Everyone has been recommending that I make shorts, so here’s my first go at it.
For the time being I’m planning on releasing a short as the preview for whats coming (in long form) the next week. I’ll make this public next week.
How A Simple Shake Changed Mechanical Pencils FOREVER? #shorts
Cool stuff!
In the meantime, I made a quick “noise comparison” among all the shaker pencils I own, and these are the current results; in order of general noise, from most silent to most rattling:
• Pilot 2020 ST (all metal body, almost imperceptible grip area along the front end of the body): some rattling, but generally muzzled; a few metallic echoes here and there, like resonances, but pleasant sound overall;
• Pilot “The Shaker” H-305 (transparent body with raised rubber grip in bright colours): a lot of plasticky sounds, but generally all kept reasonably silenced, as if there were retainers within the barrel; a bit more noisy, yet manageable;
• Pilot “The Shaker” H-375 (oversized matte body with rubber grip in black): more rattling in general, as if the internal retainers were looser, but a nice assortment of “clics and clangs” coming from the inner part of the barrel;
• Pilot “The Shaker” H-1010 (oversized matte black body with plastic grip area made of ring-like bumps orthogonal to the body axis): there seems to be an entire ensemble inside the barrel, all the plasticky sounds are more pronounced; not a bad feeling after all, but way less muzzled than all the others.
Looking forward to watching the longform!
This is the second pencil I can think of that is called “Young”. The other is the Pentel P545.
Does this mean anything specific in Japanese?
I was wondering if they were targeting students?
I have a sound meter. Would you like me to include how loud the shakes are on several different pencils?
Do y’all think this would be good for the video?
Interesting question, for which I do not have an equally good, nor a definite answer.
On the one hand, it could be a nice — and certainly unique — addition to your “standard” format; on the other hand, I don’t know whether this may ultimately make you feel obliged to add a similar feature to all your subsequent videos (after all, the sound of the clicking in a knocking pencil is part of the charm and of the essence itself of any MP).
For me, it could be a coin-toss decision. I would like to have this datum as well in your technical sheet for the pencil, but I could also live without and enjoy the usual format — a passing sequence with sound samples from the different shaken pencils could easily be enough, without the precise readings.
By the way, if the readings of the sound meters are the same, as the sensor cannot appreciate the tiny differences, the added data would not be particularly useful.
Just my two cents; whichever way you will go, it will be a great video on shaker pencils! 
Good comparative info. I’ve been curious about the relative sounds of shaker mechanisms. I agree, the 2020 ST is remarkably quiet compared to the others. The regular plastic grip 2020 isn’t bad. The worst I’ve seen is the Pilot Opt. Super loud. Almost comical.
There’s also the H-515 with teardrop nose cone reminiscent of the PILOT Sprinter. That has a pretty loud shaker sound to it, perhaps just a little more quiet than an H-1010. It was such a cheap pencil. I think initially it was about $3 USD. Blows my mind that on auction sites it fetches over $200 USD in sealed blister pack.
Btw, if anyone here has an H-1585 (or H-1583), I’m curious how loud is the shaker mechanism relative to other shaker models of that era.
It seems like it depends upon the context… and definitely for some lower tier writing instruments, the target was students, with the “Young” title.
But there is also the “Young Gentleman”. The modifier suggests an “up and coming executive.” That highly sought after retractable mechanical pencil was stickered at ¥2500, while the more stately executive retractable pencil at that time was the Protecs, stickered at ¥3000 (frankly, ¥500 isn’t much of a difference!).
All of Pentel’s Executive pencils in the mid-70’s were ¥500, eventually going up to ¥700, so the P545 fits in that range.
You are right! I had the impression that my list was vaguely off… I had indeed forgotten one specimen! 
I got one of those (black body with yellow-orange accents) from a Spanish collector a few months ago: the sound I hear is relatively quiet, similar to the one by the H-305 — some elements of the noise are more distinct, some are more silent, but the comparison is fair.
As for the Pilot H-1585, sorry, cannot help: that item is missing from the collection here, so I am unable to report about its noise levels.
The ‘young’ moniker is typical of Japanese adoption of western words for their own purposes. It is certainly ‘youthful’ and ‘energetic’ but depending on the actual design it can sometimes slip between ‘juvenile’ and cross over to ‘young adult’.
For the HF-100S, we can read a bit into Pilot’s nomenclature: H for Holder, their preferred prefix for mechanical pencils, and F for ‘fure / fu-re’ (foo-ray) for ‘shake’. And based on the printed catalogs, I’ve come to call it the ‘Young 2020’ instead of the ‘2020 Young’. The associated model is the ‘Young 2020 Black’ - the black plastic body model with the orange-yellow accents that lives on today as the evolved H-1010.
I think the other 2020 model with ‘Young’ in the name is the ‘Flag’ model with the side slider button.
Here are some of the noise levels I was able to record:
I love this! Not just because I’m the kind of geek who would also do this but I really enjoy thinking about your partner peeking around the corner and seeing you do this and wondering if it’s time to have you committed. 
LOL - she’s been pretty cool with everything - I got lucky with her <3
Has anyone ever seen an image of a box of the 2020 Youngs?
Question about model numbers on the 2020…
We don’t have a lot of Pilot catalogs posted here, but I was able to find the 2020 a few times:
(1978) the “100 Years of Pilot” book, (1982, 1988 & 1995 are catalogs) and another that is listed as sometime in the 80s?
Anyway in 1978 when it was released the model listed is HB-100SF
in 1982 on on, it’s listed as HF-100S
- Does anyone know why they changed the model from HB to HF?
Also in the (unknown date?) it is listed as the H-2020.
Is it possible this is for the overseas (i.e. US and Europe) markets?
I’m curious because WHITE and ORANGE are not in any of the 3 catalogs that has the 2020 (1982, 1988 & 1995). And all 3 of these catalogs are in Japanese, but this (unknown date) catalog is in English.
1978 . HB-100SF
1982-1988-1995 HF-100S
Overseas?
Last Question - anyone know the LAST year this 2020 was sold?
Edit - I just found some handwritten note that said “1978-2008” - but have no idea of the source 
Yeeaaah… that Europe catalog is kind of like an off-canon side story. I think all of the prominent models have a different naming convention.
I saved a screenshot(?) of the Pilot 2006 online catalog, probably off of the Wayback Machine archives:
Thanks! Mind if I use this?
Please go ahead
anyone know how to pronounce “Fure Fure” ?
