Faber-Castell COLORMATICS mechanical pencils

Yes, I'm broke and hungry, but what is man if not a hypocrite?

So a while back I saw this listing for 1,000 Faber-Castell COLORMATICS 0.7 mm mechanical pencils for a song and I said, "F#*k it, I need it," and did the whole Buy-It-Now thing. I only wish I had more cash available, because the price was truly a song.

I bought my first COLORMATICS mechanical pencil while in school. They came in a pck of 10 and were brightly multi-colored. Maybe the 10-pack cost $8 or $9, either way it was cheap, and I thought the pencils would be also.

Not so. The body is quite rigid and with a decent grip. The pencil mechanism proved to be reliable and the lead sleeve allowed for both good drafting and writing. Of the 10 pencils I got, I reserved my favorite blues, blacks and greens for later use and selected the most undesirable fuscia-colored pecil to use first and break-in. I used for class notes, homework, and during a series of trips home for Thanksgiving and Christmas I used it to write poetry and journal entries in a notebook. Of the 10, I wound up using only 2 and giving one away to a friend in need. The rest are slumbering within the depths of my storage unit.

Since that fuscia COLORMATICS I've actually developed an affinity for brightly colored writing implements as well as the traditional darker-colored varieties. It's completely different aesthetic for me compared to other facets of my life and appearance, but one that's become a trademark in itself.

And here I go and get 1,000 more. And they're just as good as ever. I put 5-6 in the car the other day. Why? 'Cause I could. I've seen a lot of people put up listings on eBay for these pencils in way smaller quantities for much much higher prices. They give me a chuckl, because I know their secret.

Pentel Technica-X Pen and Mechanical Pencil

So I like to buy writing implemets in mass quantities. In addition to the per-unit cost savings comes the security of knowing that I'll always have enough of the low-dollar but hard-to-locate items I like and use.

I'd won two boxes of the Pentel Technica-X mechanical pencils, among other things, on eBay at a really low price even with combined shipping. But I was surprised to get a box of the pencils and a box of its counterpart ballpoint pen. I didn't even know they made a pen, but I guess it just shows what I don't know. So I contact the seller and ask her what we can do to fix things because I really was looking forward to getting two boxes of the pencil. She said that not only would she ship me out the pencils I should have received, but that I could keep the box of pens - for free! AWESOME! Actually, I would have mailed the pens back for whatever it would have cost, but after using the Technica-X pen for a day to take notes and write in my journal, I must admit they're growing on me.

The grip and tip of the pen are its best and strongest features. The rounded tip makes the pen easy to put in one's pocket without worrying about it tearing the fabric. The rubberized grip tapers back to the narrower upper body nicely in a way that I actually prefer. The clip is solid and the body is rigid. The pushbutton for the pen is smooth as well.

But I was after the pencils. Take all that was good about the pens and then there's more good stuff to them. The pencil tip is retractable, making the pencil pocket-safe (ever been stabbed by a mechanical pencil in your pocket while sitting down?). The pencil's pushbutton is the two-stage type. A hard push is needed to bring out the point, and then lighter pushes are needed to advance or retract lead. A hard push is also needed to retract the point. A relatively smaller eraser than what usually comes with Pentel pencils is included at the top of the pen under the cap, but I use a separate eraser out of habit, so no worries.

The only real "downside" of the Technica-X pen and pecil might be that they look too much alike. Personally, I need to check the labeling of the pen/cil or use the pushbutton to check the tip to identify them if taking them out of my pen cup on The Cluttered Desk.

But then that's probably why I got the free box of pens in the first place.

The WORST Mechanical Pencil Ever

In the lower right hand corner of the photo of The Cluttered Desk you might be able to discern a black Starbucks Networker mug with rubberized handle and base. It used to be the mug of pens I kept on my desk at work, and it now functions as the "boneyard" of my fleet of pens by being the home for many past and present All-Stars and old veterans. Many are weathered and some are even disabled in that they don't work too well in delivering ink or lead/graphite, but they can still work in spurts or for some specific uses like tracing or sketching. Some of them I'm keeping for spare parts. But there's one in the bonetard that's just plain dumb.

I bought the Sanford Clear Point in green with a 0.5mm point in a Staples in Annapolis, MD on a whim. To me it looked so grotesque it was beautiful, and I wanted to see how it handled. Right out of the blister pack it looked and felt like an amateur design job. Basic tubular design and axially symmetric contouring for low cost production. Really brittle and slippery clear acrylic was used for the body, and some rubber ribbing texture was added at the grip almost as an afterthought apparently.

There was a huge and unwieldy eraser housing at the top of the pencil that, to its credit, housed an impressive rotating eraser advance mechanism but made the pencil so top-heavy it really unbalanced the pencil for me. The pencil clip was also attached to the eraser housing. A critical design feature of the eraser housing is that it's held onto the pencil body via a "male" peg on it that attaches to a slot on the the pencil body. Either this slot will loosen after repeated openings and closings or the peg will wear down, but I can already see scotch tape in the future. A really good example of a twist-advance mechanism for a large erasers on a mechanical is on the Pentel Twist Erase III, where the whole upper half of the pencil is twisted to advance the eraser and attaches to the lower half by sliding the upper half onto the lower half. There's so much more surface area friction working with this method that the chances of the pen body loosening up are much lesser.

The Clear Point features a side click button to advance lead, but, unlike the Pentel Quicker Clicker's, it's loose and feels sluggish in response to the touch. The most disappointing feature of the pencil's lead advance mechanism is that whatever prevented the lead from sliding out loosely failed completely after after only a few clicks. So now my mechanical pencil was basically a very thin-diameter lead holder. And one that broke more lead than it retained when I tried to push over-extended lead back in. All aesthetics aside, this broke the proverbial camel's back.

I've got one or two mechanical pencils in the boneyard with similar lead advance defects, but at least they look a whole lot prettier than the Sanford Clear Point.