This has been a slow period for the blog, as I have most everything that has been released, and posted about it. There are a few pencils coming in from Brazil in a few weeks that I will post about, but other than that, not much else going on.
This does not mean that I have not been busy with Pentel related projects.
In December 2021 or January 2022, someone on Reddit (I have lost the post) posted a 15-page PDF of Uchida mechanical pencils to help identify them. This inspired me to work on a version of that for Pentel mechanical pencils, from the 60’s up to today. Let me say, that this has been a bigger project than I expected. Originally, I wanted to identify the executive style pencils from the 70’s and 80’s, but it expanded into all of them. Well, not all… but all that I can identify, plus a few others.
I decided to layout this book with one model (or series, such as the P200’s) per page, with a picture to show the pencil, then information about that pencil. Here is an example page.
The above page about the Mechanica’s is one of the fullest pages in the book. There are some pages that have a picture, then very minimal information (I may not have the pencil, or may not know much about it), but most fall in between.
I started out using the catalogs I have access to to create this, but as I went along, I kept finding more and more pencils that were not in any of the catalogs. Also included are several retailers and other entities that Pentel made pencils for, such as Burberry, Disney, Person’s Collection and several others.
At this point, I have put in all of the direct Pentel pencils that I know of, and all of the “Branded” pencils that I can identify. Right now the PDF is well north of 400 500 pages. There are also a couple of appendices that have articles, and Identification pictures. More will be added as time goes on.
So, without further ado, here is the current release of the Pentel Pencils Identification Book.
For the moment, as I update this I will post the updates here. I have ideas for a new website dedicated to this project, so at some point it may move, but I will link to that website from here at that point.
As I was starting to add my latest pencils to my display cases, which were up to six cases of up to 48 pencils each, of which there were 10 blank spaces in these cases, I realized I needed to add a new case, since I was adding 15 pencils. Even if I was just adding as few as 3 pencils, I would have needed more space, since I want to keep the sets together. Then while I was working on this, the 2 box sets from the previous posts came up, plus another pencil showed up unexpectedly, making it 24 pencils I was adding. Now, 4 of these pencils are not new stock, but are older pencils I got at auction. I will review these below, along with a few new custom Spoke pencils, but it made me look back at what all was officially released this year by Pentel, no matter which division.
31
Thirty one new P200 pencils were released this year. Looking back in my records, the most released in any other year, was back in 2015, when 26 pencils were released.
Here is a quick review of what Pentel released this year.
These appear to have come out in the first quarter of the year, but appear to have been officially announced out of Pentel Taiwan on 2021/05/25. I first heard about it through a contact on my blog in February. He said they were available on an auction site in China, and that the silver was available on CultPens. I picked up the silver immediately, then a few of months later, I found a source and bought the gold version.
Again, in the fist quarter of the year, Loft stores in Japan released 3 new pastel colored P205 pencils. Along with 2 pencils from the 2019 P200 for Boys & Girls, these make up the set of 5 Pastel P205 pencils.
In June, on their Instagram, Pentel France announced the release of 6 new Pastel P205 pencils. Of course before this, I had found these on CultPens, but there, they were referred to as P205 Floral pencils and had flower names for the colors.
In August, Pentel Brazil released their 2022 catalog and, for once I got the jump on my friend in Brazil as to what was coming out. Following up on the release last year of 3 sets of Metallic pencils, Pentel Brazil released 2 more sets of Metallic pencils in P205, P207 & P209.
But the biggest news out of Brazil was the 2 new Hybrid pencil sets, again in P205, P207 & P209 (as someone commented elsewhere, I believe it was Reddit, the P203 is not seeing a lot of love). These are a Dichroic painted pencil, where the color shifts depending on viewing angle and light. They are some of my favorites I have seen in a long time.
