Collection of Damdeok, the Korean

Yes, thanks for mentioning that. Beautiful lead holder design. Very unique!




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You can find them on Amazon I think

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I’m very confused about Damdeok showing that set of 3 Metaphys Lead holders. As far as I know, the lead holder isn’t discontinued, and the regular 0.5 mechanical pencil is more rare. But I’m not too knowledgeable on those and maybe they’re some rare 1st edition.

My hunch is that, in those photos, the rare thing is the box and not the pencil. Which is why there’s 4 photos of the boxes and 1 of the pencils.

I’m interested in some first hand opinions on the metaphys pencils. I like how they look, but it seems like the paint on those chips pretty quickly.

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I am not into 2mm holders, but the TK9400 anniversary edition is a collection’s highlight <3

To the top 5 manufacturers: I agree with Damdeok’s list :-). But it’s because of my German viewpoint. The Japanese brands are (or were?) nearly invisible here, including the large ones Pentel and Pilot (Tombow is and was the most visible Japanese brand here I think). All the engineering and drafting was mainly done with FC, Staedtler and Rotring. Rotring was dominant in technical drawing (ink), the rooms with drawing boards were the reign of rotring. and rr600 was iconic – I guess it was the first time for many people to actually see a striking product design of writing instruments.
the history and size (in terms of employees, because that’s what you see) of FC and Staedtler is impressive. for example the so much loved US based Alvin is a joke with its 50 people if you compare this to the sites of FC, staedtler or stabilo here.

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He finds them pretty and nice to use. At the start he focused on models he found pretty or artistic looking but had to downsize.

Do you have any Tintenkuli stylographs in your collection?

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No, nothing … Neither Tinten- nor Bleikuli. :frowning:

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@RPD I wouldnt be surprised if he saw your message

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The Mitukan is one model I am actively searching for :slight_smile:

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How much do these even go for nowadays? I am pretty sure I have seen auctions reaching hundreds of dollars.

You probably need to specify which Platinum. Except for the MT-350, I am not that impressed with Platinum Taiwan vs Platinum Japan.

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I consider both to be a single entity, much like I consider Tombow’s Turkish offerings to be part of the greater Tombow lineup.

Can’t separate the MT-350 and these W-knocks from everything else; it just doesn’t make any sense to me.

Pilot has a similar issue with pieces intended for the Korean and southeast-Asian markets. Some are conspicuously marked with a KK insignia, but others just look like riffs on popular Japanese pieces (with no indication they are “outsiders” beyond the aesthetics).

A few of these pencils are extremely nice, but because they don’t borrow from themes established by Pilot Japan, they can be difficult to organize in a large collection.

Maybe, but usually all these stuff is still in „reasonable“ range, including the slightly more popular models.

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Mitukan? That’s a brand? The back end looks like it came from a Pentel Mechanica.

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The only things I found online is that it was a Japanese pen (and pencil) brand that existed during the showa period. No one seems to know anything else, they are also called Mitsukan in the 2020 FC pen world book.

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It depends. The black ones with ink window? Not terribly expensive, unless it comes NOS in box with papers. The candystripe resin ones? They are hit or miss, but generally quite pricey these days.


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Oh, Ohto galore, here, too :wink:
Very nice.

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A renoma pencil + the locus MP! That can’t be a coincidence haha
That alphamatic is a thing of beauty. From all of the alphamatics I’ve seen, it’s probably the one I’m interested the most.
I had never seen those models from renoma nor koh I noor. Very cool vintage vibes. If I had seen that renoma on the shops I visited I’d bought it for sure, but I only saw rattly ugly pencils :')
The Mitukan I also didn’t know. Looks like a pencil from the PG series with a metal grip, + that hardness selector color is beautiful.

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That is because in Japanese there’s only つ, which depending on the romanization chosen (the criteria for turning kana to alphabet) is written as “tu” or “tsu”.

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