There are no markings under the clip. The opposite side is impressed with JAPAN. The clip has the old logo.
So, that should be the SG Sharp Gold.
Does anyone here know the production years of the S55, and when production permanently ceased? And also if there were any breaks in between major changes (like Pentel abandoning the metal engraving/stamping and switching to enameled labels)?
Nimrods book says late 1960’s through early 2010’s.
The S55/S57/S59 Deluxe Pencil has a ridged grip with a metal body. The ridges on the early 1970’s pencils were much deeper than on later versions, and some early versions had eraser caps with the size stamped on the end. The body has not changed much over time, other than the size, stamped into or printed on the body, with the earliest pencils being stamped with “5”, even when they are 0.7 & 0.9mm (see set of maroon pencils above). The inner lead reservoir started out with as metal but in the late-70’s started being made in plastic.
Original shipping boxes showed the model number to be S-55, with later ones showing S55.
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I have a “roughly” 1965 US One Sheet catalog (Pentel of America - 1965 One-Sheet.pdf). It doesn’t have a specific date, but it is prior to the S55 and MEC, but the Graph is on there.
I also have a 1967 Japanese One Sheet (Pentel of Japan - 1967 One-Sheet.pdf). It has the Sharp 7, S55 and Graph. I estimate it be 1967, since the MEC (which came out in 1968) is not on there. Plus on the Pentel Timeline presentation, the “S5” shows to be released in Showa 41, which should be 1966.
So, roughly 1966-67 is when the S55 came out. The last catalog I see it in is the US 2011 catalog (Pentel of America - 2011 Consumer Catalog.pdf).
You can grab any of the above catalogs from my website Pentel Catalog PDFs - #3 by nimrodd
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Thanks, Patrick!
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Great info, Jimmy. Thanks.
You really did a phenomenal job of gathering and cataloging information, and I have to wonder if you know more than most of those people working at Pentel product management. 
I clipped out an image covering the S55 and related variants, for ease of reference in the topic:
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The top ones with the printed text are from 1978.
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on the stickers - did Pentel swap from “m/m” to “mm” around the same time they made the changes to the text on the P200 body (eg Gen 5)?
I don’t know but I do find it interesting that the price changes from ¥500 to ¥700
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It was never on the pencil itself, but I believe that the last time they printed m/m on the stickers was that semi-trapezoid sticker on the left.
do these have date codes? Would be interesting to see if they did
I meant it was never printed on the S50 series.
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The three on the left should have date codes. The two on the right are prior to JIS and AFAIK the first version of the S55.
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https://x.com/haruca_st on Twitter has done some digging into the evolution of the Pentel labels ( 廃番ぺんてるの象徴！値段シールを年代別に解説｜はるか ).
One thing it appears that I was mistaken about is the order the 3 versions of the square sticker came about. Apparently the first version, just had JIS in the bottom right. The second version (#2 above) had the JIS above the permit no. And the final version dropped the JIS completely and centered the size in the bottom middle.
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I thought they were the JIS/permit first, then just the JIS, then JIS dropped.
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Oil Crisis of 1973?