The Golden Age of Japanese Pencils (2022)
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Thank you!
Well, I learned something new today. I always thought the pencils were part of the group but apparently they're not.
Seeing the iconic three diamond mark along with the name always made me think the pencils were related to the cars.
I had lost the writing habit..coding invariably takes you to the keyboard. Gradually I'm writing more, and it slows down, and that helps. Its a very analog experience, and is a form of digital detox. I am also learning to draw, hence the splurging on pencils in the first place. While I'm not an artist (yet!) - its a whole another world with an amazing spectrum of varieties of pencils.
Want to buy some pens?
I really appreciate old school manufacturing and pencils were the top tech around the turn of the century!
https://www.faber-castell.com/corporate/faber-castell-experi...
https://pencilly.com.au/product/pencil-bundle-ultimate-gift-...
I've bought a number of mechanical pencils since the model was discontinued and have been only disappointed. Few enough have the sliding sleeve, and on the few that do, the sleeve does not move at all smoothly. There may never be another pencil like it.
For ink drawing I have a set of Sakura Pigma Micron pens in different widths, also a lovely tool, and for general writing, Uniball micros are my pen of choice.
I think it's more than coincidence that all these are Japanese.
I, too, was a Uniball micro man until I switched to pencils and have been a Pentel Twist-Erase III man for a long time, indeed, with 2B lead instead of America's #2 standard. So smooth, and such a great eraser!
[I also must make my usual recommendation for NHKOnline's videos, where they have many, many shows about traditional Japanese crafts. Our family's favorite is now called "Design Stories", where it used to be "Design Talks Plus". They interview famous Japanese designers of all kinds, including a couple of Manga and many graphic design folks, as well as some stationery shops and Washi paper producers, plus architects and potters. I've only seen a few less than excellent episodes, but they're all good in the least.]
https://paperwhisper.com/blogs/blog/write-smarter-the-hidden...
Seem like the Uni Kuru Toga Dive is the peak mechanical pencil.
I have several of all the models, and I prefer the basic model, as it is slim and sturdy. You can get them in 0.2, 0.3, 0.5, and 0.7 mm. I think the 0.2 is not worth it, as it is rather fragile. If you want a really fine line, it's easier to just use a harder lead in a 0.3. The 0.7 is rather pointless, because 0.7 mm lead is so sturdy. The 0.3 is great, as it allows you to press harder and write longer between clicks. I've found them very reliable. I also use the 0.5 for colored leads, which are generally more brittle than graphite leads.
The Uni Kuru Toga gets mixed reviews. It has an auto-advance mechanism that works when you press and lift the tip. The amount of advance is geared for writing with very short strokes, as you do when writing Japanese. It can be awkward for writing cursive. Also, the mechanism rotates the lead, so it's hard to orient on the edge of the tip.
The key to these outstanding pencils is the perfectly fat eraser that is over an inch long. Its formulation is excellent (neither too hard nor too soft) so it erases superbly and lasts quite a time, and it has refills in packs of three that can sometimes be found in Office DepotMax.
I must also suggest a lead softness/hardness of 2B, instead of the normal "Number 2 pencil lead" that is standard for test taking here in America. It glides onto the paper more smoothly and yet erases easily and mostly completely.
So it is not surprising that Japan had a golden age of pencils, and that you can still buy the products today and that they are still the best.
OTOH, while they're top tier in fountain pens, Germans really equal with them. Lamy, Faber Castell, Diplomat, Kaweco and of course Montblanc make great pens. Pilot & Sailor are not behind them, though. Mitsubishi Pencil bought Lamy so things will get interesting.
Inks are the same. Germans and Japanese are head to head. OTOH, except Leuchttrum and Rhodia, I can't find many fountain pen first papers from Europe.
Funnily, when it comes to fountain pens, there's another interesting contender. China. While they copy most of the stuff, their domestic brands make great pens and ink.
Also, a company in my country started making a paper which rivals Yu-Sari and Tomoe River. I write letters with it, and it's great.
(I believe Quo Vadis to be a Canadian company that mostly makes planners and such, and their notebooks are getting harder to find. Even the good folks at Goulet Pens have given up trying to keep them in stock. When I come across some, I stock up.)
I took for granted that I could go into any small stationary store and buy a LAMY or Pelikan any time I wanted as a child.
"Also, a company in my country started making a paper which rivals Yu-Sari and Tomoe River. I write letters with it, and it's great."
Is that available internationally?
While I’m on the topic of German stationery, I regularly use my Staedtler eraser and pencil sharpener.
BTW, if you have not tried Montblanc's Royal Blue give it a chance. That one is "different". Also Scrikss's blue black ink is nice.
The notebook using this paper is called Meteksan Prestige [0]. I don't know if they're exported or not.
[0]: https://www.sarikalem.com/en/meteksan-prestij-bloknot-17x24-...
