Timberlines

A Derwent Christmas

2009-12-15T16:39:00.001-08:00

I received this Christmas Greeting image in an e-mail from Cumberland Pencil Company today and thought it was a creative use of a pencil and pencil shavings to design an artistic Christmas tree. Cumberland has been a long time customer of our company using cedar slats historically in their Derwent brand pencils. Derwent is considered to be one of the premier professional artist ranges worldwide, particularly with respect to their innovative line of color pencils exhibiting excellent color fastness and other features including the Inktense line.

Of course Cumberland has a storied history in the pencil industry having been founded nearby the original Borrowdale graphite mines discovered in the 1500s. Cumberland established it's Pencil Museum near it's old factory site in Keswick and has become a regular tourist attraction when visiting the lovely Lake District of Northwest England. The Museum website also has interesting history if you'd like to learn more about pencils. A couple years ago Cumberland moved their manufacturing operations to a brand new site within the area, a rare commitment for a European or US manufacturer to invest in new facilities domestically.

For more on cedar and a Christmas association visit my old Timberlines post A Very Cedar Christmas.

A Day in the Woods

2009-12-02T20:31:00.001-08:00

A nice clear, cool day in the Collins Almanor Forest today where I visited Collins Lumber Company in Chester, CA. Collins is our supply partner for the FSC Certified Incense-cedar lumber used in our own ForestChoice Pencils and CalCedar's FSC Certified pencil slats supplied to manufacturer such as Caran d'Ache.

It was nice to be back in a more rural forest setting even if just for the day including stopping in town for a Latte at The Coffee Station. Chester at this time of year has a great feel of small town America, not so busy as during the Summer months with all the vacationers to Lake Almanor and the Lassen National Park. Checking the local paper over coffee the big news of the day was a classic example of a small town scandal. The front page story discusses the community healing process initiated to come to terms with the decision of the local high school principal to dispose of 25-30 sports trophies. In one of my favorite comments one Alumni stated that disposing of the trophies showed a “total lack of understanding about small schools and small towns."

Following our productive meeting with Collins Pine we drove to Redding to meet with another supplier Sierra Pacific Industries which provides our cedar lumber under the Sustainable Forest Initiative (SFI) & PEFC certification programs. Our drive took us through the Collins Almanor Forest, Lassen National Forest, Lassen Volcanic National Park and timberlands owned by Sierra Pacific. The two forest images here are of the Collins including a small group of Incense-cedar trees about 50 years old plus the Coffee Station.

In an upcoming post I'll be covering some more detailed updates and views on issues related to the FSC and SFI/PEFC certification schemes as well as information related to the developing carbon offset credit market with respect to California forests.

These Collectors Can't See the Art for the Trees

2009-11-29T11:18:00.000-08:00

I've always had an interest in understanding how different economic, business and social principles apply to different industries and markets, particularly with respect to historical development of markets over time. Lately I've been reading more about the economics of the Art market leading me to an article by Paco Barragan at ARTPULSE Magazine titled "The New Spirit of Collecting: From Macenas to Prescriptor to Speculator". The article focuses on the historic transition of collecting art from a system of patronage and philanthropic support of the arts through to those who Paco describes as while still maintaining some sense of "the rank of trophy predators" now have set a new trend as "aggressive and benefit-seeking sharks" who's only motivation is to drive up the value of their holdings whatever level of undue influence and market manipulation is required.

He goes on to state that this trend is now pushing it's way into the European collector's psyche:

"Furthermore, the traditional European collector, with an extensive knowledge of art history and a profound respect for artists and art professionals, has given way to a new breed of collector inspired by the "American Model," based upon aggressive price negotiation, quick access to board of trustees of museums n order to conveniently push his artists, and in the end, the attainment of significant economic results for his investment in art."

Barragan appears to be describing a bunch of Wall Street speculators gone wild referring to a the neo-capitalism model of art collecting. Next he'll be calling for government intervention and regulation of the Art Market and as much as implies he would be a supporter of such a concept:

"Obviously there's a "new spirit of collecting," which has come along with the "new spirit of capitalism" ... that, I am afraid, not even Obama will be able to regulate."

As with any free market the excess of a few collectors who perhaps cannot see the Art for the Trees will always push the envelop. In my view the mainstream art collector still acquires based upon personal sense of appreciation for the art and artist on their own merit, not based on some fanatical obsession with profit making. Let's not overreact to the actions of a few and in my view if Barragan thinks the art world has not seen likes of obsessive promoters with good connections to ultimate benefactors and collectors for hundreds of years then he's generally naive.

One of the blessings of all the new social media is it's facilitation of sharing and appreciation of art and interactions among artists, fans and collectors alike. It may not be the most profitable means of getting rich as an artist, bit these media are opening up new windows for artists and becoming more of the mainstream (truly neo-capitalist) means for art distribution over time. Perhaps there will be some commoditization effect that impact valuation, but ultimately a greater number of artists will benefit as a whole vs. those playing in the shark tank who rise and fall as most speculative markets do over time. I think we pencil collectors and other art fans on the web need not worry much about these "aggressive benefit seeking sharks" out there.

Maintaining Tradition and Values in the Face of Change

2009-11-13T10:22:00.000-08:00

In prior posts I’ve focused on many developments affecting the Pencil industry and how companies have reacted in their business operations and strategies to these external influences. I’ve covered trends such as globalization and growth of imports; consolidation within both manufacturing and distribution channels and the resulting rationalization of brand ranges and manufacturing facilities. I’ve also commented on anti-dumping duties and other trade, environmental and product safety issues. Most of these posts have focused on larger industry players and their adaptation and leadership embracing change to remake their companies (i.e. generally the acquirers and market share leaders) with both positive and negative impacts on quality, customer perceptions, market share, and other typical measures of business and industry success.

This time I provide an alternate view, an example of a family owned and operated business in our industry that stands out for its gritty devotion to a set of traditional values, processes and standards. Historically such family owned and operated companies were the norm in our business. While many companies throughout the world pencil industry remain privately held and controlled by their founding families, quite a few have become actively involved in shaping and driving many of these industry trends. This includes our own business California Cedar Products Company which despite our continued devotion to sourcing US grown Incense-cedar as the raw material for our #1 product line, CalCedar® slats, we relocated slat production to our new Tianjin, China facility in 2001 closing our US based slat and sawmill operations soon thereafter.

General Pencil Company, was originally founded by Edward Weissenborn as the Pencil Exchange in Jersey City, NJ in 1889. The company is devoted to providing sustainably produced products under their General’s® brand range for artists of all ages, skills and abilities; amateur and professional alike. While General has added a range of complementary art supplies to build out the product range through the years its stable of wood cased pencils produced from Genuine Incense-cedar remain as a central foundation of the product quality and performance. The company continues to this day as a fully integrated pencil factory in its original Jersey City location producing its own graphite and other special formulation cores in house.
Proudly made in the USA is a vital principle for General’s® brand pencils. General refuses to import cores and leads or increasing proportions of raw, semi-finished or even finished pencils as opposed to all other US based pencil manufacturers who have long since adopted such practices.

While the CalCedar® slats they use are produced by us in our China operation the wood itself is 100% grown in the USA. General is essentially the only remaining US pencil manufacturer exclusively devoted to a Made in USA and predominant USA component supply strategy. Given the recent relocation of Newell Rubbermaid Lewisburg, TN operations to Mexicali, Mexico, (yet another victim to global manufacturing rationalization) General is now one of 3 remaining US based pencil factories producing for the art and writing pencil market which have vertically integrated processes from wood milling department forward to finish product. The others all import some varying degree of pencils and cores as a relevant part of their supply chain strategy.

