tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-151488582024-03-07T01:07:15.952-08:00TimberlinesMusings from the Forest: Thoughts and discussion on the pencil industry, forest management, California Cedar Products Company and the artistic and written creativity enabled by the wood-cased pencil.WoodChuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17463614041405036323noreply@blogger.comBlogger121125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15148858.post-61055215263095383642016-12-14T19:07:00.001-08:002016-12-14T22:47:17.910-08:00We're 99 Today! CalCedar's Centennial Year is Upon Us.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRWEU96cfpZfbM0liEUQ-3BrWPCarqonsaCqe4vs_EIKiYFin7CFYguIqi8CE3DjiTfCYjQz8T6PoT1KaN5W5iVARjir6Qc_uqwurZN8t9daB_3eVzdFSeuDEmSQG0_pBir26JLg/s1600/stockrecord3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRWEU96cfpZfbM0liEUQ-3BrWPCarqonsaCqe4vs_EIKiYFin7CFYguIqi8CE3DjiTfCYjQz8T6PoT1KaN5W5iVARjir6Qc_uqwurZN8t9daB_3eVzdFSeuDEmSQG0_pBir26JLg/s320/stockrecord3.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
Just a quick post to note that today is California Cedar Products Company's 99th birthday (per our original stock records book of 1st shares issued to company founders right). So we're now entering our Centennial year in business. Despite the lack of activity here on Timberlines, for quite some time we have been hard at work here at CalCedar setting in motion plans for our year long Centennial Celebration. A gala event with employees, customers and special guests, commemorative products, a published Company History, Timberlines historical content and a number of special contests are in the works for the coming year. Look forward to fresh and more routine content as we move into the new year with the Timberlines blog integrated to it's new home on CalCedar website which will also be getting a new look.<br />
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In the meantime, I'll share this brief story about our company founder William "W.B." Thurman that I shared with our employees, board and shareholder members and families at our Annual Christmas Dinner last night. The party doubled as our 99th birthday celebration.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLzqcWb1VN3XANHuIERAnxB490Q7hdX0fipyd931WmtDoluqDH8AoLpcN9L2pZdb6Qqex7NI7D4hMu2zj3Em0cATgdYRBZba7wjf3pgnJCmU_I0h0G6VUi9F09lHv6rNjLluQytg/s1600/WB+Thurman+as+Madera+Sherrif+1899.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLzqcWb1VN3XANHuIERAnxB490Q7hdX0fipyd931WmtDoluqDH8AoLpcN9L2pZdb6Qqex7NI7D4hMu2zj3Em0cATgdYRBZba7wjf3pgnJCmU_I0h0G6VUi9F09lHv6rNjLluQytg/s1600/WB+Thurman+as+Madera+Sherrif+1899.png" /></a>Company founder and 1st President W.B. Thurman, hailed from Madera, CA about 100 miles south of California Cedar Products Company home in St<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">ockton. <span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Coming west in 1849, his father William H. "W.H." Thurman, had a long career in and out of the lumber industry and in law enforcement throughout California and in Washington state up to his death in 1895.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1876 W.E. Thurman established the California Lumber Company flume and sawmill (later Madera Sugar Pine Co.) as well as founding the town of Madera to bring logs from the Sierra forests to the Southern Pacific Railway there. W.B. worked in his father's mills off and on and also followed him into politics and government serving as deputy Sheriff under his father who was Madera county's first Sherriff. This photo of W.B. shows him in 1899 in this law enforcement role, though he quickly returned to the lumber trade, feeling this a much safer career option, after being shot in the thumb during the attempted escape of one of the prisoners in his jail. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">W.B. then founded a new partnership which later became Madera Sash and Door Company which he operated until selling the company to pursue his plan to enter the pencil slat business by founding California Cedar Products Company up on Stockton. The other initial shareholders were his brother James Thurman, a San Francisco based lawyer serving as corporate secretary and San Francisco lumber trade F.F. Sayre who resigned as President of the California Sugar & White Pine Company to head up sales as Vice-President for the new venture. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">An interesting postscript is that after sharing this story last night, our Executive VP an General Manager for our Tianjin China pencil slat factory told me that before completing his forestry degree and entering the timber business himself and joining our company in 1978 he had served as a deputy sheriff in Madera County of all places and had a book on the history of Madera Sugar Pine company, but never knew of this interesting historical connection to CalCedar. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If you're wondering where the Berolzheimer family comes in to this CalCedar story, more to come in future editions as our projects progress in the new year. Until then then hope you all have a happy holiday season. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Charles Berolzheimer</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Chairman and CEO</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">California Cedar Products Company</span></span></span>WoodChuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17463614041405036323noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15148858.post-77490890107915254182015-08-25T16:55:00.000-07:002015-08-25T16:55:53.333-07:00Oops, we just lost 2 years!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRWEU96cfpZfbM0liEUQ-3BrWPCarqonsaCqe4vs_EIKiYFin7CFYguIqi8CE3DjiTfCYjQz8T6PoT1KaN5W5iVARjir6Qc_uqwurZN8t9daB_3eVzdFSeuDEmSQG0_pBir26JLg/s1600/stockrecord3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRWEU96cfpZfbM0liEUQ-3BrWPCarqonsaCqe4vs_EIKiYFin7CFYguIqi8CE3DjiTfCYjQz8T6PoT1KaN5W5iVARjir6Qc_uqwurZN8t9daB_3eVzdFSeuDEmSQG0_pBir26JLg/s640/stockrecord3.jpg" /></a></div>What do you do when you’ve just learned you’re two years older than you thought you were?<br />
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1. Have an especially outrageous birthday celebration to make up for lost time<br />
1. Complain about how old your suddenly feeling and take PTO, or<br />
2. Just deal with it.<br />
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This past weekend while unpacking from our move and preparing various historical archives and materials for our new exhibits I ran across CalCedar’s original stock records book. Having first seen this book about 20 years ago, including what I believed to be the page documenting the very first issuance of shares on June 26, 1919, we’ve always used the year 1919 as the founding year of the company. In taking a closer look at the book this weekend I found an earlier page that was stuck closed with original founders stock issued December 14, 1917. It turns out that the entire company was recapitalized in 1919 and the 1917 shares were returned, cancelled and reissued. The image shows that initial page with the note documenting the increase from $75,000 to $150,000 in total capitalization for the company.<br />
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This book is fascinating with its penmanship and detailed record keeping of issuance and cancellation of shares by the original founders and other investors up through January 3, 1927. On this latter date the record cancels all the outstanding shares and shareholdings and reissues new shares to Hampton Investment Company and a couple other associated individuals. Hampton Investment was the holding company established by our family to acquire California Cedar Products Company and several other companies in California in the 1920s at the time my grandfather relocated from New York.<br />
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So the good news is, we now have our facts straight and will be updating our websites and other historical documentation accordingly. <br />
The challenging news is we’re suddenly 97 years old as a company, and just over 2 years from our centennial. We have a bunch of aggressive goals yet to accomplish by that birthday celebration if we choose to advance our timeline accordingly.<br />
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The great news is we’ve now completed our move to our new corporate office and distribution facility. Outside of a few finishing touches we are well positioned to implement a number of initiatives to grow our Blackwing brand and Pencils.com ecommerce units and more efficiently support our industrial pencil slat business and all of our customers around the world. So perhaps an interim birthday (new facility) party is in the offing after all. Hey, in fact, if I move up our Christmas Party by one day it will coincide with our 98th birthday on December 14th. So who knows…<br />
WoodChuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17463614041405036323noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15148858.post-6013388613118287432015-08-05T15:26:00.001-07:002015-08-05T15:30:24.237-07:00The Season of Pencildom Anniversaries <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfa0lSeZFDd-XemgkD_fo3-qrTF_zT_jBSCv_gfVcAwXSTpQCUKKaXQvgBYVX2RoRGk24uLr-e2KegU9okpQKR1E8M6da6R7msry9cq4aj2zo4k1LoyfGsAGZOLO-Ofq7S_E-2nA/s1600/Timberlines+anniversary.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfa0lSeZFDd-XemgkD_fo3-qrTF_zT_jBSCv_gfVcAwXSTpQCUKKaXQvgBYVX2RoRGk24uLr-e2KegU9okpQKR1E8M6da6R7msry9cq4aj2zo4k1LoyfGsAGZOLO-Ofq7S_E-2nA/s400/Timberlines+anniversary.JPG" /></a></div>Just a quick note in recognition that today marks the <a href="http://timberlines.blogspot.com/2005/08/timberlines-awakens.html">10th Anniversary of my first ever Timberlines blog post</a>. In that post I mentioned Timberlines was the name of our former company newsletter. We’ve been prepping for a relocation recently and today I unexpectedly came across boxes of the old newsletters and selected a few for this post’s image. After 10 years we are ready to move again to a new facility more attuned for our current needs (but more on that for a future post).<br />
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Interestingly one old 1989 issue featured our pending move to a new corporate headquarters building finished out throughout with Incense-cedar of all things. We stayed in that building through 2005 until a company restructuring around that time meant downsizing back to the original administration building called the “White House” that had been used up till 1989. I remember my dad’s first office was in the “white house” and now that office includes four of our Pencils.com and Blackwing marketing and sales team, including my son Phil. I know they’re all looking forward to this relocation soon.<br />
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Looking at these old issues the provide a representative sample of themese. Some often featured travelogues that my grandfather wrote about trips to visit customers and friends around the world as well as the typical fare of employee retirement farewells, new employee welcome profiles and life advice for employees as we’d enter a new year. The special issue in the back left was in honor of my Grandfather’s death August 30, 1995 including contributions from family, friends and employees. Hard to believe it’s been 20 years now, how the industry and our company have changed in that time.<br />
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Going back to my first Timberlines blog post I credit (a now old pencil friend) Johnny Gamber for the motivation to begin my own blogging effort on this date which also marks the 10th anniversary of his <a href="http://www.pencilrevolution.com/2005/08/review-of-forest-choice-graphite-pencils/">first ever review of our ForestChoice pencil</a>. To my knowledge that Pencil Revolution post was the first standalone pencil review ever posted in the pencil blogosphere. <br />
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Also as far as I can see it seems Johnny may have let the <a href="http://www.pencilrevolution.com/2005/07/first-post/">Pencil Revolution blog 10th anniversary </a>pass quietly back in July. I know his wonderful endeavors along with Andy and Tim on the <a href="http://www.erasable.us/">Erasable podcast </a>these days generally take precedence over his own PRevo blog posts, but he deserves recognition and renewed thanks from me and many other’s for his contributions via Pencil Revolution over the years. So here’s to Johnny, the original Pencil Revolutionary, for 10 years of influence on web pencildom.<br />
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I don’t post often these days with all the other things to fill my schedule. Sometimes I think I’ll get going with a new series of posts on a theme of interest at the moment, but looking back these generally ended up being one off posts with good intentions. It’s been easier to contribute more frequently within the Erasebale Podcast Facebook group. However, as the next 2 months is a period of some news for us at CalCedar on several fronts, including our relocation, some new products we’ve been working on and some other company history anniversaries, I’ll hope to share some things on these topic in the coming weeks. Then given past experience, Timberlines will likely go dormant once again for a while.<br />
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Anyway thanks for those few of you who’ve read these pages over the years and for your support of our efforts and products at California Cedar Products Company. This is an old, but interesting industry and company. Every now and then these anniversaries kick in some good memories I think might be worth documenting.<br />
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WoodChuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17463614041405036323noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15148858.post-29164524854047697122014-09-15T18:57:00.000-07:002014-09-15T18:57:12.377-07:00Erasable Podcast: Liner Notes fom the Zurückbringer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH2xkCpOQXsKI5eNcnDhUX8U7XOsB3eZZ7Er8GQ5IJQ0yTISOhE76IhEJMbIRPI-J8sjD_nUmHRGjvGUTBTHJaDEoVXWAWCSZkco94jb2t6DFFNqTFmC9IpLRHSTwBpkWqklS9Vg/s1600/DSC00948.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH2xkCpOQXsKI5eNcnDhUX8U7XOsB3eZZ7Er8GQ5IJQ0yTISOhE76IhEJMbIRPI-J8sjD_nUmHRGjvGUTBTHJaDEoVXWAWCSZkco94jb2t6DFFNqTFmC9IpLRHSTwBpkWqklS9Vg/s320/DSC00948.JPG" /></a></div><br />
I was very honored to be the guest last night of Andy, Johnny and Tim on their latest <a href="http://erasable.us/14">Erasable Podcast Episode 14: Incense Cedar House Rules </a>. My guess, given my readership and frequency of posting, is that if you've found your way to Timberlines, you probably already know about Erasable. Though, just in case you're a neophyte and into pencils, then you need to follow these guys, listen to their podcasts and potentially even jump into the Erasable Podcast Facebook Group where they've inspired pencil exchanges and a whole host of nefarious pencil related behavior, including a Pencil Army. When it comes to anything new and interesting in the world of pencils these guys have all the fresh dirt. Or is that fresh pencil shavings? <br />
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Typically I listen to podcasts while I'm walking the dog in the morning, but tonight just couldn't wait to see how it all turned out. So I'm listening while I write this post up. <br />
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One of the fun parts of the show is when they cover their "Tools of the Trade" which represent the pencils, notebooks and beverage of choice for the evening. Unfortunately I didn't get to participate in that part of the conversation so I shared mine in my post photo above. During the discussion I mentioned my great-grandfather Philip who had run for Congress in the 1920s. One of his platforms was the overturning of Prohibition so in his honor, so last night during the podcast I was drinking Brew Free or Die IPA from 21st Amendment Brewery which is just down the street from my residence in San Francisco. I was using one of our old California Republic Palomino HB blue end-dipped pencils in an early prototype of a pocket sized notebook we were evaluating earlier this year as we refined our design choices for our new <a href="http://pencils.com/product/blackwing-slate/">Blackwing Slate journal</a>. <br />
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My interview segment comes in at about 43 minutes into their broadcast and runs through the end.<br />
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Thanks guys for including me it was great fun and I appreciate your asking me to join in and all the great feedback and put from the members of your growing Community. Pencil is Forever!<br />
WoodChuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17463614041405036323noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15148858.post-38533566146461525642014-08-06T09:40:00.002-07:002014-08-06T09:45:08.298-07:00Drawing With History: AOL’s This Built America Covers New Jersey’s General Pencil Co.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPTLl50Xhjgs5h4ZHibtbmOwuY7vsnwmJY7jwci36o3vsXB9URz1W9cCy_NJgwW4f71hoCmzNtvoLJ3MwoXcVKhko-GE_Y7tdCxsrWb-u0M2KY7LcS1pJWsc8EJxQumM_7lZg7VA/s1600/p-11930-gen_learn_draw_kit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPTLl50Xhjgs5h4ZHibtbmOwuY7vsnwmJY7jwci36o3vsXB9URz1W9cCy_NJgwW4f71hoCmzNtvoLJ3MwoXcVKhko-GE_Y7tdCxsrWb-u0M2KY7LcS1pJWsc8EJxQumM_7lZg7VA/s320/p-11930-gen_learn_draw_kit.jpg" /></a></div>We received this press release at Pencils.com this morning. Have posted about this wonderful family and company in the past <a href="http://timberlines.blogspot.com/2009/11/maintaining-tradition-and-values-in.html">here</a>. Happy to share another great "<a href="http://timberlines.blogspot.com/2014/08/whats-your-story-impact-of-blogging.html">pencil success story</a>" of one of our wood slat customers. <a href="http://pencils.com/product-category/all-brands/general-s/">Find some of General's great products here on Pencils.com</a>. Congrats Jim, Katie, Kirsten and all...<br />
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Jersey City, New Jersey (August 6, 2014) – This Built America, a new multimedia platform from AOL exploring the companies and people reimagining American manufacturing, comes to Jersey City this week to profile the General Pencil Company — a company built on family and dedication that has been going strong since Edward Weissenborn founded his second pencil endeavor in 1889. <br />
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In this episode, the fourth, fifth and sixth generations of the family discuss why keeping General Pencil in the family is the key to their business success. It hasn’t always been easy to keep the company afloat, or to turn away offers to buy General Pencil, but the Weissenborns feel a connection to their long running, made in America company.<br />
