eraser.  In practice the ink smudged quite a bit and results varied according to how hard you pressed when writing.  The ink itself tended to lack vivid colour.  However, the nature of the ink meant the refill needed to be pressurised, delivering a ‘Space Pen’ type ability to write upside-down as a by-product.

Uni-ball’s Signo Erasable UM-101ER was a fairly  effective update of the Paper Mate approach.  The gel ink was stronger in colour yet erased more cleanly.  A good product, sadly discontinued a couple of years ago.

None of these should be confused with eradicable ink – this is ink that’s easily bleached out of paper using a special ink eradicator pen.  You can only rewrite over the eradicated ink using a strong ink that can withstand the bleach that’s now in the paper.  There are a number of eradicable pens and ink and ink eradicators /re-writers – they’re still a popular choice, not least because the ink also washes easily out of children’s clothes!

Pilot dabbled with their own erasable gel pen around 2001, the name of which escapes us (a prize to the first comment naming it).  This wasn’t a great success and was soon withdrawn.

However Pilot had also been experimenting with colour-changing ink and in what we like to imagine as something of a eureka  moment at the Pilot labs, someone changed an ink colour from black to no colour – transparent.  The ink was effectively erased.

This miraculous ink is thermo-sensitive – it changes when subjected to heat.  How do you apply heat simply and easily to a line on a page?  Easy – just rub it hard enough and the resulting friction generates enough heat to initiate the reaction.

So the Pilot FriXion was born.  A gel rollerball with an eraser on the end.  Write normally, with all the usual attributes of a decent gel pen – smooth writing with dense, vivid ink colour – but just rub the line with the eraser and voila! – it disappears easily and completely.   The ink is still there on the paper but the heat has caused the ink colour to disappear completely.  You can just rewrite over the erased line using the same pen.  All rather brilliant, especially as there’s 8 colours to choose from.

However it gets better.   Put the paper in a freezer for a few minutes and any erasings will reappear!  Excellent!   This process caused much excitement in magic circles – there are a few elaborate tricks involving FriXion pens out there so if you see any magicians making writing appear and disappear chances are that there’s a FriXion involved somewhere.

When erased lines reappear they are generally a little smudged as the rubbing process pushes the ink around on the paper a bit.  However, if you can erase without rubbing then they come back pristine and clear.  To do this you just need to apply heat.  Cult Pens labs managed this with a lightbulb (of the planet-warming, incandescent type), but don’t try this at home – paper + heat = flames if you’re not careful!   One customer asked us if she could use an iron to bulk erase notes from a book.  We speculated that it would probably work, though we hadn’t tried it.  We didn’t hear back so we’re still none the wiser.   Apparently microwaves work as well…   There are all kinds of fun and games to be had – try a sticking a FriXion-written Post-It on the side of a mug of hot tea.   (When we played around with this we found that with the tea at a certain temperature the ink erased when the Post-It was stuck to the mug, but instantly re-appeared when removed.  Put it back on, disappears again; take it off appears; put it back…  Keeps us amused for hours. )

We also started thinking about using the process in reverse.  Back at Cult Pens labs we gently raised the temperature of a FriXion refill to 60 degrees C.  As expected the ink was now clear – invisible ink!  We scribbled a brief note, completely invisible on the page, chucked it in the freezer, and the note magically appeared.  At last – we had a secure message system for secret communications with Antarctic penguins!  (Their iPhones  stop working at minus forty).

FriXion was an instant and enormous success for Pilot, selling over 7 million units in the first year.  Cult Pens was the first website in the UK to sell them and unusually Pilot launched the product in Europe before Japan, leading to us shipping the Japanese-made pens back to Japanese customers.

Five years later FriXion is the second best-selling pen behind only the venerable BIC Cristal biro and over 100 million units have now been sold in Europe alone.   FriXion now comprises a range of pens including the FriXion Light Highlighter, FriXion Slim premium metal version and FriXion Point fine-tip needlepoint roller.   All FriXion pens except the highlighters are refillable too.  December 2011 sees the launch of the long-awaited retractable version – the FriXion Clicker , while in Japan only at present there’s even a range of FriXion felt tips and ‘pencils’ in 24 colours.

So get yourself some FriXion – pens have never been so much fun!

Pilot Frixion UK microsite

Pilot FriXion at Cult Pens

• Silky-smooth lead that’s a pleasure to write with.
• A soft eraser tip that actually erases cleanly without smudging or abrading the paper.
• Quality lead properly bonded to high-quality cedar that ensures effortless sharpening with minimal breakage.

