I believe these were called ‘top chuck’ models, which just makes me think of a nice juicy steak, heh… I’m glad Pilot came up with CLUTCH POINT eventually to brand their version of this lead saving mechanism.
I consider this a really useful invention, even more so than Kuru Toga’s rotation engine. By gripping leads with a double clutch, breakage via lateral forces is reduced and you also get to use up almost the entire stick of lead.
There are probably more rarities out there for this series, but these three are what I think the core line up is. Anyone else collect these?
These are very nice! I don’t collect these but besides a Pilot Clutch Point I have the Mitsubishi/uni Millino and the STAEDTLER Integrity which also have that “top chuck”.
Oh, yes! The Staedtler Integrity. That’s identical to Platinum’s ZeroShin MZ-500A… so probably both were licensed from Kotobuki. I wonder if Mitsubishi’s Millino is ‘powering’ the MUJI ‘ABS’ lead saver MP, since their previous version was based on the Millino’s design.
I have the striped one, I don’t know the model or the year of production (with so many catalogs we have available I’m already embarrassed to ask it again - hidden question -). I call it Pilot etched black stripes double clutch, from 80’s I guess.
Gary, how much force did you apply to open the cone? I have always felt a bit leary with double chuck models. They felt like the makers applied loctite at the factory and didn’t want normal folks poking around the innards.
Thank you! But there are still levels of madness I cannot ascend to. Prices for the Hi-uni 5050, Sakura ATS3000, Freematic, Archi etc have risen beyond my threshold. If I were to abstain from all purchases for a year, perhaps I could justify the asking price of one of these.
) collects them …
– I assume you’re talking about