OK, found some time in between the Lunar New Year family visits to gather my thoughts. This little gaggle of ‘rarities’ started with the black Sakura Create XPS-405, which I’d shared previously in this post about MP designs that seemed closely related to the Pentel Graph Pencil configuration, and thanks to @Leonov for sharing the correct model number in the thread!.
In that post, I’d also included the ‘PG4 imposter’, the Sakura Create TS-805. Although both were unboxed examples, I considered myself pretty lucky to have found them at all. This post is an update to the Sakura duo, plus an opportunity to document the two Gakken ‘Mechanica Wannabes’ together.
Well, the red colored XPS-405 was a real surprise when it popped up for sale. It seemed incongruous for a ‘serious drafting pencil’. I’d observed the faux leather texturing on the black plastic and took it as an effort to make the design appear more luxurious… a ‘deluxe’ model in the Create line-up. Now that I have collected a fair number of Sakura Create pencils, my perspective has changed.
Most Sakura Create examples from the early to mid-1970s are full-aluminum designs with screen printed designs, and some with processing for grooved grips, polished jewel facets in the mid-body rings, etc. The only appearance of plastic was for lower price tiered executive models, i.e. metal upper and colored plastic grip section, like a Pentel S55.
In light of this, an almost all-plastic drafter design now feels slightly out of place, almost like a materials downgrade. I believe this context adds to the conjecture that Sakura was trying to compete with the success of the Graph Pencil, and the XPS-405 and TS-805 probably came out at the tail end of the Create series some time in the 1980s, before ‘Create’ was abandoned and renamed ‘Slide Sharp’.
A closer look at the red version of the XPS-405 reveals a difference: a raised molded block with ‘SAKURA CREATE JAPAN’ that isn’t present on the black version. Again, the absence of ‘CREATE’ branding on the bodies of the black XPS-405 and TS-805 now feels like part of the process of downplaying the association. I’ve mostly come to believe that molded details are subtracted or simplified from older to newer examples, so perhaps the red version came out first? And perhaps someday we might discover that even more colors were produced…
OK, on to the ‘Mechanica Wannabes’
GAKKEN as a brand still exists today, but I believe they now focus on publishing school books. I have also seen some previous listings for GAKKEN pencils where the description claimed an association with PILOT, but I do not have any additional info.
GAKKEN also seem to have made the ‘SAM’ moniker a trademark for themselves, naming various models of MPs and leadholders with that prefix. While it is quick easy to find cheap listings for ‘SAM KNOCK’ and ‘SAM LONG’ leadholders, like the red example here, the highlight is definitely on the black SAM MARK 5 (0.5mm) and SAM MARK 7 (0.7mm).
These two feature intelligently configured hex bodies – as in, the hex profile is deliberately wider than the grip to prevent rolling off an angled drafting table – and the distinctive gridded metal grips that appear to be a riff on the famous Pentel Mechanica. GAKKEN had even differentiated the two by leaving the grip of the 0.7 version unpainted, while the 0.5 had inked-in grid lines – like an inverse of the MEC 0.3 and 0.5 grip designs.
Functionally, the SAM MARK 5 and 7 are nothing spectacular. The click is a bit crunchy and not what I’d call smooth or precise. They remind me of my own school days when the cool kids had the real made-in-the-UK ‘Karrimor’ rucksacks, and us plebes had to make do with the cheap knock-off ‘Karri-nor’ variety.
The two GAKKENs are somewhat below the lever of finishing and detail of the Junior ‘Hard3’, the ‘PMG wannabe’. Mechanically, the Hard3 is absurdly more complicated as well. Where the Hard3 chose to copy the look of the Graph Pencil lead degree indicator, GAKKEN chose the MEC’s grip. Crazy to think that poorer kids actually had a choice back in those days!
