Bismark HB

Well, it’s been quite some time since I’ve posted an entry. Predominantly as I’d run down my pencil collection to test, not been using them as much as I used to, and not been anywhere to naturally ‘top up’ my swag.

These I think I found in a ‘Chinese superstore’ in Spain - you know, one of those places that does everything you could think of. I’d read it was a fun place to stock up on things for you Camino trip (no, we were not doing a Camino trip!), and thought I might find some unusual nick-nacks there. This one is called ‘Popular Oriental bazaar’ , and is located in Burgos.

The company

On the back of the packaging it identifies the main producer as ‘Poessa, S.A.’. Going to www.poessa.com brings up the site of a large manufacturing and distribution company. One of the things they do is stationery, and Bismark is one of their brands. Sadly it looks like you need to be a distributor to bring up their product pages.

On the back of the package it does however say the country of manufacture is China - so, no original Spanish made pencil here…

The pencil itself

On initial inspection the pencil looks just like a normal ‘yellow’ cheap pencil. Well, it is yellow, and it is cheap! Picking the pencil up, the wood looks like some sort of cheap generic white wood, and is definitely not cedar for instance. The paintwork is rather clean and neat. It does have a somewhat plasticky feel to the paint though. A little like you find on those ‘all plastic’ pencils, but this is definitely paint over wood. Its not unpleasant, or sticky or anything though.

The pencils come sharpened. It might not be so obvious in the photo, but the sharpening is slightly concave. It’s not a bad out of the box sharpening.

How does it write

You know, I was expecting these to feel like some standard cheap pencil, a bit scratchy with the occasional bit of grittiness. How wrong could I be. They are smooth, they are dark. There is no scratchiness whatsoever. They are just slightly waxy in their feel. If you’d just handed me this and asked me to guess where it was from I’d probably go for Japanese. These are actually pretty good pencils, and I’ve been happily using one as my daily desk pencil for maybe 3 months now, with not a single complaint. In fact, I quite look forward to picking the pencil up each day. And, it seems to be wearing well as well, holding its point well.

Given the price I paid (0.90 Euros for 4 pencils, so 22.5 EuroCents each), these have got to be the best bang-per-cent pencil I have ever acquired, hands down! If I’d known, I probalby would have taken a whole handfull!!

Sourcing

Well, I found mine in a cheap shop in Spain. It looks like they are distributed by a Spanish manufacturer, so finding them in Spain is probalby easiest, but I do see them listed here and there on Amazon, but didn’t investigate if they are imports or not etc.