Another core value at General Pencil Company is the Weissenborn family’s commitment to consistently producing a high quality product from then best quality sustainable materials. General’s® products are well known by both professional and other devoted artists as being produced to exacting standards to provide reliable performance whatever the application. General’s dedication to traditional internal standards of fine craftsmanship and manufacturing processes assures this result time and again. In addition to its exclusive use of Genuine Incense-cedar slats, General also uses recycled packaging materials in the majority of their products. Additionally General is devoted to producing consumer friendly and safe products which are tested and certified under both the PMA Seal and under the Art & Creative Materials Institute (ACMI) Program.

Certainly many industry participants also produce safe, high quality products with an emphasis on sustainability. Many businesses also have multi-generational family ownership. In my view what is of exceptional note is that General Pencil Company, the Weissenborn family and employees of the company truly live up to these values while continuing to exclusively produce in their original Jersey City factory for over 120 years now. General is a company dedicated to supporting the local workforce (many are also multigenerational employees) in a culture indicative of traditional family values that extend also to the customer service experience. General faces the same competitive pressures all of us face in this industry, but they continue to hold firm and thrive as a result. Speaking from personal experience from a multi-generational family business manager who guided our own company through a challenging manufacturing and market rationalization to off-shore production this commitment and dedication deserves great respect.

As two companies and two families, General Pencil and California Cedar and our respective owners have had a long and positive relationship. I am proud to be associated with this relationship and especially pleased to announce the addition of General’s® products to our Pencils.com Store to further build on this partnership. Indeed with this latest collaboration another generation of both families has worked together on a cooperative industry project. These are represented by Kirstin (5th generation descendant of founder Edward Weissenborn) and my son Philip (a 4th Generation Berolzheimer now helping out at California Cedar Products and 7th generation relative to our family involvement in the pencil industry when consideration of Eagle Pencil Company ). These two focused on setting up the products on the Pencils.com store as well as posting product information pages and developing initial promotional materials for the launch. Thanks for their efforts and here’s a toast to a new generation of promise for the supply of high quality sustainable products from tradition driven family owned pencil industry businesses.

Frankfurt Paperworld 2009: Pencil Report Part 1

2009-02-06T07:08:00.000-08:00

Frankfurt Paperworld 2009 is a few days behind me, though I still have quite a follow-up list from my meetings with customers and suppliers. Thus posting my Paperworld Pencil Report for you enthusiasts out there has taken a back seat. I do see there were a few other “reporters” out there covering new pencil related items they found. Some of these items I’ll comment on in the context of my post which will be more focused on common themes and trends for the show this year as relates to pencils and the pencil industry. Of course pencils are just a very small part of Paperworld which covers so many product categories and some themes I cover are applicable to these products as well.

The first theme seems to be the ever increasing barrage of marketing and promotion of “Green” products and processes to produce not just pencils, but many writing, art and stationery items exhibited this year. The fascinating thing to me about this is how many different types of green positions, often conflicting in message, that are being espoused for various products. Some efforts I simply consider “green washing” while others offer legitimate improvements in environmental impacts related tor raw materials used or production processes employed.

Wooden products have long been positioned as green for the renewable resource characteristic of the raw material. The addition of various and competing forest and Chain-of-custody certification schemes such as FSC and PEFC are more and more frequently used in our industry, primarily for paper products, pencils and more traditional building materials, though less often seen at this point for other home, office and school products produced from wood. While these schemes are much well known and supported by consumers in Europe there is increasing awareness here in the US. More and more often pencil manufacturers are moving towards implementing some form of third party certified wood pencil for a broader portion of their product range. This is especially in the light of new regulatory actions such as the 2008 amendment to the US Lacey Act which seeks to extend protection of endangered plants to include all manner of wooden products imported to the US. Similar legislative actions are under review in Europe and will be an increasing challenge not just to the pencil industry, but the global wood products industry as a whole. I expect to write more on this legislative topic and its projected impact on the industry in a future Timberlines post.

The most notable new certified wooden pencil at Paperworld this year is the new STABILO Green Range (image above). This range from Schwan-STABILO features the 100% FSC certification label and initially covers about 4-5 different pencil products with the intent to add new FSC certified pencil items over time. For more information see the STABILO Green Pencil Library Wiki page at our Pencils.com site. Of course Faber-Castell has long touted their leadership in FSC certification of the majority of their pencils and other European brands such as Caran d’Ache have had FSC certified products for some time, as well as our own California Republic ForestChoice brand which was the first FSC certified pencil offered to the market. As the leading supplier of FSC certified Incense-cedar and FSC Basswood to the pencil industry our company is experiencing increased demand for our FSC certified pencil slats.

Plastics and recycled products are also increasingly positioned as green. Our industry is clearly experiencing a re-emergence of the extruded plastic pencil. It was even interesting to see some standard PVC type plastic products from Asia being positioned as green simply for the fact they are “woodless”. However, most of the traditional plastic pencils are actually a composite of wood flour and plastics so technically they are not woodless. The Remarkeable Pencil has different versions produced from recycled cd cases, plastic cups and a variety of other materials. Bic’s Conte Evolution has been the market leader in plastic extruded pencils ever since Newell discontinued production at the former Empire EPCON facility in Shelbyville, TN some years back. However as BIC long since stopped exhibiting at Paperworld I am not certain what specific environmental claims they make regarding the Evolution these days. Chinese and other developing country companies have increased investment in plastic pencils production as well, though in these cases it’s most often to address economic concerns as wood costs for pencils have been increasing over past several years.

The major announcement on the extruded pencil front is the new Staedtler WOPEX pencil which they gave top billing and emphasis as their new product at Paperworld. This pencil has already been reported on at Lexikaliker blog in German. I was able to meet the Director of R&D at Staedtler who presented this product introduction to me. First, the name is a form of anagram for the words Wood, Pencil & Extrusion. I did find it somewhat interesting that a leading German writing instrument company used an English anagram to name its new product, but I guess this simply reflects the current state of the use of English more globally. The key features of this pencil are that a full 70% of the raw material used is wood flour. So Staedtler is pushing the recycling of wood and minimization of recycled plastic with respect to environmental positioning. Also the pencil is definitely more rigid than other plastic pencils I have seen and they indicate they will produce it in three grades H, HB & B. It did write better than my experience with most other plastic pencils. Finally the rubberized surface has more ergonomic properties similar to their Ergosoft range. As I understand it they do not intend this to be a cheaper substitute for wood pencils, but a value added product preaching it’s performance and green benefits.

That’s it for this Part 1 report as it got way longer than planned, as usual. Tune in for Frankfurt Paperworld 2009: Pencil Report – Part 2 where I’ll focus on the industry impacts and reactions to the current World Economic and Recessionary environment.

And Then There Were Three??

2008-12-06T07:28:00.000-08:00

Recently Newell-Rubbermaid (a.ka. Sanford Brands when it comes to writing instruments) announced the planned closure of it's Lewisburg, TN pencil manufacturing facility. This was part of a general restructuring involving at least 4 of Sanford's US manufacturing facilities in Tennessee including also the towns of Shelbyville, Manchester and Maryville. Thier announcement to suppliers states:

"Manchester will become our global center of excellence for ink manufacturing. We started construction in October on this state-of-the-art facility, which will be the largest writing ink plant in the world."