Coming out in early November from Pentel of America, the last sets of the year were released as Collectors box sets in 2 different styles: Graphite and Classic. Both of them include the standard 4 sizes, including the P203, which Pentel of America has ignored for decades. The Graphite collection has graphite colored pencils from a silver graphite (P203) up to a dark graphite (P209), and in the Classic collection, they are the classic colors: brown (P203), black (P205), blue (P207) and yellow (P209).
All of these pencils pushed my collection over the 300 pencil mark. Okay, it’s 301… but that counts… well, there are a few duplicates, where the Brazilian metallics duplicated some of the US metallics… and there is that pair of P325 pencils that have different Japanese stickers, but…
Spoke 6 Proto Aluminum (8.6mm grip)Spoke 6 Proto Aluminum (10mm grip)Spoke 6 Black-Red-Black (8.6mm grip)
Back in August, Brian Conti with SpokePen.com finally released his much anticipated Spoke 6 in a pre-release bare aluminum. I immediately ordered the smaller 8.6mm grip and received it 2 weeks later. Unfortunately, he had had some issues with the 8.6mm grip and was unhappy with the way it came out. So, he shipped the pencil with a 10mm grip and a note saying that he would ship the 8.6mm when he was happy with it.
It took about 3 months to finally get the 8.6mm grip, but I must say that this is great customer service, since I had the pencil to play with, even it wasn’t exactly what I wanted UP FRONT and cost him extra. I now have my pencil the way I ordered it, and I am happy with it.
On the very day that I received my replacement grip, Brian released the Spoke 6 in twelve different colorways. Again, I ordered mine immediately.
P209-40PB
In my last shipment from Brazil, I got a surprise pencil included. This P209-40PB, celebrating 40 Anos (Years) of the P200 pencil. I have had the other two (P205-40PB & P207-40PB) for several years, and as far as I know, this completes my collection of distinctly Brazilian P200 pencils.
In November, I won an auction for some more Disney pencils. Here is my original post about these.
DISNEY PENCILS
P565 Mickey Mouse – Mail (Yellow)P565 Minnie Mouse (Orange)P565 Donald Duck (Green)
As far as I know, there are still 3 other Disney characters I do not own, but am still searching for: Goofy, a larger Mickey Mouse and another Minnie Mouse pose.
With all of the Disney pencils that I and others own, and what I now understand about the Date Code, all of these were produced in 1977. All but 1 of the pencils I own are Generation 4 transparent bodies. The exception is a Generation 3 body with the size molded into the bottom. Since the majority of these finds are Gen 4, then Pentel must have been molding these bodies for these pencils. My question is, why was that 1 pencil in a Gen 3 body, and what was Pentel using the Gen 3 transparent bodies for, before these?
There are still 4 Popeye pencils I do not have.
Adding these 6 to the above 31, makes 37 new/new-to-me pencils I added this year.
In June 2021, Pentel France announced these pencils on their Instagram page. They called them coloris pastel or “color pastel”. I first encountered them on the CultPens.com website, where they called them by flower names. Another Swiss website also called them by their pastel colors.
These are the second set of Pastels released this year with the first by Loft Japan (Loft Pastel Limited Edition Pencils). Whatever name you apply to them, they are a beautiful addition to the collection.
As opposed to the Loft Pastels, which were molded in the colors, these pencils were molded in white plastic, then painted with a matt color. There are issues with the printing on these pencils, as I note below.
P205-97C Pastel Blue / Forget Me Not
This is a very nice color, with the text almost fading into the color. You can see the issues on this closeup of the printed text.
Barcode: 3474372180016
P205-97D Pastel Green / Green Bud
This pencil has probably the worst issues on the text. If you look you can see it on the shot above.
Barcode: 3474372180023
P205-97F Pastel Orange / Nasturtium
This pencil (or the violet) has probably the cleanest text, but there are still some very minor issues with it.
