Pilot Holder

Pilot Holder

Druck­blei­stift Pilot H-3005

Pilot Holder

Pilot Holder

Der Druck­blei­stift H-300x1 mit der Arti­kel­num­mer HHP-300S2 war bis vor gut zehn Jah­ren eines der Spit­zen­mo­delle des japa­ni­schen Her­stel­lers Pilot. Er und die güns­ti­ge­ren Modelle H-100x3 (HHP-100R) und H-200x (HH-200K) waren und sind haupt­säch­lich wegen der Dop­pel­druck­me­cha­nik, mit der sich die Spitze ein­zie­hen lässt4, bekannt und beliebt5. Sobald ich mehr über die Geschichte die­ser Stifte weiß, trage ich es nach. – Das Falt­blatt ist hier nur aus­schnitts­weise gezeigt; der Rest folgt.

Anm.: Dem wach­sa­men Auge wird nicht ent­gan­gen sein, dass sich der Stift im Foto und der in dem Falt­blatt abge­bil­dete im Mus­ter und der Beschrif­tung des Griff­stücks, der Spit­zen­fom sowie der Gestal­tung des Rings unter dem Drü­cker unter­schei­den. Das Falt­blatt wurde zwar mit dem gezeig­ten Stift aus­ge­lie­fert, aber wohl für die erste Vari­ante des H-2005 erstellt.

Nach­trag vom 19.7.18: Der Reddit-Nutzer cythe­rian bekam von Pilot Europa fol­gende Pro­duk­ti­ons­zeit­räume genannt:
H-1005: 1983–2006
H-2005: 1983–1995
H-3005: 1983–1988

Nach­trag vom 14.4.19: Details zu dem Patent, das dem Pilot Hol­der ver­mut­lich zu Grunde liegt, gibt es unter „Dop­pel­druck“.

Nach­trag vom 3.2.24: Im Knockology-Forum unter „Vin­tage Pilot Double-Knocks“ gibt es wei­tere Details zu den Produktionszeiträumen.

  1. Mit x = 3 oder 5 für den Minen­durch­mes­ser in ⅒ mm. Von Vari­an­ten mit 0,7-mm-Mine habe ich noch nicht gehört.
  2. „HH” steht für „Hi-Mecha Hol­der“. – Soweit ich weiß, wur­den diese Arti­kel­num­mern um „B“ („black”?) und den Minen­durch­mes­ser ergänzt, so dass der gezeigte Stift unter HHP-300S-B-03 lief.
  3. Außer­halb Japans auch als „Vanis­hing Point“ bekannt. – Den H-1005 gab es zudem in zwei leicht unter­schied­li­chen Aus­füh­run­gen, die sich in der Ober­flä­che und der Mate­ri­al­qua­li­tät des Kunst­stoff­schafts sowie der Spit­zen­form unter­schie­den.
  4. Im Falt­blatt heißt es: „The Pilot Hol­der is the first mecha­ni­cal pen­cil in the world to adopt a mecha­ni­cal lead hol­der with a double-push but­ton sys­tem.“ Inter­es­sant in die­sem Zusam­men­hang wäre, wann das Patent erteilt wurde.
  5. Zu die­sen Model­len gehört auch der H-210x (HHR-200R), der auf­grund sei­nes Design jedoch aus der Reihe fällt.

17 Kommentare zu „Pilot Holder“

  1. Thank you! Great to read and see these mas­terful objects. Pen­tel, Pilot, Uni, etc. there were so many beau­tiful designs and mecha­nisms from Japan in the past. And though, it seems, less metal is invol­ved these days, they still inno­vate like Zebra Del­Guard for ins­tance. Evo­lu­tion is so fasci­na­ting in man-made products.

  2. Yes, indeed! There have been very mas­terful mecha­ni­cal pen­cils in the past, and it’s all too under­stan­da­ble that these are very much in demand today. For­t­u­na­tely the deve­lo­p­ment con­ti­nues, and the tech­no­logy used e. g. in the Kuru Toga and the Del­Guard is amazing!

  3. Damals baute Pilot noch schöne Stifte, beim der­zei­ti­gen Fein­mi­nen­stift­pro­gramm ist so gar nichts nach mei­nem Geschmack dabei.

  4. Es ist wirk­lich Geschmacks­sa­che. Viele der aktu­el­len Druck­blei­stifte von Pilot spre­chen mich auch nicht an, aber die Modelle der S-Reihe, vor allem S10 und S20, finde ich ich wirk­lich sehr gut. Prak­tisch ist auch, dass man die Teile kom­bi­nie­ren und sich so z. B. einen S20/0.4 und einen S15 bas­teln kann.

  5. Das Design ist in der Tat zeit­los! Ich weiß nicht genau, wann diese Modelle auf den Markt kamen, aber sie dürf­ten 30 Jahre alt sein und kön­nen sich heute noch sehen lassen.

  6. Excel­lent pen­cil. I never thought I could get it in Argen­tina, but after a long search I got an H-2003. It has more weight at the tip than the H-1005, which is more balan­ced and a little ligh­ter. I think that the design of the grip gives it an aspect the 70’s or the begin­ning of the 80’s. I relate it to the elec­tro­nics and the pun­ched cards of the first computers.

