Another little object of desire:
It came in the post this morning. It's an
M+R 'grenade' brass sharpener from the very lovely Paddy at
www.topcolorsharpeners.com.
I actually bought it on eBay, and it came with 2 Spare Blades and a lovely handwritten card telling me about the new website. You don't really expect such a personal level of attention when you spend three quid on a sharpener, do you?
But how does it sharpen? Well, I'm spoiled by having a rotary burr sharpener on my desk and I very much like the long, elegant points that I get from it. The M+R sharpener isn't quite up to that sort of level, but it produces a very acceptable point and because it's orifice is a little larger than the average pencil diameter, you can actually vary the result by moving the pencil off centre towards the blade for a finer point. Here's a comparision:
On the left is a lovely new Staedtler Norris H, sharpened with a desk machine. On the right is a cheaper no-name office pencil, sharpened with the M+R. As you can see, it's not as smooth, nor as pointed - but it's still very usable and there's a whole new aesthetic to be had from using a little hand held sharpener.
As soon as I've worn down a few points on my nicer pencils, I'll use the new one on those, but I can't quite bring myself to sharpen an expensive pencil for no reason. I suspect that the nicer wood in a higher quality pencil will sharpen better, anyway. In the meantime, I'm trying to resist also buying an
M+R triple cone special purpose sharpener. Mmmmm.
