This is pencil No. 40 from the Timberlines collection. (See here and here.)
Exhaustively documenting this broad array of pencils (from at least five different manufacturers) has proven challenging. I’m going to refocus on mentioning specific pencils of particular interest. Questions are always welcome.
One of these pencils of interest is the Pajero Mini pencil. I thought this was a cartoon car! Well it seems this is a real production automobile – an SUV shrunk to mini size! Made by Mitsubishi Motors, you can learn more here. (Photo from that Wikipedia article.)
The pencil itself is a Mitsubishi Uni-Star.
I believe the Mitsubishi pencil company and the one that makes cars/SUVs don’t belong to the same parent firm, even though they are both Mistubishi. It’s all very confusing!
Actually the Mitsubishi Pencil CO., LTD. corporate website makes no mention of automobiles:
http://www.uniball.com/?mid=133&pid=10
http://www.mpuni.co.jp/uni-ball/form.html
I’ve tried a couple of grades of the Unistar range, and they work quite well retailing for a bout half the price of the Hi-Uni pencils in the SF.
Hi Stephen, I agree with Dave, this kind of synchronicity does give one pause. I have read somewhere that there is no official relationship between the maker of Mitsu pencils and Mitsubishi heavy industries, but the similarity of their logos makes me wonder. Perhaps they are indeed wholely separate entities and they combined in this instance to trade on each other’s reputations for quality? Dave’s right, it is a puzzle.
This link was provided by Gunther as a comment on this post.
See Q10.
And aren’t logos protected intellectual property? The only difference between the two Mitsubishi logos that I can see is that one is in red and the other is in gold leaf (on the Hi-Unis themselves) or white (on the tin box of the complete set of Hi-Unis).
I just saw Gunther’s link. Nevermind :>)))
Emily Litella
In the meatime I came across this Wikipedia article. In short: Mitsubishi (literally “three rhombs”) has been a very large conglomeration that was split after WWII; the resulting companies became legally independent and were granted to use the same name and logo.