My holy grail is a Mitsubishi Hi-Uni 3051FF or a 5050. I already have a 2050 and its a marvelous piece! At the moment I still haven’t created the courage to buy it because the price would be unreal in my country (the 2050 was already very expensive).
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You’re fortunate you got one. I had contemplated getting a Hi-Uni 2050 for years, but kept my focus more on possibly scoring a 3050. I wanted a 5050 or 3051FF, but prices were always rather lofty above what my per-pencil budget was at the time. I kept missing the 3050, though I came close. Then I took a break, only to find not 9~12 months later, the going market prices have jumped. So, I’m still pretty bummed. I may just try for a 2050 without box or cap.
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An Hi-Uni 2050 (0.5) with cap but no box—which also appeared to be in very agreeable condition—was sold on Mercari last week for ¥13,000.
This is the lowest price I can recall for one of these pieces.
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That’s pretty decent. Lately on YAJ they’ve been going for upwards of ¥20,000.
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I wrote it before: I agree to your focus, always head for the Carbo (3050 or 5050). 3051 is just for rareness, and 2050 is a good, but not very special drafting pencil.
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There’s plenty of 2050 and 3050 on mercari, some are very close to 10k yen. As long as you want user grade items, you can get one for a very reasonable price.
2050 0.5 11k JPY https://jp.mercari.com/item/m85787187798
2050 0.5 13k JPY https://jp.mercari.com/item/m18312708895
2050 0.3 15k JPY https://jp.mercari.com/item/m83522114186
The price of the boxed ones is more than double. Most don’t have the cap, which is a shame.
I was able to obtain recently a 5050 0.5 (thanks popossum for the masterclass!) for 50k JPY. Capped, unicarbo sticker, no box nor price sticker. Very reasonable price. I think that ffmatic is a feature better suited for 0.3, but damn it’s an absolutely gorgeous pencil. It’s the most expensive piece of my collection but I have zero regrets about buying it. It’s a pleasure to use, and a pleasure to look at. If I can be honest, the 5050 and the Dive are the only two automatics that have not disappointed me.
My grails… honestly, I have been able to obtain most of them during this year (I hope that everyone looks forward to that post! I want to take some nice pictures and prepare a nice writeup to go with it). Sakura archi, Mitsubishi 5050 0.3 and Pilot protrex are probably my only remaining grails, but right now I’m too satisfied with my collection as it is to drop >50k JPY on another pencil.
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Somehow, I didn’t know the 5050 had an automatic feed…
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I scored a decent Tombow W-knock specimen with the blue silkscreen, so that’s one item I can remove from my list. Also picked up a base model Pilot Sprinter with black grip (and price sticker). But I also forgot about a few other grails, so here’s the updated list:
- Pilot stainless steel double-knock silver barrel variant with black silkscreen
- Pilot Sprinter ¥1000 variant with red and blue grips (I already have black and green)
- Pilot Heart Sutra
- Pilot etched leaf pattern with paint infill comes in red, lime green, blue, and ??
- Pilot Switch etched grid pattern
- Pilot OG triangular barrel in navy blue
- Pilot Grandee Priere in gold (not even sure this exists, lol)
- Pentel Injecto gold and slate blue
- Pentel Injecto resin grip variants
- Newman woodgrain drafting in 0.3 and 0.5 (I have a poor 0.5 specimen)
- Newman resin drafting with metal grip in red, black, and blue
- Newman etched drafting
- Mitsubishi Hi-Uni 2050, 3050, and 5050
- Mitsubishi Jaguar stainless steel double-knock
- Staedtler Retro Deluxe
- Fuji-Corona double-knock (Kokuyo TZ-PSP is acceptable here)
- Sailor Egyptian
- Tombow Variable in 0.4 and 0.3
- Tombow W-knock black variant with “W-knock” silkscreen
Of these, the ones I want the most (by far) are:
- Pilot stainless steel double-knock with black silkscreen on silver barrel
- Mitsubishi Jaguar etched stainless steel double-knock
- Tombow Variable 0.4
Gonna contact a kid on Twitter today about trading for the Pilot.
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Neither did I (ok, I could look up at mine 
). RDP, are you sure? I am quite convinced it’s not automatic…
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Mitsubishi’s Hi-Uni line is not an automatic but it has ffmatic fingertip knocking (I’d like to see a video of this knock mechanism being used during an “everyday” activity), I believe the only automatic model Mitsubishi has made (pre-Dive) was the M5-305AT.
To make matters even more interesting, they labelled pencils like M3-1003 and M5-501 as automatic pencils despite using conventional top knock lead advancement.
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FF-matic: finger-flick advance. 
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Yes, sorry for the confusion, it’s not automatic but it does have a ball clutch, so I do think of it as an automatic. The resistance from the metal ring on the front is very small, so it doesn’t really feel like using a regular knock-type pencil.
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Ask and you shall receive!
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Thanks!
This makes me want a 3050 or 5050 even more (or maybe buy the ffmatic tip for orenznero on taobao). Didn’t expect it to be this consistent and smooth.
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It’s an incredible mechanism. I also expected it to have more resistance but as you can see it’s incredibly smooth. And I think that the previous owner used this pencil a lot, so I guess it holds up well over time.
Careful, the 3050 doesn’t have ffmatic, it’s only the 5050 and 3051ff. An unboxed 3051ff just sold today for 75k so your best bet would be a 5050, but still, they are very expensive…
Do you have a link to that taobao ffmatic tip?
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Thank you. I tried accessing the taobao store but I can’t log in to my account, it seems like it was frozen or something? Taobao is the most foreigner unfriendly page ever…
If someone can get a superbuy link, that’d be awesome.
Anyway, from the Twitter videos it seems like his tip has quite some lateral play. That is precisely what I thought would happen with the regular ffmatic, but actually it has almost no play whatsoever. I wonder how their engineers solved that problem.
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I want a FF-matic just to put it next to a Pentel FFF 
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I have one of those tips and honestly it’s not great. It’s quite impressive that one person in a machine shop pulled it off, so hats of to him for that! But the click has more resistance than that on the FF-matic, the tip has a noticeable wobble and it’s just looks like a Frankenpencil when you put it on the orenz nero.
The FF-matic is in an entirely different league - super solid with no tip wobble, easy to actuate with minimal resistance, one of the best grip knurlings on a writing instrument ever (no exaggeration, it’s just sublime), choice of Unicarbo barrel for a more tip heavy balance (which also looks beautiful when you shine a light on it) or the aluminum barrel which is more evenly balanced (I actually prefer this, the blue is also stunning in person). Only downsides are the mushy knock from the rear button (which you will almost never use), the really silly tip cap and the mechanism can apparently wear out with extensive use (though I’ve been using mine semi-regularly for 4+ years and it’s still going strong). It definitely belongs on the holy grail list of any serious collector (whether you actually get one or not ;)).
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Speaking of the mushy knock, I’ve noticed something quite weird. It’s like if you press it halfway the lead comes out but can’t be retracted, and if you push it fully, the resistance is higher, and the lead can be retracted. I guess it’s one of the quirks of the clutch they use on that pencil, but is it the same on the 2050 and 3050?
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