"We will move manufacturing operations from Shelbyville to Maryville by the end of 2009. Maryville will become the center of manufacturing excellence for markers, highlighters and dry erase products under the Sharpie®, Expo® and other brands. Additionally, we will construct a new specialty packaging facility adjacent to our Shelbyville distribution center. This packaging center of excellence will incorporate best in class packaging processes that will allow us to better meet and exceed customer requirements."

and ...

"We will close our Lewisburg facility by the end of Q3 2009. Production will be moved to other Newell Rubbermaid facilities, including Maryville."

However, it has not been formally announced what their specific plans are for wood-cased pencil manufacturing. There is some speculation all wood cased pencil production will move to other Newell (Sanford) facilities outside of the US, specifically Mexicali, Mexico (graphite) and to Bogota, Columbia where color pencils are now produced for the Latin America market. Perhaps reserving just packaging operations for US facilities. So there is a chance this development would leave the US with just three remaining wood-cased pencil manufacturing facilities serving the traditional writing and art pencil market: General Pencil Co. (Jersey City, NJ) , Musgrave Pencil Co. (Shelbyville, TN) and MegaBrand's RoseMoon facility (formerly RoseArt and Moon Pencil/Products in Lewisburg, TN). Currently Megabrands Stationery and Activity business which includes the RoseMoon facility is on the market so who knows what teh future holds for this facility.

Note that my definitition of wood-cased manufacturers specifically excludes promotional or advertising pencil operations or other "finishing" operations where the milling of the slats into pencil is not performed. There are still a number of these finishers who take either raw or painted blanks and complete assembly, finishing and packaging. My definitition also excludes cosmetic pencil manufacturing of which there is one remaining facility, Cosmolab also located in Lewisburg, TN.

With the shuttering of the Shelbyville & Lewisburg facilities Newell brings down the closing curtain on two more factory sites of historical importance to the US Pencil industry. The Shelbyville facility (located formerly on Pencil St. and now renamed Sharpie Way) was the site of the Empire-Berol facility which resulted from the consolidation of these two companies in the 1980s. Mirado and Prismacolor brands were produced at this facility before relocating to Lewisberg soon after Newell's acquisition of Berol in the mid 1990s. The Lewisburg plant, part of Newells acquisition of Faber-Castell USA (which excluded the Faber-Castell brand name rights) just a year before the Berol purchase, had a long history of swallowing up production of newly acquired pencil competitors regardless of the owner of this facility. An appropriate discussion of the Lewisburg facilities production and brand range history alone would require a separate post though I have posted on this topic before, see Mongolized. Perhaps I'll work on a more thorough history of the Lewisburg facility for a futre post timed with the actual plant closure next year.

Adding the former Empire Pencil plastic extruded pencil facility in Shelbyville this brings to a total of three the number of US pencil factories shuttered by Newell over a 15 year period in the name of building global centers of manufacturing excellence. All the while thier wood/plastic cased pencil prodction in the US has declined by about 2/3 vs total production of those facilities at the time of each acquisition. This has been accompanied by the elimination of a corresponding proportion of pencil brand names. Whether these new centers of excellence in the US will really include wood cased pencil production remains to be seen. Newell and Sanford's slogan these days is "Brands that Matter" and clearly they have been deciding for some time that most of the pencil brands they acquired just don't matter. Other than Prismacolor and now Papermate which both include a whole host of other similarly "umbrella" branded complementary products there has really been no specific marketing support to Sanford's pencil brands here in the USA.

Perhaps all this is simply a natural progression of the pencil industry where there are over 200 pencil factories in China alone battling it out and more and more US and European production is being relocated or outsourced. Pencil industry margins are very thin due to this commodity efffect and Newell's focus is clearly on higher margin businesses. It's clear Lewisburg as a stand alone pencil factory in the US produced a majority of mass market and commodity oriented products that could no longer afford the overhead of this large older and inneficient facility. Perhaps co-locating a smaller wood-cased pencil operation in a modern facility with other products in the Sanford family will result in "excellence" if they do indeed go this route vs. moving off-shore. A stronger long term commitment to creatively marketing and developing new innovative products in wood-cased pencils may have made an impact on this trend. Who knows? Though a comparison to an industry innovator such as Faber-Castell who have indeed made such a commitment does give some clue. Will Sanford now decide their remaining wood-cased pencils products are indeed Brands that Matter?

Not just another Pencil Industry Merger

2008-08-07T13:51:00.000-07:00

The trend of pencil industry consolidation continues and this time it’s a notable first from my perspective.

German pencil manufacturer Johann Froescheis Lyra Bleistift Fabrik GmbH (LYRA), a company remaining independently owned for just over 200 years has sold to the Italian Based FILA Group several generations younger at just around 80 years. While I could not find any posts yet on either company’s website I have posted an excerpt from the supplier announcement letter received today from Lyra on the Indutry News page of our Pencils.com site. A phone call to FILA owners today confirms the transaction closed on July 27, 2008.

This is the first major German pencil company that I know of to sell it’s German based pencil business to a foreign owned company. This is a separate phenomenon in my mind to German pencil companies that had established foreign subsidiaries or joint ventures in the U.S. or elsewhere many years ago some of which have since been sold off to non-German owners.

A notable example of such prior transitions include Faber-Castell USA, which was originally a German- U.S. joint venture that was eventually sold to Newell’s Sanford Group in the 1990s (Faber-Castell brand name rights reverted to Faber-Castell in Germany after a few years and now Faber-Castell USA is re-establsiehd and owned by it's German parent company, but has no pencil manufacturing base in the US). Also the Eberhard Faber USA business which also had Mexican subsidiary was eventually purchased by Faber-Castell USA before it was sold to Sanford. The Eberhard Faber USA joint ventures in Venezuela was eventually sold to local partners and subsequently acquired by Sanford once again.

LYRA is headquartered in Nürnburg, Germany, the epicenter of German pencil industry and has a rich history dating back to 1806 having just celebrated their bicentennial two years ago. LYRA products represent a leading brand in the school market in Germany with strong market presence in Austria, the Scandinavian countries, Eastern Europe and also sales companies in Singapore and China to serve the Asia market. Some LYRA products are exported to North America, but the brand does not have a big presence here. The products have a very high quality image and are characterized by some specialized shapes and sizes. Lyra was one of the early companies to actively promote triangular shaped pencils of different sizes for their ergonomic benefits particularly to children as learning pencils. They still produce most of their high end product in ther Nürnburg facility, but many more basic coloring and writing pencils are purchased from Indonesia (see prior post “170 years of Made in Germany”).

The fit with FILA Group from a product range and sales channel as well as from a complementary regional distribution standpoint is a strong one. FILA’s Giotto brands have long been the market leader in school and art supply in Italy with strong distribution in Spain and via it’s purchase many years ago of Omyacolor (the main chalk producer in the world) FILA group has good French distribution as well. In 2004 FILA acquired Dixon Ticonderoga Company which had both UK distribution and strong manufacturing and marketing presence in North & Central America plus China based slat and pencil manufacturing operations. The newly enlarged FILA Group of Companies will have much stronger European market coverage, the ability to select certain products from “cousin” brands within the FILA, Dixon and LYRA ranges for introduction into new markets under the selected brand, plus the ability to further rationalize manufacturing of certain products globally across manufacturing operations, based in Germany, Italy, China & Mexico.

