I’m buying more and more pencils in no small part because of this forum so I’m considering upgrading from ebay, which everyone here seems to believe is overpriced, to proxy buying directly from Japan. Is there a glossary of common kanji/kana search terms? I’m thinking pencil brands and pencil technical terms. I’m not asking specialist collectors to share their secret sauce to summon underpriced Pilot automatics on demand, just how to write “Mitsubishi”, “Pentel”, “double knock”, “executive”, “sliding sleeve”, etc. Or should I just rely on the automatic translation on buyee?
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No secret sauce except I try to keep it simple. I will also limit things to the MP category most of the time or you get too many results to sift through. After using search terms, it’s good to also browse the MP section, sorting by new arrivals because you’ll come across items that you didn’t see in your searches but should’ve and can figure out why and adjust. Although sometimes sellers are extremely lax in what they put in their posts and no sane search term will find it.
| Side Knock | サイドノック |
| Double knock | ダブルノック |
| Mechanical Pencil | シャープペンシル |
| Pentel | ぺんてる |
| Pilot | パイロット |
| Faber-Castell | ファーバーカステル |
| Staedtler | ステッドラー |
| Staedtler Limited | ステッドラー 限定 |
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Most of us started by running terms through Google translate… especially the brand names.
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In the Pentel Catalogs Dropbox directory, I have an Excel sheet, _Japanese Translations.xlsx. This is primarily Pentel related, but a lot can be used for any pencil/pen.
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The most useful ones to know Imo are
Mechanical pencil シャーペン
Discontinued 廃盤
Rare レア
Limited edition 限定色
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Sometimes instead of “pencil” or “mechanical pencil” try using “sharp” in its place.
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This is a great example of why browsing the categories is still required because your MP search term returns 4439 results while mine returned 3591 (in the Mercari MP category).
Deepl translation:
シャーペン automatic pencil
シャープペンシル mechanical pencil
Google translation:
シャーペン sharpen
シャープペンシル sharp pencil
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Thanks a lot for all the suggestions, I am bookmarking this thread for further reference
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“Discontinued” is more commonly written as 「廃番」 rather than 「廃盤」 in Japanese.
「廃盤」 is typically used when records or similar media go out of print.
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Both 「シャーペン」 and 「シャープペンシル」 are commonly used, but if you’re searching on sites like Mercari, using terms like 「シャープペン」 or 「製図シャープ」 can also be effective.
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I wrote a similar glossary a while ago, I can share it here.
三菱鉛筆 MITSUBISHI PENCIL・ユニ UNI
ニューマン NEWMAN
オート OHTO
ぺんてる PENTEL
パイロット PILOT
トンボ TOMBOW
ゼブラ ZEBRA
ステッドラー STAEDTLER
ロットリンッグ ROTRING
ファーバーカステル FABERCASTELL
ペン PEN
シャーペン SHARP PEN (The most common way to say Mechanical Pencil)
シャープペンシル SHARP PENCIL
ボールペン BALLPEN
消しゴム ERASER
廃番・廃盤 DISCONTINUED / OUT OF PRINT
製図 DRAFTING ・製図用 FOR DRAFTING
製図セット DRAFTING SET
食刻・エッチング ETCHED/ETCHING
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This explains why I have had some trouble with finding auctions at times.
Note that when searching on Yahoo Auctions Japan, you can use compound criteria, similar to eBay (comma separators, parentheses)… but only to a degree. I’ve sometimes found that either too many criteria words or more than 2 sets of parentheses and sometimes fewer results turn up.
Mercari does not operate the same way. I’ve used compound criteria with success only when limited to 2 terms. Beyond that, nothing is found. Negative criteria does not seem to work. However, they do have a category selector on the left (at least on the web browser version) that is quite useful. But it’s clumsy when it comes to translating. You need to select the dropdown, then go to the browser translator icon and flip from English to Japanese to English again to get the dropdowns to translate.
Save your searches in browser links and organize them.
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Also note that searching directly on Yahoo Auctions Japan will usually turn up more results, or more in a useful manner, than when searching through the proxy site. I believe all proxy sites do not allow sophisticated searching. But for simple criteria, they can work well.
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Sometimes it’s worth trying to cast a wider net just to see what turns up. For example in the past I managed to score a full set of LION drafters in an instrument set because I was searching with ‘製図用’ or ‘drafting use’. This will turn up sets and not just loose pencils. However the results will include a ton of junk, so you will need patience to sift thru the detritus.
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The two posts from @KAWEkollektor and @shion right directly above is unreal
These are like cheat codes
製図シャープ This one in particular is immediately things to look at.
I didn’t have to type anything in the filter, I just put 製図シャープin the search and there it was.
Un freaking real
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I concur, 製図シャープ is like magic, now I’ve got a nice Uchida set on the way… and I have to find the eraser shield to go with it.
Does anyone know how to search for “eraser shield” in Japanese?
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Try 字消し板 (I don’t know Japanese but found it out on 字消し板│ステッドラー日本【公式サイト】).
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WOW -so nice 
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