PencilAdmin – FYI – There is a long history of a rather extensive sub-contracting network of small producers in Japan. As with the Palomino, Pentel does not manufacture any pencils themselves. This is certainly the case also with the Craft Design Item 17 pencil as well, it’s been produced by sub contractors for the marketing entity. Some of the companies specialize in just the production of the raw pencils, some just do finishing, some do everything. The various sub-contractors usually also have ties to some of the larger producers like Mitsubishi or Tombow to make some pencils for them as well, though I expect both the Hi-Uni and the Mono are produced exclusively at the Mitsubishi and Tombow facilities.

About Tombow MONO and MONO100 pencils, here’s my poor tlanslation of the words on this paper, which was inside the plastic case of MONO100.
“Thank you for buying MONO 100. MONO100 is the pencil whose feature has been extremely increased. There’s 10 billion molecules per 1 cube millimeter. It is one of the world best pencil that overcome MONO, which has 8 billion molecules per 1 cube millimeter and was acclaimed by many people.”
So MONO100 is the improved version of MONO. Hence I don’t think MONO can replace MONO100.

Thank you also for the info on the Mono-100. IMHO the best all round range of pencils available. Although the California Republic Palominos have also grabbed my attention.

Johnny, wanting to buy a thousand of your favorite pencils echos many a past comment here, though people usually seem to settle on a gross (144) or three for their stash.

Griffith, thanks for your insights.

There are two large North American pencil makers left in the market, so it isn’t difficult to get a sense of their products.

The European situation is less familiar to me – there are a few major companies that extensively export – Faber-Castell, Staedtler, Lyra, Koh-I-Noor, but also some quite large national pencil manufacturers that do not, and I have no sense of what those non-exporting manufacturers offer.

Barrel, thank you for the generous praise. I am glad you enjoy the website, though I am very far from being a scientist.

I thought that was a UFO, but I’ve never seen a photo of the business side of it such as you show here. To your question regarding the “red and rich” cedar shavings produced by the Hi-Uni and Mono 100, I have recently read that the coloration is artificial unless the slats come from Eastern Red Cedar. Probably I found this little nugget of information elsewhere here or got it from Petroski’s book. Also, indeed, “what is wrong with other pencils”? Very occasionally I achieve stellar sharpening results with my Palominos in either a Prismacolor or Kum longpoint sharpener. Thanks for the tour-de-pencil, can’t wait to see the rest of it.

Pentel, Mitsubishi, and Tombow are three great wood-cased pencil manufacturers. We can buy many kinds at any stationery shops in Japan. Especially Mitsubishi No.9000 and No.9800 are long sellers. The latter is still on sale and have a great popularity.

http://ciely.blog5.fc2.com/blog-entry-17.html

Recently, however, those designed for Mark Sheet(Mark sense in English) have been used more.

Anyway I am a Castel fanatic, for its colouring, long-life-lead and smoothness. I am looking forward to your continued report.

Tombow USA of Lawrenceville, GA have stopped directly carrying it. But the pencil was “replaced” only in a marketing sense. Tombow USA is promoting the second-tier Tombow Mono as their replacement. The USA packaging for the Mono has the words “Professional Drawing Pencil,” but the pencil identifies itself, and is known elsewhere as the “Mono”.

There is at least one firm that shows photos of the Mono 100 at their website, but ships the Mono, so be careful when ordering this pencil.