So will a German-Italian marriage work in the pencil industry? I know this is a match that the FILA & LYRA ownership groups have been mulling over for several years, so it’s not being jumped into on a whim. FILA have a good track record of integrating its acquisitions in other countries though not without certain cultural challenges at times. Both FILA and LYRA communications indicate that LYRA senior management will stay in place and if that can work that’s a good thing from my perspective. Certainly the LYRA management team knows and understand their geographic markets and customers much better than FILA owners and significant changes in product, brand strategy and personel would likely make more traditionally conservative German customers wary. If FILA can bring some new products to expand LYRA brand range and simple and logical manufacturing integration without damaging quality performance and perceptions then this will have a positive impact. I suspect the largest cultural challenge will be addressing differences in financing, capital allocation, accounting and management control systems and policies.

Check back in a few days when I'll have a follow-up post comparing and contrasting market branding and manufacturing strategies of the four key companies (including the FILA Group) that I consider to be the leading "Global Branded Pencil Companies".

170 Years of Made in Germany

2008-05-07T15:41:00.000-07:00

I have just completed a new post in the Pencils.com Collectors Corner Resources page that discusses an interesting point about country of origin marking. This relates to a press release I recently read from Staedtler on the 170th anniversary of thier produciton of pencils in Germany. You can link direct to this post here.

Note that there is no intent to disparage Staedtler's reputation here just to use this post to point out a seeming global disparity in country of origin marking regulations. In Mexico the rule is different than both European Union and in the US and reliyes on % of value added content in Mexico, while US's rule is based on theory of substantial transformation.

The Myth of the Yellow Pencil

2008-04-30T14:18:00.000-07:00

With the recent 150th anniversary of the patent of the eraser tipped pencil, I have seen several new references around the web about pencils and a few indicating that 75% of pencils sold in the United States are painted yellow. At our Pencils.com site we explain the history of why so many pencils are painted yellow in the US. It's not clear to me where this estimate of 75% comes from however. Our site simply states that a majority of basic graphite writing pencils sold in the US are painted yellow and given today's market that may be generous. I have not checked Henry Petroski's book as it certainly has a reference to the genesis of painting pencils yellow although I can't recall if there is some figure stated for proportionof market as yellow painted pencils. Even so that book is now roughly 20 years old and market conditions have changed dramatically over that time. So perhaps it's time for a new look at this old story and the trends in the US pencil market that impact this.

My approach is first to view the US pencil market by it's key product category components & sub-components which include:

graphite pencils for office, school & home use
color pencils for school, home or artist use
carpenter pencils
cosmetic make-up pencils

Of these the last two groups are relatively small segments on a unit volume basis. Based on my knowledge of the industry I've estimated these two segments would not be much more than 5-7% of the annual unit volume of pencils sold in the US. Although with a higher average sales value per unit than graphite or color pencils it may be perhaps 8-10% of the wholesale sales value. Virtually none of these pencils are painted yellow though some proportion of carpenter pencils may be yellow the most comon colors are white, red, blue and orange. So a conservative estimate removes 5% of all US pencil consumption from being painted yellow.

The next challenge is to break out color vs. graphite pencils. Historically there has been an approximate ratio of 20% color pencils to 80% graphite writing pencils. I conducted a reasonably thorough review for 2005 of US production sources and import sources of pencils. By dividing each country of origin and US producer out into known and/or my best estimate figures for color vs. graphite pencils I calculated a weighted average of 28.7% for color pencils for 2005. Of particular interest is that only a very small small portion of US pencil production is color pencils. My estimate is just 5%. With about 1/3 of today's pencils being produced domestically in the US and a full 2/3 imported from overseas this means that about 39% of the imported pencils are color pencils.

This data supports the growth of color pencil consumption in the US over the past 15 years or so. This has been driven initially by the entry of Crayola into marketing color wood cased pencils in the early 1990s. These pencils are all produced in Brazil or Costa Rica by Faber-Castell. Following the lead of Crayola many other. Of particular interest is that in Europe the ratio of color to graphite pencil consumption is more or less reversed from the US trend as historically color pencils have been the vast majority of pencils produced and sold inthe European market where pens are more frequently used for writing purposes.

Given that color pencils are usually painted the color of the core for each color in general color pencils have a very low proportion of yellow painted pencils. We could either simply discount this group entirely (as non-graphite pencils) or assume that about 1/12 of these pencils on average are painted a yellowish hue given that yellow is a primary color and as pencils are generally sold in multiples of dozen packs this proportion should hold about true as the color pallet expands for 24, 36, 72 and 100+ count boxes of color pencils. Thus at best 2 to 3% of US pencils are color pencils that are painted some form of yellowish hue.

Thus my analysis indicates that perhaps only 66-67% (100% less 5% carpneter/cosmetic less 28-29% color pencils) or approximately 2.9 billion graphite pencils per year are sold in the US today. So even if 100% of graphite pencils were painted yellow only 2/3 of US pencil consumption would be yellow pencils. Adding 2-3% yellow coloring pencils still doesn't get us to 75%. However there are several major sub-categories of graphite pencils including:

advertising specialty pencils for custom imprint purposes (hexagonal and round shapes)
golf pencils (hexagonal and round)
designer theme pencils (includes licensed character/sports pencils, holiday themes, and other decorative themes ( generally round)
artist quality graphite drawing and sketching pencils
standard branded writing pencils (mostly all hexagonal shaped painted a single color)

It is really just this last group of more standard branded writing pencils that have traditionally had a very high proportion of yellow painted pencils. And frankly it's likely this last group of pencils that the average person is probably thinking about when saying 75% of US pencils are painted yellow. Certainly it may be historically true that 75% of branded hexagonal graphite pencils in the US were painted yellow and it may even still be true today of this sub-segment. However as with the growth in the color pencil market the advertising specialty, golf pencil and designer theme pencils have been the key growth sub-categories of the graphite pencil market over the past 10+ years. My quick estimate is that something in the range of 50 to 70% of graphite pencils would fall within this last group in the current market and if 75% of those are painted yellow then at the upper end we are looking at just 35% (= 67% graphite x 70% to 75%) graphite yellow painted pencils as a proportion of the total US pencil market. This is a far cry from 75% and even if significantly more than 75% are painted yellow would not get much higher than 40% of all US pencil consumption . Thus it's probably not even technically correct any longer to say that the majority of pencils sold in the US are yellow painted pencils.

In fact within the pencil industry the historical intent of painting a pencil yellow as a reflection of high quality is considered out of date and yellow pencils are increasingly viewed as a low value commodity segment. Certainly some important high quality brands such as Dixon's Ticonderoga , the Mirado (originally the Eagle Mirado now Sanford's Papermate Mirado), to some extent the Mongol (though now discontinued in the US by Sanford) and a few other minor brands have a good quality reputation and retain yellow as the primary lacquer color. Some of these have offered additional paint color options within their brand range. The reality is that today the vast majority of yellow pencils sold in the US are imported low priced pencils. Many of these are private label pencils for the major office supply chains. The Papermate American brand remains one higher volume yellow hex pencil that is still US produced to a large extent, but the quality has been reduced considerably to compete with the imported pencils. Alternate species woods have reduced sharpenability performance, lower standards on lacquer finish reduce the look and feel of the pencil, ferule and eraser quality reductions and graphite smoothness inconsistency, are today unfortunately often the case with common yellow pencils.

While all this means more affordable pencils for general writing needs it's also changed the perception of the yellow pencil over time. Today's standard commodity yellow pencils cost about $0.10 per pencil at retail which is surprisingly the same as the price of a Ticonderoga, a Mirado and other high end brands 40, 50, 60 and even 70 years ago now. When you consider the value of the dollar today vs. it's value over those time periods you'll see common yellow pencils are effectively much cheaper in real dollar terms than they ever were. I'm not sure what milk, gasoline and many other common consumer goods cost that long ago relative to today's prices, but I'm guessing the relative value retention for the yellow pencil has been quite good although the qualtiy on average is just not what it once was and may or may not compare favorably with quality performance of other common goods that have had relatively more infalated values over time on a real dollar basis.