  7. I’m happy to hear that you got a H-2003! It’s an ama­zing pen­cil and dif­fers from the flag­ship H-3003 only in the design. May I ask you which pat­tern your H-2003 has? As far as I know there have been at least three dif­fe­rent vari­ants of that pen­cil: 1. the one in the leaf­let with rec­tan­gu­lar dimp­les and the mar­king “HOLDER”, 2. with rec­tan­gu­lar dimp­les and wit­hout the mar­king “HOL­DER”, and 3. with square dimp­les and wit­hout the mar­king “HOLDER”.

    Yes, the grip could indeed resem­ble this tech­no­logy! I am curr­ently try­ing to find out when these pen­cils have been intro­du­ced, and I wouldn’t be sur­pri­sed if they really had their ori­gin in the late 1970s or early 1980s.

    Edit (21.7.18): I was wrong with the vari­ants; see below.

  8. Thank you for the photo and the links! Since your H-2003 has square dimp­les and the mar­king “HOLDER” it looks like there was even a fourth vari­ant of the H-200x. – Yes, I know that blog. The num­ber of these pen­cils alone is impres­sive! – I think that the simi­la­rity of these pat­terns is a coincidence.

  9. Lexi­cal­ist, thanks for your ter­ri­fic article and pho­tos about one of my favo­rite mecha­ni­cal pen­cils! I’d seen one H-2005 for sale with such a pam­phlet, but alas the price went too high. I’m glad to finally see the hid­den page, with all the photo details.

    About the engra­ving, the H-200x series had eit­her black squa­res (0.3mm) or rec­tan­gles (0.5mm) etched into the metal, dis­con­nec­ted from each other. The H-300x series would have eit­her thin (0.3mm) or thick (0.5mm) black rec­tan­gles etched into the metal with joi­ning lines par­al­lel to the body. I have not seen any other etching varia­tion, alt­hough there have been varia­ti­ons on pla­ce­ment of etched lettering.

  10. Cythe­rian, thank you for these details regar­ding the pro­duc­tion dates and the vari­ants! I didn’t know that the etching of the H-2003 and H-2005 was dif­fe­rent from the begin­ning; I thought they have chan­ged the design at some point. – Regar­ding the pam­phlet: Actually it is much lar­ger, and I hope to show it com­ple­tely soon.

  11. Once upon a time I used to view old mecha­ni­cal pen­cils as bor­ing and pretty unex­ci­ting. Back then, I was drawn into Kuru Togas, Del­guards and the like.

    After my encoun­ter with the lovely and mys­te­rious Pla­ti­num pen­cils, I can’t get enough of old beau­ties such as this Pilot. I par­ti­cu­larly like the step down details on the tip, above the grip and just below the clicker.

    The seem to have way more cha­rac­ter than, say, a Pen­tel Orenznero.

    Won­der what it will be like to go over your entire coll­ec­tion of wri­ting tools. I’m sure it would be a magni­fi­cent ride!

  12. There are still many bor­ing and unex­ci­ting mecha­ni­cal pen­cils, both old and new ;-) Howe­ver, I would con­sider some of them appe­al­ing just because they are unex­ci­ting, e. g. the P200. It’s the arche­type of the draf­ting pen­cils, copied many times, and to me it has its own appeal.

    Yes, some old mecha­ni­cal pen­cils are indeed beau­ties, and these Pilot pen­cil cle­arly belong to that category.

    I’m afraid you won’t be very impres­sed by my coll­ec­tion. It’s quite small, and I don’t have most of these so-called “holy grail” pen­cils all coll­ec­tors are loo­king for (e. g. the unicarbo).

  13. I purcha­sed the Kuru Toga as one of the „holy grail“ pen­cils of today, only to find out that it won’t work with cur­sive and that the tip wig­gles while try­ing to draw, so in my opi­nion „holy grail“ is a little too overrated.

    And then, the Pla­ti­nums I found are pro­ba­bly out­side of collector’s coll­ec­tive radar screens and yet, they appeal a lot to me. The fact that they have been igno­red all these years while being per­fectly func­tio­ning items, only seems to add to that value.

    Last but not least, per­haps the most appe­al­ing side to your sel­ec­tion howe­ver big or small, are the sto­ries behind each object -which is the reason a like this blog a lot. I find it quite bor­ing when someone just shows off the hundreds or thou­sands of pen­cils, pens or wha­te­ver they have hoarded over the years, only to hear where they bought it or how much they went for.

  14. I’m not sure if the Kuru Toga can be con­side­red a “holy grail” pen­cil – to me this cate­gory applies to pen­cils like the Pilot Auto­ma­tic, the Mitsu­bi­shi uni carbo etc., i. e. to those pen­cils which went out of pro­duc­tion a long time ago and fetch pri­ces above 500 USD. Howe­ver, I don’t think that one should think in cate­go­ries like these.

    The mecha­ni­cal pen­cils from Pla­ti­num may not be as popu­lar as those from e. g. Pen­tel or Pilot but at least the ones I know (and have) are great. Unfort­u­na­tely I don’t have vin­tage ones from that com­pany but I’m sure these are ama­zing too!

    I don’t have many sto­ries to tell ;-) There is a cheap pro­pel­ling pen­cil I got when I was ten, and there are two Staedt­ler draf­ting pen­cils I have used 18 resp. 19 years. It doesn’t get much more exci­ting, and in most cases I can’t say where I bought the pen­cil and how much I have paid for it :-)

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