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For General Pencil Company, being chosen to represent New Jersey in This Built America is proof that founder Edward Weissenborn made the right decision banking on family business all those years ago, no matter the circumstance. “We believe in America,” says Jim Weissenborn. “We are proud of our employees and the quality products they produce.”<br />
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<a href="http://www.thisbuiltamerica.com/new-jersey/">To view the full episode and more on General Pencil Company, visit here. <br />
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</a>General Pencil Company joins a national movement in This Built America that is devoted to supporting American companies and American-made products. AOL is proud to support the effort along with sponsor Ford Trucks. Through the year, the editorial and video teams will explore 50 states in 50 weeks to bring 50 stories of the people who are bringing back manufacturing to America. The platform is produced in coordination with Man Made Content.<br />
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Help spread the word through your social channels by following these platforms for more episodes and updates:<br />
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Facebook: facebook.com/thisbuiltamerica<br />
Twitter: @builtamerica<br />
Instagram: thisbuiltamerica<br />
Google +: builtamericaproject<br />
WoodChuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17463614041405036323noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15148858.post-8462838091717971822014-08-05T00:00:00.000-07:002014-08-05T00:12:45.527-07:00What’s your Story? The impact of blogging, social media and podcasts on the analog world of pencils<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisR1G4IKqw0qkUcTBcfk9WB6r8B_7_nI_gROtwOcj-MmrovLH2Qv7LXlfE56nA1r4i-dvmHZ29-GCJg2a6jmGPZoStK1VVA5C85O9BNuz2wjdw-hTqSAiG95ztnPnisTfpO2hVdw/s1600/Enabling+success+stories.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisR1G4IKqw0qkUcTBcfk9WB6r8B_7_nI_gROtwOcj-MmrovLH2Qv7LXlfE56nA1r4i-dvmHZ29-GCJg2a6jmGPZoStK1VVA5C85O9BNuz2wjdw-hTqSAiG95ztnPnisTfpO2hVdw/s320/Enabling+success+stories.png" /></a></div>Last week I was listening to Johnny, Andy and Tim’s Erasable podcast with guest Brad Dowdy. This was the <a href="http://www.erasable.us/11/">11th episode </a>in their new endeavor which I find quite interesting, even if I don’t always have time to sit through an entire episode. When I can, I check in on the Erasable Facebook group and even participate with a comment and it’s great to see the level of engagement the members have with their wood cased pencils and their developing community. This is a direct tribute to the power of social media and the leadership of these individuals and other pencil, pen and stationery enthusiasts, and it got me thinking about the role these social media technologies have had on the analog pencil industry.<br />
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Today marks the 9th anniversary of Pencil Revolution’s <a href="http://www.pencilrevolution.com/2005/08/review-of-forest-choice-graphite-pencils/">first ever pencil review</a> back in 2005, which featured our Forest Choice Graphite pencils. To my knowledge, as the first and original “pencil blogger” Johnny’s post was the first ever blog review of any pencil on the internet. At least for a blog specifically focused on pencils, pens or stationery. Perhaps more research is needed to validate this claim, but for now I’m making it, and congratulating and thanking John for this accomplishment.<br />
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In honor of this anniversary and his selection of our product for that review, Pencils.com is offering a special 1 day only 25% discount on all ForestChoice pencils and notebooks, <a href="http://pencils.com/product-category/all-brands/forestchoice/">here</a>. As it turns out we’ve made reasonable progress since those days using ForestChoice to promote FSC certification for wooden pencils. We’ve used this item as a driver product in our focus on providing high quality green school supplies http://gogreenschoolpencils.com/, at Pencils.com, and have even placed ForestChoice pencils in over 60,000 school supply kits this year with one key customer.<br />
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More importantly, today the vast majority of the wooden slats CalCedar sells to pencil manufacturers around the world are either FSC or PEFC certified. I like to think that that first Revolutionary post, along with our continued focus on providing such materials (not to mention the growing impact and awareness of environmental and sustainability issues enabled through blogs and social media) has certainly had an impact on the commitment the industry has shown to utilizing certified woods in pencils.<br />
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Johnny’s launch of Pencil Revolution a few weeks earlier and his communication with us asking for pencil samples came at a time when I myself was in the process of exploring how we might use blogging to further promote wood-cased pencils and California Cedar Products Company. In a sense, John’s serendipitous selection of our ForestChoice product, the first ever FSC certified pencil brand, provided the inspiration for me to initiate the Timberlines blog. The subsequent orders received and his response to trying out our original California Republic Palomino lead to me moving forward to launch online sales of our Palomino, GoldenBear, and Prospector range the following month. I’ve written about that previously <a href="http://timberlines.blogspot.com/2005/11/how-palomino-escaped-corral.html">here</a>. <br />
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In checking in with Johnny this week about this anniversary and his role in influencing some of those early decisions he comments “I am very happy if I and/or my blog have/has had any impact at all on pencil making and marketing. But if Pencil Revolution played even a small part of the story that lead from the Palomino to the Blackwing, that's fanfreakintastic!"<br />
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As it turns out, today also marks the 9th anniversary of <a href="http://timberlines.blogspot.com/2005/08/timberlines-awakens.html">my 1st post on this Timberlines blog</a>. Though I have not been a very frequent publisher, I’ve used my posts over the years to share some of my personal thoughts on topics I have felt relevant to the wood cased pencil industry and other topics on forestry management, natural history, etc. (plus the occasional promotional pitch to support a new product introduction and our goals at California Cedar Products Company). There have been many good intentions to do more, but frankly the time I spend composing what I really want to say prohibits frequent posting given all my other commitments. Let’s just say I’ve never really developed the knack of brevity, but hope that my occasional in depth posts prove of interest to some readers.<br />
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Fortunately we have a great, committed team at CalCedar and, between our <a href="http://pencils.com/blog/">Pencils.com blog</a> and our <a href="http://blackwing602.com/">Blackwing602.com fan site</a>, we’re producing some great creative content that supports the use and awareness of wood-cased pencils of all sorts as well as the creativity of end-users. And, it’s all promulgated with associated social media tools. In general I think we do good job and have been a leader within the pencil industry when it comes to internet marketing, communications and utilization of these tools to tell a story. There have been successes and mistakes along the way, but we’re always striving to improve and to make the most of these tools and honor the relationships and communities it allows us to develop and participate in with end consumers.<br />
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<b>In fact I now describe CalCedar’s business as “enabling great pencil success stories from tree to final nub”.</b> (Note: THe graphic above highlights some past successes and some in the works I used with our team to illustrate this updated vision of our business.) Fulfilling this objective requires operational excellence at many things, from technical and manufacturing knowhow to source raw materials, produce slats and support those industrial customers using our wood, to designing and sourcing unique and exciting products within our Palomino Brands unit that delight customers and dealers, to selecting the right products and improving customer service and e-commerce operations at Pencils.com that feature the wood-cased pencils and associated creative products. Ultimately many of these operational details cannot succeed without also telling these stories, engaging and listening to our customers and building new success stories. These social media tools have been the great enabler and have allowed our company to accomplish numerous successes so far with our Pencils.com store, and Palomino, Blackwing, and ForestChoice products, and to keep telling the great stories of our customers using our wood to make many of the best brands of pencils on the planet. Without a dedicated commitment to using these tools, and the ongoing support of people like Johnny, Andy, Tim, Brad and you, CalCedar would look like a much different (read older, more tired) company today. So, for us, these things have been a transformative process, yet we remain every bit as committed to our traditional slat customers today in providing great and competitive wooden slats.<br />
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Towards the end of the Erasable episode the crew talked about a recent article in the New York Times positing that pens and other writing instruments were dying product categories, given the continuing advancement of computing and communications technology. I was enthused to hear the gang vehemently disagree with the author and talk about subjects dear to my heart such as their feeling of connectedness to their writing tools and the textural, tactile sensation one gets when writing or drawing on paper with graphite, ink or other materials. It’s a sensory experience that just isn’t replicated well through all this new technology.<br />
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Perhaps this article was somewhat wishful thinking by the author, hoping for some company along the way, based on what’s been happening to newspaper circulation (which is an industry I’d suggest is much more clearly being disrupted by these technologies). While one may discount pencil bloggers and their followers by claiming that they are just small groups of obsessed people talking about their beloved pencils on the web, the reality is wood cased pencil production continues to grow globally at about the rate of world population growth. In my view, the wooden pencil remains the most affordable and efficient writing tool in the world and increasing levels of education in the developing world correlate with increased consumption. In more developed countries, yes new technology has some impact on use habits of writing instruments, but after a generation of commoditization and quality reduction by large mass retailers focused primarily on price, there are many people rediscovering the joys of writing and creating in graphite resulting from interesting product reviews and stories from the web. Frankly I think those are all some pretty good stories.<br />
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So what’s your pencil success story? We’re listening and hope to help you share it. <br />
WoodChuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17463614041405036323noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15148858.post-11987526587426637152013-10-30T07:44:00.001-07:002013-10-30T07:44:57.520-07:00Caran d'Ache Offerings Expanding on Pencils.com Store<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWc3JbOdjasQnGitgbNYX7vAK8ki4y6Yjno8l414Vr7LFI9eMi-NQZIWDU6fqETSe1sAcC_dRTLVgdkQhKToTU2o2rhc6h9GwGPMl14bjoCTc2TSBEn3fwStBr09y7kMgFI3N4GA/s1600/CdA+Museum+Aqua1.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWc3JbOdjasQnGitgbNYX7vAK8ki4y6Yjno8l414Vr7LFI9eMi-NQZIWDU6fqETSe1sAcC_dRTLVgdkQhKToTU2o2rhc6h9GwGPMl14bjoCTc2TSBEn3fwStBr09y7kMgFI3N4GA/s320/CdA+Museum+Aqua1.png" /></a></div>Earlier this summer our Pencils.com unit began offering a selection of <a href="http://www.pencils.com/all-brands/caran-d-ache"><b>outstanding graphite and color artist pencils from Caran d’Ache</b></a>, the Swiss producer of extremely high quality art materials and writing instruments. Known as the “Maison of Haute Ecriture” the company’s products feature “Swiss Made” quality, subtle luxury, craftsmanship, authenticity and contemporary personality that set an aspirational benchmark within the creative art materials and writing instrument industry.<br />
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Originally founded in Geneva, Switzerland in 1915, as Fabrique de Crayons Ecridor the company was acquired in 1924 by Arnold Schweitzer, predecessor of the present day owners. At that time Mr. Schweitzer acquired his pencil factory he gave it the name Fabrique Suisse de Crayons Caran d’Ache in honor of a famous French artist he very much admired, Emmanuel Poiré. Under the pseudonym “Karandash”, which is the Russian word for a pencil, Poiré worked as a designer and caricaturist in Paris during the Belle Epoque. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLAgyJI_J0STydjSg_fTmHXe3AhnO2dA28OHBBoBF1-jwwR0KGx2CpKBM2-ZdoA_7EDC7kei_auopMpgrD4a3MS39dQShyphenhyphensYOE3T1nSarWOKCaOQ7DjlSJeUxzWIvtA6nVypcGxQ/s1600/LogoColour2011_noBorder.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLAgyJI_J0STydjSg_fTmHXe3AhnO2dA28OHBBoBF1-jwwR0KGx2CpKBM2-ZdoA_7EDC7kei_auopMpgrD4a3MS39dQShyphenhyphensYOE3T1nSarWOKCaOQ7DjlSJeUxzWIvtA6nVypcGxQ/s200/LogoColour2011_noBorder.jpg" /></a></div>The term “Karandash” is derived from the Turkish phrase “kara tash,” which means “black stone,” referring to the graphite found in pencils. He was most famous for his “Stories without words” which were printed by most of the illustrated newspapers of the time, and he is considered one of the fathers of the comic strip. In fact, the painter’s original signature, slightly modified, is still used today as the highly distinctive logo of all Caran d’Ache Fine Arts products range shown here. <br />
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We at CalCedar are extremely proud of our multiple generation association as wood supplier to Caran d’Ache and of the close relation between the family owners of both companies. This relationship began with my grandfather who travelled annually to Geneva, visiting his friends at the factory, consulting on technical matters related to wood machining and pencil making followed by a period of hiking the glaciers of the Swiss Alps. The commitment to excellence in use of quality materials and technical processes to produce superior products in a responsible manner are mutually shared values of both companies.<br />
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One important example of this long collaboration and shared values is the commitment Caran d’Ache demonstrates to supporting responsible forestry practices through the utilization of our FSC Certified slats in all of their Incense-cedar pencils throughout their product range. All of the Caran d’Ache pencils offered on Pencils.com feature FSC cedar wood in combination with superior pigments, product performance and craftsmanship. Our current offerings include the 120 strong color pallets of both their <a href="http://www.pencils.com/all-brands/caran-d-ache/caran-d-ache-pablo-colored-pencils-12-pk"><b>famous Pablo coloring pencils </b></a>and their <a href="http://www.pencils.com/all-brands/caran-d-ache/caran-d-ache-supracolor-pencils-12-pk"><b>Supracolor watercolor </b></a>range, the extensive 15 grade range of <a href="http://www.pencils.com/all-brands/caran-d-ache/caran-d-ache-grafwood-pencils-15-pk-metal-tube"><b>Grafwood graphite pencils </b></a>and the outstanding set of <a href="http://www.pencils.com/all-brands/caran-d-ache/caran-d-ache-initiation-pastel-set"><b>Artist Series pastel selections </b></a>covering 84 vibrant colors in both pencil & cube form. All these top professional quality ranges offer rich and smooth coloring performance for fine artists with great coverage and high lightfast performance. Many of these have long been used by some of the most noted pencil and fine artists past and present.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvxpcMVTRklVtI_jTH4qboxX3b-A0q3ZuCyfLEO07p3te-jEBZc-UmfEpl_pIXm6cSmSXUOqXL5V7YowlmmBF5JvFk9cgc0l7hCNSQH-vLm_h2on9l89xOwb5bNNvZ12vDB4aSug/s1600/New+York_MUSEUM.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvxpcMVTRklVtI_jTH4qboxX3b-A0q3ZuCyfLEO07p3te-jEBZc-UmfEpl_pIXm6cSmSXUOqXL5V7YowlmmBF5JvFk9cgc0l7hCNSQH-vLm_h2on9l89xOwb5bNNvZ12vDB4aSug/s320/New+York_MUSEUM.JPG" /></a></div>Now I’m also very excited to announce that we will be adding in the coming days and weeks a larger mix of fine Caran d’Ache products including an interesting selection of ball point pens, mechanical pencils, fixpencil and some specialty gift selections which represent totally new categories of products to the Pencils.com store. This selection has been curated to extend our commitment to creativity in offering one stop shopping for the best of wood cased pencils and a growing range of outstanding artist and writing products as we enter the holiday gift giving season and a variety of price points. While we won’t be adding any of the Ultra-Luxury fountain and ball point pens Caran d’Ache is well known for, we’ve selected a couple of classic and stylish pens that we think complement our fine and general writing pencil selections and demonstrate the great writing performance of Caran d’Ache products as well. <br />
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Also to improve our commitment to educating our customers about products we offer on Pencils.com our Studio602 blog will publish a series of more detailed product posts regarding different Caran d’Ache product ranges in the coming weeks as well. <br />
WoodChuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17463614041405036323noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15148858.post-29192886710472872012013-08-28T16:29:00.001-07:002013-08-28T16:29:34.487-07:00Keyboarding Nostalgia<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixBgkjLeKoPuQKQzEt3oKskOJrLsI3Xtf_3gGlSRVJMOz-HQfvXhvEOqAWFWXfPG0VnX0C8W3hft4U9T1Qvhyhhz86teFqVz7G_4v05rORN6uDd1X4p96sYvfESC45dmTXi0h66g/s1600/Untitled.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixBgkjLeKoPuQKQzEt3oKskOJrLsI3Xtf_3gGlSRVJMOz-HQfvXhvEOqAWFWXfPG0VnX0C8W3hft4U9T1Qvhyhhz86teFqVz7G_4v05rORN6uDd1X4p96sYvfESC45dmTXi0h66g/s400/Untitled.jpg" /></a></div><br />