Barcode: 3474372180030
P205-97G Pastel Yellow / Mimosa
Barcode: 3474372180047
P205-97P Pastel Pink / Magnolia
Barcode: 3474372180054
P205-97V Pastel Violet / Crocus
Barcode: 3474372180061
As you can see, all of these pencils have some issues with the printing. I purchased around 10 sets of these, and these are the cleanest examples of each that I kept for my collection. I have never seen anything like this on any P200 pencils before, other than on older ones that have been scuffed up.
As I said at the top of this post, another set of Pastel pencils were released in Japan this year. The P205 Loft Pastels were the subject of a previous post, but here is a side-by-side comparison of the two sets.
European Floral/Pastels at top, Loft Pastels at bottom
As you may notice, the Loft pencils are shinier than the European pastels at the top, since they were molded in the colors, rather than painted.
If you look at 99.9% of Pentel P200 pencils, the text is always printed in the same spot on the pencil. Looking at the tip, with the word “Pentel” in the cutout at the 12:00 position, the printing is 2-3:00 position, where the sides are smoothed together.
As far as I can remember, I have only ever had 2 pencils with misprints. This does not count pencils that have had all or part of the text rubbed off.
Misprinted P205-97V
This P205-97V is printed in the correct position, but in an arc. This is one of the pencils I purchased in the sets I posted about above.
Misprinted P305S-CW
The P305S pencils had a larger print zone than normal, but still, this one rotated to print in the 3-4:00 position.
The day I made my last post, I was looking at my regular list of auction site searches and came across a listing for a P200 Box Set. Intrigued, I looked at the post, then very quickly ordered it. Then I went back into the post to look a little more at the item, and the pictures. This was the P200GRBXSET Graphite Series Limited Edition Collectors Set.
For this packaged items, I like to have 2 sets in my collection. One to open, take the pencils and put them in my collection cases, and the other to keep with everything intact. So, I contacted the seller, asking if he had any more in stock. He replied that he did have another, and that he would put it up for me to purchase, so I picked up my second set.
At this point, he also mentioned that he had another set. I asked about that, and this one was the P200CLBXSET Classic Series Limited Edition Collectors Set. He listed them for me, and I bought those for myself.
Jump a week later, and I have these in my hands.
Graphite Series Limited Edition Collectors Set P200GRBXSET
This box set contains 4 pencils, P203 to P209, in shades of graphite from Soft Silver to Dark Graphite. These pencils are not labeled, and the box does not include model numbers.
The package is marked, “Distributed by: Pentel of America, Ltd, 4000 E Airport Dr., Suite C, Ontario, CA 91761”, and has a barcode of 072512283882.
P203 Soft Silver P205 Light Pewter P207 Medium Gunmetal P209 Dark Graphite
As you can see these pencils are marked the same as the pencils in my earlier post about the “since 1970” pencils.
While waiting for this set to arrive, I was wondering if the P205 in this box set was the same P205-1Z in the earlier Taiwanese release. It turns out this is not the case, as you can see in the picture above, the P205-1Z is the pencil in the middle and the P203 & P205 bracket it. It appears that the P203 from this set is the same color, or very similar to, the P205-1Z.
When I first saw the picture of the back of this set, I was confused about one of the lines in the description. In the second paragraph, it states “In honor of over 50 years of reliability, this limited edition series features the original colors launched in 1970 with a commemorative imprint celebrating that history.” This line makes absolutely no sense, unless everything I know about the history of the Pentel P200 gets thrown out the window.
That is until I found out about the other box set the seller offered.
Classic Series Limited Edition Collectors Set P200CLBXSET
Like the box set above, this set contains 4 pencils, P203 to P209 in the original colors launched in 1970. Now, I have not found any evidence of the P203’s existence earlier than Generation 4 (that just may mean I haven’t found it… yet), but I will let this slide, since the other 3 were launched in 1970. Again, these pencils are not labeled, nor are model numbers indicated anywhere on the box.
Again, distributed by Pentel of America, the barcode is 072512283875, which is 1 code earlier than the Graphite Box Set.
