26 Kommentare zu „Sonntag“

  1. CDT’s pen­cils are amongst the best I’ve ever used. It was ine­vi­ta­ble they would be dis­con­tin­ued just after I dis­co­vered them.

  2. I have two boxes of these that I got from pencils.jp. They are my favou­rite pen­cils, the mint colour is beau­tiful and the coa­ting feels very high qua­lity, and they write super­bly well of course.

  3. Koralatov: Last year a retailer in Japan told me that the item 17 was dis­con­tin­ued. I had no reason to doubt that – it came from a relia­ble source and it was plau­si­ble since the Black Poly­mer 999 was dis­con­tin­ued too; both pen­cils were made by Pen­tel and had poly­mer leads. Howe­ver, after fin­ding the item 17 at Vet­ted I was curious and have asked Vet­ted and CDT, and both have con­firmed that this pen­cil has not been discontinued.

    Matthew: The item 17 is hard to beat, and if one only needs HB and doesn’t refrain to order them by mail it’s an excel­lent (if not the best) choice. The folks at CDT have taken care of even the smal­lest detail and have crea­ted an out­stan­ding product.

  4. I didn’t know this one also had the poly­mer lead; no won­der it’s so nice. When Bun­doki lis­ted this pen­cil as dis­con­tin­ued, I was hoping that CDT would just find ano­ther manu­fac­tu­rer. Funny that Pen­tel still makes them, but doesn’t make their own wood-cased poly­mers anymore.

    I’m half-and-half on the color, but you’re right about the detailing!

  5. Sta­tio­nery Traf­fic: Yes, they are really beau­tiful and I like their colour too.

    Sean: While the package of the Black Poly­mer 999 says that the lead is polymer-bound the one of the item 17 does not. Howe­ver, I was told that it has a simi­lar lead, and since the leads are almost iden­ti­cal in terms of smooth­ness, black­ness, erasa­bi­lity and strength I am sure that this is cor­rect. – As far as I know Pen­tel doesn’t have their own wood­case pen­cil manu­fac­tu­ring so I assume that CDT get the pen­cils from the same OEM (of course this doesn’t explain why Pen­tel is named on the package of the item 17). – The colour is unu­sual, and at first I was a little reser­ved. I assume that fin­ding a new bar­rel colour for a pen­cil is quite dif­fi­cult – many colours and their com­bi­na­ti­ons are alre­ady asso­cia­ted with cer­tain brands, and a lot of the remai­ning colours will make a pen­cil look chil­dish. To me, the light green CDT has sett­led upon is an excel­lent choice – it is new and looks se­rious. Now and then I think about making a photo of the item 17 bes­i­des a glass of green tea ;-) – Regar­ding the details: In view of the per­fec­tion­ism it is quite funny that the package of the item 17 says „item 018“; I would not have expec­ted such an error to slip through.

  6. The pen­cil looks beau­tiful in this pic­ture, the nice long point suits it very well.

    I have a ques­tion for those of you that have tried and thought well about Item 17: when did you purchase this pencil? 

    Pen­cil­talk has published a posi­tive review on Item 17 in 2008, then in mid 2010 com­men­ter Robert repor­ted pro­blem with the lac­quer coa­ting. I refrai­ned from purcha­sing this pen­cil after see­ing the pic­ture Robert uploa­ded. I won­der if he encoun­te­red a bad batch or the qua­lity of this pro­duct has decli­ned, maybe by chan­ging suppliers…

  7. Claire, I have just fished out my three remai­ning boxes I have purcha­sed last year (if I remem­ber cor­rectly). Since I haven’t heard about the pro­blem Robert has told about (let alone expe­ri­en­ced them) I had no reason to inspect my stock clo­ser – until today. Much to my sur­prise (and dis­may) I found faulty pen­cils among all three dozens :-( In total four have lac­quer defects and one is war­ped. The pen­cils in the box with the most defects have the relief embos­sing „5J“ (like Robert’s) and the box has „51050018“ on the inside of the ope­ning flap; the other faulty pen­cils are marked with „5K“ and „51150038“. – For­t­u­na­tely even the worst defects aren’t as severe as the ones Robert has shown, and some are quite dif­fi­cult to spot; howe­ver, it is a dis­ap­point­ment. So far I have been spoilt by Japa­nese qua­lity so it has never occu­red to me to inspect the pen­cils thor­oughly and look for such flaws …

    It’s a pity but I have to take back my unre­ser­ved recom­men­da­tion (and I will be much more cau­tious with my recom­men­da­ti­ons in the future).

  8. My last batch were bought in April of last year, and the few I’ve used since then had no issues. I don’t have them to hand at the moment, but will dig out the boxes when I get a chance and inspect them properly.

  9. PS to Gun­ther: Fin­ding out that they’re not dis­con­tin­ued is great news, but slightly dam­pened by the pos­si­ble qua­lity issues in the newer bat­ches. What a shame.

  10. Koralatov, I would be happy to hear about the result of your inspec­tion. If pos­si­ble, please let me also know about the relief embos­sing (it is about 15mm left from the „MADE IN JAPAN“ prin­ting) and the code on the inside of the box‘ ope­ning flap. – Yes, a dis­co­very like this does indeed cast a cloud over these other­wise good news.

  11. I have cont­ac­ted Craft Design Tech­no­logy since I was a little con­cer­ned about these qua­lity prob­lems with an other­wise excel­lent and uni­que pen­cil. Much to my plea­sure I got a detailed and help­ful reply within less than 24 hours.