I was cleaning a few things out of my office today and found this picture of my father with who I believe are a couple of slat customers visiting the company, circa 1969. His initial job once he joined CalCedar was as the first Data Processing Manager (for you young'uns that's today's IT Manager or CIO) setting up the first computer system. It was an IBM System 3, with everything controlled by punch cards he'd create to develop reports and store data. I recall ladies in the office entered all the data from slat production and sales on these cards via keyboards and giant stacks of green paper printouts (about 15x20 inches) with perforated edges for tractor feed. I remember using one of these punch card systems in my first computer programming class in high school in the 1970s. The system took up a large percentage of the office space. That same office space, now remodeled is where I have my office today.<br />
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The 2nd picture below (also found today) is of dad playing the keyboards he really prefers around the same age. He's probably playing "Night in Tunisia", his favorite song. Just love the pants above and the jacket below. Dad went on over time to become President of both CalCedar and Duraflame and now Chairman of the Board of both companies. His computer keyboarding now is most often to pass along jokes and videos he finds interesting from the internet to friends and relatives, but he's still always sitting down at the piano with the same set list of jazz classics. I can't say his taste in clothing has changed much either.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpXxm8Wh40Q6ueeog9XPsrayXU88CMFPYGxFGGfa2Bvdp0erou5efvl2EZBLexhKRyHRg6PRH_i3x0T7Mk1L0RqJpUEq1CP3xSjWG6gW93pmHQluNj-tMdDozyqRnXv-RV90janA/s1600/pcb+piano.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpXxm8Wh40Q6ueeog9XPsrayXU88CMFPYGxFGGfa2Bvdp0erou5efvl2EZBLexhKRyHRg6PRH_i3x0T7Mk1L0RqJpUEq1CP3xSjWG6gW93pmHQluNj-tMdDozyqRnXv-RV90janA/s400/pcb+piano.jpg" /></a></div>WoodChuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17463614041405036323noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15148858.post-34704328548849921362013-08-05T08:38:00.003-07:002013-08-05T08:38:41.879-07:00Keeping A Road Trip Journal<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir2J_NmhQqSlHJh0VfaQFmVJOkmdnhV-hO0ZuJ_FIFmO2m4IsW448U3DII3IVoqrnfDhyDpZOn2lT0Qxr4wuC-kkZnUJC2hJ9MAL8J39yYwFShi9HhmXiF13I5gy0RIJ7lF91MQA/s1600/Road+Trip+Journal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir2J_NmhQqSlHJh0VfaQFmVJOkmdnhV-hO0ZuJ_FIFmO2m4IsW448U3DII3IVoqrnfDhyDpZOn2lT0Qxr4wuC-kkZnUJC2hJ9MAL8J39yYwFShi9HhmXiF13I5gy0RIJ7lF91MQA/s400/Road+Trip+Journal.jpg" /></a></div>Each year Ginger and I take a road trip together in August. This year we've headed North to Oregon and I decided to try keeping a road trip journal using one of the beautiful prompted journals from the <b><a href="http://www.pencils.com/all-brands/journals-unlimitedp://">Journals Unlimited Range we stock on Pencils.com</a></b>. This is a great series of Journals, each promoted with relevant data depending upon the topic. There are both mini and normal sizes in a number of topics. All the notebooks are "Made in the USA" and use soy based inks as well so they are environmentally friendly. Would be a nice pairing with our <a href="http://www.pencils.com/all-brands/forestchoice">ForestChoice pencils </a>as a gift, but on this trip I'm using my <a href="http://www.pencils.com/all-brands/blackwing">Blackwings</a> and trying out a prototype pencil case.<br />
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For this trip I selected the Journal entitled, <i><b><a href="http://www.pencils.com/all-brands/journals-unlimited/adventures-my-road-trip-journal">Adventures, My Road Trip Journal</a></b></i>. Each day's entry has prompts related to who you're traveling with, departure and destination points and stops along the way. There is a technical data section for keeping track of odometer readings, MPG, gas prices, total distance travelled, and the route taken. Also sections for noting highlights, sights and memorable places visited, where you ate and things to remember for the next trip. The back page is open form for notes and journal thoughts about the day. I'm using it to make notes of interesting things Ginger and I talked about during the ride. Also each year we listen to one or two books on CD, usually picking an old classic. This year's selection is Steinbeck's <i><b>The Grapes of Wrath </b></i>and I've taken to writing down a few thoughts of interesting passages we listen to that day.<br />
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Overall the format seems pretty helpful, though on a down driving day like here in Sun River for a few days the technical sections are less useful, though I did use an app to track our bike ride and there is plenty of space for writing about our wilderness kayak trip today and my fishing trip tomorrow.<br />
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WoodChuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17463614041405036323noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15148858.post-53214155290790305012013-04-18T09:40:00.001-07:002013-04-18T09:40:40.729-07:00Introducing the Blackwing Pearl<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjti5IUOn4UBcl5YuLHqwAxmXbs6CbHz97Z5cDx0dvg_wu-hRATVs7gbqVCAGs9NPmEJ0G3YEk-q4mnAkQTpfLBN860cIojbdE_TD_EEb7hJdMuYuyurJhXjImKThcOetytJNmP5g/s1600/BlackwingPearlCropped.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjti5IUOn4UBcl5YuLHqwAxmXbs6CbHz97Z5cDx0dvg_wu-hRATVs7gbqVCAGs9NPmEJ0G3YEk-q4mnAkQTpfLBN860cIojbdE_TD_EEb7hJdMuYuyurJhXjImKThcOetytJNmP5g/s320/BlackwingPearlCropped.png" /></a><br />
Recently, our Palomino business unit announced the newest addition to our Blackwing pencil range, the Blackwing “Pearl”. Here is the first photo of the "Pearl" set to make it's official debut on May 2nd at Pencils.com and other dealers around the world. You can <a href="http://www.pencils.com/blog/palomino-introduces-blackwing-pearl-pencil/">register for the Studio602 newsletter updates</a> at Pencils.com for more information on just when the product will go live. <br />
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May also marks two years since we introduced our “602” model as a follow up to <a href="http://www.pencils.com/all-brands/blackwing/palomino-blackwing-12-pk">our first Palomino Blackwing pencil launched in October 2010</a>. Since then, we’ve focused on building awareness and distribution for our two Blackwing pencil models, as well as our flagship Palomino and ForestChoice brands. This included introduction of a complementary range of <a href="http://www.pencils.com/journals-sketchbooks">high quality notebooks and sketchbooks</a>. We’ve been pleased with the progress, as many of these three product ranges are now available in an increased variety of online and independent retail stores throughout the U.S. and Canada, as well as growing international distribution in Europe, Australia and Asia.<br />
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Over the past two years, we’ve received numerous requests for new Blackwing items from fans as well as our dealers and distributors. Many want new color combinations for the casing and/or erasers and others have made suggestions for alternative graphite formulations. We’ve also considered numerous requests for custom imprint services on Blackwing pencils similar to the <a href="http://www.pencils.com/palomino-custom-pencils">custom imprint options now available on our traditional Palomino HB eraser tipped pencils</a>.<br />
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One of our key concerns in introducing any additional Blackwing pencils has been positioning the new pencil for use when it comes to differentiation of the graphite performance. In the tradition of the original Eberhard Faber Blackwing 602 pencils, we’ve never published a specific hardness grade for our Blackwing models. When <a href="http://www.pencils.com/palomino-blackwing-602-12-pk">we launched our 602 model in 2011 </a>we introduced the “firm and smooth” and “soft and smooth” descriptors to differentiate the new pencil from our original Palomino Blackwing in the black matte finish, which has a much softer, buttery feel loved by those doing a lot of sketching, music notation and other activities that require a dark mark. The “firm & smooth” 602 has been well received by those doing extended writing and note taking who want longer lasting performance between sharpening in a pencil that more closely replicates the original Blackwing 602 in performance, look and feel. Adding new grades and colors and keeping such graphite performance descriptors certainly foretells future taxonomy challenges and increases potential for confusion among consumers, so we’ve thought much about this before proceeding. In fact we've already had a few interesting suggestions from fans on coming up with our own Blackwing graphite grade scale to simplify things down the road.<br />
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Given that we already have a well-received graded graphite range in the Palomino brand, we’re not looking to replicate that by continuing to add a large variety of graphite grades in the Blackwing brand. In selecting a course of action for adding one additional grade we could have gone firmer than the “602” or even softer than the Blackwing, but we experimented with several options and looked at things within the context of our wider artist graphite range and decided to go for something in the middle to fit the broadest user base which offers about the same darkness of the 602, with a bit softer feel that still gives improved wear rates vs. the “soft & smooth” model. We’ve decided to call it our “balanced & smooth” formulation.<br />
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For the casing décor, we chose a completely new effect by adding a pearly luster finish to contrast with the flat matte black of the Blackwing and the gunmetal metallic look of the 602 model. White is our most requested color for lacquer finishes and we think it looks just great with this new finish style. Thus the combination of white lacquer and pearly finish lead us naturally to name this pencil the Blackwing Pearl. We chose a black imprint for a stronger contrast, which looks great with the black eraser combination. In fact, we think the Pearl will look great with all six of our available eraser colors, which allows for further personalization or “hacking” for those so inclined.<br />
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We can see the Pearl being popular for use in home office décor or used as great guest gifts in weddings and other special events, but also well received for a broad range of existing uses by our fans and new initiates. In reality, regardless of the many different uses of our Palomino or Blackwing pencils, the selection of any specific pencil is always a matter of personal preference. In that sense, we think there is plenty of opportunity for you to find the pencil that is “just right” for your individual taste or a specific need in different situations throughout our full Palomino family as it’s grown and adapted over the past two years. We hope you’ll try out the Pearl and continue to discover the great function, design and performance of our developing <a href="http://palominobrands.com/collection/">Palomino family of products</a> that help you to express your creative spirit in new and exciting ways. <br />
WoodChuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17463614041405036323noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15148858.post-56140964665911887872013-02-28T14:12:00.004-08:002013-02-28T14:18:48.751-08:00Hough's American Woods: 141 Incense Cedar<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieBtla4vf5zXxGeMwosbGWtyJDxdZGr5ekMm9VsnLpaTg_HINaO_YsRfeTgknT_IVWSkG2jOXn03qlyRDdwdNhtMtmtR46p9Ei2EYH4TF6HpExxLzeVIpT5BA_StaB5uap1HeP9A/s1600/Hough+American+Woods+141+Incense+cedar.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieBtla4vf5zXxGeMwosbGWtyJDxdZGr5ekMm9VsnLpaTg_HINaO_YsRfeTgknT_IVWSkG2jOXn03qlyRDdwdNhtMtmtR46p9Ei2EYH4TF6HpExxLzeVIpT5BA_StaB5uap1HeP9A/s320/Hough+American+Woods+141+Incense+cedar.jpg" /></a><br />
This post initiates an extended project I’ve given long consideration to pursue on <i>Timberlines</i>. That is, writing more extensively on my long running interest in the study of natural history and in particular the history of early naturalists as well as the development of various scientific disciplines within the broad field of natural history. <br />
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One of the major influences in this hobby was my grandfather and namesake, Charles P. Berolzheimer, whose broad intellectual curiosity in the sciences, including botany, forestry, wood-machining among many other fields of study as well as my exposure to his extensive library which he developed over a lifetime of scholarship. Both during his lifetime and after his death in 1995 I was quite fortunate to receive from his collection a number of books which focused on the natural history topics I find most interesting. He was a unique individual, equally comfortable giving a technical speech on wood sciences in several languages, discussing art and enlightenment thinking or walking through the woods collecting and assembling his personal herbaria. He was particularly fond of trees and fungi. My access to this collection of books has spurred my own further research into these topics, sometimes in specific technical fields, but more generally focusing on the human side of the story of those individuals who advanced knowledge in particular areas of interest, the early field naturalists, discoverers, catalogers or researchers.<br />
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My first post in this series covers Hough’s <i>American Woods</i>. I’ve selected this work as a first post not so much due to Hough being an early pioneer of natural history study, though the scope of his work and focus on documenting physical wood samples of American tree species was indeed pioneering in many respects, but rather as this work strikes a bit closer to home for me with respect to the influences of my Grandfather and his interest in area relative to wood processing and treatment.<br />
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Hough’s work is a multivolume collection of wood cuts including the Transverse, Radial and Tangential section to show physical specimens exhibiting the natural character of woods, both native and introduced to North America, that he considered import to the study of forestry. The series in total includes 14 volumes and 350 individual species. Each volume includes both the section samples of 25 species as well as a bound pamphlet describing the individual species general and technical information as well as general information covering a range of topics from taxonomy, botanical identification of parts of trees and on the geographic area specific to each volume. The author, Romeyn B. Hough, personally supervised the selection of living tree samples of each species to assure accurate identification and production of the physical sections. The final 14th and final volume was published posthumously in 1928 with his daughter writing the pamphlet. <br />
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Given the broad geographic distribution of species extensive work required to identify, harvest and prepare these samples it’s not surprising the publication of this multi-volume work spanned from 1888 to his death in 1924. The specific care to assure proper drying, cutting and preservation of actual wood samples that would stand up without degrade now over 100 years later relates specifically to the technical study of wood chemistry and machining that my grandfather dedicated his own professional career to given our company's role in supply of wood to the Pencil Industry. American Woods is certainly a labor of love, which in his first Volume Hough dedicated to his own father, who in addition to his influence in Hough’s study of nature he also credits the original suggestion of the pursuit of the body of work covered in this entire series, officially titled, <i>The American Woods, Exhibited by Actual Specimens and with Copious Explanatory Text</i>.<br />
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Naturally of all the possible woods in these volumes I’ve chosen to feature sample number 141, Libocedrus Decurrens, or California Incense Cedar. This species is included in Part VI (published in 1895) which covers specifically woods of trees found growing in the Pacific Slope of the U.S. (a scan from my personal collection is shown) (today the Genus Calocedrus has commonly replaced the original taxonomy Libocedrus). Incense cedar first began to be investigated for pencil production around 1906 by our family members at the Eagle Pencil Company and produced commercially into slats at their Hudson Lumber Company mill. For more information on Incense cedar in pencil slat production, <a href="http://www.calcedar.com/california-incense-cedar/">read here</a>.<br />
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Originally, this collection sold for $5 per volume. <a href="http://www.christies.com/lotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=1731353">Today a complete set including the 14th Edition sells for tens of thousands</a>. You can <a href="http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/specialcollections/forestry/hough/index.html">see all the wood cuts from Hough's <i>American Woods</i> on line here</a>.WoodChuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17463614041405036323noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15148858.post-84054255551742530082012-11-20T15:28:00.000-08:002012-11-20T15:35:18.980-08:00I, Pencil - The MovieOver the past year or so I've been providing some techincal advice and input to the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) producers of a new video based on Economist Leanard Read's essay, <a href="http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html">I, Pencil</a>. I was in Washington D.C. a couple weeks back and met with them though unfortunately I missed thier launch party for the video presentation. I've written about that essay before <a href="http://timberlines.blogspot.com/2007/04/this-guy-is-mad-crazy.html">here</a>.<br />
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<iframe width="420" height="236" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/IYO3tOqDISE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
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The CEI has put together a nice website <a href="http://ipencilmovie.org/">ipencilmovie.org </a>that includes the movie and a supporting curriculum and many other resource links. So it's a great new resource for teachers wishing to give thier students a good introduction to some of the key economic concepts behind Read's essay.<br />
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We've agreed to do some cross links from our <a href="http://www.pencils.com/blog/the-story-of-pencils/" target="_blank">Story of Pencils pages over at at Studio602 on Pencils.com</a>, to help build awareness of this new learning resource.<br />
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WoodChuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17463614041405036323noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15148858.post-54401627851302122742012-08-10T14:58:00.002-07:002012-08-11T07:51:06.359-07:00A Visit to the Brubeck Collection: Pencils Only Please<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">This week I’ve had the great pleasure of participating in
