For the longest time, I’d only focused on the Premium Edition M5-5015 capped pencil in the PURE MALT line, mainly because of my initial enthusiasm that had been ignited by the Kerry and Zoom 505 after discovering the pleasures of ‘Premium Oak Wood’ on Dave’s Mechanical Pencils all those years ago. Later, I also picked up a MSE-3005 multipen in 2015 – choosing the 2+1 configuration because it had more wood instead of the half-chromed steel of the 3+1.
When the capped pencil went out of production in 2022, I thought ‘that was it’ for my interest in PURE MALT… until I chanced on one of the line’s lesser seen gems: the MH-3005 2mm lead holder.
I managed to acquire a C10 example that came in its original box with neat cutouts to hold the pencil and a special sharpener in the guise of a whisky barrel.
It is a simple and robust design with lots of oak wood in proportion to the chromed furniture, just the way I liked it. I was really glad Mitsubishi chose this combination for the lead holder instead of one of the other schemes with more kitschy stencil-styled printed logos on a glossy middle band.
Here’s a partial disassembly of the PURE MALT holder. There is a friction fitted end-plug on the plastic reserve tube that prevents a clean removal from the body. I didn’t feel the urge to force the plug off. The sharpener is quite heavy and very charming, with a simple screw-down metal top that is easily removed for disposing of the graphite shavings. I actually like this a lot more than the lighter DPS600 pocket sharpener, which is trickier to open and clean.
Lastly, here’s a group shot of my PURE MALT trio. At some point in time I will probably try and modify the multipen to carry a 0.7mm pencil component instead… then they would be closer to perfect for my needs.
It seems that the sharpener is the ubiquitous mini hand-held model (one can see the “finger handle” for lack of a better name) that was integrated in a barrel-shaped case. The case itself looks very high end, though, with brass threads, chromed parts and obviously the oak itself.
As a matter of fact, I have been searching for some replacement blades for an El Casco hand-held pencil sharpener for a long time (wedge shape, sharp edge on both sides, threaded central hole, two more holes — for alignment? — on each half), but despite the imprint on the object stating that “replacement blades are readily available at any stationery store” (yes, but probably in the Seventies), no luck so far. Same goes with many old sharpeners and pointers made by most of the famous brands: finding the curved AND threaded blades for the older “Janus” pencil sharpeners has been hard to say the least.
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