Kurz notiert

  • Wenn man die­sem Bei­trag auf Red­dit Glau­ben schen­ken kann, stellt Pilot Japan die Pro­duk­tion sei­nes Druck­blei­stifts S30 in Kürze ein. Als Grund wird genannt, dass bei hohem Schreib­druck die Mine nicht mehr rich­tig gehal­ten wird und in den Stift zurück­weicht. – Der in vier Far­ben, aber nur für 0,5-mm-Minen erhält­li­che S30 hat einen Holz­schaft1 und bie­tet einen auto­ma­ti­schen Minen­vor­schub2. Inter­es­sant zu wis­sen wäre, ob das Pro­blem an der Auto­ma­tik liegt oder nur die Zwinge zu schwach ist und wie es mit dem S30 weitergeht.
  • Bereits Ende des letz­ten Jah­res hat Faber-​Castell sei­nen Fall­mi­nen­stift TK 9500 aus dem Sor­ti­ment genom­men. Der TK 9500 kam im Herbst 1950 auf den Markt, war also gut 73 Jahre lang erhält­lich. – Ein kur­zer Bei­trag zum TK 9500 folgt.
  • Einen inter­es­san­ten Ein­blick in die Ent­wick­lung und Her­stel­lung von Radie­rern beim japa­ni­schen Unter­neh­men IWAKO bie­tet das Video „Pro­cess of mass pro­duc­tion of era­sers“3. – Danke an Ste­fan für den Hinweis!
  • Bei Sotheby’s wird ein mecha­ni­scher Blei­stift ver­stei­gert, der von Fred Haise, dem Pilo­ten der Mond­lan­de­fähre, wäh­rend der „Apollo 13“-Mission genutzt wor­den sein soll; das aktu­elle Gebot liegt bei 6500 US-​Dollar. – Quelle: Red­dit.
  • Im Gegen­satz zu den meis­ten ande­ren Druck­blei­stif­ten der „Kuru Toga“-Reihe von Mitsubishi/​uni ist der Kuru Toga Metal nur in 0,5 mm, nicht aber in 0,3 mm erhält­lich. Doch es gibt eine ein­fa­che Abhilfe: Da der Kuru Toga Metal die glei­che Mecha­nik nutzt wie der Kuru Toga KS und es die­sen auch in 0,3 mm gibt, kann man des­sen Mecha­nik in den Metal ein­set­zen. Wie das geht, wird in die­sem Video beschrieben.
  1. Über die Bezeich­nung „Holz“ kann man hier strei­ten, denn es ist kein rei­nes Holz, son­dern ein Werk­stoff aus ver­leim­ten Holz­schich­ten, der sehr wider­stands­fä­hig gegen­über mecha­ni­scher Belas­tung und Feuch­tig­keit ist (der Her­stel­ler nennt es über­setzt „kunst­harz­im­prä­gnier­tes Holz“).
  2. Die­sen gab es erst­mals 1979 mit dem Faber-​Castell TK-​matic, doch ich gehe davon aus, dass es kon­struk­tive Unter­schiede gibt.
  3. Bei 0:08 sieht man „Billy“.

15 Kommentare zu „Kurz notiert“

  1. Sad to hear that the TK9500 is going away. All the more so con­side­ring that lead hol­ders are the only wri­ting instru­ment that is going the way of the dino­saurs. Mecha­ni­cal pen­cils, wood pen­cils, ball­points, rol­lers, and foun­tain pens have all went thru revi­vals, but the venerable lead hol­der has been rele­ga­ted to the dust bin of history.

  2. Yes, that’s a real pity. The TK 9500 was some­thing spe­cial, and not just because it had been around for so long. – I hope that that the TK 4600 won’t suf­fer the same fate.

    It really looks like lead­hol­ders are beco­ming extinct. Howe­ver, STAEDTLER has recently (?) intro­du­ced their famous Mars tech­nico 780 C in two new colours (sand and rose­wood). The Mars tech­nico 780 is a clas­sic, and I’m deligh­ted that it’s still around after 50 years! (I would have app­re­cia­ted it if the bar­code wasn’t prin­ted on the bar­rel – it was intro­du­ced with the black 780 C and the new clip with the hard­ness gra­des – but for­t­u­na­tely it can be remo­ved with rub­bing alcohol.)

  3. Thank you for the IWAKO video. I don’t know why this sur­pri­sed me, but I was ama­zed at how high tech era­ser pro­duc­tion is. 