several events hosted by the University of the Pacific’s, Brubeck Institute as
part of their annual Summer Jazz Colony.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The <a href="http://www.pacific.edu/Community/Centers-Clinics-and-Institutes/Brubeck-Institute.html" target="_blank">Brubeck Institute</a> was established in 2000 in cooperation with Dave
and Iola Brubeck, both graduates of the <a href="http://www.pacific.edu/" target="_blank">University of the Pacific</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mission of the Brubeck Institute is to
build on Dave Brubeck’s legacy and his lifelong dedication to music,
creativity, education, and the advancement of important social issues.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>The Summer Jazz Colony occurring this week is
one of core programs of the Institute which brings in 18 of the country’s top
high school jazz musicians for further training in music theory and performance
with dedicated artists in residence and special guest performers and
instructors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Including <a href="http://pencils.com/blog/the-blackwing-sessions-christian-tamburr/" target="_blank">Blackwing featured artist, Christian Tamburr</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here’s
a quick <a href="http://jstsay.in/0006tr" target="_blank">clip of Christian at his performance last Sunday at the new Take 5 Jazz Club</a>, nearby the University and the Brubeck Institute. The Wednesday Jam session I attended featured some very talented young musicians playing Brubeck songs and sit ins with instructors as well as special guest, another vibraphonist Stefon Harris</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">One of the special gems of the Institute is the <a href="http://www.pacific.edu/Library/Find/Holt-Atherton-Special-Collections/Brubeck-Collection.html" target="_blank">Brubeck Collection</a>, an archival collection of Dave and his wife Iola’s life’s work in
music, international diplomacy and active leadership in the civil rights
movement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Iola, herself a playwright, collaborated
with Dave on a number of projects. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>About
20 Brubeck Insitute embassadors had the opportunity for a personal tour of the University’s
Holt-Atherton Archives which house not only the Brubeck Collection, but also
the <a href="http://www.pacific.edu/Library/Find/Holt-Atherton-Special-Collections/John-Muir-Papers.html" target="_blank">John Muir Papers</a> collection which holds about 75% of the extant papers of
Muir.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Michael Wurtz, University
Archivist, informed us of some fascinating facts on Dave and Iola’s lives
and careers, and we got to see first-hand a number of these important letters, contracts,
albums, marketing materials, music scores and more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>One interesting fact is that Dave really couldn’t
read and write music on paper himself much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>His creative, improvisational style just wouldn’t conform well to
putting something fixed on paper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When
he did compose some of his more extensive orchestral arrangements his brother or
another collaborator usually did most of the music notation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were shown one of the first pieces of music
he wrote for a school assignment which he subsequently was told what he played
was very good, but wasn’t what he had written.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
Dave tore up the score and threw it away. </span>A fellow student saved the pieces from the trash taped them together and
later sent them to Dave as a memento. <a href="http://digitalcollections.pacific.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/brubeckcollection/id/119/rec/12" target="_blank">Here's a link to one of Dave's scores a lullaby from 1941</a>, though I could not find a digitized image for the torn score we were shown during the presentation.</span><br />
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Another important thing I learned was about <a href="http://www.pacific.edu/Documents/library/Special%20Collections%20Forms/Brubeck%20Travel%20Exhibit/Civil.pdf" target="_blank">Dave and Iola’scommitment to civil rights</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact,
1960 Dave once cancelled 23 of tour dates in a Southeastern states tour when
the Universities they were playing refused to allow him to play
with his racially integrated band or allow a racially integrated audience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Here is an <a href="http://digitalcollections.pacific.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/brubeckcollection/id/114/rec/83" target="_blank">intersting letter Dave received</a> on the positive impact resulting from one of the two Universities that did allow this integration to occur. </span>Also Iola’s and Dave’s musical “The Real
Ambassadors”, which celebrates it’s 50<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> anniversary next month, addressed sensitive social issues as well.</div>
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</span>Finally, I was very pleased to see the “Use Pencils Only”
sign in front of desk of Special Collections Assistant, Trish Richards, shown
in the photo above.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Certainly, they want
to protect these one of a kind archival materials from any accidental ink
spills; another important benefit of pencils over pens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t know if Dave and Iola have ever been
Blackwing pencil users, but perhaps some time in the Archives exploring may
turn up a photo or other evidence as to their preferred pencil brands. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was able to leave a special gift of several
dozen Blackwing pencils for the Summer Jazz Colonists and members of the
Brubeck Institute.<o:p></o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />WoodChuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17463614041405036323noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15148858.post-47319527846947817952012-07-24T12:42:00.001-07:002012-07-25T17:01:27.266-07:00A View to the Future of U.S. Pencil Manufacturing<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_l-pdCpORLx3bpD7YSJv9D5zog8v1BoEWm80jPc32K07HjRNdf8TZPlW2OFF15GUY6I4oivBYgI2RAhj_FSOAgz90T6Ph2agGEoF6Bya4-wpa964R-Ay9XRS3xoIDT8hNSD4qoA/s1600/MadeinUSA.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="121" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_l-pdCpORLx3bpD7YSJv9D5zog8v1BoEWm80jPc32K07HjRNdf8TZPlW2OFF15GUY6I4oivBYgI2RAhj_FSOAgz90T6Ph2agGEoF6Bya4-wpa964R-Ay9XRS3xoIDT8hNSD4qoA/s200/MadeinUSA.png" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="http://timberlines.blogspot.com/2012/07/allegations-of-illegal-chinese-pencils.html" target="_blank">My last post</a> addressed recent news regarding allegations of illegally
imported Chinese pencils.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In order to
avoid anti-dumping duties these pencils were apparently transshipped via third party countries such as Taiwan, Vietnam and
Indonesia and mislabeled as to country of origin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today I am addressing the
overall U.S. market for pencils and future of U.S. production of pencils relative
to how I see this topic coupled with other developing industry trends.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In my view, regardless of the final outcome of this particular
legal case I believe this is a positive development for U.S. pencil
manufacturers and other established pencil industry participants who are
committed to making quality products and playing by the rules when it comes to
all manner of international trade, environmental, labor and product safety
regulations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the past 20 years the
trends of globalization, retail channel consolidation and other competitive market
forces have contributed to a dramatic shift in our industry structure just as
in many other industries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a free
market thinker I do not believe these are inherently bad trends and they have
led to a number of benefits for society as a whole though those benefits may
not always be evenly dispersed and has not always resulted in comparable
product quality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
When it comes to pencils, both here in the U.S. and worldwide,
we are seeing more pencils sold and consumed at lower average prices than 20
years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Despite the common misconception that pencils
are a dying business, pencil consumption generally grows globally at or around
the rate of population growth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also per
capita pencil consumption tends to increase with income growth as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Providing
we continue our positive immigration trends we should see stable and slowly
growing demand for wood-cased pencils over the long term.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Obviously income growth and dispersion is a current
concern in light of recent economic developments, but ultimately I still remain
optimistic about U.S. potential from the macroeconomic stand point.</span><br />
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The rise of computers, tablets, or smart phones over this
period have yet to prove to me that these technologies are going to displace
writing instruments and pencils as a whole.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Technology certainly can impact how and where we use pencils at the
margins. However, there is a strong emotional and tactile connection people have with
their preferred writing tools and the physical act of depositing graphite, ink, paint or
color pigments onto paper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What could
impact per capita pencil consumption even more than technology is allowing
another generation of kids to be raised without access to and experiencing the
use of good quality pencils. This could drive consumption patterns to alternate
writing instruments in the long term.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Despite the benefit of ever cheaper wood-cased pencils on household budgets over the past 20 years , one negative byproduct has been exposing children, teachers
and other consumers to a general reduction in the quality of the average pencil sold here
in the U.S. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At Pencils.com one of our
most common consumer questions is: “Where can I find a decent pencil at a
reasonable price in which the lead won’t break, the eraser works without
smearing and that actually writes well?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
Teachers often report that the simple act of more <a href="http://pencils.com/blog/the-pencil-crisis/" target="_blank">frequent breakage and sharpening has become a disruption in the classroom</a>.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">One complicating factor is the poor state of funding for
education in the U.S., especially when it comes to the provision of basic
school supplies. As a result <a href="http://thejournal.com/articles/2010/07/08/teachers-spend-1.3-billion-out-of-pocket-on-classroom-materials.aspx" target="_blank">the burden of supplying pencils and other suppliesis increasingly pushed onto teachers and families who have their own budgetconcerns</a>. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The drive for ever lower
prices has helped, but has also compromised quality and selection. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a result the assortment of pencils on retailers’
shelves has declined and the mix increased towards imported private label or
low price non-manufacturer brands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lower
space allocation is offered to traditional quality manufacturer brands.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">So what do a bunch of economic, social and demographic
trends have to do with an illegal transshipment case and whether this helps the
U.S. industry or not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The question lies
in part whether the retailers as a group, begin to see that price of pencils
cannot be their sole determining factor in the product mix as there are other
costs such as the associated anti-dumping duties and penalties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also will consumers take a greater interest in the quality and origins of their
pencil purchases?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Sure they are still going to want the best price possible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, I tend to think that a supplier who
is willing to illegally transship pencils is also a supplier who is more likely
to cut corners in product safety and quality.. These are all problems the retailers and
consumers don’t want to deal with over the long term.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If retailers increasingly find they will be
held responsible for penalties, fines and consumer dissatisfaction as a result
of the potential negative aspects of their product supply chain then they are
going to increase their diligence in vetting and selecting their
suppliers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Certainly they cannot be
expert in every product range they sell and as they are importing many products
globally, the headache of assuring compliance on products with anti-dumping
duties and other safety or regulatory concerns may result in some level of
return for advice and supply to known domestic vendors for improved
reliability.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This does not necessarily
mean an imported pencil will be replaced by a domestically produced one, but
the opportunity for engagement on that supply decision will certainly improve
for the U.S. producers.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Further there are currently added economic trends that point
towards some return to U.S. manufacturing in general.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My belief is this ultimately will have some positive
benefits for the U.S. pencil industry also.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Labor costs in China are now increasing dramatically and though still quite
low relative to the U.S. are making it difficult for many general
manufacturing companies to find and retain qualified employees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Chinese labor regulations as well as other
environmental and bureaucratic regulations are beginning to impact the general
cost of doing business in China.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
first impacts those producers in China who play by the rules, but in time the effects should
spread further throughout the Chinese economy. Meanwhile, U.S. domestic energy costs
are declining with the increase in domestic gas exploration and development.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Long lead times on overseas supply chains
complicate planning and inventory investment while domestic producers can often
be more flexible with quicker response times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Another important concern within the pencil industry is that
Chinese basswood and other Chinese woods have come under pressure for use in
other domestic purposes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More wood is
coming from Russia which has less stringent regulatory oversight causing more
concern with legal wood supply issues.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
resurgence in total Chinese GDP growth from their current slowdown will have
further inflationary impact on global wood supply and thus eventually pencil
prices as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In my personal
assessment we’ve seen a low point reached in global wholesale pencil prices
that was reached about two or three years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There will always be some other part of the world, the next low cost
country, to move on to, but adequate quality wood supply and transportation
costs also have an important impact on pencil economics beyond labor costs and
regulatory environments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Overtime, the
developing world catches up in relative costs so the U.S. should be able to
adapt and innovate to remain competitive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That is as long as we do not let our current political stagnation and
increasingly burdensome regulatory environment overwhelm us over the long term. As the U.S.
remains one of the most important global growers of trees this ultimately will
have some positive impact on a host of products manufactured from solid wood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a result I do predict that we will
eventually see at least some small improvement in U.S. production of pencils and other wooden products over
time.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In our own business at <a href="http://www.calcedar.com/" target="_blank">California Cedar Products Company</a> we
are certainly not prepared to return our <a href="http://www.calcedar.com/pencil-slats-intro-info/" target="_blank">slat manufacturing</a> operations to the
U.S.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, we are increasing our
commitment to U.S. based wood supply with the recent introduction of our
<a href="http://www.calcedar.com/ecoslat-pacific-albus/" target="_blank">Pacific Albus product range</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eventually
we expect this will be an increasingly relevant component of our business displacing Chinese and Russian Basswood and supplementing
our premium <a href="http://www.calcedar.com/california-incense-cedar/" target="_blank">California Incense-cedar product range</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Additionally, we have recently made several small movements towards
U.S. production regarding our Palomino Brands pencil ranges.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Recently we relocated the final eraser
tipping process for our <a href="http://www.pencils.com/category/brand/blackwing" target="_blank">Palomino Blackwing and Blackwing 602 pencils</a> from Japan
to our Stockton, CA using a newly developed tipping process.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This should improve tipping quality and responsiveness as demand for Blackwing pencils grows.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Thought the pencils themselves will continue to be produced in Japan. </span>Also, we are transitioning our Prospector and
Golden Bear products from Thailand production to the U.S. where we are working
with one of our slat customers Musgrave Pencil Company to produce these items.
