As you all know I’m relatively new here and I don’t know a whole lot except for what I know (which isn’t a lot).
But, I do have a really, really, really stupid question:
What is the fascination with acquiring pencils (pens, etc.) with stickers? Is the sticker phenomenon strictly an Asian occurrence? (They seem rampant on Pilots and Pentels and Newmans, etc.)
The very few instruments I’ve bought new (Montblanc Agatha Christie set in 1993 and MB M (Red) designed by Marc Newsom in 2020 did not have stickers attached. And I don’t recall seeing them on other European writers (rOtring, Montegrappa, Pelican, Visconti, etc.) Nor, for that matter on American versions (Parker, Eversharp, Esterbrook, etc.)
Vintage pricing stickers are freakin awesome. Pilot had some handsome designs, and Pentel’s early 1980s labels are among my favorite things in pencildom.
The big modern white labels with a UPC code are trash and should be removed. But vintage metallic stickers with yen-based pricing are
I’ll also nominate LION as having the second-best stickers in the business, after Pentel. But man—some of those early, rounded Pilot stickers are legendary as well.
Stickers also suggest the pencil hasn’t been used much (if at all), and I know I find that appealing when considering the purchase of something that’s ~40 years old.
I remember very tiny stickers with denominations for nib size (F, M, B, BB, &c.) on some vintage fountain pens — the sticker is always found on the body, not on the cap nor on the nib section— and I have a Pelikan D450 brownish knock pencil I bought fairly recently in Vicenza which sports a delicate, small, round sticker with black “0,5” on a golden foil, probably to signal the lead core size even from relatively afar.
I also noticed that some European MP’s used to have a small rectangular (plastic or card stock) tag inserted between the pocket clip and the body, with the name of the pencil, possibly the price tag, and even a few additional information — case in point, some older AlphaMatics, and some Pelikans.
Generally speaking I’m not a big fan of stickers, and I used to peel off the badly worn-out ones I found on the barrels of my MP’s; after a bit of reading here and elsewhere, I’ve changed my mind, and now I tend to keep the stickers, especially if they appear to be in good conditions, save for the case they get into the grip area, where I expect to be able to properly handle the instrument, and use it as intended.
I agree that some stickers are indeed really cool, and can be used as additional tracking devices for historical research purposes.
Yes, I’m aware of the nib sizes on FPs of (at least) the European brands. And I did see one on my MB Agatha FP.
I was more speaking to the Japanese brand/price/lead diameter/etc stickers. Those are the ones that baffled me since they seemed to be the country that did this across the board (and still does apparently).
It’s definitely a curious phenomenon. The comparison I’d make isn’t with the nib width stickers but with the “never inked” condition. Lots of stickered pencils are NOS (new old stock), or at least look like so, and some people do care about that. Taking a photo of a collection full of stickers makes it look like everything is in pristine condition. Years ago it was much easier to get stickered pencils, it’s gotten way harder these days though I’d say. FP guys also sometimes fuss about microscratches, which is something nobody cares about here.
As for why the stickers exist in the first place, it was a way not to have the JIS number/barcode directly on the pencil, which could cheapen the look. In general, Japanese people do seem to use more stickers than western manufacturers, but that’s my personal impression.
Another thing we should take into account is that MPs, despite having become expensive now, used to be cheap. We can’t compare the price of a Montblanc 149 or a Pelikan x00 with these pencils, which ranged from 100 to 5000 JPY. For context, the expensive Japanese FPs don’t have fancy stickers either (Pilot 823 and folks)
This rOtring Esprit (R 502 159 6). 0.7 mm in Graphite has a German DM sticker on it. The Esprit was sold from 1996-2006. I believe this one is pre 2002 because of the DM sticker.
For those who are interested, this is the successor to the rOtring 400. It features a metal body with retractable tip activated by the button on the side, very similar to many other models.