Sustainable Forestry

2008-04-17T10:02:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since I've posted much related to forestry and the timebr business here. Last night this segment appeared on NBC Nightly News. It features the sustainable forestry efforts of Collins Pine Company which has had a long relationship with our company. Collins is a an important supplier of FSC Certified Incense-cedar used in our ForestChoice pencils and our FSC certified slats sold to other pencil companies around the world.

I do find Brian William's intro statments like "You can't see the forest, because they're gone!" coupled with the use of images of recent clearcuts rather misleading relative to the actual reality of responsible forestry practice in the Pacific Northwest. Collins is clearly a leader in committing all their timber operations to FSC certification process and in the manner in which they run their operations. I applaud them and am happy to be collaborating with them in bringing sustainable wood products to market. However, they are just one example of numerous companies with good sustainable forestry practices.

Palomino Riders Unite

2008-03-30T20:17:00.000-07:00

I’ve been pleased to see the continuing keen interest and even adoration of our Palomino pencils from our customers. As one happy Palomino Rider recently said, "It's the way the lead glides over the paper. Hmmmm...yeah, I know. I've got issues! It's an addiction. But...they really do have a nice feel to them. I'm buying more!."

Despite relatively little formal promotional effort in the past year we clearly seem to have a loyal and devoloping fan base for our product. Thus in order to support this I’m pleased to announce the formation of two new places that Palomino riders can check who else is in the corral and see just how they ride.

I'm talking about the Palomino Riders Group page on our new Pencils.com site as well as a new Facebook Group page as well. Here’s the chance to share your artwork created with the Palominos and show what those Palominos can really do. Whether you ride English, Western or bareback we want to celebrate your unique creative spirit and are sure other riders feel the same.

So we hope you'll register at Pencils.com, join the Palomino Riders group, then create your own Palomino artwork gallery and upload images of some of your favorite artwork using Palomino pencils and post them to the Palomino Riders group. If you're a Facebook member then we'd love to see you there too.

If you haven’t yet experienced the smooth ride, then come and visit these two sets of group pages and I hope this will get you restless as a wild Palomino to jump up in that saddle too.

The New Pencils.com

2008-03-29T20:38:00.000-07:00

After several months of work I am pleased to announce we have completed our redesign project and have now re-launched our “Incense Cedar Institute – Pencil Pages” website under the new name Pencils.com. This has been a project some time in gestation even since I first initiated my Timberlines blog a few years back and happily is now up and running as a Beta site which we will continue to work on improving and developing over time.

The new Pencils.com site builds upon the past purpose of the site as an educational resource regarding pencils, Incense-cedar, renewable resources and forestry management but adds to it a broad range of new features designed to help celebrate and share the role of the pencil in our world. If you are a pencil enthusiast, artist, writer, teacher, parent or student the new site has something for you. I hope you will check it out and join what I think will become an active and growing community. In particular we have initiated a Palomino Riders group page which allows you to share and post artwork created with your Palomino pencils or to form other groups and discussion forums on a wide variety of topics related to education, art, writing and even pencil collecting.

In addition to expanded educational content and a host of social networking and related tools on the Pencils.com site one of the key new features will be our Pencils.com Store. This store will supplement our existing Pencil World Creativity Store @ eBay and ForestChoice.com and offers a much more flexible on line shopping tool with quantity discounting, pencil points discounts that you earn through participation in the Pencils.com community as well as other features. We’ve already added an expanded range of new California Republic items not on eBay as well as new items from another pencil manufacturer with more to follow. Over time we’ll be expanding the product range available on the Pencils.com Store, supporting and promoting products produced by our slat customers that supplement and complement our own product range.

A number of readers continue to request more of my in depth posts on industry issues and there have been plenty of issues to write about, although I’ve just been too busy with other business matters in the last year or so and more recently in developing the Pencils.com site for this launch. Looking forward I plan to return to providing somewhat more frequent posts about issues related to Pencil Industry here on Timberlines which will also have a feed to a dedicated Timberlines page at the Pencils.com site. However, posts more focused on news related to our California Republic Stationers product developments and the Pencils.com store offerings will be moved to my WoodChuck blog on the Pencils.com home page. Thus the Pencils.com site will be updating much more frequently than Timberlines going forward.

For more information you can visit Pencils.com or for more historical background of the Incense Cedar Institute and website transition to Pencils.com you can read the CalCedar press release here.

New Palomino Items for the Holidays

2007-12-05T21:05:00.000-08:00

After a long wait we are happy to announce introduction of an eraser tipped option on our Palomino Blue HB pencils just in time for the Holidays. Now by popular request eraser tips are available for both our Palomino Orange and Palomino Blue lacquer variations.

Also for the Holidays we have put together a special Palomino Christmas Gift Pack which includes a nicely cello wrapped set including our 12 Count Artist Color Wood Box Set, a 6 count Palomino Orange HB with erasers and our favorite Palomino-KUM Long Point Sharpener for a special price of $24.95. This is over $6 or 18% savings on this collection of items versus purchasing each independently. Make an aspiring artist in your family happy with this gifts set for Christmas.

Another Holiday selection that makes a great stocking stuffer are our Spangle Christmas decoration pencils available in both 8 pack and 24 pack counts.

While our Pencil World Store is well known for our quick and timely delivery we generally do recommend you place your Christmas orders by December 16th to assure delivery on time for the holiday.

Support the Writers Pencil Campaign

2007-11-19T19:50:00.000-08:00

Tired of watching reruns already on late night talk shows? Worried your weekly favorite shows will soon be headed to reruns?

Our associates at United Hollywood blog have launched a new campaign to promote the cause of the Writers Guild of America and guess what … It involves pencils. Titled “Pencils 2 Media Moguls” the campaign is intended to send masses of pencils to the CEOs of major television media companies as a show of solidarity with the writers guild. Here at California Republic we have collaborated with United Hollywood to supply pencils to be used for this campaign. Each $1 dozen pack of pencils purchased via this Pencils 2 Media Moguls link here will be forwarded on by United Hollywood on your behalf to these CEOs. The expectation is that the pencils will eventually be donated to support young writers in disadvantaged schools and other education prorams.

Two days into the campaign as of Sunday evening over 156,000 pencils have already been purchased. What better symbol of writing and solidarity than sending pencils. As the writers themselves are saying they are putting them down until they get a fair deal. The goal is to reach over 1 million pencils sent in for this campaign. So show your support for writing, the writers and ultimately the children who will benefit by receiving these pencils by buying a few packs here and forward this link to a friend. If you buys a few packs and have suggestions of deserving schools or programs where the Moguls can donate the pencils please forward these along to United Hollywood.

Finally, some of my readers might ask why WoodChuck, an avowed free trader would support such a union campaign. Of course the children as end recipients of the pencils will benefit from this campaign, but there is also a historical reason as well. My maternal grandfather Lawrence E. Watkin (wow, didn’t know he had a Wikipedia page until tonight), was once a WGA member and worked as a Hollywood writer mainly throughout the 1950s. That is until he was fired by Disney Co. when the writers were replaced during a former strike. Of course, I am not altogether altruistic as we are generating some sales for these unbranded pencils which as standard round advertising type pencils are representative of our Spangle Decorator basic pencil writing quality but are finished in standard lacquer without imprint or decoration.

Could Blackfeet Become the Next Blackwings?

