My father was a graphic artist, so I have a few vintage mech pencils. Not sure where though.
On with the thread!
My mom was a drafter so I always admired the German STAEDTLER pencils but those got tossed when she switched to CAD.
Those are cool as hell. I love egregiously over-engineered things like this - one of my favourite things in my kitchen is one of these absurd contraptions. I’m tempted to get one, though I was never a massive fan of mechanical pencils (probably all the ones I tried were cheap crap).
I recently switched to Pilot FriXion pens, which removed a lot of my need for pencils, but despite enjoying the colour variety and erasability, ballpoints will always feel kinda wrong to me. Plus there are just some things they won’t mark, but a pencil will.
I’ve got several of these from when I lived in Tokyo. They are as good as you say. I didn’t watch the video but I also have a mechanical pencil where the lead rotates slightly every time you press down on it so that it constantly stays sharp. I still remember as a high school student trying to write with a regular pencil and the lead would CONSTANTLY break. If you’re into stuff like this and ever go to Japan you’ve got to drop in to a stationary shop (they actually have such things). You’ll think you’ve died and gone to heaven. I also love good pens which is something else that is plentiful in Japan.
In my day, when dinosaurs roamed, the theory was not to extend the lead (graphite) too far. It meant that you did the twist or the click more often.
Here’s my collection of Japanese hardware. The leather case is actually German I think but i bought it in Japan. It rolls up and is nice and compact.
I like the two pens on the left. They’ve got real wood that I think comes from whiskey barrels or some such nonsense. I’d have to look them up to remember. They contain two or three different pen colors and a mechanical pencil, but rather than having multiple sliders you’ve just got the one push button at the top. Which color comes out the bottom all depends on orientation of the pen when you push the button which I can only imagine is accomplished through some form of black magic
Alright, so the Pentel Orenz Nero looks like it has a bunch of bad reviews due to some QC issues. That was my top choice but I’m gonna pick up an Uni Kuru Toga instead - which seems to be half the price of the Nero to boot. Thanks @rei!
That is also very cool! I’m envious. Knowing me, though, I’d be so busy dismantling and putting it back together over and over I’d never get round to writing anything down!
Oops, I didn’t mean that I own one! I find it cool and have half heartedly looked for one but I know I’d never pay the price that a real collector would put on it.
Yeah, but I hated when the metal tip would scrape the paper when the lead wore down, so I’d click too many times to avoid that and it would break, or else I just had to pay too much attention to lead management and it interfered with actual writing. Those things sucked. Scripto erasable pen 4 eva!
Yes. ::shudder::
Well, I can still be envious all the same! Just not of yooouuuu
All this made me remember a type of pencil that I haven’t seen since I was a young kid, which fuzzy Googling reveals to be called a “stacking point” pencil. They don’t look quite like the ones I remember, but it’s the same mechanism for sure. You never have to sharpen, but the leads are thick enough not to break.
Oh yeah. Jr. high. Seemed rather wasteful to me even back then.
Right, because half the lead is lost inside the plastic thingie. And we weren’t trying to reduce plastic use back then, either.
Well, I got my Kuru Toga this afternoon and it is exquisite. I was gonna buy the cheaper plastic version but went for the [much] pricier aluminium one. Kinda sad that only came in the one colour as opposed to the plastic (the pink and orange ones were quite fetching) but otherwise pleased with my choice.
This is now probably the nicest pen/pencil I own. I had some reservations about the weight prior to ordering - metal pens can feel too heavy for me, though most are, of course, steel - but this is pretty much the perfect weight for my hand. Not too light, though - a bit of heft is welcome.
I re-drew some plans I’d made for the garden with it (one of my cats drooled* on the old ones and they were kinda gross) and was quite pleased with the results. It feels great to write with and the rotation gimmick actually seems to work well.
About the only downside is I switched to a Rocketbook notepad alongside the FriXion pens and I’m not sure how well a pencil will work in one of those!
* Well, I hope it’s drool.