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.
P205 “Since 1970” Silver and Gold (2)
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.
Loft P205 Pastels (3)
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.
P205 Pastel/Floral (6)
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.
P200 Brazilian Metallics (6)
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.
P200 Brazilian Hybrids (6)
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.
P200 “Since 1970” Box Sets (8)
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…
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Pencils Not Covered in another Post
Spoke 6
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
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.
My wallet says “ouch”.
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