2007-10-18T20:44:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week we had an inquiry from a consumer looking to find a supply of Blackfeet Indian pencils. I had to pass along the news that the Blackfeet Indian Pencil Company is out of business for sometime now. The linked article here provides an interesting look at the challenges faced by Blackfeet Pencil Company as they last tried to re-establish operations around 2000. Unfortunately the company was not able to recover from its prior debt load and the changing competitive environment as increasing volumes of pencils entered the US market from Asia..

The best advice I could offer this person was to try eBay and I was able to provide a link to a current auction at the time. Today this auction for a 12 pencil wood box set of “The Blackfeet Indian Pencil” ended at a total value of $62.25 plus $4.50 shipping for a whopping $5.56 per pencil. Certainly this includes the nice redwood wooden box that these pencils come packed in, but still seems quite a premium as compared to our own Palomino Wood Box sets priced at $9.95 for 6ct on eBay or Pencilthings.com’s Palomino Signature 12 count Wood Box Set at $16.95.

So will the now discontinued Blackfeet Pencil develop a similar sache to that of the famous Blackwing? This auction does not represent the amazing $20 to $35 each pencil premiums that Blackfeet pencils fetch that these days. Certainly there is a bit of emotional attachment some people place on buying a pencil produced by Indians that once benefited and supported one of our Native American cultural groups. The pencil writing performance is good, but not to the quality of the Palomno or many premium quality writing pencils available today. The natural wood grain finish is a nice feature, but in and of itself is not uncommon these days. In fact most people associate the all natural finish of the Blackfeet Indian Pencil with their image of this brand, but the company did produce a broader range of pencil styles and brand names as exhibited in this nice collection. Certainly there has been some attention to Blackfeet pencil at Pencil Revolutions and Paper and Pencil. I guess only time will tell if we’ll be seeing $10 or $20 Blackfeet on occasional auctions of this item.

Palomino & California Republic Notes

2007-10-16T15:13:00.000-07:00

Hello all you fellow Palomino Riders out there. I'm long past due in providing an update on developments with the Palominos and other brand ranges in our California Republic lines.

First, over the past few months we ran a test with some larger bulk pack formats with banded dozens in 36 and 72 count packs. We've had very positive reaction to this packing format. We ran through most of the stock on hand from this test and have just a couple remaining packs available on Pencil World Creativity Store both here and here. You may want to pick these up while they last.

Partially as a result of these tests we have reached a decision to make the banded dozen format more widely available for our internet distribution channel. In addition the banded dozens will be extended from the Palomino brand to also include all items in Golden Bear and Prospector ranges and even a few new Spangle items we plan to introduce by year end. We are a still a while off before these formats are formally introduced on a standard stocking basis, but do expect to have these up by year end. So keep your eyes peeled for this new option going live and I'll provide more details when teh new stock arrives and we are ready to go live.

In the meantime if you've found you do have an appetite for bulk pack pencils we do have ready supply of our popular ForestChoice FSC certified pencils in 1 gross (144 ct) bulk packs. These are available both here at PWCS @ eBay or at our ForestChoice website.

Also comming soon we will be adding an eraser tipped option in our Palomino Blue HB, as well as a few varieties of Spangle jumbo size school learning pencils in both round and triangular shapes.

Finally, I am making the commitment once again to more frequent posts on Timberlines so look forward to a series of new articles and weekly features covering a variety of topics. I know I got started last Spring and then didn't keep up. This time.

This Guy is "Mad, Crazy"

2007-04-26T17:04:00.000-07:00

I would like to introduce to you the interesting misadventure of Tyler Farrer who’s new blog Make One Pencil chronicles his efforts to make one pencil all by materials and tools made and acquired only by himself. This effort is inspired by the famous essay entitled I, Pencil first published by the Economist Leonard E. Read in 1958.

Tyler describes himself as follows:

I am a self-proclaimed "Free-market", "Free-Trade", and "Capitalism-loving", "globalist". I also believe that it was probably impossible for one man to make a pencil in 1958. Will it be impossible in 2008? I don't know, but I want to be the one to try.

Another description might be simply he’s “mad, crazy”. I told him I’d like to help with raw material supplies given my involvement in the industry, but that would defeat the whole purpose of “one man, one pencil”. He can’t just buy the pre-manufactured components and assemble them either, to follow the concept of Read’s essay he has to produce the tools to produce the pencil and then the final product all by himself. As it is he’s at least benefiting from the internet as a resource on how to make the pencil since he doesn’t have to invent it just make it from scratch. He’s asked for financial contributions on the website, but doesn’t that defeat the “one man, one pencil” credo also?

But what real basis do I have to claim Tyler is “mad, crazy”. Simple, he’s working against some of the greatest principles of economics. He’ll either end up broke producing one pencil for some outrageous cost if he succeeds at all or he will have a breakdown ending up needing major therapy and probably pharmaceutical treatment as well. What’s more he knows all this to start as a good a good "Free-market", "Free-Trade", and "Capitalism-loving", "globalist”. If he’s not really insane now he may well be after this effort.

If you’re unfamiliar with I, Pencil I encourage you to read it. It’s essentially a lesson in these great economic principles best summarized by Milton Friedman in his Introduction to the essay on the Library of Economics and Liberty website. In Milton’s own most eloquent words:

I know of no other piece of literature that so succinctly, persuasively, and effectively illustrates the meaning of both Adam Smith's invisible hand—the possibility of cooperation without coercion—and Friedrich Hayek's emphasis on the importance of dispersed knowledge and the role of the price system in communicating information that "will make the individuals do the desirable things without anyone having to tell them what to do."

Milton even used this essay in his popular TV Show “Free to Choose”. Anyway Tyler’s Make One Pencil quest strikes me as very coincidental timing as I have recently been re-reading various Milton Friedman works. So I guess this post can serve as a bit of my own memorial to Milton.

Finally, if you need any further support for my prediction of Tyler’s fate I encourage you to read this post at the Reach Upward blog. This is where his flash of brilliance to begin this odyssey got its initial spark. In any event I am very much enjoying Tyler’s prolific posts so far and intend to follow his progress and offer my moral support. It’s really all great fun and I’ll leave the decision to make financial contributions up to you. All the best of luck to Tyler.

Image Note: Particularly fitting for this post the drawing above by Dan Mignano was a runner up in one of our Incense Cedar Institutes Pencil Doodle Contests from the mid 1990s. The theme "No. 2 Pencil, Still No. 1 in a High Tech World."

Pencils: Popular in Any Language

2007-04-24T09:27:00.000-07:00

One of the most common questions I receive from those who learn I work in the pencil industry is "How do you get the leads into the wooden pencil?" This leads to any number of further questions and discussion about different aspects of the pencil business according to what any particular person finds interesting. There is no shortage of interesting and related topics depending upon how detailed and how technical one wants to get. In reality I have only touched on a very few areas in all the posts about industry issues over the past 18 months or so, whether it's anti-dumping duties, environmental aspects of forestry management and FSC certification, etc. FYI: Today I've added Labels to most of my posts so it should be easier to find different posts by subject matter.

Yesterday I came accross the following post "¿Cómo se meten las minas en los lápices de madera?" which answers just this question on the general interest Spanish language blog Ya está el listo que todo lo sabe (Here is the list of everything to know). The post includes a brief history of the development of the graphite pencil and a description of the pencil manufacturing process. This post as many other websites I have found over the years has liberally borrowed the photo from our How to Make A Pencil page on our Incense Cedar Institute Pencil Pages site on how pencils are made.

