Tombow Zoom Espana

The Magnificent Seven - Part 3

Tombow Zoom Espana Mechanical Pencil

by Pencil Paul

This has to be one of my all time favorite Japanese pencils, again a 0.5 mechanical pencil. For me 0.5 is almost a default setting for pencils, this stems from my career as a graphic design editor. When I started out people actually used pencils in the work place and a 'tablet' was something one took for a headache. Back to the business in hand, this is a beautifully built and finished push button lead advance pencil, with no other tricks up its sleeve, believe me it doesn't need any. Very light in weight therefore effortless even on the long haul, aluminum construction with some cast metal parts. The grip for instance is cast metal and provides just the right amount of 'holding' power showing what can be achieved without recourse to rubber, which I find always breaks up or melts in your hand like in those chocolate ads. The top button is removed by a gentle tug revealing the lead chamber. This thin end is too slight to carry an eraser. Meanwhile down at the front this could almost qualify as a drafting pencil as it does have a short lead sleeve. Not an easy pencil to carry as there is no clip and the lead has to be persuaded back from whence it came by pressing nose down while pressing the advance button - much more civilized to transport it in its own smart maroon red tin. To sum up a lovely writing/drawing instrument both to use and to admire. If you see one on sale, buy it you will not be disappointed.


Tombow Zoom Espana Mechanical Pencil

Tombow Onbook Mechanical Pencil Review

Tombow Onbook Mechanical Pencil Review

This is a different sort of review, more pictorial rather than text. This time I’m letting my camera do the talking, rather than my fingers.

The Tombow Onbook is currently available as a ballpoint pen and as a mechanical pencil. I will of course be confining myself to the Onbook mechanical pencil, which has a style number of SH-OBxx.

Designed to clip to and fit snugly down the spine of a notebook, hence the name Onbook.

Of course it also fits nicely to the cover of a book too.

A somewhat suggestive end on the top cap.

Long straight slim lay-flat smooth lines are a necessity for a pencil designed primarily to be clipped to books.

Note the unusual cross-section of the body. About 1/3rd of the circumference is pushed in to make a concave section to assist in fitting snugly to whatever it is clipped to.

The unusual body cross section does make for an unusual writing experience. It’s fine for a few notes and other short term use but this is not really a pencil for writing a novel with.

I imagine Onbook would be entirely suitable for bookies. The sleeve is retractable for pocket safety.

The pocket clip is a strong steel clip, firmly sprung against the body.

Note how the pocket clip is attached at the very top of push top button so the pencil won’t stick out up past the top of the book it’s clipped to. This does mean there is a risk of the main body inadvertently detaching from your book at some inconvenient time, but the top button is very firmly press fitted to the main body so the risk is minimal. Well at least while the pencil is reasonably new.

Very small eraser under the push top button. Lead refill chamber beneath the eraser as usual.

• Price Range – Low/Mid.
• Does this pencil make it into the Top 5? - No.

Dimensions – Length 137mm, diameter 8mm before part of it got squashed in.

The Tombow Onbook mechanical pencils featured in this review were gifts from Cult Pens.

Tombow Zoom 505sh Mechanical Pencil Review

Tombow Zoom 505sh Mechanical Pencil Review

Most of my shopping for mechanical pencils is done online, so I don’t usually have any opportunity to try before I buy. Of course this inevitably leads to surprises, and sometimes you get what you expected and sometimes you don’t.

The Tombow Zoom is no spring chicken, it won the 1990 German International Design iF Award, but it’s never really grabbed my eye until recently when I was on a shopping spree, and suddenly, resistance was futile.

So after all those years of just saying ‘No’, I now own a Tombow Zoom 505sh mechanical pencil. Actually, just for the record, it is also known as the SH-2000CZ series.

The Zoom is a capped pencil with chrome trims and black hard rubber inserts. My particular pencil is charcoal colour but there are a couple of other options. With the cap on, the Zoom makes a stylish but simple statement with its wide-bodied slightly tapering look, metallic trims, glossy body and matt black rubber centre ring. Now, I’m not a fan of rubber, but this centre ring definitely makes for an interesting aesthetic element.

With the cap off you can use the Zoom unposted, but personally I find that look a little short, stubby and incomplete.

With the cap posted I think things look more stylish and complete.

The cap has a definite push-fit click into position as it engages with that rounded button on the end of the barrel. Unposted, you can click on that button to advance the lead, but with the cap posted, the cap becomes the push top button.

