# The figure it replaced is still readable

> 125 rubbed out and legible anyway, a firm 40 written under it, and a location code beneath that — a mark small enough that somebody has to walk up to the shirt to read it.

August 21, 2026 · https://justog.club/stories/the-price-in-pencil-in-the-corner

Two ruled lines meet at a square corner high on the chest of a chalk-white shirt. Inside them, a
rubbed-out 125 that is still perfectly readable. Under it, a hard dark 40. Under that, in smaller
strokes, bx-9.

The whole mark is about the size of a badge, in one grey, and you have to be standing close to make
any of it out.

## Why is the old figure still readable if somebody rubbed it out?

Because pencil was chosen for a mark that might change, and changing it leaves its own deposit.

A shop marks in pencil precisely so a figure can be revised later without ruining the page. The
trade-off arrives at the moment of revision: graphite sits in the paper's texture, an eraser lifts
the surface of it and not the rest, and what is left is a grey shadow with the digits still holding
their shape. The tool that made the change reversible also made it visible.

So the design is not a price. It is a price with its own history attached, and the history is the
part that took effort to remove and stayed anyway.

## What does the gap between 125 and 40 measure?

Time on a shelf, and the shop's opinion of how much more of it this copy was going to get.

The first figure is a ghost, the second is pressed hard into the paper. Nothing between them is
written down, but a markdown of that size is a decision about floor space rather than about the
object: something else needed the room, and this had not moved. Every reduced figure in every shop
is that same sentence, said quietly.

Two weights of one grey do all of that. A ghosted number and a firm one, and the reader supplies the
months in between — the same way [a stack of pages somebody stopped
at](/stories/the-book-you-stopped-reading) supplies its own duration without stating one.

## What is a code like bx-9 doing next to a price?

It is not a price at all. It is a location — the shop's note of where this copy came from.

Somewhere behind the counter sits a container marked bx-9, and this came out of it. The code is
useful to precisely one business, on precisely one premises, for as long as that container exists,
and it was written on the page anyway because the page was the nearest surface. Then it left the
building with the copy and became meaningless to everybody who has held it since.

Which is why it earns its place on the shirt. A number that was operational for somebody and is
opaque to everybody now is a very specific kind of readable.

## Why print a corner rather than a whole page?

Because two ruled lines are enough to say *page*, and everything else in the frame would be filler.

There is no drawn panel here — the paper stays the same white as the shirt, so the page exists only
where the two edges meet at a right angle. The fabric supplies the rest. That also keeps the print
free of the hard rectangle that makes artwork look pasted on.

At badge size it takes a deliberate approach to read, and that is worth having rather than working
around. Somebody at a table sees a pencil mark. Somebody who leans in gets three figures and a story
about a shop. The wearer decides which of those happens by deciding who they let close.

## Whose marks are these to print?

Yours, if they came off a copy you own — and every figure in this one was made up for it.

A price and a location code are working notes, not authored work. Nobody holds a claim over the
number 40 written in pencil. A shop's actual name, its logo or a distinctive printed sticker is a
different thing, and it belongs to that business the way any work belongs to whoever made it; that
is licensable, and if a particular shop is genuinely the point, asking is part of the job.

Style has no owner. A work does. Nothing in this design carries a title, an author or a publisher,
so there is no paperwork attached to it at all.

## Does this work for something bought somewhere other than a bookshop?

Yes — any trade that writes on its stock in pencil leaves the same double figure.

A record sleeve corner, the back of a frame, the underside of a plate, a tag on a chair in a
clearance yard. The design wants three things: a figure that was revised, an erasure that failed to
be complete, and a code that meant something to the seller alone. A single price with nothing under
it is just a price.

It carries a bought-for-somebody-else story well too, since the mark is the last trace of the
transaction and none of it is about the object. [A book strapped shut because it stopped closing on
its own](/stories/the-band-holding-a-book-together) is the other end of the same shelf life,
and [a flyleaf listing four owners](/stories/the-flyleaf-that-lists-its-owners) is what
happens to a copy after somebody finally pays the 40.

## Does it print well?

Yes, on the condition that the erasure is drawn rather than blurred.

A soft grey wash is the failure mode here: wide low-contrast tone goes flat and dirty on cotton. The
ghosted 125 wants building from broken, incomplete strokes in the same grey as the 40 — digits
smeared and partly lifted, but every edge in the artwork a hard edge. That reads as graphite from
across a room and survives the weave.

One ink is enough, in two weights. Chalk-white, bone and pale grey all keep the shirt reading as
paper, which matters more here than usual because the paper is not printed — it is the garment.
The two ruled lines should be a touch heavier than a real pencil rule; hairlines fall between threads
and come out dotted.

## How do I get one made?

Describe the corner at [JustOG](/) — the figure that was rubbed out, the one written under it, and
whatever code the seller added. Pick a direction, drag the crop frame, see it composited on the real
garment, and it's made to order and shipped.

Designs other people have published are in the [shop](/shop).

Somebody wanted the 125 gone. It is the easiest thing on the shirt to read.