PILOT Sprinter oddity

Are they working?? I’ll trade you something for one!

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Wow, great info there, cuirassier! Fascinating to hear those details about PILOT Korea vs. Japan. I had no idea that they were completely separate companies. Well, the differences in the Sprint model now make sense. So among them, were some colors replicated in Korea (originally Japan), and then some only Korea… like green?

Since you are the most knowledgeable on this model, can you confirm the range of colors that were produced? From what I can see, I believe for the teardrop model that the black, yellow, and orange were made in Japan.


The plastic grip was released in green, red, blue, and black. It appears like the yellow, orange, and green teardrop models were made in Korea. And there was no blue variant. Is that about right?

I remember before 2020 (the year of the pandemic start), the Sprinter was considered by the collector community as a fun curiosity, but not a serious collectible. I’d gotten myself a black one in excellent shape (labeling fully intact) and had planned to eventually buy one of the colored versions, but they were hard to come by, even with the less desirable plastic grip version. And I waited too long… to suddenly see the quick surge in collector interest for the Sprinter. I’d paid ¥7000 for mine. Some in mint condition have sold for over ¥30,000! And some crazy sellers have tried asking for ¥40,000 but with no sales. The exception being a mint yellow version, as posted earlier in this topic.

Do you have a nice photo of the Sprinter with all colors you’ve got?

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My OCD demands you put these in sleeves or slots and stop allowing them to touch one another :joy:

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If they are separated and not allowed to touch each other they will start touching themselves , which is worse !

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I’m so glad to find this community full of mecha pencil information. Some color models in the photo you posted are the first to me. Pilot Korea had made various mecha pencils independently without any technical support from Pilot Japan. When the Pilot Korea’s last factory was closed 10 years ago, thousands of mecha-pencils owned by the factory were sold at a bargain price to junk stores. At the time, i tried to save these artifacts as much as possible, but i could only buy a fraction of them, including some Sprinters. I don’t know how many more colors and variants there exists. Collecting Pilot Korea’s mecha pencils and their info is the hardest homework i am solving.

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https://ichpedia.org/archives/list?page=1&searchKeyword=빠이롯드&viewType=simple&type=사진

I share the archive link. In this archive link, numerous artifacts found when Pilot Korea’s last factory was closed. When the Pilot Korea’s last factory was closed by city planning, the chairman of Pilot Korea discussed with the city mayor and decided to demolish the factory and build a pilot museum. This archive link was created because this new museum building project!

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It would have been so amazing if you had taken photos of all of those PILOT pencils (and pens). I have to wonder what possible gems might’ve waiting for lucky buyers.

The Sprinter was such a terrific design and nicely whimsical while also being so functional. I wonder why it was discontinued? Maybe marketing wasn’t good enough.

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Just for note, the first 6 pages on that link include writing instruments. After that, the rest of the images up to around the 100th page are of company notebooks. It’s a little strange, because they’re just the covers, with no details about contents. Around the 100th page, the image links are broken, up through the very end of the archive.

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Which one of the Pyramid 2.0 are you referencing? I have a few but don’t know about this click feature. Picture?

The PP 570

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Slick!

Great balance (slightly heavier on the front, just the necessary). It’s quite perfect and the looks speak for itself.

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@cuirassier This history of Pilot Korea is great to know. Do you know any similar history regarding Pilot Taiwan or Taiwanese clones of Pilot pencils?

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Yes, it is a gem. Styling and function are :star_struck:.

I found one in my collection, but I haven’t spent any time with it to check out the cool advancing mechanism you mentioned. And since it is an ocean away, I won’t have that chance for a while…

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there isn’t any special mechanism, it’s a “gravity” pencil — thing is it is soft and simply nice to hold because of that warm rubbery feel.

And —hombre!— that’s a damn fine set of Pyramids, the whole crew!

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Hello. I’m curious about what interesting things happened between PILOT and Taiwan. I’m not familiar with that at all…

@cuirassier I know Pilot has had a Taiwan office but I don’t know to what extent they have sourced parts from Taiwan. I also don’t know if Pilot engineers have supported Taiwan prodiction. Still, this may be the most interesting case of a Pilot clone from Taiwan. W ABC version of Pilot H-1005. @svb helped me get this.

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I’ve seen the ABC model before, but I didn’t realize it was a Taiwanese company! Although I haven’t seen the internal mechanism, it appears that the pencil was manufactured by Pilot Japan. Pilot Japan has occasionally accepted requests from clients to customize details such as engravings and other specifications :grin:

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The plot thickens… The finish quality is not as high as the Pilot Japan H-1005. I will try to take more pictures.

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The ABC “h-1005” was mentioned (and taken apart) here:

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