The pocket clip is a sturdy metal clip, unlikely to slip off anything you clip it to. The cap push fits on quite securely to either end of the main body so it’s unlikely you will end up with just your cap clipped to your ‘something’ and the main body nowhere to be found.

With its aluminium body, the Tombow Zoom is not a super-heavyweight mechanical pencil, but with the cap posted it is certainly heavier than most, weighing in at 37 grams. Of course posting the cap significantly alters the centre of balance, but even then the Zoom is not top heavy.

The grip zone is made from the same hard matt smooth rubber as the centre ring. The grip has a slight concave contour and the flange of the tip section produces a slightly bulbous end stop to the grip. The positioning of the grip doesn’t entirely suit me, it is about 10mm to too low down for my liking. Alternatively it is perhaps about 10mm too short in overall length. As mentioned the grip itself is made from hard black smooth surfaced rubber, and is just under 11mm diameter at its narrowest point. There is no give in the rubber under normal hand pressure, and the rubber certainly doesn’t add any extra grip factor. This then is the aspect of the Zoom 505sh that I don’t like. I can live with it, but it’s not my ideal.

The lead sleeve of the Zoom is a fixed short thin pipe. The cap of course makes this pocket-safe. Ten clicks of the mechanism will get you 7mm of the 0.5mm lead. To refill the lead magazine you unscrew the top part of the body and…hey there’s an eraser!

Well it’s only a small emergency use one, but better than nothing. You then pull the eraser out (note the lead clearance rod) to refill the magazine.

Markings on the mechanical pencil are “ZOOM, 505 sh” on the front of the cap and “Tombow, Japan 0.5” on the back of the cap. The lead size “0.5” is moulded into the black rubber insert in the end of the cap.

As I said back at the beginning, sometimes your expectations are exceeded and sometimes they are not. For many years I never purchased a Zoom 505sh because the rubber grip put me off, and nothing about its appearance leapt out and grabbed me. So, when I bought one by mistake I wasn’t expecting much, but luckily for me my expectations were far exceeded. The Zoom 505sh is a very nice mechanical pencil, a class act and my only gripe involves the grip.

• Best Points – the cap system.
• Not So Good Points – The grip. I’m positive they could do better.
• Price Range – Mid.
• Does this pencil make it into the Top 5? - Hmmmm, No.

Dimensions – Length 135mm with cap closed on tip and 146mm with cap posted on end, diameter 13mm at widest point. Balance point about 65mm up from the tip with cap posted.

(Sorry, the photos aren't so good in this article but with winter lighting and a dark pencil...well I did what I could)

Tombow Cool Mechanical Pencil Review

Tombow Cool Mechanical Pencil Review

Over the past few years I have become increasingly aware of just how much the offerings of the global writing instrument brands vary from one country to another. I guess ages ago I had a rather naïve and simplistic view of the global brands, something along the lines of the brand having a basket of products with a sort of pick and mix selection of those products being offered in various countries or geographical regions by the relevant national distributors. These days my view is more along the lines of the global brand having a basket of products, as well as the various national distributors each having their own individual baskets, such that the products offered in any one country are a selection from the global basket plus the contents of the local basket.

Although it is far away on the other side of the world, Turkey is an inextricable and visceral part of one of the most important events in the history of my country, and that of our ‘Trans-Tasman Cousins’. So, unusual connections to Turkey have a little extra interest for me. There are writing instrument manufacturers in Turkey, one of which is ADEL, a joint venture between Anadolu Group of Turkey and Germany’s Faber-Castell, but I haven’t as yet got my hands on any of their products. Today though I have something else of interest - it appears that there are some Turkey-only Tombow mechanical pencils. You can see them here at the website of Serve, who are an office supplies company in Turkey, and in particular a (or the) Turkish distributor for Tombow of Japan.

So, from Turkey, I present the Tombow Cool. According to the Serve website (with the assistance of Google translate, and as far as I can understand it) the Tombow Cool mechanical pencil is available in seven colour options and in 0.5, 0.7 and 0.9mm lead. Mine is the metallic grey colour and 0.9mm lead.First off then, does the Tombow Cool look cool? Well I quite like its looks, and the Cool logo printed on the body does look rather cool. The combination of black, metallic grey and chrome blends nicely.

