I’m going to jump in here. Kotobuki is well known as the main OEM developing MP designs for Platinum, which had mainly been a fountain pen company. Koto holds several patents for double clutch mechanisms.
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Yes, Kotobuki told me that Platinum had never manufactured any pencils at all, that they, Kotobuki manufactured ALL of Platinums pencils, and always had done.
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I had no idea about that …
I think that in the 1960-80’s heyday of MP, a lot of the fountain pen companies who wanted to add MP into their range realized they didn’t have the time nor expertise to develop and manufacture MP so they approached the small number of OEM MP manufacturers, of which Kotobuki was by far the largest and who got the lions share of that business. Then of course the American and European brands scaled back their own manufacturing and shifted to the existing OEM MP manufacturers… more work for Kotobuki.
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HGW-300S-S on '83 catalog
(while it’s HGN-300SW on May '79 Pilot Times, probably they changed the model number later), I don’t know the exact time, it was released before May 1979
And btw, in Pilot 100th anniversary book, it said Jan '76, hmmm… But I’m not 100% sure if HG-300SW-EF just refers to the checkered etched one on the right and 200SW for the no pattern one in Kevin’s photo.
‘S’ is for steel and ‘W’ for ‘top chuck’ aka the mechanism in clutch point mp
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I’ve just learned that the Millino was available in at least four colours: Lot 4 Pcs Vintage Uni Millino Pencil - Collection - Brand New | eBay
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I know Platinum holds the patent of body knock mp and Platinum Z, do they and other simple mps without any additional functions in that time were also OEM? I would like to believe that the products after the new century are OEM production.
In the context of your conversation with them, are both parties aware that Platinum has a long history of selling mp in the last century? Sure, Kotobuki was an OEM manufacturer long time ago, but I’m not sure the employee you spoke to was aware of that
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I have gone back and re-read my emails with Kotobuki. In 2008, Kotobuki told me they started manufacturing Platinum’s pencils in 1975.
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Mind blowing, it’s even before the Angle and Z came out
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That’s really interesting. And I’ll bet the same holds true with Sailor. In fact, I know for some models, the body and mechanism were Uni / Mitsubishi, but just with their “SAILOR” name imprinted upon it.
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On the one hand, sailor is a prolific fountain pen producer with pencils only as side-kicks. So a supplier seems logical here. But I think it’s not exclusive supplier products: I would assume the sailor Egyptian body is done by themselves, but the mechanism will be supplied.
Yes, for sure. All of the Parker, Shaeffer, Cross, etc pencils that Kotobuki assembled the brand sent them the bodies and Kotobuki assembled them with a Kotobuki mechanism and returned them to the brand.
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About what years would you say was the peak activity of “Dave’s Mechanical Pencils?” Also, as activity began to shrink, was it very gradual or did you notice any particular year with a steep drop-off? I wonder if it’s a combination of several factors, which might include a tapering off of collectors in the hobby as those who’ve “gotten their fill” have moved on.
I guess the heyday was 2007-2010 when Blogging was still popular and I was enthusiastic. Thousands of visitors a day and sometimes ten thousand pageviews a day, but a lot of that was shoppers, etc. Activity shrank slowly, generally in line with my enthusiasm to post, etc. There was though a time when Google announced a change to their algorithm which specifically lowered the search ranking of blogs. That had a major effect on visitor count but it didn’t really worry me much as I wasn’t using any Google Ads for income, and I still had all the regular traffic. But definitely also a slow tapering off of collectors and I think the newer ones gravitated to other places, e.g. Reddit, Facebook, here, rather than to blogs which were definitely losing popularity.
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Interesting. Sounds like Google intentionally hastened the diminishing of blog traffic, with the intention to boost other forms of social media they were pioneering. Once again, business profiteering manipulating the nature of online socializing for monetary gain, rather than for the betterment of society.
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Very good pencil for writing, very good grip, I love it.
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