CDT Item 17

You know, this blog-type-thing is titled ‘52 pencils’, and was at minimum going to be 52 pencil reviews over the space of a year. Well, sometimes we skip a beat, there may be holidays or occasionally I don’t get to write the review in a week and then I will forget some of the details and feel I will have to re-try that pencil another time…

The first review was on Feb. 25th 2018. Here we are, May 27th 2019, and this is the 52nd review. I would say ‘job done’, but, there are a few more pencils in the collection yet to review. Maybe not too many, but a few…

So, what to do for the 52nd review? I thought I should crack open something special, or at least not some unknown China import etc.

Here we have a ‘CDT Item 17’ pencil. I only have two of these, purchased from a specialist supplier, and to be honest I didn’t think I’d find any to purchase when I went looking for them.

The company

Craft Design Technology (CDT) are a Japanese craft company that specialise in bringing together heritage, craft and tradition along with technology to produce modern takes on traditional items.

The pencil itself

Item 17 is the pencil. It is a really rather nice shade of, what shall we call it, peppermint green?

The pencil comes unsharpened, and looks like a nice piece of Cedar.

The ends are nicely rounded and painted, with a very smooth finish:

Once sharpened:

How does it write

I originally sought out these pencils as I was looking to see if the legendary ‘Pentel Black Polymer 999’, which is probably less available than an original Blackwing. Searching around, the CDT 17 is made by Pentel, and the rumour is that it might be made from Pentel polymer lead. So, I guess we should note what Polymer lead is. I tried to find an actual reference, but failed! Afaik, Pentel developed a very strong dark lead - particularly for mechanical pencils, as mechanical pencil leads are so thin (0.5mm typically, but some 0.3mm ones), they need to be extra strong, and being so thin, it would also be great if theywere very dark and hard wearing… And then, if you take those leads, boost them up to the size of a normal pencil lead, and stick them in a normal pencil, you might get the Pentel 999. It’s meant to be a great pencil, but now basically unobtainable and not made by Pentel any more. The closest thing we can get might be… the CDT 17.

How does it write? It’s great. It’s smooth, hard wearing and dark. This is a nice pencil.

Sourcing

These may not be the most available pencils, particularly outside of Japan. I managed to source mine from a specialist stationers in London called Choosing Keeping, but I’m not sure they have any left - please do check!

Having a look on the internet - they are looking pretty hard to source. I see a couple of places like on ebay for between$6-12 for 3. $2 each, seems no that riduculous. $4 seems quite steep!

If you want a nice pencil, along with some of the other classic Japanese pencils reviewed much ealier on in this blog, then you could do worse than track down one of these pencils. You know, I might just keep using this for another week.