The Monami 153 – outside Korean, inside German
Today: a quick follow-up post about one of the pencils, the Monami 153, from the recent giveaway.
A few weeks ago the Monami was sent to the winner, but before I sent it I had a quick look at the pencil. What to expect from this ‘review’? This blog post is rather short, as I don’t have the pencil anymore to take more photos. It basically just links to the video review and gives some simple information about the 153.
By the way, if the giveaway winner of the Monami 153 reads this: please let me know whether the pencil has arrived. I kept the receipt from Royal Mail, just in case it’s lost.
Monami
Originally the Monami 153 was a humble, cheap plastic ballpoint pen. This mechanical pencil is part of a release of the Monami 153 in ‘posher’ materials. You’ll find a more detailed explanation about this re-release and Monami’a anniversary in the video review.
The previous Monami pencil I reviewed, the MP-4003, was quite bling. The 153 is much more understated and shouldn’t make you feel embarrassed if you bring it to a meeting at work.
By the way, Monami seems to have switched writing their name to upper case on products. The older MP-4003 is labelled in camelCase, not as MONAMI, but as MonAmi. I guess there’s a good chance that it is supposed to be pronounced French, presumably being based on the French Mon Amie (‘My Friend’), but this is just speculation on my part.
The Pencil
The pencil itself is fairly heavy…
…and it is longer than other mechanical pencils I looked at recently.
The ‘posh’ version of the Monami 153 is based on Schmidt’s system mechanism. You can see more details about this in the video review. The system mechanism means that there only needs to be one type body being made which can then be filled with a ballpoint refill or with a mechanical pencil mechanism.
This ‘one body for different types of pens’ idea is not so unusual. Staedtler’s Concrete, their pen with a ‘high performance concrete’ body, is, as far as I know, also using one body with different ‘refills’ depending on whether you buy the ballpoint pen or the mechanical pencil. I might buy myself one for my birthday. If I do I will report back.
There’s not much more I can add, especially because I sent the pencil to the giveaway winner. Please have a look at the video review for more information.
Well, not only is this Korean pencil gone from our home. Around the same time, I also used up some nice Korean tea I had. I’ll leave you with this image of two nice items from Korean – until next time.
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