What I found most interesting about this post was the "commentarios" left by readers and in particular a long treatise on the wood used in pencils by Dr. Amio Cajander who provided a knowledgeable discussion of the use of Incense-cedar ,other pencil woods and even composite substitutes in his long comment in addition to describing some of the technical factors that make for a good pencil wood. He even generously noted my Timberlines blog as a resource for his information for those who wished to practice thier English. Additional comments indicated readers seemed generally interested in learning about how the pencil was made. This is not unlike my experience with reactions to my Timberlines posts and our feedback over many years from information provided on the Incense Cedar Institute Pencil Pages.

While my Spanish is just okay, I was able to make my way through this post relatively easily and it was good practice. So for those interested in testing their Spanish, practicar aqui.

Honestly, it's nice to see that there is such interest in the manufacturing process and the pencil itself from all over. I would take the time to link to a few other foreign language sites on the topic of how pencils are made that I've found over the years, but unfortunately I never bothered to save any of those links. So if you're visiting from another country and know of any such web pages in your native tongue please feel free to link to these in a comment to this post.

Spring Cleaning Sale Kicks off with Palomino Bulk Pack Offer

2007-04-23T17:41:00.000-07:00

It’s been a busy Winter and Spring and I haven’t had much of a chance to be active with new Timberlines posts or to address new items for the Pencil Word Creativity Store @ eBay. Since we’re trying to do a bit of Spring Cleaning we’ve come up with a couple new listings as special offers. When you do this at home in your study or kitchen you typically find pencils and other writing instruments tucked away in some drawer somewhere. Well we’re no different here so over the next several weeks we’ll be offering a number of Spring Cleaning Sale Items.

A number of our repeat customers have asked about possibility of buying Palomino products in higher bulk quantities. As luck would have it we found some basic sample packaging for a 72 count item lying around and have decided to run a test. So while listed supplies last we now have the following 4 items available in 72-count bulk quantities at a price offering something over 10% savings on a per pencil basis versus our normal graphite 6 pack counts. Each is packed with 6 banded dozens in a ½ gross box. Click on any of these items to link to that item in the store.

Palomino HB Orange – 72 count Bulk Pack
Palomino HB Orange w/ Erasers – 72 count Bulk Pack
Palomino 2B Orange – 72 count Bulk Pack
Palomino HB Blue – 72 count Bulk Pack

We do have some 36 count packaging as well and will look at listing these after the 72 count volumes sell through. Following these tests we’ll evaluate whether a full time addition of a 36 or 72 count Bulk pack option for certain Palomino items makes sense. We appreciate your feedback and interest in spurring us on to try out these bulk packs.

Next we’ve now added a simple Palomino Orange 2B - 6 pack offering so customers don’t need to go to trouble of ordering a Variety pack and sending us a message just to say they want 6 2B pencils since a 6 count pack in 2B has proved to be a popular request on our variety pack offering.

As our Spring Cleaning process continues we’ll be adding other special one time offers with a few combo sets of a variety of KUM sharpeners, some notebooks and journals with our pencils and perhaps a new series of Vintage & Collectable pencils that we have on hand.

Berolzheimerianum: 100 Year Anniversary Celebration

2006-10-30T06:41:00.000-08:00

Back in March I wrote a post titled “Lieber Philip: A Letter Lasts 100 Years” that discussed the final letter my Great-Great Grandfather Heinrich wrote from his home in Nürnburg, Germany to his son Philip, my Great-Grandfather in New York before he passed away about one month later. I introduced a bit of family history in the pencil industry to my own son Philip through this letter.

As it turns out there is another recent 100 Year Anniversary related to Heinrich Berolzheimer’s accomplishments. My wife, son and I have just returned from a week in Germany where we participated in activities celebrating the 100 year anniversary of the construction of the Berolzheimerianum in Fürth, the city of Heinrich’s birth and original founding of the pencil company, Berolzheimer und Illfelder. Donated by Heinrich with assistance of his son’s Emil and Philip (then running the Eagle Pencil Company in New York) the Berolzheimerianum was established according to the foundation document as a “home for popular education in the town of Fürth”. Tis document stated that it should “serve the whole population of town of Fürth, regardless of social class, religion or political opinions”. The building included an extensive library with over 10,000 volumes (later growing to over 20,000 volumes) as well as an auditorium with 800 seats for performances and various cultural events and included a number of works of art both interior and exterior art.

Unfortunately Heinrich passed away a month prior to the completion and inauguration of the building. The photos in this post show the Berolzheimerianum both at it’s completion in 1906 and as it looks today. The painting of Heinrich was commissioned when he was named as an Honorary Citizen of Fürth for his patronage towards the city. Other famous Honorary Citizens include Ludwig Erhard who served as the second Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1963 to 1966 and Henry Kissinger, who I was told recalls studying as a child in the Berolzheimerianum.

The Berolzheimerianum has an interesting history. A few of the highlights include:

- Attendance at the building inauguration by Prince Ludwig III of Bavaria (later the last king of Bavaria)
- Functioned as a military hospital during the 1st World War through 1919
- The building was renamed by the National Socialists during the period of the Third Reich erasing for a time the recognition of the Jewish Philanthropist Heinrich Berolzheimer
- Following post war repairs in 1945, the Berolzheimerianum name was restored and the building continued to function for it’s original purpose of supporting education and the arts
- In 1998 following extensive renovations the Berolzheimerianum was reopened as ComÖedie Fürth, one of the leading comedy clubs in Germany including a restaurant and bar.

As a part of the 100 Year Celebration my wife, son and I were honored to be the guests of the City of Fürth along with other of Heinrich’s descendants (3rd and 4th cousins) whom we met for the first time. In conjunction with the anniversary celebration a four month exhibit at the Jewish Museum of Franconia, entitled “Benefactor Berolzheimer: A Family Tradition of Philanthropy and Patronage”. While our families converted to Christianity several generations back, we very much enjoyed learning more about our Jewish heritage in Germany during this visit. The entire staff of the museum did a very nice job with the exhibit and with additional activities scheduled over a three day period.

In addition to the Berolzheimerianum, Heinrich also made important financial and artwork contribution to a library in Nürnburg, known as the Luitpoldhaus, as well as to the Nürnberger Künstlerhaus art institute and supported the Natural History Museum in that city as well. For his contributions to Nürnburg where he lived the final years of his life he was also named and honorary citizen there as well. This I understand makes him one of only two people who have been named honorary citizen to both of these cities. This tradition of supporting education and the arts in our home communities has been continued by Heinrich’s descendants to this day, first by Emil and Philip and down to current times.

I am slowly adding to my Flickr site here a a new set of historical, current day and other photos associated with the Berolzheimerianum and the 100 year Anniversary Ceremonies. Some of these are captioned to tell more of the story of the building.

Japanese Design Pencils

2006-10-16T20:44:00.000-07:00

I am certain you have all seen, admired and perhaps even purchased"fancy" theme or holiday pencils before. Such decorative features are produced through a variety of techniques which include 4 color offset printing, transfer, foil or paper wrap, roll-on imprint, silk screen, etc. The proper combination of lacquer base color with a design overlaid and other finishing touches such as unique eraser color and style or end dipping can create quite interesting pencils for general use or collectable.

I can say with no hesitation that no one part of the pencil industry produces the quality and variety of "designer" pencils comparable to those produce Japanese pencil industry as a group. Starting with extremley uniform dimensional characteristics and a high quality base pencil is the first step to assuring an exceptional product. The quality, creativity, detail and variety of designs produced by Japanese manufacturers is truely amazing and surprisingly not often duplicated to such extent by other producers. One theme pencil trend recently in Japan was the advent of "game" pencils in which the 6 sides of a hexagonal pencil each represent a different result for the game when the pencil is rolled like dice.

