I did have a nice little surprise on my trip. Whilst acting in my usual capacity of shopping bag carrier, I glanced up and there before me was my kind of shop. Woo-hoo, a real live in the flesh specialist writing instruments retailer. Suddenly I was promoted to shopping expedition leader. The first “full-size” specialist writing instruments retailer I have visited in my life.
The shop-ladies were nice and I had a few trial runs with some fancy pens and pencils. I was quite taken with the Montblanc Meisterstuck Solitaire Platinum-Plated Facet pencil, but then reality set in as the price tag had 4 digits before the decimal point. Still, nice to dream.
The shop-ladies were nice and I had a few trial runs with some fancy pens and pencils. I was quite taken with the Montblanc Meisterstuck Solitaire Platinum-Plated Facet pencil, but then reality set in as the price tag had 4 digits before the decimal point. Still, nice to dream.
The Dolphin brand DOL C205. Dolphin is a brand name of a Malaysian stationery company Chungkeu, and I’m sure there’s nothing particularly rare about the DOL C205 in Malaysia. 
Rarity comes and goes with time and place. I tripped across the DOL C205 by accident a few years back, and since I’m not in Malaysia I had a devil of a time trying to get hold of one. That’s one part of the reason it’s rare to me, because it’s very hard to get hold of. But the real reason I wanted this mechanical pencil, and the thing that makes it truly rare in my book is this:
There, in bold print on the pencil body, “Kotobuki”. As one of the world’s leading mechanical pencil manufacturers, anyone who has got a few different models of pencil probably has a Kotobuki, but you just don’t know it because they manufacture and sell under other companies brand names. Apart from this pencil I have never seen or heard of a mechanical pencil with Kotobuki on it. For those who haven’t read it, 
The packaging states “4mm metal fixed pipe”. 
Clearly we have different ideas of what that means. In my book it’s a retractable conical sleeve. Sure it’s 4mm and metal, but it’s not fixed, and the pipe reference is rather misleading. To me, “4mm metal fixed pipe” means a 4mm fixed (non-retractable) thin draughting sleeve like on the Pentel P205 and other such draughting pencils.
Now you don’t – an unusual idea of “fixed”. 
The grip zone on the C205 is formed by some simple concentric grooves moulded into the body.
The metal push top button has a hole through it to show the eraser underneath.
So, there we have it, my rarest pencil. Crikey, does that mean if there’s a fire, this is the one pencil I will try to save?
Other erasers are uncomfortable? Marketing mumbo-jumbo. I suppose maybe it’s some sort of counterpoint to the luxury brand concept? 
The Staedtler Mars-head logo is embossed into the surface of the Rasoplast.
The Rasoplast is definitely a harder compound than the Mars Plastic (as tested by the fingernail test method) and thus not surprisingly the Rasoplast bar is stiffer than Mars Plastic.
So, overall all then, very little difference in erasing power. As you might expect Rasoplast definitely feels harder and more abrasive in use, but it doesn’t seem to damage the paper surface. The eraser waste comes off differently, Rasoplast seems to form longer finer strings of waste and Mars Plastic definitely seems to get more graphite stains on it’s surface and thus require cleaning. Maybe Mars also tended to smear the graphite around on its first swipe a little more than Rasoplast did, but then it erased it on the second swipe. At the conclusion of the tests the amount of wear on the two erasers seemed fairly similar.
I haven’t ever used a fude, but writing with this pencil is smooth. Mighty smooth. But that lead wears down a bit faster than average. 
A few comparisons below. I just hit “Auto-Correct” on my photo-editor and it shows up the differences in the leads quite well. Really we are talking about how black is black here, so it’s a bit hard to show in photo’s. Well with my basic camera anyway. Mitsubishi 10B versus Faber-Castell Goldfaber 1221-HB and Staedtler Mars Lumograph 100-5B. Writing with the 10B was noticeably smoother than with the 5B.
For comparison of woods, the lighter coloured shaving in the centre is from the Staedtler Mars Lumograph 5B.
It’s spring and the wooden pencil tree has grown some new twigs! A Mitsubishi 10B. I’ll say that again, 
Each pencil comes in its own hang-sell type display card. Flat card with all sorts of writing, and the edge is folded up into a long thin box that the pencil slides into.
As expected, the 10B graphite core is rather thicker than average – almost more core than wood.
Brilliant shiny lacquer, gold bands, black top – this is a premium pencil, but what else would you expect from a wooden pencil made in Japan? Not much writing on the pencil, mostly in Japanese. 
I’m too scared to ruin them by sharpening, so someone else will have to tell you just how smooth and dark they really are. Thanks Isu.
A million? For under 20 I got a bargain then.
Posts
