Matthias Meckel, Author at The Pen Company Blog

A review of the Lamy cp1 multifunction pen & highlighter

April 12, 2018 ♦

Expert Advice & Product Reviews, Pencils, Pens

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1974 is a special year — not only for me (I was born that year) but also because of all the other things that happened that year 😜 In the USA, Star Trek: The Animated Series got cancelled; in the UK, ABBA won the Eurovision song contest in Brighton with…

A review of the Staedtler Mars 502 Lead Pointer Pencil Sharpener

March 1, 2018 ♦

Expert Advice & Product Reviews, Pencils

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1 Comment

Today: something different. A video product review. A quick look at Staedtler’s 502 Lead Pointer pencil sharpener, which works great with the Mars Technico 788C clutch pencil and the more luxurious 780C clutch pencil. The Mars 502 sharpener has been around for fifty years which just proves what a timeless, high-quality…

Lamy AL-Star mechanical pencil review

August 4, 2016 ♦

Expert Advice & Product Reviews, Pencils

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Today: a look at Lamy’s AL-Star mechanical pencil. The AL-Star series of pens was released in 1997 and was created by Wolfgang Fabian, the same designer who came up with the fantastic Lamy Safari. I was a fairly early user of the Lamy Safari – I’ve been using Safari fountain pens since…

A review of the Lamy 2000 mechanical pencil

April 11, 2016 ♦

Expert Advice & Product Reviews, Pencils

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Welcome to my blog post about the Lamy 2000 mechanical pencil. 50 years of the Lamy 2000 The Lamy 2000 was first released in 1966 so this year is its 50th anniversary – and after several special editions covering materials like grenadill wood, ceramic, titanium, and more, we can expect a…

Schneider’s Gelion 39 gel pen refill review

February 2, 2016 ♦

Ballpoint Pens, Expert Advice & Product Reviews, Pens

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As you might or might not know: I prefer pencils and fountain pens to ballpoint and similar pens. This means I try to avoid using ballpoint pens if I can. Recently I had a good reason to use one, though. I’ll spare you the details why, but suffice to say…

Graf von Faber-Castell journal and pencil set review

January 27, 2016 ♦

Expert Advice & Product Reviews

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Welcome to the 200th post on The Pen Company Blog. Today: a noble notebook and pencil. Graf von Faber-Castell, that’s Faber-Castell’s ‘posher’ product line started in 1993. Back then our favourite count, Anton-Wolfgang Graf von Faber-Castell, introduced this line as part of Faber-Castell’s reorientation. As a pencil enthusiast I am quite…

Review of the Mono Zero and the Mono One

December 12, 2014 ♦

Pens

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Today: a comparison of different Tombow erasers – the Tombow Mono Zero, available either with a 2.3 mm round tip or broad 2.5 mm * 5 mm rectangular tip, and the Tombow Mono One, an eraser that looks as if it’s supposed to be used on a keyring or as…

Lamy Scribble Mechanical Pencil Review

July 30, 2014 ♦

Expert Advice & Product Reviews, Pencils

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Me and Lamy, Lamy and I You might not have guessed, because of the lack of Lamy posts on Bleistift, but Lamy is one if the stationery brands I feel strongly connected to. It all started about 1985 when I got my first Lamy Safari fountain pen. From that point…

The Tombow Zoom 707 de Luxe mechanical pencil review

May 25, 2014 ♦

Expert Advice & Product Reviews

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1 Comment

Introduction Do you remember what you did in 1987? If you were living in the USA you were lucky enough to be able to watch Star Trek: The Next Generation. The UK and Germany got TNG a few years later, in 1990. If you’re more into computers: the Amiga 500…