P203 Classic Brown P205 Classic Black P207 Classic Blue P209 Classic Yellow
Again, these are marked with the “since 1970” text.
Here is the back of the Classic set box, with the same text as on the Graphite Box Set, which makes much more sense here. It appears this box was designed first, and the layout copied for the Graphite Box Set, with suitable changes, and that line was just missed in those changes.
Last year, Pentel Brazil released 3 sets of Metallic pencils in 0.5mm, 0.7mm and 0.9mm. These were the Rose Pink (MP1PB), Sky Blue (MSPB) and Rose Gold (MYPB) colors. All of those pencils had been previously released in the US in 0.5mm and 0.7mm, but that was the first time a 0.9mm version was released. This time, there is a little mixture.
The following pencils were released in September 2021.
Metallic Light Green (MK1PB)
Like last year, this is the first time the P209 has been released in this color.
Oddly, this is the first time that this color has been released as a P205 under this model. The original P205 Metallic Light Green was originally released, in the US, as P205M-KX. In May 2019, I wrote a post about the change in model number between the MK and MK1 model numbers.
P205-MK1PB Light Green (7908429600043) P207-MK1PB Light Green (7908429600050) P209-MK1PB Light Green (7908429600067)
Metallic Pink (MPPB)
Unlike all of the previous metallics, all 3 of these models have been released in the US.
I was curious to see what these pencils were when I first saw them in the 2022 Brazil catalog. They were listed with 2 colors, but no other explanation.
Later on, I saw the Pentel Brazil Instagram post about these, and that gave a better explanation of what these are. Here is the translation of the point of the post:
“You asked for new colors and we hear you, Pentel Lovers!
Sharp Hybrid mechanical pencils change depending on the incidence of light. The green gets shades of blue and the violet with shades of brown.”
Yes, these are painted pencils, on a black base plastic, and this is a dichroic paint on these pencils. You may have seen this elsewhere, especially on some higher end paint jobs on some cars, where it looks one color from one direction, and changes colors as the car goes by, or you walk around it. Unfortunately, this is hard to photograph the multiple colors in one shot, and I did not get a good shot of the first pencils, but the second ones have a decent representation. Otherwise, they are very reminiscent of the Irridescent Colors released in Europe in 2019.
Hybrid Green Blue (HDCPB)
As I said above, capturing both colors is hard to do with this type of paint, and you can’t really see the blue in this photograph.
P205-HDCPB Hybrid Green Blue (7908429600210) P207-HDCPB Hybrid Green Blue (7908429600227) P209-HDCPB Hybrid Green Blue (7908429600234)
Hybrid Brown Purple (HEVPB)
The color was captured better on this pencil, especially on the bottom one above.
P205-HEVPB Hybrid Brown Purple (7908429600180) P207-HEVPB Hybrid Brown Purple (7908429600197) P209-HEVPB Hybrid Brown Purple (7908429600203)
I am not sure exactly when Loft Stores, in Japan, released the new Pastel pencils, but it was probably in the first quarter of 2021. What is interesting about this set of pencils is that 2 of the 5 are not new pencils, but carried over from their previous P200 for Boys & Girls set from 2019. The Baby Pink (P205BG-P2LF) and Serenity Blue (P205BG-SLF) join with 3 new colors to make up the Loft Pastel (as opposed to the Floral Pastels out of Europe, which will be the subject of a later post). The other three pencils in the Boys & Girls series have been discontinued by Loft.
Unlike the Brazilian P200 for Boys & Girls, which says “P200 Boys & Girls 0.5mm Pentel P205”, the text on the Loft Boys & Girls set is easy to adapt to a new series, as it does not say the series name on it.
These pencils are all molded with plastic in the appropriate color.
