Höhnig’s square triangle
Interesting European drawing instruments have been a bit thin on the ground here in the UK over the last couple of years, but occasionally something unexpected still turns up. In…
Snappy Canada Day!
As it is once again Canada Day, I dug around in my collection for something suitably Canadian to mark the occasion. As mentioned previously, Canada was not especially known for…
You say Golmet, I say Golmet
As today is St David's Day, the traditional feast day of the patron saint of Wales, I decided to showcase a drawing instrument that was actually manufactured in Wales. The…
Superbow Sunday
I heard it on the grapevine that today the USA celebrates "Superbow Sunday", apparently an annual national event of great importance - and who am I to argue with that?…
Rotring’s eccentric Centro
In the same vein as Staedtler's Galileo, the 1990s also saw Rotring trying to reinvent the compass, in particular the spindle-adjustment master bow. The resulting design is unusual not only in…
A Christmas Ca-rule
... but at the first sound of "God bless you merry gentlemen! May nothing you dismay!" Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action, that the singer fled in terror…
A Stanley puzzle
The subject of this post is yet another ebay purchase, this time made purely on the basis of a name on a box. Described as geometrical models for teaching, the…
Mechanical Pencil Month – Day 19: I’m dreaming of a white…
…pencil? Clearly in the mid-1980s this is precisely what people were dreaming of, judging by the sheer number of white fineliner sets around at the time. Rotring, Staedtler and Faber-Castell…
Mechanical Pencil Month – Day 18: Rotring multi-pencils
One type of sliding pencil that did not get a mention in yesterday's entry was the multi-colour everpointed type, made by Sampson Mordan among others. These particular models always appear…
Mechanical Pencil Month – Day 17: Slide rules, OK?
Another Slide Rule Saturday rolls around (whatever happened to the last one?) and having already used up my only slide rule pencil as well as my only pencil with slide…