I found these pencils at a rundown art supply and print store near where I live. It isn’t rundown anymore – the employees bought the owner out and cleaned the place up quite a bit. Good for them but most of the vintage pencils are gone. Luckily, I dug up decades-old Mars Lumochrom and Faber-Castell 9000 pencils, as well as pre-Sanford Berol Turquoises, before the ownership changed. They still have stuff like Mars Duralar and Dynagraph though.
Side by side they don’t resemble each other quite that much, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve pulled a Chung Hwa out thinking it was a Lumograph. That left a bad impression and I wasn’t prepared to pay good money for it, but then I found them on sale and picked them up for 40 cents each.
According to Bleistift the pencils already have a new look – interesting to note that they have abandoned the Mars look completely. (Lexikaliker has pictures of the slightly newer 111’s – they still look amazingly like Lumographs.) The color on these Chung Hwa pencils is actually closer to the old Lumograph ultramarine blue than the current Lumo lighter blue, and once you get past the prejudice the F grade pencils are not bad. The B grade is lumpy though. I wonder if the current Chung Hwas write better?
pencils and other things 