[Pen/Pencil Blog] Jimmy’s Pentel Pencil Collection
Merry Christmas Week. We are as ready as we’re going to be. And as it’s Christmas Week, I’m going to do something a bit different. As I’ve mentioned in the past, Jimmy’s not only supportive of my pen blog, he can be something of an enabler. He also has a weakness of his own… he’s a collector of Pentel mechanical pencils. When I came home from work today, he was in the process of cataloging his collection.
He’s a connoisseur of the Pentel “P” series. He has nearly 60 of them – mostly in the various generations (and colors) of the P205 – he’s missing the Generation 4&5 of the BLACK Pentel 305 – and can tell you the different iterations of the styling and mechanics.
But his love of the Pentel 205 didn’t stop there. He has nearly all the incarnations of the Pentel P series of mechanical and drafting pencils – including those meant for FILM, one actually belonged to his father. Some of these are size oriented, some have other caveats for their designations – though the end number ALMOST always (but not quite) indicates lead size.
He spent part of his Christmas Vacation today measuring and detailing styles, mechanics, etc. of his collection. He told me about them, but most of it’s gone over my head. Mostly it comes down to how the barrel is marked to indicate the generation of the pencil – and occasionally changes in the metal clip.
I’m not sure how the fascination with the P205 series started, but I’m glad it’s continued because it lets me explore other writing instruments. He doesn’t have them ALL (yet). Besides the two generations of black P205 (he has nearly every other color known to man). He’s missing the P305S Stein line (with W being the final letter in the model) – which would have to come from Singapore – along with the P325, P327, and P329.
Now I know what to scour JetPens and other online dealers for – in future gift giving events – if he doesn’t find them first. It’s kinda a treasure hunt/race that way.