Tuesday, August 26, 2008

A Few More Vikings

A while ago I wrote about the Penol expedition that made its way halfway around the world and into my letterbox. Well, a follow up arrived a while ago.Shiploads of Viking Skjoldungen 400’s, numbers 1 through to 4. Not sure why these Vikings would use the (American) number system in the (European) HB system heartland.
Lots of information on the box.Treesort high quality wood.
Also the Viking Bylanter 029 yellow number 2 office pencil.
Made from cedar trees. Phew, here’s a big one. So heavy you just about need the strength of Thor to lift it. Penol PL56 eraser. At 27 x 14 and 72mm long it’s a bit of a jumbo, nearly twice the size of Staedtler Mars Plastic 526 50, and it weighs a ton. Well 48 grams to be slightly more accurate. I had to put my nice new digital cailpers to some use so a quick bit of measurement and calculation tells me Penol PL56 is over 20% more dense than Mars Plastic. Heavy stuff. The texture makes it feel like there are plenty of fillers or additives in the compound.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Dave,
hey, I'm the first to comment for once. As usual a nice post - keep it up.
Good to see the Vikings have landed safely. It is of course our intetion to take over the country little by little - but don't tell anyone. :)
The Thor's hammer idea isn't far from reality. In school we drilled a hole in the eraser, put the pencil in it and you had a Thor's hammer and an eraser catapult in one. If you missed the guy in front of you - the hammerhead might just continue and hit the guy in the next row - lots of fun.

As far as I know Danish pencils used numbers for the grade - don't know why.
heil ock sæl
Henrik

Anonymous said...

A nice article.

It is great to think that Denmark has retained their own pencil making capabilities in these modern times. Or am I jumping to a conclusion - did the pencils say where they were made?

Kiwi-d said...

If I remember correctly, Henrik told me there was a Viking pencil factory in Denmark but it closed long ago.
Viking is now a brandname of Esselte, and they have recently reintroduced Viking brand pencils. My English reading eyes can't see anything that looks like a country of origin amongst all that Danish. I assume they are just made at some contract factory somewhere a long way away from the land of the Vikings.

Germ said...

with so many cool mechanical pencils, why would anyone want to use such outdated technology.... :) heheheh
just kidding guys. would actually like to get some wooden pentel pencils and a blackwing.

Anonymous said...

Hi Dave, your memory serves you right. The Viking factory closed many years ago – and Esselte is the current distributor of the brand. But who’s the manufacturer? My guess is Stabilo, because the Stabilo Swano pencil is such a look- a- like. Imagine it with a Viking imprint – and you have a red Viking pencil:) No evidence anywhere though.


Regards Henrik

Kiwi-d said...

I checked out the various Esselte pencils at the big department store today. All of them "Made in Indonesia" on them in the fine print.