The 2001 adds to all this by having an easy-grip triangular barrel studded with non-slip dots – a real benefit in a catering environment.
The fact that the 2001 is also a seriously cool-looking pencil in elegant grey with black dots and a black eraser and ferrule was simply the icing on the cake.

They are of course much more expensive than the no-brand pencils but the owners and staff of the pub couldn’t believe the difference. Worth it? Well, as with any task, if an inferior tool is simply making the job more difficult then you need better tools. The old axioms that ‘you get what you pay for’, or ‘buy cheap, buy twice’ are as valid for pens and pencils as for anything else.
We should also mention that a factor in taking the pain out of pencils is a quality sharpener. No matter how high quality the pencil, if the sharpener is poor or just worn out then it will keep breaking lead. For the pub we installed a Faber-Castell Desk Sharpener – solid, reliable and stays where it’s put!
We celebrated a successful conclusion with another beer (it would have been rude not to) and then wandered down to the local Thai restaurant for a takeaway. This is an establishment that had already found the right tool for the job without our assistance. Their favoured writing implement is the Zebra F-301 Deluxe Stainless-Steel ballpoint. Tough, reliable, smooth-writing, retractable, pocketable and looks infinitely smarter than any cheap throwaway, yet they’re great value. The refills are economical and with a fine point they’re perfect for writing Asian characters and long lists on small pads. Once again the right tool was making life just that little bit easier.
Back at our painting, we binned the cheap brushes and purchased some fine Harris No-Loss brushes from the local DIY shed. The paint glided on with half the effort and a marked decrease in swearing. Job finished, it was off to our new local, The Rat & Rollerball, for a reviving pint. Now, what pens are they using?

Many thanks to Gerard for his contribution to our blog. We know Gerard from our association with the SfEP – the Society for Editors and Proofreaders – which promotes high editorial standards. I’m sure most of our customers will agree that a pen is not just a pen. At Cult Pens we firmly believe in the right tool for the job and we certainly have the widest range of the ‘write tools’ available anywhere!

The earliest pencils were simply solid sticks of graphite originating from the only known source of solid graphite, in Borrowdale in the English Lake District. As the popularity of this useful new tool spread more convenient handling methods started with simple cloth or sheepskin wraps, and then hollowed-out wooden holders. At some point it was realized that the best method was to use two shaped pieces of wood with a channel cut out into which the graphite is inserted. The two halves are then glued together – et voilà! – the modern pencil is born and that method is still pretty much intact today. The only substantive change since then was the move to lead made from powdered graphite, which is a much more common source of the material. This method involves baking a mixture of graphite and a clay binding agent, and was discovered by Nicholas Conté, whose name is still on a great pencil brand today. Varying the proportion of these materials gives us the relative hardness or softness of the lead. See our lead hardness information page for details. Pencil ‘lead’ contains no actual lead (the metallic element) of course, but you know that. Graphite is a form of pure carbon, non-toxic and very stable. Fascinatingly a single atomic layer of graphite has some extraordinary properties and is the new wonder-material du jour, graphene.

Anyway, where were we? Ah yes, scroll forward several hundred years and we find ourselves on Staedtler’s stand at PaperWorld 2011, Frankfurt, where there was a demonstration of semi-authentic 18th century pencil manufacture by a semi-authentic 18th century craftsman. Batches of wood pencil halves with channels cut through; lengths of extruded lead; some glue; press the halves together; bind with some string and apply a little wax seal to hold the string and brand the product. The poor chap was there for several days manufacturing these things whilst wearing a silly hat, but somebody’s got to do it. Our hand-made pencil now has pride of place here at Cult Pens Towers.

So, all terribly interesting we hear you politely say, but what’s in it for us? OK, listen up: Staedtler produced a little commemorative make-your-own-pencil kit which they opted not to bring to the UK. However the lovely people at Staedtler UK are nothing if not obliging and we’ve managed to get hold of five pencil kits to give away to lucky participants in a little give-away.

The set, it has to be said, is pretty simple but it’s presented in a nice tin and would make a great gift for a child for a little painless craft + history lesson, or just as a nice Staedtler collectors’ item.

