One of my goals this year has been to rediscover my fascination with the somewhat whimsical, offbeat stationery that originally got me interested in this hobby. So when I was traveling to NYC back in March and saw these metal mechanical pencil lead cases featured with prime retail floor space in Kinokuniya, my first reaction was "Yes, THAT!" It’s exactly the kind of thing that would have caught my attention as a kid, and still grabs me as an adult.
My two pencil lead cases, with a Uni Kuru-Toga Alpha Gel Switch for scale.
I’ve not written as much about this aspect of my stationery use over the years, but I have always enjoyed a quality mechanical pencil. (I even recently updated the “Best Pens” list to include a “Mechanical Pencil” category.) I now have a couple of these pencil lead cases: One in a limited edition midnight blue finish (which unfortunately I've been unable to source and which are now commanding silly prices on the secondary market) and one in the standard aluminum. Designed to hold 40+ standard-sized mechanical pencil leads, you'll probably never find yourself without spare graphite.
Place your thumb on the circle and slide the front of the case down to open.
So how does it work? There's a circular indentation on the front of the case where you place your thumb to slide the front of the case down, which in turn flips the top of the case open and exposes the leads as shown above. I much prefer this design to the slip-cap version, where you pop the cap off a pack of leads and either (1) have to risk misplacing or dropping the loose cap, or (2) have to dump the leads out into your hands to get them out of the container. To some it may seem like an overengineered solution to a highly specific problem, but if you're a heavy mechanical pencil user like me it's super convenient and cuts the time needed to refill your pencil by allowing you to grab individual leads directly. Note: Uni's standard plastic mechanical pencil lead packaging also uses a version of this "sliding" design, but the metal version slides better and feels much more durable. I don't know if it will "last a lifetime" as I've seen it described in some marketing, but you shouldn’t be replacing this thing anytime soon.
These cases are pretty compact - around the size of a USB thumbdrive. I’ve carried them both in the leads/eraser slot inside the cover of the Patalino Pen Cases, and you can also stick them into any zippered pouch or compartment like on the Lochby Tool Roll shown here.
Takeaways and Where to Buy
Look, I acknowledge that I have weird taste in stationery, but there was absolutely zero chance of me walking out of Kinokuniya without buying one of these. (Even if I had to pay a hefty markup for the limited edition blue version - I'm still kinda embarrassed and won't tell you how much it cost, but at least it wasn't anywhere close to the $225 someone is currently trying to get on eBay. Yes, seriously.). I also knew immediately that this was a product I wanted to stock in my own shop if I could get it at a somewhat reasonable value. Not necessarily because I thought it would appeal to everyone, but rather because it's the sort of offbeat - yet useful - product that other stores wouldn't carry.
Honestly, you could probably get way more than 40 leads in this thing, if you churn through enough graphite.
If this is something that interests you, we currently stock the silver version, priced at $18.50 for the metal case with 40 HB leads in either .5mm or .3mm. Uni makes excellent mechanical pencil graphite, by the way, and the case ships with 40 leads in the "smudge-proof" formulation that lives up to the name even in softer hardnesses such as 2B. And, yes, I will be writing about my experiences using a .3mm mechanical pencil at some point in the future. I never thought that fine of a point would interest me, but you know what….
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