If anything, I had thought Japan were known to produce fine markers/felt-tip pens.
On the other hand, I find entry level German pens great for everyday carry. They're very rugged, and easy to replace, if you can damage them.
I'm happy that you found your grail pen, because having one is a great feeling.
I don't know if it's exported or not. I have a stack of them. :)
[0]: https://www.sarikalem.com/en/meteksan-prestij-bloknot-17x24-...
* Pilot Metropolitan fountain pen and Namiki ink
* Pilot G2 is my "minimum" pen, though I vastly prefer roller ball pens.
* Uniball Air Micro
* Pilot Precise V2
* When I need a pencil, I use the Uni Kuru Toga, a mechanical pencil that slowly rotates the lead to keep it sharp. Before that, I used the Pilot pencils that use the G2 body.
* Recently, I ordered a Metacil "infinity pencil" out of curiosity. It's an aluminum pencil with a very dense tip that writes like an ordinary pencil, but is supposed to last a very long time.
I've only ever heard of V5 (0.5 mm) and V7 (0.7 mm), and Googling doesn't turn up a V2. Is there one, or was this a typo?
What it's even more puzzling is the children comment that totally remembers them.
Do you have any roller ball pens you recommend? I love my G2, but it does have the tendency to "leak" from time to time..
Probably the decline is due to the shift to screen-based communication. Japanese companies could produce better (i.e. more expensive) products because their domestic market supported it. With the younger generation glued to their smartphones, there is much less use of traditional stationery products.
I have a few drawers full of discontinued items that I've collected from eBay sales of old stock.
Leadholder - The Drafting Pencil Museum: https://web.archive.org/web/20170617140127/http://leadholder...
Example: https://web.archive.org/web/20160629142925/http://leadholder...
The line " A special shout to our limo service San Diego for that one! " is a spammer insertion in https://web.archive.org/web/20170430095756/http://www.leadho... which makes no sense, and indeed, if you jump back over the gap of a few months to https://web.archive.org/web/20170121041802/http://www.leadho... , it was the much more logical in context " For collectors it doesn’t take long to fill out your collection of them with..." preface.
I wonder if it went offline because they couldn't deal with the security and maintenance?
I wish I had found them sooner to express thanks. If it's possible to reach their family I'd still like to revive the site another way; for a drafting junkie it really was one of the best things on the web.
I'm far from a wood pencil connoisseur; I generally prefer mechanical pencils (specifically Pentel Sharp; the P205 is a beast), but in buying pencils for my kids I've found this to be a consistently annoying issue.
For mechanicals I have a Rotring 600 and a Staedtler Mars Technico that is a billion years old.
I have sharpened a cheap pencil more than 3 cm at once because either the lead or the wood keep breaking.
Most of real history was a simple peasant working hard and making quiet decisions while avoiding being trampled by a king.
And since the authors' shop is local to me I'm going to have to go see what they've got!
You'll not be disappointed. :)
Recently, I caved in and bought a few Midori MD notebooks.[1] Try them, mainly if you write with a fountain pen. The tactile feedback and the subtle scratchy sound become the music that fills the silent room past midnight. It gives you the warm, cozy feeling of never being alone with your thoughts.
I’ve become an ardent follower of the videos from JetPens,[2] and their website is my regular. I’m investing more in Japanese stationery and have begun to write more, lot more.
I have a particular weight of Pilot pen which is just super. The stocks in Australia are out there in corners of dying news agents, all the replacements have been "bigged up" with soft rubber grips and stuff.
There have been days a yellow body BIC was all I wanted. But in truth they leaked badly. Never travel with an old school pen in a shirt you can't afford to replace.
Who assesses the 4B/3B/2B/B/H/2H... scale? Is this on the Mohs scale? Does it end in 2000H which is a diamond scribe?
On a related note, I wish there were software companies that put as much attention to their software as companies like Mitsubishi and Kokuyo put into their stationery. There was some well-crafted software in the past; I have fond memories of ClarisWorks, and I also enjoyed using The Omni Group’s software, particularly OmniOutliner and OmniGraffle. I also love the classic Mac OS and Jobs-era Mac OS X. Unfortunately, most software these days do not “spark joy” for me. In fact, I often have to deal with software that gets in my way, that nags me instead of gets out of my way.
It’s unfortunate that the economics of software makes it difficult to create Omni Group’s-style companies. “Enshittification” seems to be the end result of successful large software companies. Also, it’s hard for smaller proprietary software companies to compete against free, whether it’s free-as-in-beer or FOSS. I love FOSS, but it’s hard for developers to make a living writing FOSS unless they have strategies for monetizing the software, which sometimes leads to compromises that threaten to “enshittify” the software.
I’d love to find a solution to this problem. I’d love to see more craftsmanship in software, but the economic incentives make pursuing such craftsmanship hard.
