There Are Pandas, and Then There Are Pandas.
And this isn't either of them! The Pandas we're talking about here, are watches, not bears. And what got me thinking about them (again) was a link posted this morning by @cm.rook who pointed a few of us to the very attractive (and not terribly priced) Yema "Rallygraph" Panda which, in it's most traditional arrangement, looks like the one on the left, but can also be had in the version on the right: The model on the left is a true Panda, while the model on the right is called a reverse Panda. The reason for that distinction is clear--Panda bears, only come in the first arrangement. Now at this point, everyone should be thinking about the most well-know Panda, The Rolex Panda, which is actually a Daytona, and among Rolex Daytonas, the most famous of which is the Paul Newman Daytona, which was famous first, because it was Paul's, and second because it sold at auction for $17.8 million (US Dollars). The story of that auction is well-known so I'll only...
Nov 8, 2019
I don't use pencils that much so what I have is rather limited. That said, I swear by Staedtler's Lumographs; they have been the pencil for as long as I can remember... For sketching! I would not write with them. Honestly, I would not write with any pencil... well, maybe with a good mechanical.
The problem with pencils for me is the problem with lots of things, it seems - the best stuff disappeared a little while ago, and, of course, while it was around, I took it for granted. To wit: my all-time favorite woodcase pencil was Faber-Castell's Velvet Deluxe from around the 1990s: True to its name, writing quality was plush without being sloppy, smooth but very controlled. Yes, shoulda-would-coulda grabbed a case of the things, but by the time I was hip to just how good the things were (sometime around 2000-ish), the supply has totally dried up. Contacting F-C directly offered little more than sympathy...I think a few people there knew what I was going on about, but that ship had truly sailed. I keep a tight leash on the small and dwindling stash that remains.
My ABSOLUTE favorite mech pencil in the known world was a Niji "05" that was that rare "automatic" that truly walked the talk: an autofeed mechanism that worked without fail for some five years of heavy use, then suddenly stopping. Drove me nuts - it felt near-perfect in the hand, and, together with the Velvet Deluxe, actually got me back into taking pencils seriously, along with my then "new" rediscovery of fountain pens.
The close runner-up to that pencil was Rotring's now-discontinued Trio Pencil: not an auto, but largely makes up for that by offering three lead sizes (.3/.5/.7), and offers a fairly solid feel in spite of it's complex mechanics. That one's a keeper.
As for other woodcase pencils, Ticonderoga and Blackwing come somewhat close...when my supply of FCs disappears, I'll come back to trying those out.
And, I'll second Doctor_Memory's rave for Panasonic electric sharpeners...another well-kept secret in plain sight. Perfect points, and the "auto-stop" actually works.