The new “made in the USA” versions of both pencils will phase out our prior California Republic
versions and be available exclusively on Pencils.com in the coming weeks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These pencil items represent only a very minute segment of the U.S. pencil market, but do expand our commitment to
offering a “Made in the U.S.A.” product selection in our Pencils.com store.<o:p></o:p></span>WoodChuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17463614041405036323noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15148858.post-63103536160651805512012-07-11T17:32:00.001-07:002012-07-25T15:00:23.831-07:00Allegations of Illegal Chinese Pencils<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgf3_KSTPN73uQhEzCnboSTHgNXKm5GVRBxFMGnh2X_YKyys-XrqdeRGvyNT9marFgndwjzaSTNWZ6gWRTqpc12_wNYOcf9a1RTtcLHucTgYoy_cM_x8rMIrC_pXYoQLSEiUPoTQ/s1600/hongkong-china-cargo-797796-h.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgf3_KSTPN73uQhEzCnboSTHgNXKm5GVRBxFMGnh2X_YKyys-XrqdeRGvyNT9marFgndwjzaSTNWZ6gWRTqpc12_wNYOcf9a1RTtcLHucTgYoy_cM_x8rMIrC_pXYoQLSEiUPoTQ/s1600/hongkong-china-cargo-797796-h.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgf3_KSTPN73uQhEzCnboSTHgNXKm5GVRBxFMGnh2X_YKyys-XrqdeRGvyNT9marFgndwjzaSTNWZ6gWRTqpc12_wNYOcf9a1RTtcLHucTgYoy_cM_x8rMIrC_pXYoQLSEiUPoTQ/s320/hongkong-china-cargo-797796-h.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">U.S. Pencil Anti-Dumping Duties are news once again as a result of new developments with regards to alleged transshipments of pencils produced in China via third countries to avoid these duties. Despite the imposition of such duties since 1994 there has been a steady increase in imports by retailers and wholesalers most importantly from China, but also Indonesia, and numerous other countries over the past 20 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> To maintain competitive through out this period much of </span>the
traditional volume supplied by U.S. pencil manufacurers has migrated primarily to Mexico and Asia, particularly the
largest U.S. producers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In effect, the large retailers and a new class of importers and distributors have significant increased importance to overall US pencil supply using lower cost imports by bypassing the historical U.S. producers. Today U.S. manufacturers now use a combination of U.S. production, foreign production in their own subsidiary facilities as well as outsourced production from third party foreign suppliers to meet thier customers needs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Only a very few maintain all their production within the U.S. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Today I estimate that less than 10% of U.S. pencil
consumption consists of pencils actually manufactured in the United
States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Certainly the actual market share of
the traditional U.S. producers is much higher when factoring in production imported from their own
facilities in Mexico or China plus what they import from other foreign producers. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps 50% of the U.S. market today are
pencils imported directly from China, despite the anti-dumping duties of 114%
levied on Chinese pencils since 1994.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of these direct Chinese imports do not
pay the full anti-dumping duty given that provisions under the statutes allow
for a review process with the U.S. Commerce department that results in
reductions in these duties applicable to some Chinese producers/exporters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, the review process is expensive and
only the largest Chinese producers that export to the US participate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a result it has been long suspected that
there also have been a substantial number of Chinese produced pencils being
illegally transshipped via third countries to avoid these duties. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Suspecting and proving such transshipments however are
separate matters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Now for the first time
since implementation of the duties it was made public in May that there is an active
civil case proceeding against several large U.S. retailers and importers for
participating in the importation of illegal transshipped Chinese pencils via countries
such as Taiwan, Indonesia and Vietnam.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This </span><a href="http://www.marketwatch.com/story/target-corp-staples-inc-and-officemax-inc-a" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">case was filed in 2008 by the Cullen Law Firm in Washington, D.C. per the this press release published May 17, 2012</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
The public docket was made available May 1st. </span>Note that at this time these remain only allegations, but if the case
prevails there are substantive fines and penalties that would be accruing going
back to at least 2006 as it’s not just the transshipment to avoid duties that is a potential violation, but
also incorrect marking relative to country of origin laws as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I have now had the opportunity to review the actual Docket
Report from the U.S. District court which was formally unsealed on May 1<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">st</span></sup>
of this year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Certainly the details of
the allegations in these documents seem well researched and argued and are
consistent with rumors of various transshipment practices I’ve heard
throughout the years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Cullen law firm seems confident in their press release.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the event the case is successful it
appears that the the Cullen firm and their client will benefit financially
receiving a share of the duties and penalties collected with the balance
returning to the U.S. Government which remains an interested party to this case.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">There is also the matter of whether the defendants were
knowingly or unknowingly participating in this practice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My understanding is that the burden of proof
on that point is not as relevant in a civil case vs. a criminal case and that
may be the rub.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The plaintiff just has
to prove the illegal transshipments occurred.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Whether these companies knew they were illegal transshipments doesn’t really
matter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If proven true, clearly the
drive for ever lower procurement costs from these retailers will have played a part in
supporting the illegal behavior facilitated by thier suppliers in one way or another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the importers of record they are
potentially subject to the back duties and penalties and as these appear to be
rather substantial I assume this case has definitely got their attention and
hopefully the attention of other pencil importers.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Finally, from what I’ve learned about the case to date none
of the traditional U.S. pencil producers appears to be actively involved as a plaintiff, nor has
any been named or identified as a participant in any of the alleged transshipment
activities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In my experience the
U.S. Industry participants have always supported “playing by the rules” and indeed
several companies were involved as plaintiffs in the original anti-dumping
case.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In that respect they helped set
the current rules.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if some of these U.S. producers
may have relocated much of their own production overseas, they have long been active in
assuring that their own imports of finished goods and raw materials are fully
compliant with applicable U.S. trade law as well as all relevant consumer
products safety regulations, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While
the U.S. Writing Instrument Manufacturers Association and it’s Pencil Section
have taken no public position on this case, my personal view is that these
member companies (of which ours is one) are watching this case with interest
and hope that whatever the final ruling it will have some form of positive
impact for all of those companies in our industry, foreign or domestic, that
play by the rules. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">So what does this all mean for U.S. pencil
manufacturing?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> If proven true, w</span>hat changes will these
defendants and potentially other retailers and importers make in their practices
and supply chain structures to address potential risks brought to light by this
alleged activity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Will it benefit U.S.
manufacturing or just redistribute purchasing to other foreign
manufacturers?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What other market forces
are currently at play that could impact the trends regarding the future of U.S.
pencil manufacturing?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll address these
questions in my next post in just about two weeks time. In the meantime here's a link to a collection of my past posts on <a href="http://timberlines.blogspot.com/search/label/Trade%20and%20Duties" target="_blank">international trade issues</a> related to the pencil Industry. </span>WoodChuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17463614041405036323noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15148858.post-39533354313848060122012-06-08T15:12:00.002-07:002012-06-08T15:14:51.071-07:00Ode to Blackwing Animated Version<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://palominobrands.com/ode-to-blackwing/" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRDLI0CxCxD9qFZFfylcbnFiwe-tL13h1oURJ85E8NB9BvlK2jIaEFidLyTpYdUKOqwNDfZOWxLkSAjqHoJy49Yy8MuAk5z5h_Awi02I8PM9VKN0PGwYSukgx7wr_EbgdGA6MvGA/s400/ode+to+blackwing.png" width="400" /> Click here to view video</a></div>
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Today marks the 1 year anniversary of the introduction of our Palomino Blackwing 602 pencil for sales on Pencils.com. It's been a fun first year with alot of positive developments, including most recently our original <a href="http://pencils.com/blog/the-blackwing-movie-an-interview-with-filmmakers-ricardo-and-victoria/">Palomino Blackwing pencil being featured in an upcomming movie</a>. But today is really about poetry.<br />
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Yesterday was also the first anniversary of my original post "Ode to Blackwing", my rather hokey attempt at a poetic tribute to the history and revival of the Blackwing pencil and the process of responding to customer feedback to create the later Palomino Blackwing 602 version as we introduced it. Today we have just released the Animated version of "Ode to Blackwing". This video was produced as suprise to me for the Blackwing Experience event in New York back in April. It was playing on an animated loop at the end of the historical timeline on the pencil industry. A few lines were modified by our creative team from my <a href="http://timberlines.blogspot.com/2011/06/ode-to-blackwing.html">original version</a> and the voice of course is not mine. Thanks to Cartoonist Gary Kopervas for collaboration on this project. Hope you enjoy.</div>
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As we are celebrating Literature and Poetry as our theme on the <a href="http://pencils.com/blog/">Studio602 blog</a> this month and yesterday we launched our <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pencilpeople#!/pencilpeople/app_147575095377373">Pencils.com Poetry Slam contest</a> I thought I'd share this video for a bit of inspiration. Hope you'll enter by June 19th for a chance to win a great giftset. <br />
<br />WoodChuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17463614041405036323noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15148858.post-51186846365872382122012-04-13T18:00:00.006-07:002012-04-13T23:12:22.920-07:00Dear SeanTo my readers:<br /><br />I find myself in the distasteful postion to publish the following letter, which in my view should be a private communication between Sean Malone, the Publisher & Editor of Blackwing Pages and myself. Unfortunately, the increasing intensity and method of his campaign against me and our company and now the additional posts of a couple others which appear to have jumped on certain of his themes, have now crossed a line where I feel some public clarification is required. Given Mr. Malone's approach to date, I felt it best to publish the entire letter and let you decide for yourself. I realize by publishing this letter I am opening myself up to further criticism and to further parsing of my intentions to fit the purposes of my detractors. I have always prided myself on my overall transparency. I could have approached Sean sooner to address his claims, but it has been unclear by his actions to date that any earlier response or even this letter will do any good. I hope it will, but who knows. Then again neither Mr. Malone, nor anyone else who has been critical, has ever bothered to directly contact me or my team these past few months to address their greivences. I have also just responded over at Pencil Talk to a new post on related topics to furher clarify certain questions asked today.<br /><br /><br /><br /><em>April 13, 2012<br /><br />Sean Malone, Publisher/Editor<br />Blackwing Pages<br /><br />Dear Sean,<br />In the last three months you have devoted a great deal of energy to not only criticizing the marketing efforts around our Palomino Blackwing pencils, but more recently to calling into question my personal integrity and the reputation of our company. Now you’ve apparently enlisted others in your campaign. I am honestly startled as to how we got to this point. In my acknowledging an inadequately vetted claim about Frank Lloyd Wright’s use of a Blackwing, it seemed that we were both interested in documenting as available the history of the Eberhard Faber Blackwing 602 and the following it engendered. Prior to that event, I felt we have had a long, positive and mutually supportive relationship where you had willingly provided various images, sent us music scoring sheets for promotional photography purposes, etc. and had never expressed any sentiment that you were dissatisfied with the manner in which we may have utilized any material from your blog. In fact in our e-mail ommunication of Jaunary 6th after the whole FLW affair, I apologized again personally to you for our faux paux and invited you to be an active participant in our planned Blackwing Experience event to help us get the facts right. You indicated you had nothing against me personally nor were you trying to assert some moral high ground on the issue.<br /><br />You also politely declined my invitation to participate in the Blackwing Experience event, which I have fully respected. As such, I directed our team to work on our own historical research elative to prior users of the Eberhard Faber Blackwing and to provide appropriate attribution for source materials. We have done just that. In fact, our “Blackwing in Pop Culture” page on our recently published Palomino Brands website lists sources for each Blackwing user mentioned, lus includes a link to a bibliography page. None of these reference your work as they have done independent verifications, respecting your wishes not to be associated with our endeavors.</em><br /><br /><em>We have also reached out to a number of users, and families of users, of the original EF Blackwings with very positive and supportive results and continue to focus on that effort. In fact, the grandson of Chuck Jones, head of one of the many estates of former users who support our efforts, extended his appreciation personally for us bringing back the Blackwing because it was such “a huge part of what Chuck was able to accomplish”. He will be a participant in our panel discussion on Creativity and what it means to pick up a pencil in the digital age. An invitation I ould have gladly extended also to you, but again, you declined any involvement. We have the upport of not only Mr. Jones’ estate, but as I understand it from the estates of Nelson Riddle and ohn Steinbeck, among others. Stephen Sondheim himself is a fond user of our Palomino lackwing pencils and has voiced his support of our Blackwing revival publicly in his book and privately, as well as of the upcoming Blackwing Experience exhibit in New York. We are expecting a very informative Blackwing Experience event in New York that both honors the reative legacy associated with the Eberhard Faber Blackwing 602 pencil as well as brings to the forefront the talents of the fans of our new Palomino Blackwing generation of pencils.</em><br /><em> </em><br /><em>In recent weeks, however, since our last private communication in early January, the frequency and intensity of your posting activity has increased, as has the series of ever-critical posts and attacks on both me and CalCedar. You have parsed the language used in our communications to fit your arguments and challenged nearly every new piece of information we have put out about Blackwing pencils or the upcoming event. Your invective has now bridged the gap to calling me both a thief and a liar and to attacking the integrity of third parties, Justin Oberman and The Art Directors Club. On that latter subject, we are advised by counsel that the fleeting use of your picture of pencils in the documentary and enlightening video on pencil sharpening was well within fair use rights by video’s creator. I never saw that piece before it was published as it was a project between other parties; though I now see we were given a credit as “Palomino Presents”. Had I seen it, I would have immediately recognized your photo and suggested it be changed to one we could happily provide, and in fact the offending photo has since been replaced. However, I am probably the only one who would have recognized that photo as coming from your blog as with most other historical material on Blackwing Pages. Our day to day team has simply not been referencing Blackwing Pages since early January, until your recent aggressive posting activity against our company has necessitated such visitation to assess your claims.</em><br /><br /><em>There seems no substantive reason for your harsh treatment of Justin, except for his association and collaboration with our company on the upcoming event, and perhaps that you feel he has not apologized to you for accidental use of your photo. Likewise, your statements about me and CalCedar have now become defamatory. If you feel we have “stolen” anything from you or take issue with anything else, please feel free to contact me directly and privately, and I give you my personal assurance that I will investigate specific and clear claims you may have. I am open to considering that there may have been one or two places we could have erred since the FLW issue, I understand a couple factual errors were corrected when brought to our attention, but your claim that this is somehow evidence of some underhanded strategy or theft on our part is ludicrous. You have not once shown the courtesy of communicating such specific concerns directly to me in all this time, preferring instead to use your blog as bully pulpit. However, public and potentially libelous charges through your blog seem inappropriate and counter-productive to the support that the original Eberhard Faber Blackwing 602, our new Palomino Blackwing models and all pencils in general deserve.</em><a name="GoBack"></a><em> I stopped commenting on your blog because you told me you didn’t want any association with our efforts and because your attacks indeed became personal and morally based contrary to your communication to me on January 6th.</em><br /><br /><em>Sean, I don’t expect you to agree with me on the marketing approach to CalCedar’s business, and indeed there are other protectors of the original Blackwing product. You are entitled to your opinions on these subjects. We have never claimed we are producing an exact replica of the Eberhard Faber Blackwing 602. It’s impossible to do so in my opinion. We are trying to do the best we can to produce a modern successor and build a new following for our Blackwing pencils, as a premier writing instrument, one that honors the creative tradition of the original pencil and its users. Those values are inherent in the Blackwing brand whether printed on an Eberhard Faber version or a Palomino version. It is your prerogative to rail on these efforts, but the increasing move towards outright defamation is simply inappropriate. Hopefully, we can discuss and resolve these issues reasonably and move on. I hope you’ll agree there are more important things we can both be attending to in our lives.</em><br /><br /><em>Regards,<br /><br />Charles Berolzheimer<br />President</em><br /><em>California Cedar Products Company</em>WoodChuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17463614041405036323noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15148858.post-55122938440644435152012-01-02T10:54:00.000-08:002012-01-02T12:27:39.434-08:00Sondheim and an Angel Brighten up my New Year, Twice<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioMcPTfAh29Lfw7vGlxuP5PoeK1OS5_pvVvAUBMP35-PxUkuo8e3EdJPJ5SyoFEg5gsQgan7xx_RJ-LEx5kz-aIxTdnzu1TMNXj1jUazM9ikJtTcYd3O6WjaXfZrMiWuVHNdlwlQ/s1600/SanLuis+Sunrise.