Stationery Archeology 11

It has been some time since we had a pencil post here on Stationery Traffic, so here's one I found recently in my loft. Yes, it's an IKEA pencil. "What are you doing, Stationery Traffic, showing us IKEA pencils? We grab handfuls of these every Saturday afternoon when we go down to the nearest branch for some köttbullar and a packet of coathangers." Things get slightly more interesting if you compare this old pencil with a new one.



Comparing the old IKEA pencil to a contemporary example, we can see that the current version has "www." and ".com" clumsily applied either side of the brand name. It's still the same unfinished wood pencil stub that writes like a nail, though. I prefer the older pencil: darker wood, and with just the name stamped in. These things turn up in all sorts of places; in the community band I play with, the bass clarinetist who sits beside me uses an IKEA pencil to mark up band parts. I prefer a Staedtler tradition 4B.

Noodler's FPN Starry Night Blue

Pelikan Blue Black

Waterman Blue Black (sic)

Diamine Blue Black

...and that is where the ink ran out, so I will have to continue it electronically.

This was a curious ink. Hopefully, my sample was unrepresentative; it had sat in a box of cartridges for nigh on five years and probably needed shaking up a bit. I found a small lump of ink in the cartridge, and found that flow was uneven. When this ink was flowing well, it produced a solid, greyish-blue line. As I say above, it reminded me strongly of the old Quink Blue Black I used to see at school. Otherwise, my pen seemed to have some kind of prostate problem; the ink issued forth from my Tombow Object in fits and starts, leaving a pale line on the page.

Diamine inks tend to flow well, dry quickly and possess moderate saturation. Blue Black performs as any other in the Diamine range when the pen is fully-loaded; only the first line in the review gives anything like a true indication of its colour and saturation. Looking at my writing, there's a good amount of shading.

I'm not sure I'd want to buy a bottle of this ink, however. I preferred the similar but slightly bluer Prussian Blue, which I used up in 2007.