I have put together an article about the different generations of the Pentel11. I find 4 generations, plus the S300 series.
Please let me know what you think and if there is any fixes, changes or suggestions that you think should be made.
This will be going in the appendix of the next Pentel Pencil ID Book.
Do you know why the s305?
Is there an international reason to it?
As I’m not a Pentel expert, I cannot offer any additions or corrections, but I would like to take this opportunity to thank you once again for your fantastic work on Pentel mechanical pencils! I often refer to your Pentel Identification Book and am always impressed.
No, I am not sure why they chose the S designation and not P.
I have 1 more short article about the S5x pencils and the Generations of these, and then the book should be ready to be assembled.
@nimrodd Can you list all the colors of the 11?
Those are listed on the Pentel 11 pages, but I can put them in here as well.
No need. I can find them in the your regular book. This is just generations, so I can see why you left it out.
Maybe just because S makes as much sense as P.
I always figured that シャープ (the katakana rendering of the English word “sharp”) and シャープペンシル (“sharp pencil,” phonetically transcribed in Japanese) became more or less synonymous with “mechanical pencil” in Japan after Hayakawa’s Ever-Ready Sharp came out, rather than a native Japanese term like 機械式鉛筆 (kikai-shiki enpitsu). Kind of like how “Kleenex” ended up meaning any facial tissue. I guess that’s also why so many models have names starting with Sxxx, like the S305.
If you build model numbers using the formula S + initial price + lead size (for example, Sharp + ¥300 + 0.5 mm = S305), you quickly run out of combinations, especially with an expanding catalog and new foreign markets. That’s probably when other letters started appearing—like P for Pentel, PS for Pentel Sharp, PG for Pentel Graph, Q as the next letter after P, SS for Sharp with a sliding sleeve, and so on. There’s no particularly solid reason for the shift; it was just whatever seemed convenient on the spot, while keeping unique IDs for each model. For instance, when one model is known as the Sharp Five (S5) because it initially came only in 0.5 mm, naturally the subsequent versions got numbers like S55, S57, and S59 when they came out in 0.5, 0.7, and 0.9 mm.
I believe P stood for Pencil, B is Ballpoint, F is Fountain Pen and R is Rollerball. PS is Sliding Sleeve Pencil.
What about PD?
Not sure what it specifically stand for, but it denotes Side Knock.
PXE & PXN are high end Excaliburs.
PC are (for the most part) Rolly & Clicsharp Double Knocks.
PF are For Film.