    And Guil­lermo and Gun­ther, this mor­ning I count 82 lead­hol­ders available at Jet Pens and 58 at Cult Pens. The draf­ting lead­hol­der cer­tainly isn’t enjoy­ing peak mar­ket con­di­ti­ons, but the „non-​drafting lead­hol­der“ (a term I first read at the old leadholder.com) seems to still have life.

  4. I’m glad to hear that you like the video! I was sur­pri­sed about the tech­no­logy too but given the com­ple­xity of IWAKO’s era­sers (and injec­tion moul­ding in gene­ral) I should have thought so.

    Thank you for the figu­res which sur­prise me. I have to admit that I was too focus­sed on draf­ting lead­hol­ders in my assess­ment because I like and use them the most (so I for­got e. g. the STAEDTLER 925 25 20/​925 35 20). Howe­ver, Jet­Pens lists each colour vari­ant indi­vi­du­ally so the actual num­ber is lower (e. g. the Mitsubishi/​uni MH-​500 is available in twelve vari­ants). Nevert­hel­ess, it is good to see what’s still available.

  5. Gun­ther: Yes, the TK9500 will be sor­ely missed as is the last field-​size inte­gra­ted clip lead hol­der that was sold by the two big Ger­man brands. Staedtler’s coun­ter­part was dis­con­tin­ued a long time ago.

    As for the 780, I like it a lot. Have at least a cou­ple vin­tage ver­si­ons, a cur­rent one and the black edi­tion that I found lost on the street a while ago. But not really into coll­ec­ting colors any­more. Fell for that trap with Lamy’s Safari and now I reg­ret­ted. Would love for them to re-​release their awe­some Pan-​Technico, thou.

    Ste­phen: Yes, many of Jet­pens offe­ring are just vari­ants over the same theme. But you got me intrigued and was glad to find that they seem to carry some of Koh-​I-​Noors lead hol­ders now. That is pro­ba­bly the last brand that still has quite a wide range of lead hol­ders available (2, 2.5, 3.2, 3.8, 5.6mm). Saw that they still sell the model 5616, which many years ago had a clutch that was able to take both 2mm and 3.2mm lead, hence the name Adapto. I was under the impres­sion that newer models lack this fea­ture, but at least on Jet­pens descrip­tion it is named as an Adapto.

    The other thing thar con­firms lead hol­ders are going the way of the dino­saurs is that lead gra­des available are fewer and fewer as the years go by. Staedtler’s only go from 4H to 4B. Faber only goes from 4H to 3B with the 3.15mm leads for the sof­ter gra­des (4B-​6B) rarely available, if at all. Let’s not even talk about their 4.5mm leads or the flat ones that their TK9600 used.

    Tom­bow and Uch­ida AFAIK, no lon­ger manu­fac­ture leads or lead hol­ders. Caran’s leads are also hard to find and not that wide in their grade gamut. They also dis­con­tin­ued their Museum 3.8mm water­co­lor leads many years ago along with its Fix­pen­cil 44 lead holder.

    Sad!

  6. Which coun­ter­part from STAEDTLER are you refer­ring to? The short 782?

    The 780 is a clas­sic! What’s your favou­rite variant?

    Unfort­u­na­tely the 5616 Adapto is curr­ently not in stock at Jet­Pens, and since it’s no lon­ger lis­ted on Koh-I-Noor’s web­site I’m afraid it’s discontinued.

    In fact, the available lead gra­des are beco­ming fewer; even Mitsubishi/​uni only offers 4H to 4B (but for­t­u­na­tely they still have F which I like very much). Yes, STAEDTLER has 4H to 4B but three inter­me­diate degrees are miss­ing (3H, F and 3B).

    It’s sad that Tom­bow and Uch­ida don’t make lead­hol­ders any­more. Espe­ci­ally the ones from Uch­ida were amazing!

    Spea­king of Caran d’Ache: The long Fix­pen­cil 77 is no lon­ger available eit­her. – By the way, I recently got the Fix­pen­cil 884-​160 (Junior?), and I like it.

    Rot­ring still offers their 300 lead­hol­der but its bar­rel is made enti­rely of pla­s­tic. I think this is Rotring’s last leadholder.

  7. Yes that one (782), and the pre­vious ite­ra­tion (48002) that I own. Love the con­cept of those lead holders.

    I pre­fer the vin­tage 780 lead hol­ders. Not really sure as to the model years of mine, but they kind of feel a bit hea­vier and with a bet­ter balance than the cur­rent edi­tion. The cur­rent 780 was the first lead hol­der in my coll­ec­tion and is also a favo­rite on my daugh­ter. Bought one for her in ele­men­tary and she still uses it today!