    They told me that the lac­quer defects are cau­sed by the impreg­na­ting oil coming out (this oil is used to improve the wood’s cut­ting ability; it’s a com­mon prac­tice). This can hap­pen under cer­tain am­bient con­di­ti­ons but – as far as I under­stand it – only in a cer­tain period in time after manufac­turing. So, if a pen­cil does not show these dis­co­lou­ra­ti­ons yet it won’t shown them in the future eit­her. CDT also told me that they will inves­ti­gate even fur­ther and will hap­pily replace the affec­ted pencils.

    Since I have order some more of the item 17 at Vet­ted I have told them about this pro­blem too. They have replied very quickly too and told me that they haven’t heard of that pro­blem but will also replace defec­tive pencils.

    I am very satis­fied with the cus­to­mer sup­port of both!

  12. Thanks for the inves­ti­ga­tion, Gun­ther. I’m glad and impres­sed that CDT has in fact loo­ked into the pro­blem and knows what cau­sed it.

    Also thanks ever­yone that got back to me about their purchases.

  13. Thank you, Claire, for brin­ging this pro­blem to my atten­tion and for pro­vo­king the dis­cus­sion about it – most likely I had never inspec­ted my stock of the item 17 so clo­sely wit­hout it.

    I am impres­sed by CDT’s quick reply and open­ness. There are quite a few com­pa­nies that could learn a thing or two from them!

  14. Today I have recei­ved a few dozens of the item 17 I have orde­red at Vet­ted, and much to my sur­prise there are some pen­cils with blot­chy finish in every box (click image to enlarge). – For the record: The two boxes from which these samples were taken from had „51050018“ on their open­ing flap, and the pen­cils were marked with „5J“.

    Craft Design Technology item 17 lacquer defects

    I don’t know if these pen­cils are old(er) stock or the pro­blem with the impreg­na­ting oil coming out per­sists; I will return them and won’t have ano­ther go with the item 17. On that occa­sion: My thanks to Vet­ted who have pro­mi­sed a smooth can­cel­la­tion of my order. – I won­der why the ex­cellent lead of this pen­cil isn’t available sepa­ra­tely for leadholders.

  15. What a shame! It takes more than coin­ci­dent to get two orders of faulty pencils :(
    Any guess who’s the manu­fac­tu­rer of the lead? Mitsu­bi­shi maybe?

  16. It’s strange. On one hand I am all too fami­liar with per­sis­ting qua­lity pro­blems but on the other hand I can’t believe that this hap­pens at Pen­tel of all com­pa­nies. Howe­ver, on the box it reads „Pen­tel Japan“ but I have lear­ned that Pen­tel don’t have their own wood­case pen­cil pro­duc­tion but get these pen­cils from an OEM (just like the dis­con­tin­ued Black Poly­mer 999 which had poly­mer leads too). – If I learn more I will add it here.

  17. Good luck! I hope you won’t find faulty items (pun iten­ded). – In case you find defects: May I ask you to tell us about the num­ber on the ope­ning flap and the embos­sed code on the pencils?

  18. I finally got around to che­cking my CDT pen­cils.  Of the 42 I still have, none dis­play any of the issues yours have mani­fes­ted.  All were bought from Pencils.jp.

    I have two dozen from batch 51150037, marked 5J, and ano­ther dozen from the same batch marked 5K.  These three dozen were bought in 2011.

    The final six are batch 51150038, marked 5K.  They were bought in 2010.

  19. You’re lucky! Thank you for sha­ring your results. It looks like there is no simple con­nec­tion bet­ween the mar­kings and the defects which makes avo­i­ding the pro­blem quite difficult.

  20. I am no lon­ger sure about CDT’s expl­ana­tion of the pro­blem. Cedar con­ta­ins ter­pe­nes, and these com­pounds migrate, some­ti­mes caus­ing yel­low dis­co­lou­ra­ti­ons on the pencil’s sur­face. In most cases the lac­quer is desi­gned to pre­vent these effects but they can appear nevert­hel­ess. Heat sup­ports the migra­tion so sto­rage con­di­ti­ons can be important too. I wouldn’t be sur­pri­sed if this pro­perty of Cedar was the real cause. – I don’t mean to ques­tion CDT’s inte­grity; maybe they just weren’t given all the details by the manufacturer.

  21. Wow, I missed this thread by quite a few months. Thanks Gun­ther and ever­yone else for adding so much to the dis­cus­sion (which I thought died out a year or two ago).

    I haven’t purcha­sed any more CDT pen­cils in quite some time (over a year), and thus can’t say much more about the issues I ran into with them. They write just fine even if some are cos­me­ti­cally imper­fect. Of course, they ought to be pretty per­fect for the price.

    I am happy that the pro­duct has not been dis­con­tin­ued, though I hope they can sort the blot­ching thing out.

  22. Thank you, Robert M., for making us aware of the pro­blem back then. If I had not read about it I would have thought that I am the only one with this pro­blem and hadn’t loo­ked fur­ther. – I am still not sure about the reason but I was told that the pro­blem is now solved.

    By the way, I have asked CDT if they plan to make the leads available sepa­ra­tely for lead­hol­ders or even plan to add a lead­hol­der to their pro­duct range. They have replied quickly, and I had the impres­sion that they are very open to cus­to­mer suggestions.

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