To complement a previous post on the Mitsubishi Hi-Uni, here are some photos of another pencil legend, the Tombow Mono 100.
The packaging has an outer layer – a silver and black cardboard sleeve. One end is fully rounded, which is not really that much of a flourish, but still untypical. It’s no ordinary pencil box.
The case is black with a silver lid. The lid has a clear window, showing the pencils inside.
Here’s a photo of the Mono 100 with some other top Japanese pencils:
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I have a question about the design of these pencils. I know that the Mono 100 was discontinued at one point, but now they are back (renames Tombow Mono Professional). Do the new ones have the same design? I really like that cap design and I was just wondering.
Tene, thanks for your comment.
There is no evidence that the Mono 100 has been discontinued. In fact that was an unstated point of my first post about them. I know what you’re referring to – a couple of mail order places are saying the 100 was discontinued, and replaced with the “Professional”.
However, the Tombow website and many Japanese stationers both continue to advertise and sell the Mono 100. How do you think I got the boxes in the photos? The conclusion I draw is that the online places saying it was withdrawn are simply wrong.
And no, the distinctive and elegant cap of the 100 is not on the Professional.
Well, I heard from a friend at a pretty big animation studio that word spread a few years back that they had been discontinued, which caused people to really seek them out.
What I think happened, in hindsight, is that they just stopped distributing mono 100’s to the states,and just pushed the mono pro’s. They seem to be pretty ubiquitous in japan, and I’ve heard from some friends living there, that they are hardly rare.
As for the pro’s vs mono’s, I do believe that there is a difference in quality as well as design. It’s minor, but there.
Tombow 100 pencils are NOT discontinued! I buy them every couple of months or so…Maybe they are discontinued from certain US importers who think that there is no difference between 100 and the mono so maybe they stopped importing the 100 version. Mono is almost as good as 100 but almost. Just bought 3 boxes of Tombow 100 yesterday from japanese store in NYC Kinokumiya [10 west 49th street manhattan].
you can order them also from japanese sellers on ebay.
A Tombow pencil plays an important part in an episode of the TV series “Heroes” (Episode 16 of Season 4). There were a lot of Nissan cars in the first season, with the brand being mentioned very often. Unfortunately the Tombow was not featured as prominently, i.e. the brand was not mentioned, but the pencil used to attack one of the main characters is obviously a Tombow.