When we finally get a package containing a pen we’ve been waiting forever for, we hold it and think,

**“So this pen is really inside this box… It’s really in my hands now… Heh heh…”**

My Japanese friend stopped collecting mechanical pencils and started collecting fountain pens, so I traded one of my fountain pens for this.

It’s an early model from the early ’80s. Yet despite its age, it looks like new—not even a trace of handling grime on it.

This is the Tombow Variable 0.4 mm. Unlike ordinary mechanical pencils, this is a capped mechanical pencil, much like the Pentel Kerry. After removing the cap attached to the tip, you can post it onto the slim barrel at the back. Since there is a hole through the cap, the original knock button on the barrel remains exposed and can still be used.

Although this pencil is from the early ’80s, it is remarkably well refined. The defining feature of this pencil is its regulator function. You can adjust the amount of lead advanced with each click from 0.3 mm to 0.7 mm.

Honestly, I think this is a feature that you could take or leave in this day and age. However, I consider a mechanism to be a mechanical component that wears out over time, so I think the more often you knock it, the greater the chance of it eventually failing. 

Therefore, if you set the amount of lead advanced per click slightly longer, you can reduce the absolute number of times you need to knock the pencil over the course of using it. I think that is an advantage. 

And there is no denying that this was an innovative feature for its time.

Its distinctive mechanical design, along with the *click* you hear when you attach the cap back onto the tip after using the pencil, adds even more to its mechanical character.

Aside from a tiny amount of fine scratches due to its age, it is practically new.

I’ll take good care of this unicorn.🦄

Tombow Variable 0.4mm