Hatena Blog posted this image of several black pencils and a pen…
But they neglected to identify the lineup.
What is #4? It reminds me of a PILOT H-1095 except all black. Also, is #3 a limited release or customization?
I will say #4 looks like a Plotter
Yup. PLOTTER 2002.
What a phenomenal line-up!
I’ve never seen the AIMVISION PRO before. Curious design with rubber adorned knurled grip. Is that a recent production model?
The black 925-85 Reg looks amazing. I’d not really considered it before, but it’s really looking quite nice. I hope the anodizing to the knurling holds up well.
The Aimvision lineup was released about a year ago by a new stationery company called Kayou.
In my opinion, the Aimvision Pro and it’s younger sibling, the Aimvision, are nicely crafted with tight tolerances and nice, clicky and tacticle mechanisms, but some have derided them as “designed in Japan, made in China,” and more fairly, way too expensive. If you can get past those criticisms, I suspect most will enjoy them.
I haven’t spent enough time with the Staedtler yet to give a fair impression of it, but I was considering it for a whole and then I caught wind of the limited, black release, so I naturally waites and snapped it up as it fit perfectly in my general collecting criteria of black, 0.5 pencils.
Thanks for those details. Yeah, seems like AIMVISION is a bit overpriced at this point. I’ll be interesting to see how the brand holds up over time.
I have the original and newer (silver) 925-85 and it’s good. I don’t really feel much of a difference from the old one, except maybe a slightly better mechanism control for the lead advancement amount. But the original eraser cap is better. 
What’s that chonky Zebra?
Two zebra pens in the middle
Early “stealth” ( ca early 1900’s) made in the USA by EAGLE PENCIL CO, New York
All metal, chased barrels, tail drive propeller/retractors for approx 2 mm lead. The big one is a healthy 6" long…EAGLE was at one time (IMO) the most inovative pencil maker around…so many very clever (often ahead of their time) models. I am gathering the troops to show that off at a future date..
Excellent collection and very much looking forward to learning what you’ve discovered about the venerable EAGLE Pencil Co. I know so very little about it. Apparently the company name was changed… to Berol, after the founder’s name, David Berolzheimer. I suspected this before I searched because the aesthetics of the pencils across both branding seem to share the same design DNA.
Those are some cool pencils. The second from the left is a Torpedo, No. 830. The fourth is a Little Torpedo, No. 829. The leads they used are 2.1 mm, although it would have been standard American measurements at the time. Claes W. Boman was granted the design patent and Edward Bergquist the utility patent for these in 1909, both assigned to Eagle Pencil. The farthest to the right appears to be a Prestomatic or a Spear lead clutch.
I’m unsure of the left-most pencil and the middle one. The accommodation clip on the middle one perplexes me. It could be the design patent by Otto Huber from 1915, also assigned to Eagle Pencil, but not enough is shown in the photo to be certain.
So, how’d I do, and what are they really?
EDIT: Forgot to mention, Torpedo advertisements at the time described the mechanism as propel-repel, which was common vernacular.
Here are some older stealth and semi-stealth pencils.
The top three are Eversharp Square 4s (1934-35; 1937; and 1938), and the bottom is an Olympian (an Eversharp sub brand, ca. 1940). One of the fun things about these is that they use square lead. Actually, the lead has four flat sides with rounded corners. The tip of the nose cone is faceted and won’t accept round leads.
Forgot to mention, lead size is 0.046” (1.18 mm).
It’s the full black version of the Zebra Wetnie, which is pretty much Zebra’s version of the Tombow AirPress, without the spring clip but with a more bulletproof body (it passed some US military standard drop test). The Wetnie is sold in the Japanese market while the X-701 is sold in overseas markets. And yes it is rather chonky.
