A handful of years ago, I managed to pick up a PILOT H-565. It’s of course near the bottom end of the PILOT drafting style mechanical pencils, but nevertheless a nice looking design. I wasn’t bothered at the time to go hunting down all of the lead sizes, so I just kept the 0.5 mm. I can’t remember if I’d bought it individually, or if it came in a lot of several pencils. Probably the latter.
So later on, I’d started to watch collectors picking up a variety of PILOT drafting style mechanical pencils, when I began to notice something a little odd. All of the H-565 models that have been turning up have conical nose cones, not stepped. Mine is stepped. Also, the eraser cap on mine has a thin red band/ring around just offset a little from the inner side, which I think appears on another pencil model… possibly the H-1905 that has the plastic cap (not the metal one). Red is for 0.5 mm and other colors represent other lead sizes, like green for 0.7 mm. The H-585 has a ring, but it’s a longer cap that isn’t tapered.
Anyway… I’m wondering if anyone else here has seen this H-565 variant.
I have the gray version and the label has the price in Yen, so it was sold in Japan. There is no army green version AFAICT - a faded old gray body might look green in some photos.
Yeah, in that photo I provided from Monogusa, the color is such that it’s like the gold vs. blue dress thing. It can look gray, or green, depending upon your eye.
By the way… is the conical nose cone on the H-565 identical to the H-1905? Sure looks like it from that low resolution photo above.
You know what’s interesting to me is that this account that has impressively large numbers of sought-after vintage Japanese mechanical pencils, doesn’t show that stepped nose cone version of the H-565. He has the gray one, though.
OK… so a year later. Out of curiosity I’ve been keeping an eye on PILOT H-565 auctions on YAJ and quite a number of them passed through… all with the traditional conical nose cone. Not the stepped variant. I’ve not seen one of them at all. Either I wasn’t diligent enough in looking, or are they really that uncommon now?
Interesting. The body is labeled “JAPAN,” so it’s not like they were made elsewhere like Korea or Taiwan.
I wonder if any of our Knockology members who are in Europe have seen it appear on their local markets. I’ve not seen any turn up on eBay.
It also has me wondering if the stepped version came first, perhaps sold in certain markets (e.g. Europe / Taiwan), then the tapered cone version was made next and in greater numbers.
I found an H-563 a few years ago (can’t really say where anymore, probably it was a leftover specimen in a once-famed drafting supplies shop in Naples), and mine comes in a stepped-tip variant. I haven’t actively looked for similar items on Ebay.it, but I don’t remember seeing one while I scanned the feed for mechanical pencils and similar keywords.
This Pilot sat for a very long time in the “next-to-rubbish” pile as it was impossible to have a proper lead feed. Then, out of frustration, I cannibalised another broken 0.3 pencil to extract the tiny rubber lead retainer, and inserted the piece right into the tip, where it was missing.
Voilà, problem solved. Now it works like a charm. I feel like an idiot for not fixing the issue much earlier.
It’s a very light pencil and it doesn’t feel “premium” in that regard, but overall it does seem to be made pretty well. The click mechanism is good. That’s great you were able to fix yours. How did you manage to extract the tiny rubber retainer from that broken 0.3 mm pencil? I’ve tried to do the same for another pencil I’ve got and I just can’t seem to get the retainer out.
There was a piece of lead stuck in the pipe of the broken pencil (it was a weird Lion MP with plastic body, burgundy accents and double knock mechanism, but some of the more delicate part of the double knock mechanism were already broken, and the writing end seemed to be very flimsy), so I used one of those slim metal de-cloggers to clean the feeding channel pushing from the writing tip, and the rubber ring slipped out of the rear part of the pipe, still gripping the lead (most likely, it was not secured properly to begin with). I’ve seen some kept in place by metal protrusions in the surrounding spot: I assume those are much harder to get out.
I transferred the ring in the Pilot with a pair of super-fine tweezers (clockmaker-type, with extra-pointy ends), and just started clicking to feed new lead. The pencil has never been problematic ever since.
