Nearing the end of an ongoing series on the pencils of Korea, today we’ll look at the Munhwa Deojon hi-mic pencil.
Along with Dong-A and Hankook Sharp, Munhwa is an established Korean pencil manufacturer.
A box of twelve pencils has an unusual silver and purple design, with a classical musical instrument used as a symbol. A five-stringed harp?
The back of the box says, “Micro crystalline lead made by Munhwa in Korea.”
The pencils themselves are a mix of green and brown, with gold lettering, and purple and black cap.
The pencils read:
Obverse: Munhwa Deojon hi-mic HB
Reverse: Micro Crystalline Lead [Further text in Korean]
Sorry, I’m not able to offer a translation of the Korean text.
The pencils are also stamped “0708 Marco China”. Hmm, it suggests the pencils are made in China, with Korean lead cores.
And what lead cores they are. The Deojon makes a very smooth, rich, dark line – the nicest we’ve seen from a Korean pencil, and very high quality by general standards.
Definitely worth trying if you come across them!
I just got a box of Munhwa Deojon “B” and a box of “HB” pencils. The pencils in my “HB” are also green and brown and have the China stamp, but the “B” pencils are only brown, they do not have the China stamp and the darkness of the line is just fantastic! I think they are actually softer than a normal “B” pencil, but the darkness of the line is as good as a much softer pencil (in my tests it was as dark as the line from the much softer UK made version of a Staedtler tradition 4B).
I’m use Deojon hi-mic pencil.
I think, this pencil is best of Korea.
Korea pencils are not good.
Old Deojon hi-mic pencil has KS mark and JIS mark!!!
(I’m Korean)