Often such design pencils are viewed as purely of interest to children, although many knowledgable collectors appreciate these pencils as well. One of my own favorites from my collection is a 15 pencil color set in a tin. The set commemorates the Japan Railway System and each pencil is rectangular in shape with each of the four sides printed as if it was one side of the train. Each of the 15 pencils represents a different type of train in the system. As a part of a limited edition the set sells of about $200 at retail.

While relocating our corporate offices recently we have come up with a group of pencils that we plan to auction as part of our "Vintage & Collectables Series" at our eBay Pencil World Creativity Store. The first of these is a beautiful and unique collection of 1400 such Japanese Designer Pencils. Click here to visit this auction. These are pencils produced to the same quality of our Palomino graphite pencils with respect to the fine finish and smooth writing characteristics.

Theme pencils can represent a difficult and risky part of the pencil industry due to the "trendiness" of different designs. In Japan as well as here in the US many are tied to licenses of particular cartoon characters from television or the movies. Such pencils can involve license fees that along with art design costs and film set up costs increase the need for a larger minimum run sizes to amortize these costs. Themes that come and go over seasonal or holiday periods require careful inventory planning to assure no excess or obsolete inventory for the manufacturer that increase the working capital tied up. Even thematic designs that are acceptable one year may not be as saleable the next season.

As a collector, the challenge is to focus on those items that are more unique, are part of complete matched sets and are of good quality design and cosntruction. Also as with any collection selecting what you find personally interesting or attractive is also advisable even if it might not be so rare.

Transitions and Milestones

2006-09-23T19:19:00.000-07:00

Well it's amazing how fast the past couple of months went by and how busy we've been here at CalCedar multitasking on an ever expanding list of activities. In that time I've failed to keep Timberlines readers up to date. So here's a quick summary of the main highlights and some of our comming attractions.

Our Pencil World Creativity Store on eBay experienced our biggest month of sales ever in July as a result of the Boing Boing post highlighting Ninth Waves Design's road test naming the Palomino pencil replacing the Blackwing 602. The post didn't even mention our store site, but many of you thankfully searched us out and we experienced two times the single largest prior month sales.

A key challenge responding to all this was that this development coincided with an important transition here in our offices. My assistant Jeanette had just decided to depart the company to pursue other interests. Fortunately one of our former employees Paula was available rejoin the company and is now handling customer service on our eCommerce ForestChoice and Pencil World sites in addition to taking on Jeanette's other duties. Fortunately, with some part time support from Jeanette through this transition we were able Paula was able get up to speed and continues to maintain our commitment to 100% positive feedback.

We're also currently in the midst of additional transitions here in our offices. After 18 years in our corporate headquarters buliding we'll be relocating at the end of the month back into CalCedar's original offices next to the old slat factory here in Stockton. Returning to our roots in a manner of speaking. Going through years of files and reducing everything to fit our downsized offices after moving operations off shore in the past few years is quite an effort. One benefit is that we're turning up some interesting things for future Vintage and Collectables auctions. Stay tuned.

A few significantly anniversaries of note were missed in the past few months that I'd like to mention.

July 20th - 1st Anniversary of Pencil Revolutions Blog - Like me conrad John has slowed down a bit with new posts. I know he moved this summer, but hope we haven't seen the last of his interesting pencil ephemera.

August 5th - 1st Anniversary of Timberlines Blog. A bit slow lately, but I do plan to continue my series of posts on industry issues to keep things interesting, not just promotional posts on our products.

September 16th - 1st Anniversary of launch of the Palomino on our Pencil World Creativity Store. Thanks to a inaugural review at Pencil Revolutions the Palominos were out to were let loose from the corral. Now a year later we're thankful to have a small but growing group of faithful riders and we're focused on expanding the number of stables housing Palominos through building our retail presence.

Unfortunately I missed being able to celebrate another milestone with my wife, my own wedding anniversary, during my August trip to Asia to visit our factories. During this trip we worked on finalizing some new items for the California Republic product line which will be making their debut in the comming months. The photo in this post shows a few of our new Spangle Jumbo learning pencil items for primary school students.

We have several new eBay listings & additional items in the works. We've just relisted our Spangle Halloween pencils at special pricing for the holidays and have coupled them also with a special promotion on our Palomino Wooden Box Color and Graphite pencil sets. Comming along soon we'll have trial listing on some bulk packed 36 and 72 count Palomino's on our Pencil World Store. Later in the year some special items for the holidays and as mentioned earlier our office move has turned up a whole range of items for a new series of Vintage & Collectable Pencil eBay Auctions.

I'll do my best to keep you posted on new developments for the company as well as some further industry related posts I'd like to get t0.

Boing Boing Does Pencils

2006-07-07T07:34:00.000-07:00

It's nice to see the Palomino has reached Boing Boing's famous directory of Wonderful Things with this post and link to Ninth Wave Design's November post that anointed the Palomino Hb & 2B pencils as the successors to the famous Blackwing 602. It's started a whole new range of commenting there at Ninth Wave. I welcome those of you who found their way here to Timberlines as a result.

It's nice to see a growing group of new customers searching the Palomino out at Pencil World Creativity Store, Pencil Things and Ninth Wave Designs Online the current online sources for Palominos. I knew Boing Boing is big, but wow. We will be busy today & Monday packing up the orders. Thanks for trying us out. I hope y'all enjoy "the ride" and take a friend along with you.

If you like what you see and you'd like to see the Palomino get more established at retail please talk to your favorite art, gift, museum or small stationery shop proprietors. We have International Arrivals stocking some of our Palomino & Forest Choice items. They are set up to service these types of small independent retailers that typically want much smaller minimum order volumes.

Making Music with the Palomino

2006-06-20T09:25:00.000-07:00

I received the attached photo and note from Matt Downey demonstrating how he's using our Palomino pencils for his musical efforts.

"Hey here is what is called a sketch, rough musical ideas on paper that will eventualy find their way into a peice. In this case the second movement of a string quartet. I love sketching with this Palomino pencil. The line is good and dark and the lead is nice and smooth. The wood has that smell (you know the one I mean) and it is all so conductive to the creative impulse in me. Sketching could be called material generation for the purpose of composing but I like to think of it as composing anyway even though it is so incomplete.-Matt

PS - I think you can spy a Mongol chilling in the backround. play an I SPY game with it."

Yeah, I see it there in the corner and am glad to spot a ForestChoice pencil as well. Thanks for sharing and keep on creating.

The Shape of Things to Come

2006-06-13T15:41:00.000-07:00

California Republic has now introduced triangular shaped pencils in our Golden Bear and Prospector product ranges. These are the first of what we hope may become an expanded range of triangular pencils over time.

The Prospector Trianguler HB 40 count tube is available in our Prospector Green color. This pencil is tipped with our standard round white eraser as is the green Prospector pencil in our standard hexagonal shape. On future option under consideration is a natural finish version without eraser, although we have no definite time schedule to add any new triagualr versions at anytime soon.

The Golden Bear Triangular HB 40 count tube features our orange and blue color combination in an attractive end dip. No eraser at this point though we will consider the future addition of a blue triangular shaped eraser version for the down the road.

Sorry to say we have no immediate plans to offer a triangular version of the Palomino pencil.

We do have a few auction items with special savings chances on a few items right now including this, this & this.

We also have a Summer Color Splash pencil promotion going on as well as the extension of our Soccer Mania promotion. So if you haven't visited our Pencil World Creativity Store lately drop on by with any of these links.