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioMcPTfAh29Lfw7vGlxuP5PoeK1OS5_pvVvAUBMP35-PxUkuo8e3EdJPJ5SyoFEg5gsQgan7xx_RJ-LEx5kz-aIxTdnzu1TMNXj1jUazM9ikJtTcYd3O6WjaXfZrMiWuVHNdlwlQ/s320/SanLuis+Sunrise.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5693124403749086674" border="0" /></a>Last night I had to make an unexpected drive back to the Monterey area beach house on the final day of vacation after having returned home earlier in the day then finding that some very important items were left behind and unattended to before our departure with no means to address them remotely. I was driving along and brooding about my misfortune on having to retrace a 2-1/2 hour trip at 8pm and then return to Stockton again this morning in time for work after two weeks out of the office. In fact this was the 2nd year in a row with an inauspicious start after last year waking up on New Year's day to find a nail in my tire and none of the normal tire shops open on the holiday when I had to return home later that day. The nail was in a spot that could not just be patched and I had some challenging tires to replace and too long a drive home on the space saver spare. Fortunately, good providence returned when I found <a href="http://angelstireservice.com/">Angel's Tire Service in nearby Castroville</a> just happened to be open that morning and have a single used tire that would fit the bill.<br /><br />So picture my mood last night, alone on the road thinking, "Here we go again, what a lousy start to the New Year!", kicking myself for failing to button up all the details before leaving the beach earlier in the day, half-resenting my wife who's comfortable at home despite offering to accompany me. In an effort to change this dark disposition I turned on Sirius radio looking for some Jazz and was surprised to find a rebroadcast of <a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/12/30/144485557/stephen-sondheim-on-piano-jazz">NPR's Piano Jazz with Marian McPartland from 1994 featuring an hour long session interviewing and playing with Stephen Sondheim</a>. I had only missed the first 10 minutes or so. As I am also a fan of musical theater (performing some show tunes now and then as part of a chorus) and of Sondheim's work, (not just because he's a great fan of the Blackwing pencil), I couldn't help thinking about Angel's tire and that perhaps good providence was returning again to salvage my first day of the year once again.<br /><br />This is a great listen. There is some great discussion between Stephen and Marian in this segment and with her playing some of his tunes on piano with her own interpretations and Stephen commenting back about those as well as his own thoughts and stories about composing those songs. One of my favorite parts is when she plays "Send in the Clowns" and he talks about both the Sinatra version, re-scored by Nelson Riddle (another Blackwing pencil user) and trying to get Nelson to change something he didn't like and then alternatively willingly making a change for Barbara Streisand request on another change in the same tune as he agreed with the reason for the change. This segment starts about 22 minutes into the session, though the whole show is a highly recommended listen and very enjoyable.<br /><br />I forgot fully about my false start to the year and even had a lovely drive back this morning witnessing a gorgeous sunrise coming up over the fog rolling out of the central valley and covering the lower reaches of the San Luis Reservoir as I drove down the pass. I just had to stop and take the photo here along the way. Then I return to the office this morning and find an e-mail from Justin over at Obercreative that had come in over the holiday with a scan of a page from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Look-Made-Hat-Amplifications-Digressions/dp/030759341X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325534178&sr=8-1">Sondheim's new book "Look, I Made a Hat"</a>. In it Sondheim mentions "In <span style="font-style: italic;">Finishing the Hat</span> I sang a paean of praise to the Blackwing pencil" and then goes on to mention. The timing really couldn't be any better. What a great start to the New Year. Going to have to order this ASAP.<br /><br />So thanks Stephen and thanks to Angel for brightening up my false starts these past two New Years. And to any of you who'd had a somewhat slow beginning to the new year I hope this story has been at least a little "enlightening". Happy New Year and here's to having a great and very creative 2012.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh56K_TbFyMfM-vV8UnPGaIcH7KFl_EVyP4c0VhRm_1BiuKPod3Zk_whmnnM_GX_YQod792asaTQn3F3_EaSuHSx1RzWuSoDGED762LuzYNEY73fQbeskDaxgLp-nS4mMjtMuJYow/s1600/Sonheim+Made+a+Hat.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 366px; height: 488px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh56K_TbFyMfM-vV8UnPGaIcH7KFl_EVyP4c0VhRm_1BiuKPod3Zk_whmnnM_GX_YQod792asaTQn3F3_EaSuHSx1RzWuSoDGED762LuzYNEY73fQbeskDaxgLp-nS4mMjtMuJYow/s400/Sonheim+Made+a+Hat.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5693133730300491666" border="0" /></a>WoodChuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17463614041405036323noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15148858.post-69916398512611299402011-12-09T13:33:00.000-08:002011-12-09T15:37:26.220-08:00Studio 602 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<w:lsdexception locked="false" priority="69" semihidden="false" unhidewhenused="false" name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"> <w:lsdexception locked="false" priority="70" semihidden="false" unhidewhenused="false" name="Dark List Accent 6"> <w:lsdexception locked="false" priority="71" semihidden="false" unhidewhenused="false" name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"> <w:lsdexception locked="false" priority="72" semihidden="false" unhidewhenused="false" name="Colorful List Accent 6"> <w:lsdexception locked="false" priority="73" semihidden="false" unhidewhenused="false" name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"> <w:lsdexception locked="false" priority="19" semihidden="false" unhidewhenused="false" qformat="true" name="Subtle Emphasis"> <w:lsdexception locked="false" priority="21" semihidden="false" unhidewhenused="false" qformat="true" name="Intense Emphasis"> <w:lsdexception locked="false" priority="31" semihidden="false" unhidewhenused="false" qformat="true" name="Subtle Reference"> <w:lsdexception locked="false" priority="32" semihidden="false" unhidewhenused="false" qformat="true" name="Intense Reference"> <w:lsdexception locked="false" priority="33" semihidden="false" unhidewhenused="false" qformat="true" name="Book Title"> <w:lsdexception locked="false" priority="37" name="Bibliography"> <w:lsdexception locked="false" priority="39" qformat="true" name="TOC Heading"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I am very pleased to announce <span style="font-weight: bold;">“Blackwing Sessions”</span>, a new adventure in expanding the range of fresh content we are producing to support creativity and the use of pencils.<span style=""> </span>Blackwing Sessions is a new production from <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://pencils.com/blog/">Studio 602</a>, our entertainment and educational blog at Pencils.com. </span><span style="font-size:100%;">The inaugural Blackwing Sessions video features my good friend <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.christiantamburr.com/bio/">Christian Tamburr</a> as our first Blackwing Featured musical artist, and will be released on Studio602 in its full length version on Monday December 12<sup>th</sup>. Until then here is a short teaser cut from the full length version. More about Christian and the Blackwing Sessions below.</span></p><span style="font-size:100%;"><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/RYTauC4TnDk" allowfullscreen="" width="450" frameborder="0" height="253"></iframe><br /><br />Christian’s musical talents in the jazz world as a top vibraphonist (he plays a mean piano too) are well respected, and include an "Outstanding Jazz Solo Performer" award from Downbeat Magazine. He and a growing number of talented musicians have become big fans of our Blackwing pencils for scoring and other notation purposes. <span style=""> </span>The video was filmed during the recording session for Christian’s new album “Places”.<span style=""> </span>It includes interviews with Christian and his quartet members about their creative process and tools used in composing, performing and recording their music.<span style=""> </span>It also features the process of working out the intro of and then recording of the final cut to “Sailing Serenity”, one of 4 </span><span style="font-size:100%;">original compositions by </span><span style="font-size:100%;">Christian included in this album.<span style=""> </span>The remaining 5 songs are some great arrangements of other artists tunes including the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby” with a fun modern groove and Julio Iglesias’ “La Carratera” featuring a nice Latin feel.<span style=""> </span>Coincidentally, Christian served as musical director and piano player for Julio on the road for three years.<span style=""> </span></span> <span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:georgia;font-size:11pt;" ><br /><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span></span></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:georgia;font-size:11pt;" ><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-size:85%;">We all had a lot of fun putting together for you.</span></span><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:85%;" > </span><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:85%;" >We hope to see you on Studio 602 on Monday when we release the full 12 minute video, plus a more complete bio on Christian as our first Blackwing Featured musician.</span><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:85%;" > </span><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:85%;" >In addition we’ll be launching sales of his new CD “Places” on Pencils.com as well.</span><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:85%;" > </span><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:85%;" >For now you can listen to the album here on <a href="http://soundcloud.com/tracks/search?q%5Bfulltext%5D=christian+tamburr&q%5Btype%5D=&q%5Bduration%5D=">Soundcloud </a>or download via iTunes, but for those who still like the full CD we’ll have it available for sale Monday which would make a great gift for the musician in your family when paired with our limited time offer on a <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.pencils.com/blackwing-limited-edition-combo-pack">Blackwing 6 Pencil combo pack</a>.</span><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:85%;" > </span><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:85%;" >We hope you’ll like our inaugural Blackwing Session video.</span><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:85%;" > </span><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:85%;" >If things go well with this we hope to collaborate with and feature more Blackwing artists, writers and musicians in the future to build upon the <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://blackwingexperience.com/">Blackwing Experience</a>.</span></span></span></div>WoodChuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17463614041405036323noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15148858.post-67260499987184044292011-10-28T08:08:00.000-07:002011-10-28T10:04:09.112-07:00Guitars, Pencils and Lacey Act Compliance<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuzToSR8MHX4xV442hN7r6ZzhB7rGyxOEJJK_ySAc-Hd_5rzFefwJXy9R-jp6BFSXJhODF36KnMl7XIRqa6vlSvtNWa6FgIRUAR3JpzHSfFyubBynmJgcT45twm-L-xNikTe3Acg/s1600/DSC00846.JPG"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 225px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuzToSR8MHX4xV442hN7r6ZzhB7rGyxOEJJK_ySAc-Hd_5rzFefwJXy9R-jp6BFSXJhODF36KnMl7XIRqa6vlSvtNWa6FgIRUAR3JpzHSfFyubBynmJgcT45twm-L-xNikTe3Acg/s400/DSC00846.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5668586049585104642" border="0" /></a> This photo is of my father back in the 1970s during a visit to Kitaboshi Pencil Company in Tokyo, Japan, where I actually visited today.<span style=""> </span>He is being presented a guitar produced using California Incense-cedar by a member of the Sugitani family who are customers using our pencil slats for their products.<span style=""> </span>This gentleman is now retired, but I happened to see him today, he says he still plays guitar every day and had that guitar specially commissioned for my father as a gift.<span style=""> </span>Look for my upcoming post about the history of Kitaboshi Pencil and their products that we will begin selling on <a href="http://pencils.com/categories">Pencils.com</a> next week.<span style=""> </span>California Incense-cedar used in our pencil slats, our customers’ pencils using our slats (and in this one of a kind guitar) is fully compliant with the US Lacey Act which is the main subject of this post.<span style=""> </span><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><br />The recent news of the US Fish & Wildlife Service raid and seizure of Rosewood and Ebony wood raw materials as well as guitars from Gibson Guitars and subsequent claims by Gibson's CEO that the US government is over reaching in its actions has an interesting relevance to challenges also faced by our company and our customers in the U.S. pencil industry. Here are links to three articles about the Gibson issue over the past month:</span></p> <ul type="disc"><li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/19/us-usa-trade-guitars-idUSTRE78I4JJ20110919"><span style="color:blue;">Trade Law Hits Note for Guitar Maker Gibson - September 19, 2011</span></a></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/30/us-usa-trade-guitars-idUSTRE78T5MA20110930"><span style="color:blue;">Gibson Guitars Wood Imports Case Raises Concerns - September 30, 2011</span></a></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/12/us-guitar-idUSTRE79B7PT20111012"><span style="color:blue;">Gibson Guitars CEO slams US raids as "Overreach" - October 12, 2011</span></a></span></li></ul> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >At issue is the application of the <a href="http://www.aphis.usda.gov/plant_health/lacey_act/">2008 Amendment to the Lacey Act</a>, a law originally established in 1900 governing the illegal trafficking of hunted wildlife and game across state lines and since inception has continually expanded in scope and breadth to cover fish and plants. The law is administered by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) within the U.S. Department of Agriculture and jointly enforced with U.S. Department of Fish & Game which is the lead agency in the case against Gibson Guitars.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >Under the 2008 amendment the law was extended to plants, wood and products made from wood and plant materials.<span style=""> </span>The amendment requires importers of applicable products to certify that the wood materials used in their products were not obtained from illegally harvested materials or include any protected or threatened tree species. The amendment implemented a number of documentation and declaration requirements that must now accompany each import shipment with respect to specific species used, country of origin of the trees from which the wood product was produced and statements relative to the legal harvesting of the trees used in the. Knowingly importing wood or wooden products covered by the law is a violation of the law subject to both civil and criminal penalties. Heralded as an improvement in environmental policy the amendment was also supported by the Bush Administration as a protectionist measure for the US timber and wood products industry against lower cost imported woods.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >While I have no specific knowledge of and cannot speak to the specific issues involved with Gibson's case I can certainly state that illogical and inconsistent application of the rules process by government agencies responsible for enforcing the Lacey Act is a ripe example of the "law of unintended consequences" as with much government regulation. CalCedar has been deeply involved in addressing the 2008 Lacey Act amendment relative to compliance of our own pencil wood supply as well as understanding the impacts of the law on our company, our customers and the pencil industry supply chain as a whole. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >We have long taken an industry leadership position in assuring the wood resources we utilize are harvested from <a href="http://pencils.com/forest-conservation">well managed forests</a> according to applicable rules and regulations in any countries we source our wood from. We have and continue to support industry efforts to increase the overall sustainability and have been a pioneer in implementing <a href="http://pencils.com/forest-certification">FSC and SFI third party certification</a> to an increasing proportion of our wood supply. Thus in concept implementation of the Lacey Act amendments in 2008 was a step in a positive direction with a goal of eliminating illegally sourced raw material or utilization of any threatened plant species.<span style=""> </span>Though the standards applied as to what’s illegal or legal or threatened or not can vary from country to country as the Lacey Act simply requires compliance to the applicable laws in the country of harvest.<span style=""> </span>Thus the level of added environmental protection here is inconsistent from country to country.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >The Lacey Act requirements added a whole new level of documentation and due diligence required for us to supply slats to our US based pencil manufacturing customers. This included updated investigations and documentation of our wood supply chain and added costs of consulting in the investigation with an accredited third party certification agency as to appropriate precautions including the added burden to segregate and/or eliminate any wood of potential concern and to maintain clear chain of custody of all our through the supply chain. All of this was already occurring with respect to our FSC and SFI material in both Cedar and Basswood, but we felt it important to apply these processes to the balance of our Basswood supply chain.<span style=""> </span>Where we could not clearly document exact origin we sorted out the material to create yet another classification of inventory. <span style=""> </span>Thus with respect to our Basswood pencil slats we now must keep separate inventory and track three different groups of products; FSC certified, Lacey Compliant and standard inventory which we do not believe is a compliance concern but will not take the risk of selling into the US market without clear chain of custody back to the forest. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >However, this burden of declaration documentation was not extended to the importers of pencils themselves. Thus wood sold to our customers who produce pencils in the US is subject to the documentation requirements while finished imported pencils are not, placing an added burden on U.S. pencil producers. Given that the majority of pencils consumed in the U.S. today and before the amendment took effect were imported this inconsistent application of the statute to intermediate vs. finished products hardly serves to protect US manufacturing jobs or to ensure that the majority of pencils sold in the US are indeed Lacey Act compliant. This does not mean many or even most pencils are not compliant, just that the chances are higher that they could be. As far as musical instruments are concerned importation of pianos and stringed musical instruments, including guitars, seem to have become subject to the documentation and declaration requirements in April 2010, so in this case it appears the compliance playing field may be a bit more level between US and Foreign producers in that industry. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >Next, the rules are not very specific on the level of sufficient due diligence to protect an importer from prosecution and civil and criminal penalties under the act. The "due care" principal is used which is generally contextually applied depending upon the level of organizational expertise and level of involvement in the supply chain of the importer of record. Thus as an experienced wood products manufacturer standards for "due care" applied to our company may be interpreted by the relevant agency differently than that of an importer of finished pencils who tends to rely solely upon the level of documentation they choose to request from their supplier. In many cases such suppliers are simply foreign trading companies, not manufacturers themselves, relying on the say so of their own supplier. With much pressure put on the price of imported pencils and other wood products this provides some level of incentive to less ethical suppliers to fudge in the information provided to their U.S. import customer.<span style=""> </span>If a U.S. importer does not perform an on the ground investigation or use a knowledgeable third party certification agency, which is not specifically required under the statute, and simply relies on the paperwork provided by their supplier, they may be at some elevated risk of exposure to prosecution as to whether they employed “due care” in the event there is ultimately some problem found with the legality of the raw materials. This essentially becomes a risk management exercise for each importer with differing levels of risk tolerance and exposure. