So, I've been watching lots of Adam Savage's Youtube site (the guy from Mythbusters). He spends lots of time these days just talking about things, answering questions, etc. You should become a fan.
But, i digress. He has a video lamenting some small changes to a cheap throw away mechanical pencil, and 16 minutes of it is so important.
Link below, I won't embed it because you don't need a 16 minute video stuck here.
https://youtu.be/bLwo1kOcwxs?si=KXC6ODE4Cd3QCccG
I wanted to comment, but after 6000 comments, it'll get lost in the noise. so, y'all get to see my thoughts.
I too have a favorite mechanical pencil. Being an astronomy major, we wrote nothing both sheet after sheet after sheet of equations, while taking notes and while deriving things. A good feeling, good writing, and most importantly, good WORKING pencil was very very important. I went through dozens of them. Only one worked for me, and I religiously bought it for years. Then, times changed, I no longer needed to write things day in and day out, computers took over, etc. I didn't buy a pencil for, I dunno, 20 years? More?
I stumbled across my pencil while cleaning the garage, it was in a small bin with my other Very Important Education Tools. Things that I used daily while studying or writing reports or making graphs by hand.
Not just a pencil, but also the leads, and a pack of erasers! If you would have asked me what brand or anything back then, I wouldn't know, it was just the ones I could always buy at the student union or campus bookstore (Folletts FTW!!).
So, I had to see if they still exist. Just like the video above, I don't think so. They were TOO good, TOO well built (Japanese!), Too perfect...so much so that I didn't need to buy one more, which is the WORST think you can say about anything as far the the company is concerned. "No thanks, you built it too well, I don't need to send you any more money, thanks!" There is a newer design, with some sort of rubber padding, but I think it probably ruined the entire feel and use of the pencil by adding that.
So, I now have in front of me my last Pentel 0.5mm Quicker Clicker mechanical pencil in smoke grey, with a pack of 5 (only 4 remain) full sized erasers "for PD and A40 Series Pencils" and a mostly full pack of Pentel 0.5x60mm "Super" Hi-Polymer leads. I know that these were probably purchased around 1998.
Why so good?
0.5mm lead gave a clean line, buy was thin enough to cram more quantum mechanics on the page. High Level physics was HARD WORK...not the learning, but the note taking. You'd be writing tiny little subscript, superscript, differentials, sums, all SORTS of tiny little symbols, and having thin clean lines from the pencil was critical.
Full sized erasers. Remember back in the day, when mechanical pencils had these tiny little nub erasers that broke off, because they were on the same button that initiated the lead advance, so the eraser had to be tiny to make room? Yeah, the Quicker Clicker eraser was FULL SIZED, could be REMOVED so that you could extend it a bit, and was REPLACEABLE. Suddenly, the mechanical pencil was good for extensive use, because the eraser could go the distance.
Why could it be so big? Third upgrade, the side click lead advance. No longer was the eraser stuck in a tiny lead advance button on the top, it had ALL of the real estate to itself. The lead advance was a button on the SIDE, which happened to be where your finger rested anyways. That meant you could advance the lead seamlessly WHILE writing! No need to rearrange the pencil in your hand to click the end cap to advance the lead, which was ergonomically a nightmare. Lead aplenty, on the fly, while holding the pencil naturally.
It lightens my heart to see that I'm not alone, this is the exact version of the pencil I'm talking about
:
https://www.reddit.com/r/nostalgia/comments/11rk8ll/pentel_quicker_clicker_5mm/
https://mleddy.blogspot.com/2014/07/pentel-quicker-clicker.html
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/165997653388 <---I assume a joke, otherwise I'll HAPPILY sell mine for $35!!!
https://www.reddit.com/r/BuyItForLife/comments/tpallz/i_heard_you_guys_like_vintage_mechanical_pencils/