The SP-15 has this wonderfully nice rubberized grip that seems pretty resilient over time – I’ve yet to come across an old example with it becoming a sticky mess. I wasn’t sure if the whole design was one rubberized sleeve, or if there was a clear sheath covering over a design underneath.
Turns out that it’s the latter. And in fact, this isn’t just some printed pattern. OHTO actually anodized the surface in a metallic blue and then etched a gridwork of lines into it. It’s really nice detail. I wonder why they just didn’t do this with a wider segment of steel and forgo the sheath. Maybe because the grooves would collect too much debris. Anyway, it’s nice work.
I took this off because I had a few I’d gotten in a lot and one showed some substance that had come through underneath… which I later determined is a kind of glue. When OHTO designed this model, they used a kind of high strength glue to seat the internal component with the metal threading on one end. In some cases, the glue oozed out in production. They also used this glue in another part of the ballpoint component, which… turned out to be problematic. In some cases, an insufficient quantity was applied, and thus the mechanism slips. In the lot I’d bought, half of them were like this, in various problematic states. With one of them I could extract the entire core. However, I could not coax any others to come out. I also have no clue as to what kind of glue was used. Too much effort with too little payoff to get into this deeper. I basically used the other half as spare parts, swapping in working refills, blemish free nose cones, and best looking grip sections into the working pens.
I’m going to sell off a bunch of SP-15 and BP-15 sets. Elton had bought a large number of huge OHTO lots earlier this year and has been selling them off. All of his examples priced at $45 USD are ones with blemishes, though functional. And he has one for $90 USD that’s new in box. I’m going to be listing a NOS SP-15 MP with matching BP-15 for $99 USD. But for my fellow Knockologists, it’ll be $70 (plus shipping). I don’t know if shipping would be too prohibitive outside the USA.
Scrolling view of SP-15 from tip to back end
(the black band almost makes the front part of the nose cone look like a Gemini space capsule–ground control to Major Tom)
SP-15 lead advance and retract function
SP-15 lead action in hand, simultaneous display of clip indicator