Mitsubishi refined its process by selling the same basic product for half a century. The software equivalent would be closer to the 'cat' command than Omni. We could go with curl or vi, or Notepad if we give more credit to Mitsubishi pencils on keeping up with modern materials.
You'll note that Mitsubishi Pencils isn't producing a highly crafted extremely precise and delightful to use 3D mouse. They stuck to pens and pencils and the day pencil demand will die the company will also die.
I will leave them to my children when I die, they can use them or throw them out...
Very nice photos and deep dive. My kinda post
If you're anything like me, that's the experience of writing with cheap pens and pencils, but finding the right grip for you can make writing a totally different experience. I don't write huge amounts on paper any more these days, so maybe my hand would start cramping up if I wrote voluminously, but I can easily take hours worth of notes without any trouble when using nice pens.
I can type for longer without pain than I can write with a ballpoint or a pencil, but a fountain pen exceeds them both.
I use a pencil in the car because it always works.
Pencil writing doesn't scan very well, so I don't use it for notes. TUL writing scans delightfully.
In a world full of touchscreens, why do Japanese people love stationery? (blog post)
https://hatsukoi.co.uk/blog/113-in-a-world-full-of-touchscre...
There are tools so unique that really changes how you think and how you write. Some of these tools are so timeless and they are irreplaceable.
When you acquire one of these tools, and appreciate all the craftsmanship and engineering went into these things, and notice how all blends and becomes invisible, you realize that that simple thing is not that simple in the end.
I'm very grateful that the great papers, pens and all these supplies are still made, albeit in smaller varieties and numbers since the demand is lower than before. But, nothing replaces a silent thinking session on a good paper with good set of writing utensils. No notifications, no indirections, nothing. Just directly projecting your thoughts to a medium which has no batteries, encryption, etc.
Very personal, and much more productive.
I have a couple of mechanical keyboards, but my workhorse keyboard is a Logitech MX Keys Mini, which has scissor switches, and while it's not crisp as a good mechanical, it's a great keyboard which you can type all day without any problems. Considering it has lighting, hall and ambient sensors, you can charge it every couple of months and type all day long.
I also don't fancy multi-layer layouts, but I use text expanders for boilerplate, and that's good enough for me, for now.
and don't come up with research comparing the 2 with biases like participants not even knowing how to touch-type or that variable not even being mentioned
See, I'm both typing and writing for more than 30 years, and I started doing both almost the same time, so there's no inherent bias there. Here's what I found.
- I can type around 75 WPM in a good day, yet writing on paper always brings out clearer ideas.
- I write my blog posts in iA writer, fullscreen and in DnD mode, yet drilling some ideas on paper is still necessary for reflection.
- I have encrypted diary on my personal computer, yet I always prefer to carry a good notebook with a good pen, and find that I can write more sincerely and drill into myself better during reflection sessions.
- I can design programs in my head, brainstorm with mind maps, or draw architecture diagrams with relatively high speeds, yet designing on paper always results in better architectures, less bugs, and better performance.
- I can skirmish in real time like an old IRC person (because I am), or fire salvos of posts with different amount of flame included (because I lived through newsgroups), yet I prefer elaborating ideas on paper or in silence before writing them, because seeing what I want to say, and scribbling them with a good pen always brings different perspectives.
What I found by working on myself is ironically parallel to the research you denounce. Writing is different than typing and is a deeper experience with more connection to self. Having a small notebook around boosts my productivity 5x, while reducing planning overhead and mental load incurred by it to almost zero, and this is while I have a tool which I plan my next three weeks with great detail.
So, maybe you should try writing, and while you're at it, you can even find a pen friend which spends a couple of hours to write you a nice and sincere letter, and you'll do the same and understand why some of us like writing and everything related to that.
Who knows?
you don't know how sacred to me is my scratch (temporary) file on Emacs or my org documents or Gimp files with stuff like studies of games platform level design (quite easy to screenshot views and highlight stuff i want to comment) or digital collages material
for me there isn't anything closer than having a coffee after weeks/months without having one, Android running Emacs on Termux in my pocket and going for a walk with or without a science podcast playing... ironically the last thing i did on paper was the tinker of specific apps layers layouts on my keyboard (now i use an online keyboard editor alongside a text document)
I can understand the value of a good digital data storage. At the end of the day, I keep public and private personal knowledge bases for myself. However, I don't like to spread my information over many applications, and currently shrinking everything into a couple of tools. See, decades of computer use creates a lot of clutter.
On the other hand, I don't like to keep notes under the sun on a screen which needs a shade, and powered by a battery which might die any second. We're also different in noise regard. While I like to read and listen a lot, I much prefer silent walks since it allows what's beneath to surface.
This will be a bit personal, but you seem like a bit tense. Maybe you should slow down a bit, and listen what your inner voice says to you. I have a hunch that there's something you should see and give a good listen.
that’s definitely, a name choice