Omg, that pocket protector is epic
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What a lovely set! I have rarely seen these in such good condition.
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I was thinking the same thing… and so comprehensive.
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Oh! So the 777 was available both with left-handed and right-handed print.
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Love seeing all these Staedtler. My go to lead holder is a black 780. I love the all black 735-25-20 and the weight it has, what keeps me from using it more is the fact that I can’t use it with my barrel lead pointer, I have to use my Kum Long point sharpener if I’m away from my desk which is fine but doesn’t give me the point I like. At my desk, I have a larger lead pointer thats attached to my desk that the 735 can fit in there. I’m kinda digging the fact that the 780s are branching out into new colors, aside from the standard Blue. I first saw the black which I love, but now I’ve seen brown and tan versions, but they seem to be available in just europe because when I find them online, they have a lengthy ship time. NGL, I would be all about it and collect them all if they branched out in even more colors. I just love how the Staedtlers feel.
As for the leads, I swear by the long discontinued 2mm F leads. I first found them in the early 2000s when it was still sold and when I found that they were discontinued, I kinda stockpiled them and buy some whenever I see some. I think I have over 30 trays of them. My wife is “why are you buying more? Don’t you have enough of them?” I’m like “they haven’t made them for well over a decade and while I can still find them on eBay for a not ridiculous price, I’m going to make sure I never run out” Because I can still easily find trays for around $10. If they get to more than $20-25, I’ll not stockpile them
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That sounds interesting! I’m curious: What do you like so much about these leads?
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Oh that’s easy, to me the Staedtler F leads were the perfect blend of HB and H. It gets me the level of darkness I enjoy with an HB, but not nearly as prone to smearing as HB, being a lefty, smearing while drawing is a constant bane of my existence
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Thank you for these details! I’ve never tried them in F. Do you know when they went out of production?
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My best guess is about 2010 or so. It’s also when 3H and 3B went out of production
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I really like F also…. but every brand has it differently… for example I like also F from Mitsubishi.
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Mitsubishi is really nice too, really dark. Not a huge fan of Faber Castell’s F lead, it almost feels reflective when I have to shade something in an illustration, As for the Turquoise leads, it all depends on what era. The Eagle branding is good though I worry about the quality due to the age. Berol and especially Sanford branding are great. The problem is when you get into the Prismacolor branding the quality is all over the place. Sometimes its great, but it almost feels so random, because in a tray, you’ll have a lead that acts more like an F, then the next one acts more like a 2H and the next one would be really dark like a 2B. It could be that someone either in manufacturing or at the store put a bunch of random leads in there, its impossible to tell because when you get to the Prismacolor. era, they stopped putting little writing on the lead saying what lead it is which sucks when I’m grabbing a random pencil and I pull the lead out to see what’s loaded in there because I’m a maniac who won’t put tape on my pencils saying what lead is in there, which is why I’m a fan of pencils with different colored caps, especially Staedtler because I’ll replace the metal cap with the colored cap in the tray and I ESPECIALLY like the newest models with the lead indicator in the clip, a rare improvement from an art supply company. Usually, it seems when a company upgrades a pencil, its for the worse, like Koh-I-Noor changing the all metal 5611s to a plastic barrel with a metal grip that I had the grip break off too many times (well 2, and that’s 2 too many) or Caran D’Ache discontinuing the Fixpencil 77s (when I first found them, it was 2008 and they were easily found in stores and bought quite a few for $18 each, now good luck finding one for under $100) and changing the interior mechanism to the remaining 22s from a metal tube to a plastic tube. Not a fan of the plastic tube era Fixpencils, they’re even harder to use with a rotary lead pointer, because they got wider by a slight amount where you would’t tell in your hand but it just enough to not fit in the barrel. And with the plastic tube Caran D’Ache uses I’ve had more times where leads get stuck in the pencil. They don’t drop down when I hit the button, I actually have to physically pull it out, which sucks when the lead is all the way in the pencil. That problem is worst when I use an F lead, I don’t know if something makes them wider by a microscopic amount that it is a tighter fit or what. It reminds me of something an artist said, 99% of art supplies are crap, the 1% that are good ends up getting discontinued.
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Cool… other F-in F users… Long, really long time drafting with 2 mm F…I really actually do like AWF’s F..and have the required “stockpile” of same…( wife has no idea…)…think of all the plotter ink I have saved…
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