Japanese Older Releases & Oddities

This post is going to be about the P320 series and another couple of oddball numbered pencils.

First I will go over the more common P320 pencils (although they are not that easy to find).  Then I will go over some other P320 pencils and another couple numbered P533.

P323E Generation 4.5 (Italic)

This is the pencil you see when you look up a P323.  It is the standard brown (for 0.3 mm) and the text is the short text (size then model) that is seen on other pencils, except the size is in italic.

I am not sure when, nor from whom I actually acquired this pencil, as I do not find the receipt, but it was probably around 2010.  I do know that it was the first of the pencils in this blog that I got.

P325A Generation 5 (Italic)

Again this is the pencil you see when you look up this model of pencil.  This pencil I picked up in May of this year along with the P327C.  I picked it up on eBay from a seller, who apparently found several sets of these, as he keeps posting a few of them every month or so.

P327C Generation 5 (Italic)

This is actually the second of these pencils that I acquired.  The first one was in excellent condition, but did not have the price sticker on it, so when this one showed up on eBay, I bought it (along with the above P325A).

P329G Generation 5 (Italic)

This completes the set of P320 pencils that are commonly seen when looking these up on the internet.  I never did see this come up on eBay, but another collector asked the above seller if he had any of these and he found a couple and I ended up purchasing this one in June of this year.

P323E Generation 4 (non-Italic)

This pencil and the following one that I purchased are the only times I have ever seen this style of P323.  This is an older pencil than the above series, as it uses the “/” in the size.  Also, it uses the full standard text with size, Pentel and model, as opposed to the short version (size & model) above.  Also if you see, it has a different style (rounded triangle) price sticker than was used on the pencils above (rectangle).  I am not sure if this has any significance, as the price is the same on all of the pencils in this blog, ¥500.

I purchased this and the one below in September of last year from an eBay seller I have purchased many pencils from.

P323E Generation 4.5 (non-Italic)

This is the next generation of the above pencil, where Pentel dropped the “/” from the size along with other changes to the outer body, but still apparently had stock of the previous generation inner body.

P327A Generation 4.5 (Blank)

I identify this pencil as a P327A because that is what I was told that it was by the seller I mentioned above that I have done business with for years (I purchased this in October 2014). The only identifying information is that it is a 0.7mm tip and inner body, and the sticker on it identifies it as a 0.7mm.

There is nothing to identify it specifically as a P327, other than the sellers information, so it was kind of an ambiguous P200 pencil. In doing other research, I came across a sold listing on eBay for a similar P325A pencil that had no other marking other than the triangular 0.5mm price sticker, and it was from a different seller in a different country.

So with two different sources identifying this style of P320 series, I decided to use that designation for my pencil.

From the pencils above, it looks like there may have been as many as 3 different styles of  the P320 series pencils manufactured over the years.

P533A Generation 4 (Short Text)

When I saw these pencils online (and purchased it from the seller mentioned in the last 3 pencils), it was the first, and only, time I have seen this model of pencil. [While writing this post, I decided to look to see if I could find any other information on this pencil, and I found a closed auction on Yahoo Japan for one of these pencils.]

This pencil uses a black body with the modified short text with the bullet, “•”, between the size (using the “/”) and model. It also includes a smaller triangular price sticker.

I purchased this pencil in September 2016.

P533A Generation 4 (Standard Text)

The only difference between this and the prior pencil is the use of the standard text (size, Pentel & model) and the larger triangular price sticker.

I am almost ashamed to admit that when these two pencils were posted for sale online, I did not immediately pick up on the difference between the two, so I only purchased the one above.  Once I received it, I looked back at the auction for this one, and immediately kicked myself for not ordering it, since at that point it was obvious what the differences were.

In my eBay search, I do look for other sizes of these pencils (P535, P537 & P539), but I do not expect to find them, as this appears to have been a one-off. The 535 designation is used on the Pentel PS535, which is a completely different type of pencil from the P200 family of pencils, and I do not expect that Pentel would make both a P535 and a PS535, if only to avoid confusion.  So this will go down as one of Pentel’s pencil oddities.

************************************************************************************
I try to post this blog every two weeks on Monday, but since the next day this would post is on Christmas day, I am going to delay it until the following Monday, January 1, when I will have two posts going up that day, one of which is a side post related to the Pentel P200 family of pencils.