P205BG-P2LF Baby Pink
As indicated by the “BG” in the part number, this (and the next pencil) is one of the two pencils originally released in the Boys & Girls set. I am assuming that since it was a light color that is why it was chosen. Barcode: 4902506367877
P205BG-SLF Serenity Blue
Again, this is the other pencil carried over from the Boys & Girls set. Barcode: 4902506367884
P205-DLF Emerald Green
This is one of the three new colors for the pastel series. The only issue I have with this one, is the choice of the font color. The yellow text is hard to read. Barcode: 4902506389541
P205-GLF Pale Yellow
Second of the new colors, this is a nice choice. Barcode: 4902506389558
P205-VLF Violet
Last of the new colors, this is probably my favorite of the Pastel set. Barcode: 4902506389565
As I said at the top of this post, another set of Pastel pencils were released in Europe this year. This will be a subject of my next post, but here is a side-by-side comparison of the two sets.
European Floral/Pastels at top, Loft Pastels at bottom
As you may notice, the Loft pencils are shinier than the European pastels at the top. I will get into that in the next post.
Back in March, I had received the silver pencil above from CultPens in the UK. At that time, I knew there was a gold version, but I could not find where I could order one from, so I went ahead and posted about that pencil. I have deleted that post and am replacing it with this one, that now has the P205-1X Gold.
As I said above, I received this pencil from Cultpens. On the site it was marked as being a 50th Anniversary of Pentel UK pencil, but I have not been able to find when Pentel UK opened.
I have also seen this type of text on pencils before. Before the recent trend to going back to the big number 5 on the cap, the Pentel Kerry, for several years, said “Since 1971”. So, seeing this does not surprise me.
But, upon receiving these in and entering them in my database, I see that these do not appear to be registered out of Europe, but actually, out of the United States (it has a standard 12-digit UPC barcode). In my original post about barcodes https://nimrodd.net/2018/01/01/barcodes/, at that time, this company prefix was not registered to Pentel, but it is now registered to Pentel in Japan. I am not sure why this pencil has that barcode, and we have not seen it here in the US yet, but I am going to try to see if I can find out any information from Pentel of America at some point.
P205-1Z Silver
This appears to be the same color as the currently available P205MZX (https://nimrodd.net/2017/06/19/p205-metallics/), but instead of the standard text “0.5mm Pentel P205”, it now reads “Pentel P205 since 1970”. Barcode: 884851054876
P205-1X Gold
This pencil is the same color as the 2015 Gold pencil released for the 50th Anniversary of Pentel of America (see same post as above). That one did not say anything special referring to the Anniversary, just came in a special package. Barcode: 884851054869
Pentel XP205 Since 1970 Retail Packages
XP205-1X XP205-1Z
When I first saw an official advertisement for these pencils, it was on Pentel Taiwan’s website, announcing these on 5/25/2021.
At the bottom, I saw a couple of barcodes that I expected to find on these pencils, but as I said above they came with US barcodes. Once I received the above retail packages, I realized that the barcodes were for these packages. I should have been clued in by the “X” in front of the part numbers (XP205-1X & XP205-1Z), as the Asian packaging has used this format before on the P209 Kirari pencils. Barcodes: XP205-1X 4711577064437 XP205-1Z 4711577064444
This post is a while coming, since I have had most of these pencils since the end of last year. This time I have 4 custom built pencils, plus a P205 being sold by an online retail outlet. Three of these custom pencils are wood turned pencils and one is a metal pencil.
This is a nice pencil, but a little bit thicker than I like at 10mm. The connection to the tip is very well turned and the tip matches up to the body without any gaps. The opening at the back is thick enough to not break when the pencil is used.
This pencil fits my hand much better, being about 8mm towards the front of the grip, growing to about 9mm, just in front of the clip. I like the multiple colors in the wood grain and it does have a groove turned in the body for the clip to sit in. And it does have a nice bevel at the cap end.
The one issue I have is that it has split at the cap end on the opposite side of the clip.
I like to collect P200 pencils from everybody who makes custom pencils, so when I saw that Bryan Field Pens had one, I ordered it. He sold this as a P209, but I replaced the inner workings with a 0.5mm, since that is what I have all of my custom pencils in.
