Friday, July 08, 2011

Mitsubishi Novelty Pencils

Germ sent me these ages ago. A bunch of NOS "novelty message" mechanical pencils made by Mutsubishi Pencil, i.e. Uni.

As mechanical pencils they are just lightweight aluminium bodied push top ratchet basic models. Their only branding is the Mitsubishi diamond logo on the body, and on the price sticker. 500 Yen.

There is some corrosion to the chrome plating on some of the pocket clips and tips, so I would guess they are about 15+ years old.

Each has a different message or pattern printed on it in English. They are those sort of messages which don't really sound right to native English speakers. I always assume these sort of things are verbatim translations of the original idea or thought in Japanese, and it just gets lost in translation.

Fantastic Sharp - Pretty flowers are perfumed in your room.
LOVELINESS - She's kind of a friend of mine.

5 comments:

Matthias said...

These messages are very much like the messages found on current stationery from China....

Palimpsest said...

Lost in translation indeed :D

Henrik said...

yep, all your base are belong to us...

Stationery Traffic said...

Check out www.engrish.com for more examples of this phenomenon.

Matthias said...

Stationery Traffic, in a book shop in Shanghai's airport I once saw a book called "Chinglish", it had photos of some very funny signs...