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >Finally, as a knowledgeable U.S. company operating our own facility in China and selling globally we are more at risk of punishment under this U.S. act than are our foreign competitors.<span style=""> </span>It’s going to be difficult for a U.S. importer penalized under the act to recoup any fines even if they have some form of guarantee.<span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>As such we've taken a more conservative approach to managing this issue in our company. This is also more costly than most of our foreign competitors especially those who are exporting finished pencils to the US where no specific requirements for their U.S. import customers to file the import declarations. This does not mean those pencils are not subject to requirement to be legally harvested, but they have less risk of being challenged as to compliance.<br /><br />As a company we are continually working to insure that an increasing portion of our wood supply to the pencil industry actually is part of one or more accepted third party certification programs, most specifically FSC or SFI, under the PEFC umbrella.<span style=""> </span>Given both inflationary cost and supply developments with respect to Basswood in China resulting from the Chinese government now enforcing greater harvest restrictions we are currently testing and introducing a new 100% FSC certified product line named Pacific Albus.<span style=""> </span>This new product is U.S. plantation grown and fully Lacey Act compliant.<span style=""> </span>We see Pacific Albus becoming increasingly important versus Chinese or Russian grown Basswood in our company’s supply program and is a product that will be proprietary to our company. I expect to post more about this new product range as we move forward with greater adoption and acceptance into the industry by our customers. </span></p>WoodChuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17463614041405036323noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15148858.post-83308253773589727542011-10-25T15:16:00.000-07:002011-10-25T15:52:13.302-07:00Celebrating the Japanese Pencil Industry<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifu1br4uabJrUVpUdR86DM71uwQbDLc9ReMA7DU36MGIONcddkCf1oCfd9I6NGBmNJv2Ua6idKdjP0UsfnMvGRzDcCTv6eNTcjUVm0_E_6m6kkemtGkpGaH4bgA6oHgc5LrGKRYQ/s1600/Double_Color_Tin.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 375px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifu1br4uabJrUVpUdR86DM71uwQbDLc9ReMA7DU36MGIONcddkCf1oCfd9I6NGBmNJv2Ua6idKdjP0UsfnMvGRzDcCTv6eNTcjUVm0_E_6m6kkemtGkpGaH4bgA6oHgc5LrGKRYQ/s400/Double_Color_Tin.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5667559751583481778" border="0" /></a>Sometime next week, tentatively on November 2<sup>nd</sup>, we’ll be introducing a few select items from two Japanese brands on Pencils.com; Kitaboshi Pencil Company and Tombow.<span style=""> </span>The selection includes several great items for the holiday gift giving season. You can learn more about those specific items in an upcoming <a href="http://pencils.com/blog/">Studio 602</a> story early next week.<span style=""> </span> <p class="MsoNormal">This expansion of brands at Pencils.com is a part of our continuing effort to introduce more of the products of our pencil slat customers’ from around the world. This allows us to increase the breadth of great high quality pencil offerings on Pencils.com, some of which are not readily available or well known in the U.S. Market. It also helps increase awareness and appreciation of some great pencils and of the wood-cased pencil in general.<span style=""> </span>Given our close relations as a wood slat supplier to many producers around the world, we hope to continue growing our offering mix quite a bit over the next year.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">This week also marks my annual visit to Tokyo to visit a number of our pencil slat customers and to work with our <a href="http://www.pencils.com/category/brand/california-republic/palomino">Palomino and Blackwing</a> producer about production planning and product development for new pencil items we expect to introduce in 2012.<span style=""> </span>Most notably a Palomino quality, private label pencil program, though we’ll share more about this in the coming months as that program moves closer to launch.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The Japanese Pencil industry is probably one of the most interesting domestic pencil industries in the world.<span style=""> </span>Relatively young by comparison to its European and US counterparts with several brands dating back 100+ years, most Japanese production and development of wood-cased pencils began in the post World War II era.<span style=""> </span>Over the past 20 years the industry has been subject to many of the globalization pressures faced by other developed western markets it also faces an extra challenge of demographic trends; a declining and aging population which means the consumption of pencils in Japan is actually declining year to year and has been for some time.<span style=""> </span>Japan is the highest cost pencil production market in the world which is reflected in their prices.<span style=""> </span>As a result very little exportation of Japanese wood-cased pencils is occurring, so the local market dictates overall production trends domestically.<span style=""> </span>(In fact Pencils.com with our Palomino and Blackwing products and more Japanese pencils coming may be one of the largest volume export distributors to North America already.) </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Despite these trends the Japanese production supply chain remains relatively intact and traditional without the degree of radical makeovers of mergers, acquisitions, or the extent of off-shoring production that the industry has witnessed in North America and Europe.<span style=""> </span>Yes, there are certainly fewer producers over time, with several dropping out over the pat few years, but the basic structure has been relatively static.<span style=""> </span>Also taken in context of relative market size vs. Europe and North America there are actually proportionately more Japanese companies actively involved in the production of pencils and pencil components in Japan today than in these other regions.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Why is this? Several factors contribute.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">First, Japan is a high quality and brand loyal market with consumers who understand the difference between good and bad pencils and are willing to pay the difference.<span style=""> </span>The 100 yen pencil is quite common and Beyond the major brands, Mitsubishi with its Hi-Uni and Tombow with it’s Mono, there has long been a unique demand for specialty pencils that also give a collectibles status such as “Character Pencils”, popular Disney, Pokemon and Anime characters licensed to either a pencil producer or a marketing company that contracts a local producer to produce their pencils.<span style=""> </span>“Game Pencils” which treat the 6 sides of the pencil as a sort of die which children can roll against one another and win each other’s pencils.<span style=""> </span>And a whole range of <a href="http://timberlines.blogspot.com/2006/10/japanese-design-pencils.html">designer theme pencils</a>.<span style=""> </span>Such innovations were first made popular in the Japan before being adopted by some US companies focusing on the school pencil market as they attempted.<span style=""> </span>Even if a marketing company has the rights to a character they most generally still use a Japanese sub-contractor for quality reasons and there have been a few lessons learned about the expectations of the Japanese consumer when the quality of an imported character pencil was not up to par.<span style=""> </span>In the US, more and more of such license or designer theme pencils are imported by marketers from lower cost manufacturing, with just a couple companies actively producing such pencils in the US today. In Japan all the companies are involved in this segment of the market. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Second, the unique structure of the Japanese industry involves a variety of specialist subcontractors, some who only specialize in one or two parts of the manufacturing process, such as wood-working, lacquering and finishing, graphite & color core production or packaging.<span style=""> </span>Larger companies such as Mitsubishi and Tombow and mid tier producers such as Sakamoto and Kitaboshi use these often more nimble or uniquely skilled sub-contractors to meet special processing needs, smaller production run sizes and do quicker turnaround on orders. <span style=""> </span>The character pencil marketing companies as well as some branded pens producers such as Pentel rely entirely on sub-contractors for their wood cased pencil needs.<span style=""> </span>Such a structure helps to shorten the supply chain vs. imported pencils in the changing specialty, novelty pencil market.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">All of these sub-contractors are small family owned companies operating essentially in a building that co-locates production with their own homes. They are more like traditional artisan workshops than what the average person would picture as a factory.<span style=""> </span>The owners of these businesses are highly skilled and knowledgeable about their business.<span style=""> </span>The extreme care and detail they speak with in discussing the technical aspects of doing this or that operation in the manufacturing process can be a truly amazing experience.<span style=""> </span>Generally their home and factory debt has long been paid off and though their equipment is old and slow they are the best at what they do.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Still this industry structure faces several threats which are a factor of both the demographic and competitive globalization trends over time.<span style=""> </span>As the overall market shrinks and largest producers feel pressure from lower cost pencils they tend to keep more production in house to retain their economies of scale, thus slowly squeezing some of the subcontractors out.<span style=""> </span>Mainly, focused on non-pencil products such as pens, markers, correction tape, etc. these companies still feel their pencil business is important and need remain the most efficient volume producers.<span style=""> </span>Some have set up off-shore production of certain pencil components or assembly operations for some products in Vietnam or China, similar to western producers who have gone multi-national in their operations. Over time the mid-tier companies have adapted by focusing on introducing new products to diversify their business away from pencils into complementary novelty items, by broadening their sales distribution channels or dropping certain manufacturing functions to use subcontractors, etc.<span style=""> </span>Finally, as the business owners’ age in the sub-contractor segment, often the 2<sup>nd</sup> or 3<sup>rd</sup> generation family members are not interested in continuing with the same passion as their parents, so these businesses also tend to shake out due to lack of management succession or natural selection of a sort. <span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">As a wood supplier to the Japanese Pencil Industry for three generations, our company is always conscious of these challenges.<span style=""> </span>We value the close relationships we’ve built with many of these companies and families and salute their commitment to producing the highest quality wood-cased pencils.<span style=""> </span>Adding and promoting more pencils produced in Japan to our Pencils.com offerings is just one small way of supporting these friends in the industry.<span style=""> </span>They produce some of the most unique and interesting novelty pencils in the world and in time we hope to make this collectable segment a larger part of our offering in addition to some of the branded items we’ll be introducing in the coming weeks and months.<span style=""> </span>We hope you’ll help you’ll join us in our Japanese Pencil Celebration event in November at Pencils.com.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>WoodChuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17463614041405036323noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15148858.post-50995002083722881052011-09-26T00:00:00.000-07:002011-09-26T00:27:19.106-07:00Reviving the Blackwing: One Year In<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" 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</w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style> <![endif]-->Saturday October 1<sup>st</sup> will mark the first anniversary of the “rebirth” of the Blackwing pencil brand with our <a href="http://www.pencils.com/palomino-blackwing-12-pk">Palomino Blackwing pencil</a>.<span style=""> </span>This was followed in June by our introduction of the <a href="http://www.pencils.com/palomino-blackwing-602">Palomino Blackwing 602 model</a>, which more closely replicated the look, feel and performance of the original Eberhard Faber Blackwing 602 pencil.<span style=""> </span>We’ve been fortunate to see early success with these efforts and a growing following of happy and dedicated customers on Pencils.com, and increasing interest from dealers and retail trade to stock Blackwings as well.<span style=""> </span>Certainly, we cannot yet claim a big commercial and financial success and any accumulating sales margins are being reinvested in further development of the business.<span style=""> </span>However, the progress is encouraging and we are continuing to push forward in our day by day efforts towards these goals.<p class="MsoNormal">Naturally at such symbolic occasions as an anniversary or birthday one tends to contemplate various events that lead to the current conditions or state of mind we find ourselves in; be those events and circumstances positive, negative, fortuitous, unlucky, results of poor decisions or just hard earned.<span style=""> </span>So I thought I’d share a number of my key thoughts on this topic as we look back at what brought us to this point.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Much of the history and our motivation for re-launching the Blackwing Brand I covered in <a href="http://timberlines.blogspot.com/2010/09/reviving-blackwing-why-take-on-this.html">this early post</a> and others in my “Reviving the Blackwing” series last year.<span style=""> </span>There is much I could add to this going back through some of the history of the development of our first Pencils.com e-commerce shop and our original Palomino pencil range which were essential early steps.<span style=""> </span>Having the old platform of the Incense Cedar Institute Pencil Pages on the pencils.com URL of course gave us a good start at getting our products seen by quite a few visitors reviewing our early Story of Pencils educational content. However, in essence, it was really listening to the frequent suggestions of our customers requesting our Palomino pencil with the <a href="http://pencils.com/palomino-blackwing-replacement-erasers">replaceable eraser with the ferrule assembly design</a> of the original Eberhard Faber Blackwing 602 that we determined to move forward.<span style=""></span></p><p class="MsoNormal">As we prepared to launch our new pencil we initially intended to call it the “Palomino Pegasus”.<span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>I even had written some early marketing material expounding on the legend of Pegasus landing upon Mt. Helicon and loosening the rock from which sprung forth the Hippocrene spring.<span style=""> </span>This spring is where the Muses gathered and was believed to be the source of their poetic inspiration.<span style=""> </span>Thus by association our new Palomino Pegasus pencils would be a catalyst of artistic expression.<span style=""> </span>However, we then learned that Newell (Sanford) had allowed the Blackwing trademark to lapse and so through good fortune and quick action we filed for and claimed the rights and instead launched our pencil as the Palomino Blackwing.<span style=""> </span>It’s often been erroneously reported over the past year that we purchased the Blackwing trademark.<span style=""> </span>However this has been the result of a mistaken assumption by a few who misunderstood the meaning of the phrase “acquired the trademark” where the word acquire is not specific as to the means of coming into possession of something.<span style=""></span></p><p class="MsoNormal">Perhaps the most important aspect of our success to date however is the strong support of our customers and sharing of the Blackwing story.<span style=""> </span>Certainly we’ve worked hard to cultivate and promote the story of the original Blackwing and have benefited greatly by some wonderful PR exposure from <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XZSotvMJYc&feature=youtu.be">Boston Globe</a>, <a href="http://boingboing.net/2011/06/17/the-new-palomino-bla.html">Boing Boing</a>, a host of pencil bloggers, <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2011/05/18/smallbusiness/blackwing_pencil_controversy.fortune/index.htm">Fortune Magazine</a>, <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/09/back-in-blackwing.html">NewYorker.com</a> and many other websites and blogs that just like to share cool stuff.<span style=""> </span>So we are greatly appreciative of all the support, feedback and in some cases even criticism that we’ve received from our customers and others over the past year.<span style=""> </span>One of my key aspirations for all our efforts has been to spur a re-engagement of as many people as possible with the wood-cased pencil and an appreciation for what a true quality pencil is.<span style=""> </span>In a sense to make pencils more cool and fun. In our continuing efforts to listen and respond to your feedback we didn’t stop with the initial version. We redesigned a new Palomino Blackwing 602 model to satisfy those customers looking for a pencil with both design and functional writing performance of the original Eberhard Faber version.<span style=""> </span>The response to our 602 model has been even greater and we are seeing and hearing more from those of you who are rediscovering the joy of writing with a real high quality smooth graphite pencil whether it’s a Blackwing or another of your favorite models.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Through the telling of the <a href="http://www.pencils.com/blackwing">Blackwing story</a> and our new <a href="http://pencils.com/blog/">Studio 602</a> content we continue to focus on bringing light to a range of creative expression and to provide inspiration for you to use the Blackwing to initiate the process of executing <span style=""> </span>your creative ideas whatever they may be.<span style=""> </span>Ultimately, despite the name change from Pegasus to Blackwing we still hope our pencils and other new products can be that catalyst for executing on your creative expression and thus view the developing Palomino Blackwing range as “More than a Pencil”.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Finally, as we approach the 1<sup>st</sup> Birthday of the Palomino Blackwing we are celebrating by launching on Pencils.com today our new range of <a href="http://www.pencils.com/journals-sketchbooks">Blackwing folio, notebooks and sketchbooks</a>.<span style=""> </span>This is a natural next step in the evolution of the Blackwing brand into a broader creative experience.<span style=""> </span>The expanding Blackwing range is accompanied also with new notebook and sketchbook offerings in our Palomino and ForestChoice ranges as well.<span style=""> </span>We are truly excited about these new items and hope that you will be as well.<span style=""> </span>We look forward to your future feedback and participation as we strive to build the Blackwing into a truly creative and fun.<span style=""> </span>Thanks so much for your past and continuing support.</p>WoodChuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17463614041405036323noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15148858.post-51610062764082490632011-08-29T13:10:00.000-07:002011-08-29T13:19:18.981-07:00Notebook Evolution<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLn719hwydK1AVlksk4Gj6hKyc6cz7yxsLaNHxqBkbNUKLPBH30-fwx8Pste255jtianiTFs0kXpL_m20xejt-l8PN-2d6YxkyWK2EurFYkJKTUamMwMqYR6AqfQD2x2nMjQbeog/s1600/ROM_Blackwing-family-with-notebooks.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 324px; height: 325px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLn719hwydK1AVlksk4Gj6hKyc6cz7yxsLaNHxqBkbNUKLPBH30-fwx8Pste255jtianiTFs0kXpL_m20xejt-l8PN-2d6YxkyWK2EurFYkJKTUamMwMqYR6AqfQD2x2nMjQbeog/s400/ROM_Blackwing-family-with-notebooks.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5646374093865052418" border="0" /></a>As we approach the one year anniversary of the introduction of our Palomino Blackwing pencil we are nearing the next step in the evolution of the <a href="http://www.pencils.com/category/brand/california-republic/palomino">Palomino and Blackwing product ranges</a> as we get set to introduce our first series of journals, sketchbooks and notebooks. In addition, we’ll also be complementing our <a href="http://www.pencils.com/category/brand/california-republic/forestchoice">ForestChoice FSC certified pencil range</a> with a selection of FSC Certified notebooks. So, here is a first look at the overall range, though we are planning feature posts on individual product group selections leading up to our official launch near the end of September.