I like the colors in this pencil that are hard to capture in the photo, but there are a few issues I have with this pencil. First it is much too large for my preference (11mm), and it does not have a clip, but those are just preferences. The main issue is the section where the tip screws over is too long, so the back of the tip does not meet up with the body, and even if it did, it would not be a smooth transition, as the front of the body is about 2 mm wider than the back of the tip.
I saw Garret post an early version of this pencil and contacted him about purchasing it. He did not want to sell that one because it was an experiment and had scratches and stuff on it, so he made a new one and sold it to me. A little later, he started an Indiegogo page to sell these.
The body of this pencil is six sided brass that has been powder coated black, then trimmed on the ends and the grooves cut. Unlike most custom pencil makers, he also powder coated the tip and the cap of the original P205 parts.
This pencil is not a custom made pencil, but manufactured by Pentel. Because it is a single pencil from one company, I did not want to just write a blog post about just the one pencil, so I included it in this post.
I saw mention of this pencil on a post on the Pentel Japan website, and decided to check it out. It does not have any of the normal text on the side, but has the Freitag logo imprinted on the bottom.
At the beginning of last week, I heard about some new Pentel P205 pencils from Europe. I managed to find a source and ordered them. Unbelievably, I received them in last Friday.
These 4 pencils are matt colored, and upon examination, they are a painted pencil, but I have never had any problems with the paint that Pentel uses on their P200 pencils, other than the occasional extra thick coat that obscures the mold mark.
I really do like the colors of these pencils, and the color of the printing, although at times the dark blue on the black is a little hard to see. These pencils have the standard text on them with a long bar before the text begins. And the removable barcode sticker on the bottom gives the part number and GTIN barcode for each pencil.
P205-99A Black
This is the Black version with Dark Blue text, which as you can see might be a bit hard to read. The barcode is 3474372170017, registered out of France.
P205-99C Night Blue
The Night Blue version has a Light Green text. The barcode is 3474372170024.
P205-99D Green Khaki
This is a Green Khaki with Yellow text. The barcode is 3474372170031.
P205-99V Mauve
This is the Mauve pencil with a Light Blue text. The barcode is 3474372170048.
I still hope that Pentel Japan or Pentel USA will come out with something special to celebrate 50 years of the P200, but at this point, I am not holding my breath too much. If these are the only truly new pencils to come out this year for the P200’s 50th Anniversary, I won’t be completely disappointed.
2020 marks the 50th anniversary of the iconic Pentel P200 pencil. I have been hoping that Pentel Japan would release a 50th anniversary pencil, but it does not seem like that is going to happen.
But, Pentel Brazil has released a Metallic series of pencils. There are 3 colors available in sizes 0.5 mm, 0.7 mm and 0.9 mm. I received my pencils this week and looking at them, I am a little disappointed. Six of these nine pencils have been released here in the United States before. In 2012, Pentel of America released 13 metallic P205 pencils, including the three below. It is true that these have not been available since that release, but still they are not a new pencil. Also, there are eight P207 metallics that are currently available in the US, including the 3 below. However, the three P209 pencils are new in these colors.
Since these pencils use already produced colors (P209 just has different printing on same body), these are manufactured in Japan. These pencils do use the standard Brazilian label that all of their pencils use.
Metallic Rose Pink
P205-MP1PB Metallic Rose Pink (7898419169066) P207-MP1PB Metallic Rose Pink (7898419169073) P209-MP1PB Metallic Rose Pink (7898419169080)
Metallic Sky Blue
P205-MSPB Metallic Sky Blue (7898419169097) P207-MSPB Metallic Sky Blue (7898419169103) P209-MSPB Metallic Sky Blue (7898419169110)
Metallic Rose Gold
P205-MYPB Metallic Rose Gold (7898419169127) P207-MYPB Metallic Rose Gold (7898419169134) P209-MYPB Metallic Rose Gold (7898419169141)
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