The Cool is a triangular bodied mechanical pencil. The rubber grip is triangular and feels a little wider than average. It is quite long in length, taking up over a third of the length of the pencil so you can pretty much hold the Cool wherever you like – down low close to the tip or way up for that relaxed stance. The rubber is smooth without any surface pattern and a reasonably grippy compound with a small amount of give under finger pressure. The Cool is reasonably lightweight and neutrally balanced so it doesn’t have a lot of presence in the hand.

The tip section is a chrome metal cone, and the retractable lead sleeve is also a short cone so this pencil is pocket safe but clearly intended as a general writing pencil. The mechanism is a standard push top ratchet. For my 0.9mm version, ten clicks will get you 7mm of lead. The mechanism feels and sounds nice, smooth and positive. Up at the top end of the pencil, the push top button is an extendable eraser housing. I quite like the grooved chrome ring around the housing. The eraser core itself is a fairly hard white plastic or TPR and is about 4mm diameter. You can twist out about 26mm (1”) of usable length. The eraser is obviously replaceable. The entire cartridge pulls out to allow access to the lead refill magazine.The pocket clip is very smart looking. It is rather strongly sprung, almost too strong. It certainly won’t be accidently slipping off whatever you clipped it to.

Markings on the body are minimal – “Cool” up by the pocket clip, and “09, Tombow, Japan” down near the rubber grip.Overall then this is a nice smart looking mechanical pencil and quite reasonably priced. It’s unusual origins are a little added bonus to mechanical pencil collectors. Cool is not an inappropriate name.

• Best Points – The looks.
• Not So Good Points – Nothing really leaps out at me.
• Price Range – Economy/Low.
• Does this pencil make it into the Top 5? - No.

Dimensions – Length 145mm, triangle sides about 11mm. Balance point about 70mm up from the tip.

PS – if there are any collectors or regular readers out there from Turkey, it would be great to hear from you – send me an email on the address up in the blog header.

Tombow Oceanic Mechanical Pencil Review

Well here’s my first review of a pencil from Tombow. I must admit to being a little ignorant of Tombow these days. I get the impression they have basically withdrawn from the mechanical pencil market, at least outside of Japan. I had wanted an Oceanic for a long time, but never got around to buying one, and then it was discontinued a few years ago, so I had sort of given up on it. But last year I saw some new stock for sale on eBay……..

Certainly you would never accuse the Oceanic of being another “me too” generic design. The rounded stylised fish shaped body is obviously very reminiscent of its name, and it is one of the fattest pencils in my collection. This is definitely a pencil for those who like a wide grip, as its about 12 to 15mm diameter where I usually hold it. It has a very unusual surface finish – not fish scales, but a rough surface, although a very fine one. I haven’t really seen anything much like it. It sort of feels like a flocked finish, but using something a bit tougher and rougher than ‘velvet’.

The front tip section is matt black plastic, then it becomes the roughened main body, then the “tail” section is black rubber except for the very end which is again the roughened body material. The push top ratchet lead advance mechanism is operated by simply pushing down the top of the tail. The rubber tail section compresses allowing the mechanism to work. There is a small eraser under the top, or rather the tail. It looks like it is a rubber compound eraser. The lead chamber came loaded with 6 leads, so no cheap penny pinching there.
The roughened surface finish really does give great grip, but the fat diameter may not be to everyone’s liking. I am not sure how well I would handle it for very extended periods of writing.

The lead sleeve is short and shaped so this pencil is for writing only. No big surprise there. I would prefer that a longer length of lead was advanced with each activation of the mechanism. I had to keep clicking a lot more than normal. I think this is also a desk instrument only. The lead sleeve is not retractable and there is no pocket clip so its not really designed for carrying around. Since it’s big and round with no pocket clip it will roll around on your desktop. This pencil is designed to look good, at the expense of a little utility.

The only markings on the pencil are “Tombow”, the Oceanic symbol, and “Japan” in light lettering on the centre of the body. My Oceanic is a 0.5mm lead model (SH-ZLF11), and came in a nice but simple presentation tin, inside a lightweight black embossed cardboard package.

• Best Points – The roughened surface finish and the overall “Oceanic” look.
• Not So Good Points – The rolling around.
• Price Range – Low.

Dimensions – Length 132mm, diameter 20mm at widest part. Balance point about 65mm up from the tip.

Footnote: As a rule of thumb I’m only reviewing pencils that are currently available, but since the Oceanic isn’t that obsolete and you can still find some new stock without too much effort, then ‘Why not?. Rules are made to be broken.”