You know I have a thing about retro so naturally in city'super/LOG-ON's Stationery department you will see some antique replicas. Here's a shot of one of our show cases with a Lars Magnus Ericsson 1892 "The Skeleton Type" or "Eiffel Tower" phone replica (I put a few other Eiffel Tower stuffs around it like a bookend, a card stand, a diary, a pack of Paris map magnets and a metal die cast desk deco. In case you wonder, the wine stopper and the little gold bar are USB memories).
Today we received a series of brand new German phone replicas we ordered but weren't sure if they could arrive before Xmas, what a surprise they did! The finishing looks far better than the prototype I saw before, it features a touch dial with a center redial button, exceptionally smart looking as a modernized phone. It is sold at HK$299. I had to literally beg the manufacturer to do business with me like 2 years ago, its worth everything and I'm so happy they are now in our stores, I hope our customers like them too.
To learn more about antique phones:
- Lars Magnus Ericsson the Swedish inventor
- The Skeleton Type (Dachshund)1892, L.M. Ericsson's very own design, from ericcsonhistory.com
- Ericsson AC100 Series "Skeletal" Desk Phone, collector Bob Estreich's detail account of history and various models. Interestingly according to Bob, both "Skeletal" and "Eiffel Tower" were names applied by collectors but not the real product names. The "Eiffel Tower" name was actually referring to another phone but got mixed up with the Ericsson one somewhere in time.
Ok, I got a whole year to make the final prizes of our dart competition within the company, quite many sketches and designs were done. Turned out, I executed the whole thing only on the day of our final match on 5th Dec 2009. Originally I intended to make leather dart cases which can be used as pass cases, you can imagine how many details were given up due to the last minute rush.
The fun part is the "UNRESTRICTED PASS" which the "bearer is authorized to produce ton8 or hattrick on demand unrestricted". Genuine machine readable QR codes and bar codes were included, when scanned names of the finalists can be decoded. The passes also included identity photos of the finalists.
It was real fun and I'm honored to make these prizes for the game. Seeing the winners using them on daily basis makes me happy. This also gave me more confidence on future leather craft projects I'm working on.
This is definitely one of our top 10 best selling stationery at city'super/LOG-ON, I'm afraid they will be out of stock soon before Xmas despite the fact that we already re-ordered them twice.
Converse pencases are always selling very good in our stores, but this is the first time they are in the form of sneakers instead of rectangular pouches. A lot of details have been put into this apparently simple pencase, including a genuine shoelace and extra 2 eyelets to help the shoe to breathe, embossed shoe bottom following the classic diamond shaped squares and crisscrossed lines, all capital ALL STAR letters and star logo on the heels, etc.
My colleague actually tried the Chucks pencases on her feet and they look great, except that they don't come in pairs so it looks a bit weird. If you insist, it is actually wearable, not that I would recommend you to unless you are in critical situations.
If you are a fan of Converse All Star "Chuck Taylor" canvas basketball shoe, be sure to check out the Facebook Chuck Taylor Converse fan page, the Chucks Connection site, the Flickr Converse World Domination! group. And who is Chuck Taylor?
Wouldn't it be more clean to inject ink into your fountain pen's ink reservoir using a syringe? I found it a more pleasant experience than simply using a piston or squeeze filler, besides this method fills up a lot more ink.
Sooner or later I will not be able to bear using this plastic needle, eBay has quite a lot of antique syringes up for auction, which suits my purpose. I know, some of you may be put off by the fact that those antique syringes were once used on humans, the negative energy may contaminate your ink. I certainly hope this effect can be demonstrated, it will amaze me if such negative energy shows up in hand writings.
Just wanna share with you some of the best selling Disney USB products in our stores. There's also a very popular Transformer USB memory and soon arriving a Transformer computer mouse.
Beautiful book art by Randi Parkhurst, see if you have enough PATIENCE to watch the whole video without skipping.
This beautiful 6" City Lights Earth globe by Fascinations finally arrived our stores for Xmas. Lit by LED, the globe captures the ethereal beauty of Earth light at night as seen from space. It rotates automatically and sits on a mirror surface.
Since it is very difficult to see the true beauty of it in store environment, I took a video of how it looks in my home. There's only about 50 pieces in city'super and LOG-ON, each HK$600, go grab it :)
For 4.5 billion years, the Earth gave off no light at night. Then with the discovery of electromagnetic induction by Robert Faraday in 1831, the dark side of the Earth began to glow. Since that time the glow has continued to brighten until today, the dark side of the Earth has been transformed into sparkling jewel of light as seen from space.
I just received TASCHEN's Fall/Winter 2009/2010 catalog in a small pamphlet. Unfolded are great images of the beautiful book covers, definitely a poster by itself.
I received a beautifully done, wax sealed wedding invitation today from Harmony and Alex. Congratulations!
I met this young couple 2 years ago in London and remember we had a nice chat in an Italian restaurant one night, very inquisitive minds. I hope they still keep that in their spirits and don't let works bog them down. I'm not going to give you guys funny marriage quotes or advices, but let's see what I can find from an anagram of your names…… Harmony + alex…… "X-ray manhole"…. ok suppose marriage is like a manhole and... ok it means nothing….. here you go "Hoy! Relax man!" This I will sign in your guest book, and remember this gold sentence throughout your life!
Here's some more photos of the real Moleskine Surprise boxes I've received on Monday. Last year when the Volant series was launched, collaborating with Moleskine Asia, we created beautifully designed envelopes for people to put colorful Volants in and send as Xmas gift. From our experience with huge Moleskine display during City Notebook's TOKYO/KYOTO release, we know people would love a gift box in the form of a Moleskine notebook for this Xmas. In addition, the retail price is almost like 30% off buying the contents individually. Its never done before.
What's unique about these boxes is that when sending them as gifts, you can almost certain they are on the top of your can't-go-wrong gift list, no matter what the content is. That's one big achievement as a brand. But don't get it wrong, these boxes aren't one of those quick and dirty ways some retailers would do to clean up old stocks, they are thoughtfully designed into themes for customers to choose easily when they think of their gift recipients.
For a more elaborated present, you may find it hard to stuff these big boxes into a Xmas hamper, but that's the point isn't it, a hamper full of discovery… and surprises. I can tell you the Luxury, For Him and For Her sleeves are the most handsome, they can be easily adapted to your hamper's color theme.
To give you an idea how large these boxes are, I've put some pocket and large sized Moleskines beside the box. There's plenty of space still to add more stuffs to your present, and again the box is not only a nice packaging but can be doubled as a storage box approximately the size of an A4 paper (unfortunately because of the round corners, an A4 paper cannot be laid flat inside).
It will be great fun to assemble your own perfect stationery Xmas gift box based on these. Put in a few more interesting products like MT masking tapes, Amadana calculator, rubber stamps, etc and a personal note written with ink and paper, voilà! A thoughtful and useful gift. The Moleskine Surprise Boxes are going to arrive city'super and LOG-ON before this weekend. For a list of available countries in Asia, please contact Moleskine Asia.
