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Anyone Like Pencils?


bdws1975

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Good for you.

 

Personally, I prefer to buy from people who don't INTENTIONALLY disturb ecosystems for their own gain. Call it quaint, stupid, or whatever you like.

 

Brett

 

Oh maybe you are asking a simple business 101 question. Well I would say that if a manufacturer is making a quality product that sells in the marketplace , the demand will continue to sustain their business. If not, they will go out of business. So those businesses still making pencils after all these years have sustained themselves quite well.

I think the poster was referring to environmental sustainability issues, such as how the wood is acquired and processed. This is something a few companies use to market their products. I remember the company O'Bon spammed Penciltalk a few years ago with false identities trying to promote their environmentally-friendly pencil products. Their marketing tactics convinced me to never buy from them. Not even CalCedar with their nasty Blackwing marketing has made me that bitter.

 

Oh, well I don't care about all that nonsense, and really have no idea what "environmental sustainability" even means in real, practical terms. I go by quality and performance with what I buy, and if it happens to be "eco friendly" I may notice that as an interesting aside. Good example is the Staples eco sugarcane tablets. I only buy those because inks don't bleed through like other papers, and they show secondary shimmering colors extremely well. If it was made out of butterfly wings and performed the same, I would buy it.

Esterbrook SJ with Levenger Empyrean Blue.

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Oh maybe you are asking a simple business 101 question. Well I would say that if a manufacturer is making a quality product that sells in the marketplace , the demand will continue to sustain their business. If not, they will go out of business. So those businesses still making pencils after all these years have sustained themselves quite well.

I think the poster was referring to environmental sustainability issues, such as how the wood is acquired and processed. This is something a few companies use to market their products. I remember the company O'Bon spammed Penciltalk a few years ago with false identities trying to promote their environmentally-friendly pencil products. Their marketing tactics convinced me to never buy from them. Not even CalCedar with their nasty Blackwing marketing has made me that bitter.

 

Oh, well I don't care about all that nonsense, and really have no idea what "environmental sustainability" even means in real, practical terms. I go by quality and performance with what I buy, and if it happens to be "eco friendly" I may notice that as an interesting aside. Good example is the Staples eco sugarcane tablets. I only buy those because inks don't bleed through like other papers, and they show secondary shimmering colors extremely well. If it was made out of butterfly wings and performed the same, I would buy it.

 

Good for you.

 

Personally, I prefer to buy from people who don't INTENTIONALLY disturb ecosystems for their own gain. Call it quaint, stupid, or whatever you like.

 

Brett

 

 

As far as I can tell everyone making any large scale manufactured product is INTENTIONALLY disturbing ecosystems for their own gain. There's the footprint of the factory, resources, energy, transportation, distribution, etc. that comes with anything. I said what I said mainly because when you get into the actual facts, details, and repercussions of what appears to be, or is promoted as eco-friendly, it's not what it seems (i.e. most labels end up being (bleep)). Who are the people with sufficient integrity and incorruptibility to bestow and guarantee an "eco-friendly" label that you can trust (and who verifies they are keeping the trust)?

 

And you better get started talking to the exploding populations in developing countries. Hard to imagine still calling China a developing country. Human population growth taking over virgin forest land to live is a more serious threat than some dudes buying pencils. I also wonder how many out of control forest fires happen with far more severe environment & air pollution damage because logging and new planting growth is environmentally blocked in so many areas. In any case, I respect your choice, and do not consider it quaint, stupid, or whatever. Whatever emerging sprouts of environmental consciousness I had years ago got extinguished with the corn ethanol and CFL mercury light bulb fiascoes.

 

Back to pencils.

With the new FPN rules, now I REALLY don't know what to put in my signature.

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all good points no doubt. I suppose in a world as interconnected as ours is it's difficult to be 'blameless'.

 

anyway, thanks for the food for thought.

 

brett

 

Oh maybe you are asking a simple business 101 question. Well I would say that if a manufacturer is making a quality product that sells in the marketplace , the demand will continue to sustain their business. If not, they will go out of business. So those businesses still making pencils after all these years have sustained themselves quite well.

I think the poster was referring to environmental sustainability issues, such as how the wood is acquired and processed. This is something a few companies use to market their products. I remember the company O'Bon spammed Penciltalk a few years ago with false identities trying to promote their environmentally-friendly pencil products. Their marketing tactics convinced me to never buy from them. Not even CalCedar with their nasty Blackwing marketing has made me that bitter.

 

Oh, well I don't care about all that nonsense, and really have no idea what "environmental sustainability" even means in real, practical terms. I go by quality and performance with what I buy, and if it happens to be "eco friendly" I may notice that as an interesting aside. Good example is the Staples eco sugarcane tablets. I only buy those because inks don't bleed through like other papers, and they show secondary shimmering colors extremely well. If it was made out of butterfly wings and performed the same, I would buy it.

 

Good for you.

 

Personally, I prefer to buy from people who don't INTENTIONALLY disturb ecosystems for their own gain. Call it quaint, stupid, or whatever you like.

 

Brett

 

 

As far as I can tell everyone making any large scale manufactured product is INTENTIONALLY disturbing ecosystems for their own gain. There's the footprint of the factory, resources, energy, transportation, distribution, etc. that comes with anything. I said what I said mainly because when you get into the actual facts, details, and repercussions of what appears to be, or is promoted as eco-friendly, it's not what it seems (i.e. most labels end up being (bleep)). Who are the people with sufficient integrity and incorruptibility to bestow and guarantee an "eco-friendly" label that you can trust (and who verifies they are keeping the trust)?

 

And you better get started talking to the exploding populations in developing countries. Hard to imagine still calling China a developing country. Human population growth taking over virgin forest land to live is a more serious threat than some dudes buying pencils. I also wonder how many out of control forest fires happen with far more severe environment & air pollution damage because logging and new planting growth is environmentally blocked in so many areas. In any case, I respect your choice, and do not consider it quaint, stupid, or whatever. Whatever emerging sprouts of environmental consciousness I had years ago got extinguished with the corn ethanol and CFL mercury light bulb fiascoes.

 

Back to pencils.

Esterbrook SJ with Levenger Empyrean Blue.

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  • 4 years later...

Mechanical pencils have always been my favorite writing instrument. Even after I discovered fountain pens. After I stopped buying fountain pens, I decided to look at wooden pencils since I could purchase a variety of the best pencils in the world for the price of a single fountain pen.

 

Now I've got a small collection of wooden pencils that I'm working through, and one or two fountain pens that I keep inked up, but I do the bulk of my writing with mechanical pencils and a small handful of other pens (gels, porous tips, and some space pens).

 

Anyone who has a fine enough touch to appreciate fountain pens will probably similarly appreciate a quality pencil. But pencils are so much more affordable. Why not try both?

 

--flatline

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  • 2 weeks later...

Pentel anyone?

 

Absolutely. The Pentel "Sensi-grip" was my first quality pencil 20+ years ago and it's still one of my favorites.

 

--flatline

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