How rare is this pencil out in the wild? I found one in my box of mystery pencils. And using the pentel-nim-bible i found out it was the Sharp 15. And im not planning on selling but what’s the value on 1 of these?
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I have a CPA “Sharp 5” (American release of the Pentel Eleven) and both the box and the folded paper inside have the flying dragon.
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The places we talked about are all within my daily routine, so they’re very familiar to me.
大日本文具株式會社（ぺんてる） was the predecessor of what is now Pentel Co., Ltd. in Japan.
When Japanese companies expand into overseas markets, they generally follow one of two business models. One is to appoint an independent local distributor responsible for sales, warranty service, and customer support. The other is for the parent company to establish its own local subsidiary.
In Taiwan, Pentel operates under the company name Pentel Taiwan Co., Ltd. (日商飛龍文具股份有限公司), so it falls into the second category—a subsidiary established directly by the Japanese parent company.
These two business models have been common among multinational companies for decades. Companies like Nintendo and Sony have also expanded internationally using a combination of these approaches, depending on the country and the market.
Growing up in Taiwan, Flying Dragon (飛龍牌) and Pentel were always the same thing to me. There was never any impression that it was a counterfeit brand or a gray-market version.
But seeing the old logo with an actual winged dragon was a real surprise. It suddenly made me realize that “Flying Dragon” was meant quite literally—a dragon with wings.
From what I’ve found, 大日本鉛筆製造株式會社. was established in 1946 through the merger of five Japanese pencil manufacturers. The company later adopted the name Pentel Co., Ltd. in 1971, and that’s the name that has continued to the present day.
＊The error has been corrected.
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From everything I have seen Dai Nippon Stationery Company was established in 1946.
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Thanks to nimrodd for the correction!
I went back and looked into the full timeline again, and here’s the updated information:
1911 : Toshisada Horie (father) founded 堀江文海堂, a wholesale company.
1946 : Yukio Horie (son) founded 大日本文具株式会社.
The 1918 date I mentioned earlier was actually the founding year of “Pilot”, so I had accidentally carried over incorrect information from another source. Just wanted to post the correction here.
One thing I’m still trying to sort out is the company names. I keep seeing both 大日本文具株式会社 and 大日本鉛筆製造株式会社.
Am I correct in thinking these were separate companies, one handling sales and distribution, and the other manufacturing? Or is there more to the story?
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