OK, you’re going to have work just a little bit for this one. We’ll award a kit each to four people who post the best comments to this article – that interest, amuse, educate, entertain or baffle us on the subject of pencils. No essays required – just one sentence could do it! A fact, a memory, an observation, an opinion, a haiku, a joke, or whatever. For the terminally lazy and/or uninspired, the fifth kit will be awarded at random to someone who retweets our announcement of this competition – check out @cultpens. The overall winner, as determined by popular vote at the Cult Pens office, will receive a load of extra Staedtler goodies.
Small print: We’ll even post these internationally, so everyone’s eligible. You can enter as many times as you like. Closing date 31 August. Judges decision is final. No penguins.

Meanwhile, in other Staedtler news you can currently pick up a sample of their excellent 308 Pigment Liner drawing pen from us for just 10p (offer now expired) or qualify for a free set of 4 Lumocolor markers when you spend £25. Cult Pens stocks the widest range of Staedtler products in the UK, and probably the widest range in the world. Great company, great products. (Yes, yes, we’re shamelessly begging for another birthday invitation to Nuremberg! We miss the bier und bratwurst.)

Recommended reading:
Staedtler History · Pencils at Wikipedia · Graphite at Wikipedia · Graphene at Wikipedia · Bratwurst at Wikipedia

Uni POSCA Markers are on the road in the south-west from today with their Freedom To Create roadshow. A classic VW camper with POSCA branding will be visiting Cornwall and Devon to give people the opportunity to try out POSCA markers, with the chance to win an iPad 2.
Visitors to the van will be able to customise any of their own objects with the versatile markers which can decorate almost anything from a surfboard to a pair of shoes. In addition they can add their own design to a POSCA surfboard which will be covered in a patchwork created throughout the tour. The best design will win an iPad 2.
The tour kicked off at the Cult Pens offices in Tiverton this afternoon where the Cult Pens team road-tested POSCA markers on an array of random items found in our office including pen pots, t-shirts and an inflatable shark (every office should have one!).

Friday 12th August and Saturday 13th the POSCA van will be at the Boardmasters, Newquay Fistral and at Watergate Bay, Newquay. On Sunday 14th at Falmouth Pier, Mount Hawke skatepark and Seaview Holiday Park, St Austell. Monday 15th at Seaview and beaches between St Austell and Milbrook. Tuesday 16th at Blackpool Sands, South Devon (one the UK’s most beautiful beaches – go there if you can) and at Trago Mills, Newton Abbot. More venues and dates to follow – for updates follow @uni_posca or the Uni-ball fan page of Facebook.

POSCA Markers are a brilliant art and craft tool whether you want to decorate a wall or a plant pot. Available in up to 35 colours and 9 different tip sizes. They contain water-based paint which is opaque, non-toxic, lightfast and waterproof. Until September 11th get an extra 10% off POSCA prices at Cult Pens by clicking here.

POSCA at Cult Pens

Our iPod nano giveaway in conjunction with Staedtler has just finished.  The lucky winner is Ernest Carrott of Tottenham.  Congratulations to him, and his iPod nano is winging its way there as I type.

Our next giveaway is even bigger and better – we’re giving away a free iPad 2 with Pilot Frixion.  Find out why Pilot Frixion is a truly amazing erasable pen here.  All Frixion purchases between 1st August 2011 and 30 September 2011 qualify for automatic entry into a prize draw for one iPad 2 16Gb.  Click the image below for full details.  Good luck!

As we arrived at our hotel even the receptionist was excited – practically falling over herself in her eagerness to hand us the welcome pack from Faber-Castell.  We’d just arrived in Nuremberg, Germany, as guests of Faber-Castell on the evening before the celebrations on 8th July 2011 to mark 250 years since the founding of the company in 1761.

The next day we would be joining 5,000 other guests from all over the world to congratulate Count Anton W. von Faber-Castell and his company on their achievement.  Our anticipation was tempered slightly by the inclusion in the welcome pack of Faber-Castell umbrellas.  The evening was humid and threatening, and the main party tomorrow was to be outdoors.  Sure enough, shortly after a refreshing al fresco landbier in the Hauptmarkt we retired to a nearby restaurant, the atmospheric Heilig-Geist-Spital, just as the heavens opened.  A sustained and torrential downpour with an enthusiastic accompaniment of thunder and lightning.  It was still raining Katzen and Hunde as we left and we thought of the poor Faber-Castell staff who would have been setting up the garden party that day.