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<br />When we first conceived the idea to introduce a range of notebooks in some of our top brands, we had several goals in mind. First, the design and quality had to be fully consistent with the high standards for each of our relevant pencil brands: Palomino, Blackwing and ForestChoice. This meant using superior materials, as well as partnering up with an experienced and reliable supplier with all the capabilities to produce outstanding products on a competitive basis. We wanted a collaborative partner to guide u<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL6BEfcpY5dlTzTyZge4E5yVwFfHDcWuAxk5x1mPsQ90I7w14WaNevIDXuafbW-ZMmk_q7XrctNE7Vf91pxVtM5kjxudgPT01zbvwg17If5hK6GzjlqoE8VLGG03ZivRIF2bAVFg/s1600/ROM_Palomino-full-range-with-notebooks.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 250px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL6BEfcpY5dlTzTyZge4E5yVwFfHDcWuAxk5x1mPsQ90I7w14WaNevIDXuafbW-ZMmk_q7XrctNE7Vf91pxVtM5kjxudgPT01zbvwg17If5hK6GzjlqoE8VLGG03ZivRIF2bAVFg/s320/ROM_Palomino-full-range-with-notebooks.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5646373905933342050" border="0" /></a>s in understanding and learning about the notebook market, but that was creative and adaptive to our concepts and needs as well. After several months of research, we found just what we were looking for in Istanbul, Turkey. As it turns out Istanbul has a long tradition of artisanal printing and bookbinding. Our new partner, Talat Printing & Leather Products Company, has over 50 years of industry experience and is now into its third generation as a privately held family business. Thought primarily a producer of premium customized planners and notebooks for large commercial clients, they introduced their own Fabio Ricci brand range for retail distribution in the past few years. As part of our partnership we will also be taking on the North America distribution of the Fabio Ricci brand, initially introducing their Elios line of their notebooks this fall, along with our own California Republic family range to retailers and distributors.
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<br />Our next goal was that our <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMnLHo8-6xzbp_GQDQglc_3rK62CD0kYR0PAYjVtvaEdtzJZUM6eOCh3vO2dWpU8lMefwPoNmTUYR3s2L74geFW3lEREC-Jfz5bljmQFFm5fOEwktGihfI0LC6DXo-9xP-fLoUjA/s1600/ROM_ForestChoice_Family.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 266px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMnLHo8-6xzbp_GQDQglc_3rK62CD0kYR0PAYjVtvaEdtzJZUM6eOCh3vO2dWpU8lMefwPoNmTUYR3s2L74geFW3lEREC-Jfz5bljmQFFm5fOEwktGihfI0LC6DXo-9xP-fLoUjA/s320/ROM_ForestChoice_Family.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5646373647517522610" border="0" /></a>notebooks needed to have a functional partnership with our pencils and a design that supported your creativity, whatever the specific activity: writing, drawing, sketching, composing and more. For this, I spent 4 days in Istanbul in early April working with Talat to develop our initial product range with adaptations of Talat’s items. All the materials utilize premium acid free papers and covering materials from European suppliers in Spain or Italy with appropriate weights for each notebooks intended purpose. ForestChoice products include FSC paper as well as cover stock. This was supplemented with work from our branding design team to come up with a belly band and packaging design theme that was informative and helpful. In all, we’ve got a great line up we are very proud of as an initial launch and we received very positive feedback when we showed the samples to potential customers at the National Stationery Show back in May. Getting everything done in time for the NSS was a challenge, but we were very encouraged by the feedback received. Production of our initial stock has been completed and the shipment is currently on the water expected to arrive in California within the next two weeks.
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<br />In the coming weeks leading up to the launch we’ll cover each of the products in more detail. We’re very excited about this next step in our evolution as a broader range supplier of premium writing pencils and notebooks that support a creative and enjoyable experience of putting your ideas to paper and pencil. It’s not just a pencil and a notebook. It’s an experience.
<br />WoodChuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17463614041405036323noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15148858.post-27502228729149201972011-08-22T13:02:00.000-07:002011-08-22T13:59:33.217-07:00Hearst & Morgan: An Architectural Collaboration with a Pencil Connection<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX8bdNc4ZoD9okuPzzM2Nfqps9pS4Xup7Z_ZLZ93GQWic3XnTwUwkvFYUVfiWQSr_sH6WEKUXR5CON6EK9q3Zs9tZ04Iz6gcMD8lvJ_9DvbF8qucjo2rrOcT1LQ4CC-bYbZdlb0g/s1600/DSC_0480_4web.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 278px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX8bdNc4ZoD9okuPzzM2Nfqps9pS4Xup7Z_ZLZ93GQWic3XnTwUwkvFYUVfiWQSr_sH6WEKUXR5CON6EK9q3Zs9tZ04Iz6gcMD8lvJ_9DvbF8qucjo2rrOcT1LQ4CC-bYbZdlb0g/s320/DSC_0480_4web.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5643787874506819794" /></a>My wife and I recently completed a driving vacation down the California coast which included an overnight stop in San Simeon where we visited <a href="http://www.hearstcastle.com/">Hearst Castle</a>. Each of us had been there separately as children, but clearly our appreciation of this architectural gem and the vision of <a href="http://www.hearstcastle.com/content/william-randolph-hearst-1863-1951-0">William Randolph Hearst</a> is much greater with a bit of seasoning over the years. Having designed, built and remodeled a couple very modest houses ourselves, we found it amazing to see what Hearst and his Architect Julia Morgan accomplished over 28 years that they collaborated on this property. There is a very well done movie in the visitor center which covers Hearst’s life and the influences that lead to his personal attachment to and vision for this estate as well as his close working relationship over several decades with Julia Morgan. Full of quite a few old home movies, it’s just a great chance to learn about their creative working process in addition to the history of the property. This often involved tearing down and rebuilding many aspects of the project as well as designing to complement and feature the amazing, historical pieces of art, furniture and architectural treatments imported from throughout Europe.
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<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCrP8MdIHolXnADITs2rJ1x-OLEEiXfetamyHVPu1VJj2dUY7Dvyq9h3MYnqz0xu9S4hGU2YgH_hyphenhyphen4EDs2-U26meAFIL_R-g-Q69lngQWTZt3vV11fyLU9KY2w8YrHP3RLilfFwQ/s1600/DSC_0484_4web.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 303px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCrP8MdIHolXnADITs2rJ1x-OLEEiXfetamyHVPu1VJj2dUY7Dvyq9h3MYnqz0xu9S4hGU2YgH_hyphenhyphen4EDs2-U26meAFIL_R-g-Q69lngQWTZt3vV11fyLU9KY2w8YrHP3RLilfFwQ/s400/DSC_0484_4web.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5643783600979445202" /></a>During our overnight we lodged at <a href="http://www.hotel-morgan.com/">The Morgan at San Simeon</a>, decorated throughout with an amazing collection of her original architectural design renderings for many aspects of the Castle. Almost all of these were done in graphite and colored pencil. This collection represents a remarkable exhibition of art and has strengthened my own interest in historical architecture and the use of pencil as a creative medium in this trade. I’ve shared a few of my photos of the Morgan drawings here. Amazing details down to the designs of the stair risers all around the property, and untold design features throughout. The bottom of each print includes a description of the item and the inscription “Mr. W. R. Hearst San Simeon, Julia Morgan, Architect” along with the date of the drawing, all in pencil. The one photo of the property I included below demonstrates how the tile risers become an integrative component of the overall architectural design.
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<br />Julia Morgan’s story</a> is a fascinating tale of one of America’s first leading female architects. Graduating in 1894 as Civil Engineering student from University of California, Berkley <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm38qFBHZtgsA1x9OEBk5B3zUZlcdu1lNqWaPp0PbPh5ELkaqlXKSlYo9VmdQkPj-vTSlA89T_gTlLVvSxrCsZYJncgexAGVUxJk3BkFov0rkSLnrnjwkwEyHG0bESY11705gr0g/s1600/DSC_0457_4web.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm38qFBHZtgsA1x9OEBk5B3zUZlcdu1lNqWaPp0PbPh5ELkaqlXKSlYo9VmdQkPj-vTSlA89T_gTlLVvSxrCsZYJncgexAGVUxJk3BkFov0rkSLnrnjwkwEyHG0bESY11705gr0g/s400/DSC_0457_4web.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5643782695274766450" /></a>she was the first woman to be accepted and graduate with a degree in architecture from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Returning to San Francisco and employed by John Galen Howard, who was responsible for the UC Berkeley Campus Master Plan at the time, she worked on designs of several buildings. This included two endowed by Phoebe Apperson Hearst, William Randolph’s mother. This initiated a long relationship between Morgan and the Hearst’s that spanned over 30 years and included multiple projects on both Hearst Estates as well as several newspaper buildings. Beyond her most famous work on Hearst Castle, Morgan was one of several architects contributing to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyntoon">Bavarian village themed Wyntoon estate</a> on the Hearst’s 67,000 acre forest property along the McCloud River just south of Mt. Shasta. Outside the broad Patronage of the Hearst family, Morgan did extensive work designing buildings for YWCA (including the Asilomar Conference Center) and several other women’s educational institutions such as Mills College. In all something like 700 buildings in California are attributed to her body of work and much has been done by historians documenting her contribution to the field of architecture.
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<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzV3IlBotgZa00NI7lR1z8sZsXmJoj0ShCzX68X4ktegKzl4aAq6lbNcebuw7TsIj0dfA8MZofSTfH3vaq6ysCXPrAdgbY7beBVhfbLq7wC0lU0dn7lWcZ565kEHlKQUuqPFBKjw/s1600/DSC_0476_4web.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzV3IlBotgZa00NI7lR1z8sZsXmJoj0ShCzX68X4ktegKzl4aAq6lbNcebuw7TsIj0dfA8MZofSTfH3vaq6ysCXPrAdgbY7beBVhfbLq7wC0lU0dn7lWcZ565kEHlKQUuqPFBKjw/s400/DSC_0476_4web.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5643782009168492946" /></a>One final interesting connection between pencils and this story is that the Hearst’s McCloud River area timberland holdings include stands of California Incense-cedar which have historically been harvested and sold by the Hearst Corporation for use in pencil manufacturing. From 1979 to 2003 our company owned and operated a saw mill at McCloud, CA, which was originally established as the <a href="http://www.trainweb.org/mccloudrails/LumberCompany.html">McCloud River Lumber Company</a> in 1896. Even before that we were producing pencil stock lumber in our Mt. Shasta City mill from the early 1960s until the early 1990s. The nearby Hearst lands historically provided some portion of the cedar used by both saw mills to produce pencil stock that was then sent on to our slat operations in Stockton to make <a href="http://www.calcedar.com/products/slats/incense/index.htm">pencil slats</a> sold to our pencil manufacturing customers. Even though our manufacturing supply chain is designed much differently today, producing slats in China, we still receive some pencil stock we are purchase from other suppliers who buy cedar logs from the Hearst lands. Thus the Hearst property has been participating in some small portion of the pencil industry’s sustainable cedar supply for 50 years or so.
<br />WoodChuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17463614041405036323noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15148858.post-27385021054196847172011-07-06T11:46:00.000-07:002011-07-06T17:29:11.985-07:00Palomino Blackwing Setting Design Trends<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCo5I44SItGm3T6iahjGtgziVgc67GtIgqzwNX-SKzPTQtpD1YlSaD_DIegUFNz3rFBfy2iVKic3nv0ZWtG4_UahstLKnti7ycRRGZmaESno8HMug2sKIsmjN_oyCB0rGvOpxy6w/s1600/DSC_0422.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCo5I44SItGm3T6iahjGtgziVgc67GtIgqzwNX-SKzPTQtpD1YlSaD_DIegUFNz3rFBfy2iVKic3nv0ZWtG4_UahstLKnti7ycRRGZmaESno8HMug2sKIsmjN_oyCB0rGvOpxy6w/s400/DSC_0422.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5626376192304515314" /></a>Recently we’ve received a few great examples of how some forward thinking customers have been using our Palomino Blackwing pencils as an integral part of their promotional efforts in their own businesses. As you’ll see our Blackwings can make a great design and quality statement as a corporate gift in combination with a unique story or gift.<br /><br />The first item is a “Trend Alert” sent out recently by one of our pencil slat customers <a href="http://www.schwancosmetics.com/en/home/">Schwan-Stabilo Cosmetics</a>, who is the largest supplier of cosmetic pencils to major brands worldwide. Schwan’s Trend Alerts are sent out monthly to over 800 of buyers and decision makers in the fashion and cosmetics industry. The card includes two pencils and has very nice copy section entitled OBJECTS OF DESIRE which briefly introduces the story of the new Palomino Blackwing and CalCedar’s renewal of this graphite pencil with it’s exceptionally dark line. It goes on to introduces a brand new formulation eyeliner pencil they've created stating:<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">We are pairing it [Palomino Blackwing] with the new generation in our wood-clenched eyeliner-pencil formulas. The absolute must have for the eye make-up aficionados. Schwan’s BLACKWING has a never-before-felt satiny, extremely soft and gliding application, laying down an exceptionally intense line that doesn’t smear and lasts all day (and all night)</span>.</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjccZ0N0YF22b7d6oRHYhUqaPgcBViN6xVmC4f__e23iiI3n7yKDCO2KZaYMlqxxcEIvfbPwZzM3vboSj-tN6V5JRUBBh3zH7B5zAI7_aRbIjNMMiqgxnsXExmcoj3KjXQEhnGPQ/s1600/DSC_0423.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjccZ0N0YF22b7d6oRHYhUqaPgcBViN6xVmC4f__e23iiI3n7yKDCO2KZaYMlqxxcEIvfbPwZzM3vboSj-tN6V5JRUBBh3zH7B5zAI7_aRbIjNMMiqgxnsXExmcoj3KjXQEhnGPQ/s400/DSC_0423.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5626375463263482978" /></a>This idea developed during a meeting I had with Schwan management this past winter in Germany when I was describing to them the launch of our Blackwing pencil. A very nice job particularly of integrating the drawing of the eyes along with the language highlighting the extremely dark and soft drawing performance of our graphite with the story of their new formulation with complementary performance characteristics as an eyeliner. These eyeliner pencils with the Schwan Cosmetics logo and Blackwing imprint are simply design and product samples and are not available for sale under the Schwan brand as their customers purchase products customized with their own brands. The pencil does leave a very dark luxurious mark and I hope it will be a big winner for them this season.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgc1V1XhBtV40v-lHL2R-TE2jD17K31zwi6ob6Z_Id4kLzsGmcXKpqchahzPa2aBPQ0y_vxldLNcBsYhPYCeIvseaBjTQCMU4Tacq7EWMngEh9UiTi3TFRTGs_tWs3UZNnfeuyTw/s1600/DSC_0427.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgc1V1XhBtV40v-lHL2R-TE2jD17K31zwi6ob6Z_Id4kLzsGmcXKpqchahzPa2aBPQ0y_vxldLNcBsYhPYCeIvseaBjTQCMU4Tacq7EWMngEh9UiTi3TFRTGs_tWs3UZNnfeuyTw/s400/DSC_0427.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5626373917487613538" /></a>The Second example is from <a href="http://elixirdesign.com/">Elixir Design</a>, a San Francisco based Brand Strategy firm who’s approach is deeply linked to great design. Last fall they purchased our Blackwing pencils after the launch to be used as part of this creative premium gift to their clients. The elegantly designed gift box holds a single pencil and is embossed with the quote “Luck Favors the Prepared” 2011 and a simple card internally with quote attribution to Louis Pasteur and a simple note of Best Wishes from all of us at Elixir”. Another interesting touch is the inclusion of a small wax paper envelope which contains shavings from the pencil being sharpened.WoodChuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17463614041405036323noreply@blogger.com1