Tombow LX - at least 5 of them

[Pdunc67]

I was looking through some Tombow drafting pencils in my collection and I noticed I have a couple LX variants.

First I’m sure most of you already know this but the LX apparently was designed specifically for the Turkish market, but it was designed after (copied) the LZ which was exclusively Japanese.

From what I understand the LZ came out considerably earlier than the LX. I’ve heard it was possibly sold in Turkey in the late 1990s and early 2000s but I’m not certain.

The bodies are identical and they share many similarities. The first major difference is the LZ has a lead hardness indicator where the LX with some exception did not.

Most of the Tombow LX models in my collection are branded like the one at the bottom.
It has the Serve branding. (Serve was the distributor and maybe commercial partner with Tombow for the Turkish market.) Notice this one has “SV-0.5LX” printed on the barrel and has the Serve logo on it.

Notice the one right above it has dropped the Serve branding, And now it’s just labeled “0.5LX”. By the way neither of these have a lead hardness Indicator.

Above that is the Non-Stop (Presumably in the 1990s maybe into the early 2000s) the world’s only 0.6mm pencil.

The Navy colored pencil in the center is labeled “T-0.5LX” - no Serve branding or logo, but now it has the same pocket clip with lead hardness indicator as the LZ.

Above that the pink one is labeled “T-0.9AX” - And has the same lead hardness indicator as the previous T version and the LX model.

One thing I found common between them all besides the mold they used on the barrel and the tips or the eraser caps all share the same size ISO color coding. Orange 0.9, Blue 0.7, Brown 0.5, yellow 0.3.

I’d like to make a video on this pencil but I feel like I’m lacking a lot of information.
Does anybody know which of these LX variants came first?

Here’s what I do know:

• According to the Tombow * Flight to 100, The LZ was released In October of 1984. And we have it in the 1988 catalog.
• We know that Serve had a long history a business with Tombow in Turkey, but that did eventually come to an end.

My suggestion on the chronological order:

. =Earliest=

• T-0.5LX and T-0.9AX - *The T-0.5LX has the LZ clip, so it could be the closest copy to the LZ and the earliest(?). Perhaps this was branded for the Turkish market with the “T” before the Serve partnership. The AX perhaps is some off model fluctuation while they’re figuring out their brand? I looked pretty closely and really couldn’t find any significant difference with the AX from the others.

• 0.5LX still before the Serve partnership period, but the brand has matured and settled into simple branding similar to the original LZ.

Then - one of these: Serve partnership period

• SV-0.5LX and Non-Stop 0.6mm

. =Latest=

Or it could be the completely other way around? I have no idea.

Since most LX lack the indicator, the models without the indicator would be later because cost-downs.

The unknowns are how long did the Serve partnership with Tombow last, and when did Tombow finally kill of the LX?

Any ideas? Seen any other variations?

[Severest]

There was also one labeled “HS,” which is identical to the LX. I’ll edit this post with a picture once I find it again.

Edit: picture added

Looks like the tip is different.

[Pdunc67]

Thank you. It may be a sliding sleeve? The 0.6mm Non Stop has a sliding sleeve. The others are fixed.

[Severest]

I’m wondering if all of yours have plastic clutches. My LX does, but not the LZ. Perhaps you can date them by that too.

Also, I’m a bit curious about your theory that the LX was made specifically for the Turkish market. I’ve seen quite a few LXs show up on YAJ and Mercari and on Korean secondhand sites, which seems a bit odd if they were made for Turkey.

[Severest]

Unfortunately I can’t answer that because I don’t have it. I’ve been trying to get into contact with the seller though.

[Ras]

@Severest

I’ve seen quite a few LXs show up on YAJ and Mercari and on Korean secondhand sites

I’ve seen a LOT of LXs in Japan in general.

[Pdunc67]

Perhaps it was just the 0.6mm Tombow that was exclusive to the Turkish market?

[Severest]

That’s what I’ve always assumed. I thought that the LX was just a cheaper version of the LZ. I’ve seen plastic sleeves that included the LX in 0.9, 0.7, 0.5, and 0.3 for sale on Japanese sites quite a bit. Maybe it was a cheap set for students.

[Kiwi-d]

Serve’s agreement with Tombow allowed them to put Tombow branding on any products manufactured by Kotobuki, so that’s one reason why there are lots of Turkish-only Tombow pencils.

[Pdunc67]

@Kiwi-d

Kotobuki, so that’s one reason why there are lots of Turkish-only Tombow pencils.

I didn’t realize there were many other Turkish only.

[Ras]

I used to think LX was just LZ without hardness indicator, but then so many LXs with hardness indicators popped out and I’ve been confused ever since

[Kiwi-d]

I don’t know. I recall back in 2009 when I became aware of the Tombow Cool that the Serve website had quite a few Tombow pencils that did not seem to exist in Japan, and looked very similar to various Staedtler, Faber-Castell, etc pencils that were “Made in Japan”. Kotobuki confirmed the Serve relationship and deal with Tombow branding.

[Ras]

Might be a chance HS meant ‘‘half-slide’’ like those Staedtlers

[drifand]

I noticed these ‘exclusives’ when I was browsing Turkish e-commerce sites like Hapsiburada, but only a few really caught my attention. Amongst them was the SH-300 Grip, which was basically a Zebra Color Flight with a rigid rubber grip. That one was also sold (and catalog’d) by Tombow Thailand.

[drifand]

@Pdunc67 I don’t have much to add to the research but I did find these partial scans saved from Tombow Thailand in 2017:

[Pdunc67]

[DarkwingDuck]

Wow

[drifand]

You’ve reached my SMASH situation… more colors than there are slots for!

[nimrodd]

HAH!

I have Eight (48 slot) cases of P200 family pencils and more that need to go in a case.

My Kerry’s are not as bad. I believe I have a couple of slots left in the Pentel Case (72 slots).

[Pdunc67]

@nimrodd

I have Eight (48 slot) cases

I’d love to get more of these -