The next day was fresher though still damp and grey, though the guests assembling after breakfast were in high spirits.  Our hotel alone had guests from Bolivia, Peru, Korea, Japan, Czech Republic, France and the UK.  As the first of the coaches arrived we found ourselves in the hands of Nicole, our designated escort for the event.  Briskly marshalling the various nationalities, our German shepherd loaded us on board for the first event of the day at the Frankenhalle – the vast hall in the impressive CongressCenter Nuremberg.

Outside the Frankenhalle the excitement all around was palpable and we started to realise the scale of the event.  Sixty countries were represented and the lead representatives of those were dressed in national costume.  Everybody else was dressed somewhere between smartly and spectacularly.  We accepted security passes, translation headsets and a glass of champagne and as we filed into the huge hall it felt like a cross between the Eurovision Song Contest and the Oscars.

Welcome messages were projected on an impressive 120m x 6m wrap-around screen and eventually the proceedings got underway.   Tributes came in from German Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel via a video screen, plus Dr. Günther Beckstein, the former Prime Minister of Bavaria, and Dr. Ulrich Maly, Mayor of Nuremberg.   Count Anton-Wolfgang Graf von Faber-Castell, 8th generation of his family to lead the company, then gave a speech which was humble and inspirational.

There followed a interesting programme covering the history of Faber-Castell, making good use of the whole of the giant screen.  Fascinating stuff and far too much information to convey here but a key figure was Lothar von Faber, who in the mid-nineteenth century not only expanded and modernised the business, improved quality and secured valuable sole rights to high-quality Siberian graphite; he was also a pioneer and reformer in the areas of workers’ welfare, social responsibility and education.  He was elevated to the hereditary peerage for his efforts.  The current CEO, Count Anton Wolfgang has continued in this vein – not only leading the brand strongly into the 21st century but doing so with a major commitment to international labour rights and environmental responsibility.

The history segued seamlessly into a spectacular laser show and the Count and his wife the Countess Mary took to the stage to a huge ovation.  They were joined by their children and then by senior employees and finally by flag-bearers from the 60 countries.  A rousing rendition of Queen’s ‘We Are The Champions’ sung by an enthusiastic Malaysian manager concluded proceedings and we congregated outside in the (enormous) foyer for drinks and Nuremberg sausages.   Fantastically, while were in the hall the skies had cleared and the day was now officially gorgeous.

Nicole eventually (“I’ve lost Bolivia!”) rounded us up and we were shipped back to our hotels to change into our party gear before being driven to the Faber Schloss for the evening’s festivities.   A stunning setting for a party: a beautiful and elegant castle, leafy grounds, huge gazebos to keep any weather off; pavilions representing each Faber-Castell manufacturing country; a big stage and a vast array of food and drinks tents.  Sunshine + music + 5,000 happy people = a great time.

Highlights:  The count’s brother’s eccentric performance on stage; scores of hyper-enthusiastic Malaysian employees; endless good German beer; a brilliant band; the British contingent’s commitment to dancing to that band; a mesmerizing dance and light show after dark against the castle façade; fireworks; managing to keep going until 2am.

And at 10:30am the next day they bussed us back again to give us brunch!

A wonderful time was had by all and huge thanks go to Count Anton and his staff for looking after everyone so well, and to Stone Marketing, the UK distributor for Faber-Castell, for taking us along for the ride.

We genuinely believe that Faber-Castell is a great company with committed people making superb products, all with a concern for social and environmental issues.  Cult Pens is proud to be a leading online retailer for Faber-Castell in the UK, with the widest range of Faber-Castell writing and drawing products available anywhere.

PRIZE! To commemorate both Faber-Castell’s 250th anniversary and our inaugural blog post, we’ll give away a Faber-Castell goodie-bag including a couple of anniversary items to the author of a randomly-selected comment to this post.  Thanks for reading.

UPDATE! We’ve scoured the office for the prize contents and have put together a box of great bits and pieces from Faber-Castell, including some smart Design range pens, lots of pens and pencils altogether worth well over £120.  Then we added some cute 250th anniversary items begged and borrowed from Faber-Castell.   The draw will close at midnight Thursday 28 July 2011 BST (that’s British Summer Time folks).  We’ll announce a winner on Friday.  Thanks for all the comments so far!

AND THE WINNER IS… Count the comments… go to random.org… the adjudicators confer… drum roll…  hush descends…  Comment #3 – Andrew!  Plus special judges prize to Louise at Comment #1 for being the first comment and the most surreal.  Trumpet fanfares and it’s all over bar the shouting.

Thanks to everyone who commented – we’ll do it all again in 250 years.  Andrew, Louise – we’ll be in touch.