Just another rip-off posing as Cool.
Dear Blackwing,
For YEARS, I have proclaimed and proselytized your wonderful pencils. I love them so much, I keep one set of 12 intact, and another to use or give as gifts. I love the ethos: cool Californian hip, reverence for the past beautifully done in the present. And a very important element in what I call the "analogue counter-revolution" against digital banality. The return to handwriting, to journals, to QUALIT, dammit. I'm a PAPYRPHILIAC, and believe in my cause. And hoped Blackwing was part of that.
BUT....
But now, all I seem to pay for is a subscription for pencils that never come. It is now more than a year since I received what I should have received - have paid to receive - every three months. At first, I gave Blackwing the benefit of the doubt, ordering pencils just in case, and if they arrived, great - I would have more marvellous gifts for fellow papyrophilia nuts like me. Nothing came. I wrote, after a while, to Blackwing customer service to ask what was happening. Nothing. No reply. Silence. "The Customer is Always Wrong". Bulletins arive on what music we are listening to here in California - but ... er... nothing that I have paid for.
Blackwing = Take your money for ... NOTHING.
Just now, Blackwing has sent a latest email, through 'Shop'. My hopes were raised: maybe finally some PENCILS for my money !!!?? NAH ... just a "subscription renewal" for pencils that will never arrive.
I am saddened, broken-hearted indeed, to find that this wonderful idea has become just another rip-off. Like everything else... yet they seemed to be so different.
Mis-selling theft can have a pretty face... And the sadness of it is that they ARE wonderful pencils.
Ed Vulliamy
The Guardian newspaper,
London.