    As for the 5616, guess you went loo­king on the wrong place my fri­end: https://www.kohinoorusa.com/leadholders Koh-​I-​Noor USA was first bought by Rot­ring in the 80’s or 90’s, then it got absor­bed by San­ford and then it was sold to Chart­pak (cur­rent owner), dif­fe­rent com­pany than L&C Hardt­muth from CZ.

    Even if it appears sold out is still lis­ted -which is good. The other two ver­si­ons of the 5611 are in stock. Mea­ning they might even­tually re-​supply. These lead hol­ders are still made in Italy (got ver­si­ons of them from the 70’s) and are still pretty much the same. The only meaningful dif­fe­rence, is that the cur­rent 5616 is not lon­ger capa­ble of accep­ting 3.2mm lead, but don’t know for sure.

    Indeed my fri­end, leads are har­der to come by as time advan­ces. Guess that peo­ple value form over func­tion, which is the only thing sepa­ra­ting lead hol­ders from all other wri­ting instru­ments. Glad I mana­ged to secure some Tom­bow Mono leads, but never one of their lead hol­ders. Uch­ida is way out of my league in terms of price.

    Caran and brands like Gil­bert and their Cri­te­rium lin­eup, rarely show up on this side of the pond. Been hun­ting that Fix­pen­cil 77 for quite a while but have never found one. As for the 884, I guess they rein­tro­du­ced the model not long ago. I like it a lot since it resem­bles the grip of the Cri­te­rium (which is one of my fav lead hol­ders), but I dis­like the fact that Caran deci­ded to put pla­s­tic ever­y­thing inside of all their lead hol­ders. And then to add salt to injury, jack-​up the pri­ces. I once com­men­ted on their IG pro­file about this and guess what? They dele­ted the com­ment and ban­ned me from their profile!!!

    I fell for one of the Häberli edi­ti­ons of the Fix­pen­cil, but ended-​up fee­ling scam­med. Spe­ci­ally after I com­pared my old Bohe­mia Works Toi­son d’Or 5900 from the 60’s with the cur­rent KIN one, and found they are exactly the same. And the KIN is less than half the price of a cur­rent Fixpencil.

    Indeed. The Rot­ring 300 is their last lead hol­der. You can still buy the Rapid Pro lead hol­der on Ama­zon, but I guess it’s the remai­ning stock.

    Really sad about this. Love lead holders!

  8. Yes, the STAEDTLER 782 and 48002 are beau­tiful! As far as I know the 4800x were only available for a short time in the 1960s so it’s quite dif­fi­cult to get them now.

    I too pre­fer the vin­tage 780, also because of the mar­king and the shape of the first clip. Howe­ver, I think the cur­rent one is very good too.

    Thank you for the cor­rect link to the Koh-​I-​Noor offe­rings! – The red Tech­ni­graph 5611 C looks appe­al­ing too.

    Tom­bow lead hol­ders are very hard to find nowa­days except for the Mono­tech 500 (it’s the one with the dial on the bar­rel) which pops up now and then. Howe­ver, I have never seen 2 mm leads from Tom­bow. Yes, Uch­ida lead­hol­ders have become very expen­sive but they are really some­thing spe­cial. – Do you have the cur­rent Mitsubishi/​uni MH-​500 or its pre­de­ces­sor? Unlike the cur­rent model the end of the older one tapers toward the but­ton which I find very appe­al­ing. It also has a metal inner tube ins­tead of the pla­s­tic one in the cur­rent model, and recently I found out that there have been at least two dif­fe­rent vari­ants of the pre­de­ces­sor which dif­fer in the threads (in the older one it’s made from metal).

    I am sorry to hear about Caran d’Ache’s beha­viour towards you. Their atti­tude is a bit spe­cial (to put it mildly) but blo­cking you because of cri­ti­cism is not appro­priate. – By the way, the grip of my blue 884-​160 doesn’t have groo­ves in the grip like the other Junior models. It also has Japa­nese text on the back of the box so I won­der if this is a spe­cial model.

    I also had my eye on the Häberli model, but then it was far too expen­sive for me. If you’re lucky you can get a vin­tage Mitsu­bi­shi Hi-​uni hol­der for the same price, and that will put the Häberli in the shade, at least in terms of workmanship.

    Recenty I redis­co­vered my Rot­ring 600 lead­hol­der, and much to my sur­prise I lear­ned that it’s still available in Roma­nia, e. g. at deScris. Howe­ver, they have only one left and it’s lis­ted as unavai­labe on the Roma­nian Rot­ring web­site.

