Tombow Centennial Pencil Set

Tombow has a set of drawing pencils out for their 100th anniversary, in old school form and packaging. I love fancy packaging and had read these might be Mono 100s so I figured it's a hell of a deal for $15 if true (and okay if not).

They came in a padded envelope and when I opened the envelope it smelled fantastic! My latest batch of Black Warriors have very nice leads, but they don't seem to have any real wood smell.

On to the packaging!

A heavy paper sleeve, that includes "TOMBOW 100HB" in the fine print on the back. Is that as in Mono 100 or 100th Anniversary? In the words of Paul Reubens, I don't know!

Inside is a nice metal box, which I'm sure will get refilled with Black Warriors at some point. The Tombows all seem to come in fancy boxes, so you don't need to keep them for refills of the same.

Just in case you didn't read the sleeve or the front of the box, there's still time to find out what's in the box.

In case of what?

If it's not Colt, it's just a copy!

Almost to the pencils! Please and thank you!

The pencils are held separate from each other with a little insert. I imagine these will still work with round pencils if I keep them nice.

Thank you Carl!

Oh no! More writing I can't read! Okay, it's just the back side of the insert above.

I actually bought more than one box so I don't have to feel bad about using some of them up and to be able to save some to sell on the 200th anniversary for $1,000,000 which will probably be worth about $15 in today's money.

Sweeticle, Also the Pencil Sharpener

The CC-2000 sharpener was so great, I also picked up the CP-100, the Sweeticle. These actually come in colors other than black, so I went with "violet". The pictures I took came out more to the pink than the purple side, especially the one of the back.

The smaller Sweeticle operates essentially the same as the CC-2000. The clamping is operated by the small "ear", though on this one, it's more immediately obvious that only one side actually moves. It also has the rubber covered grippers, which is one reason I went with this model over the Angel-5. That model is between these in price and size and available in other colors, but apparently has metal-only grippers that dig into the pencil, leaving "tooth" marks. The Angel-5 doesn't come in any colors I have to have, so I saved the extra $10.50 and got this one.

The clamping section is pulled out first, the pencil clamped in, and retracts as the pencil feeds in during sharpening. The CP-100 has body-colored plastic guide rods versus metal on the CC-2000.

The Sweeticle only has two options for the point, but like the CC-2000, I'm likely only to use one particular setting anyway.

The CC-2000 cutter assembly on the right is made of more metal but is still similar.

The Sweeticle is overall smaller and lighter, being made mostly of plastic, where the CC-2000 has mostly metal parts. I sharpened another dozen pencils and the results are the same. I suppose the plastic model might not hold up as long, but a new cutter/handle assembly is only $7.25 on Amazon, so who cares?

Carl, the Pencil Sharpener

The Carl CC-2000, the ultimate in luxury pencil sharpening.

This picture accidentally turned out more dramatic than expected. After two fortunately inexpensive duds, this one is a winner.

Here's one you can see a little better. The "ears" on top activate the clamping mechanism that holds the pencil while sharpening.

On the back, there's a selector for five different pointy-nesses. I went right to number one.

One nice thing about this sharpener versus the last several I've tried to use is it doesn't put all the wood on one side and the lead on the other...

Was that too much to ask?

So I spent a while fixing up a bunch of previously sharpened pencils. I have these Black Warrior pencils stacked up like bolts of muslin.

I liked the CC-2000  so much, I also got the CP-100, The "Sweeticle".