I will be sending questions to him. Anything you guys want to ask?
Most disappointing mechanical pencil?
Its Sakura’s free-matic
What about the mechanica with a sticker?
This is the barcode mechanica. I’ve seen two items so far. It’s just what I have.
I had never seen the Porsche Design with hairline finish.
The Porsche design has additional tactile cone types. It’s probably two kinds. It’s currently at home.
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Now that I am almost familiar with vintage, which is the sharpness of writing instruments, I am currently collecting only the three famous fountain pens, Montblanc L129 - L139 - Parker 51 predecessor - Pelican T111 Toleido predecessor.
This is because I made a lot of mistakes while collecting sharps.
—-
Another collector lost to the pen people!
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I’m definitely interested in any differences he found between the Hi-mecha models, for different eras and if he also has Japan sold sticker models as well, between those as well.
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Japan Pilot Double Knock Sharp Hi Mecca Holder - Hi Hippo - HHP …
These are the mechanical pencils that I have been collecting as my main focus lately. The reason is that it’s attractive because you can’t know the end. Probably because the price seal is at least 80 bags in different versions only. We are tracking where it is, and we want to get the catalog. from the past to the present
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VERY interesting to hear him say that the Sakura Free-matic is his most disappointing pencil. Can he elaborate what are the reasons why? If he could pick a top 3 of Sakura, what would they be?
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The reason is that it’s attractive because you can’t know the end.
I’m wondering if that wording is due to a translation complication. Not knowing the end… as some reference to the tip retracting and you can’t damage the end since it’s out of the way? That has basically been my main attraction to the double-knock design. It’s a little complicated to make, but not severely difficult. Various companies like PILOT, Pentel, and Mitsubishi (Uni) have demonstrated rather well that it’s possible to do with practically zero tolerance in tip wobble (side-to-side) movement. I’ve been impressed with how Mitsubishi became so adept at this, that they extended the feature to even cheaper models, many at the ¥1000 price point. Of course, PILOT did too, but not very many models. H-1005 is one that comes to mind.
Pentel didn’t make a large model range with double-knock tips, but one they did right and so well (even better than PILOT IMHO), is the PSD5 (or PWP15). There’s no fancy acid etched black lines in steel, but there’s a wonderful innovative knurled grip on a long metal section, with a plastic body having metal screw threads to minimize cracking.
Mitsubishi was prolific with W-Knock pencils. So many variants, in design and coloration. I don’t know, but it does seem like some models have a more robust mechanism, such as with the M5-100 or M5-101. I don’t own those two models, but maybe Pearsonified can speak to it.
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I believe it’s both in the sense of the “attractiveness” of double knock mechanism but also how many variants (including sticker variations) exist. He places great value in the historical significance and rarity of pieces, to him, the models that matter the most are first generation and maybe second generation.
EDIT: He is also quite a fan of German products! To him, vintage German offerings are superior to the Japanese ones, quite fond of the original Rotring 600 he owns and the Faber Castell alpha-matics.
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Anyone knows of Munhwa Pencil’s Commando? He says it’s superior to Sakura’s arch.
He attached a link with these photos but it’s not enough to satisfy my curiosity.
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Interesting. So he’s a real originalist kind of collector, primarily focusing on the first and very early versions. A bit of a “rabbit hole” to go chasing stickers, in my opinion… because there may have been a number of spontaneous decisions made in selection and placement. From all the variants in placement I’ve seen, my bet is that this was a manual task. Someone sat at a station with a sticker sheet and manually applied them. It kind of makes sense, because designing a production line segment specifically to handle that operation would’ve been fraught with complexities and high cost, which was best served by the apt skill of a human being. And so, some sticker variations could be accident or simply a product of what was available at the time of application. Still, it’s clear there was a different sticker set made for Korea. We can plainly see that from the photos.
As for Japanese vs. German… it’s a curious and complex comparison. Clearly, no doubt in my mind, that for the most part Faber Castell invested more into stronger bodies and tight tolerances. Their pencils were also more expensive, on average. And it’s clear that FC decided to invest much into a number of higher tiered models purely based on desirable metals and finishes. One could argue that Pentel did the same, especially in the Scepter Excalibur line… but not as elaborate and mixed materials as Faber Castell.
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Sakura Free-Matic … .
I thought it was a mechanical pencil with an automatic function, but I didn’t know the meaning of Matic - Free (no) - no automatic function…
Simply powered by gravity - it’s just a simple rear-knock mechanical pencil with a clutch at the front end.
Seems like he’s another collector that got fooled by Japanese companies using matic for normal pencils haha!
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Ah, really? I also expected them to be automatic. 
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Astonishing!
I thought it was just a marketing term to boost attention of another automatic model. Something like the automatic mechanism moves so free, you hardly notice it. Or that it’s so freely automatic, you don’t even need to manually queue up the next lead–it’s automatically fed until the whole reservoir runs out.
They’ve been selling for some serious cash as of late. I can just imagine the buyer getting the pencil and then feeling they’ve been had. “The automatic mechanism doesn’t appear to work–I have to manually activate it!” 
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Yes and no. The prices are absolutely high, but as a free-matic wave is/was running it was an opportunity to get a free-matic at a relatively moderate price (still too high for my taste). Before the wave the auction results were 3x higher.
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Interesting to know. I hadn’t been paying attention to this model for a long while.
I suspect it won’t go much lower… even as people realize there is no automatic mechanism. It’s the rarity in of itself that is driving prices.
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You’re killing us.
Keep ‘em coming. 
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I will! He was reading the forum earlier today, these two days have been a bit busy to him
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This guy is the new king. Sorry, @2nd_astronaut and @Raybonche 
I’d still like to see what Xiao (is that his name?) is workin’ with.
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This guy definitely holds the crown. Does he have the Pentel Smash Hybrid set?
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