  9. Thanks for that bit of info on the 4800x series. Wasn’t aware of that. I hap­pen to own 2 or 3 models of that series. 

    I own 3 dif­fe­rent KIN 5611 lead hol­ders. One metal-​barreled with an Adapto clutch that takes 3.2mm leads bes­i­des the 2mm ones, ano­ther all metal ver­sion with a clip that seems to have been used exten­si­vely but that is a joy to see and use (and which came with a 2H lead shar­pe­ned as a chisel that now I repli­cate to create smooth tex­tures and shad­ing on my art­work; a hid­den trick from the past pre­ser­ved), and more modern pla­s­tic ver­sion. Per­haps not as great desi­gned as their Staedt­ler or FC coun­ter­parts, but these are simple, relia­ble and func­tional -and far che­a­per on eBay! Truly tre­asure my KIN’s (both US and CZ) lead holders.

    I own a cou­ple lead packs of Tom­bow MONO that I bought in a lot. They don’t feel much dif­fe­rent than cur­rent Uni leads. I was expec­ting a dif­fe­rence like that found on a Tom­bow MONO 100 and a Hi-​Uni, but there is prac­ti­cally none. And yes, I’ve seen the MONO lead hol­der you did men­tion. I own the mecha­ni­cal pen­cil ver­sion of it in 0.5mm but that’s all. No other Tom­bow lead hol­der that I recall.

    Also, yes I do own the MH-​500 lead hol­der and also the FiELD ver­sion (which has incre­men­tal advance). I have used the FiELD one exten­si­vely, but not the MH for some odd reason. Saw the Hi-​Uni lead hol­der you pos­ted on a image here, and fell in love with it. Hop­efully one day I will find one for me. BTW the late Sanford/​ Berol Tur­quoise lead hol­der (now dis­con­tin­ued) bears a striking resem­blance to the MH-​500 and was also made in Japan.

    Your 884 must indeed be a spe­cial edi­tion cause all the images I’ve seen of the 884 (cur­rent and vin­tage) and even the 882, have the groo­ves on them. The weird thing here is that, as far as I knew, the groo­ves were the distinc­tive fea­ture of the 884 series. I really love the vin­tage Caran lead hol­ders. They seem to have quite a charm to them, but unfort­u­na­tely, they were not impor­ted to our shores. Or at least, I’ve never mana­ged to find one here. And those that pop-​up on eBay, com­mand a hefty price and often times are not even in that great condition.

    The 600 lead hol­der is quite nice. Pro­ba­bly one of the hea­vier lead hol­ders that I own but its a plea­sure to sketch with it. Always stays on my sket­ching folio. Glad you redis­co­ver it!

  10. Thank you for the details on the Koh-​I-​Noor lead holders!

    I think that Tom­bow stop­ped making lead­hol­ders and 2 mm leads quite a while ago. Bes­i­des the Mono­tech 500 I have an unknown model, pre­su­ma­bly from the late 1970s or early 1980s, with a metal grip and a slightly tape­red pla­s­tic body. It’s not­hing spe­cial in terms of design but it’s a plea­sure to use. It’s a shame that Tom­bow doesn’t at least make one lead­hol­der like Mitsubishi/​uni!

    The MH-​500 looks quite bor­ing but I like it (alt­hough I pre­fer its pre­de­ces­sor). By the way, I recently dis­co­vered a blue vari­ant that is offe­red to craftsmen.

    There are two vin­tage Mitsubishi/​uni Hi-​uni lead­hol­ders from the 1970s or 1980s which appear now and then on Yahoo Japan and Mer­cary, and both a very appe­al­ing. One can be seen at least par­ti­ally in the photo at “17 Jahre” and the other is in the last photo at “Uch­ida Poly­mer HB”.

    I have loo­ked at the grip area of my Caran d’Ache 884 with a magni­fier because I thought that the groo­ves may be blun­ted by the lac­quer but that’s not the case – there a defi­ni­tely no grooves.

    Yes, the 600 lead­hol­der is really nice!

  11. Just found a cou­ple of Hi-​Uni lead hol­ders for sale, but they fetch bet­ween $180 – 200 USD, which honestly I think its way too high. A few years back I might be wil­ling to pay that much. These days I pre­fer to stick to what I have -which is a lot!

    Can you take a pic of your 884 to check it out, please? Intriguing!

Kommentar verfassen

Deine E-Mail-Adresse wird nicht veröffentlicht. – Die Angabe von Name, E-Mail und Website ist freiwillig.

Nach oben scrollen