Long-time stationery fans are certainly familiar with the Pentel Sharp series of mechanical pencils. On the market for over 50 years, they are a classic workhorse mechanical pencil, used by students, artists, professionals, and general stationery lovers like myself.

Why do I like this pencil so much? It is lightweight, with a narrow plastic barrel that tapers towards the metal nose cone. The entire feel and shape of this pencil is designed to disappear into your hand and provide exceptional control and sight lines from the tip. With this design, it became one of the most popular technical pencils ever made.

Over the past decade or two, Pentel has leaned into special editions for the Sharp series, mainly in the Japanese market. I’ve been able to add a few to my collection, and am always on the lookout for more. An orange barrel had always eluded me - unless I wanted to go the eBay route - until I spied this Delfonics x Pentel Sharp at Vanness Pens.

The product color is listed as red, but it is clearly a reddish orange in my book - even leaning more to the orange side of the spectrum. I purchased my favorite 0.5 mm lead size for those fine, fine lines, but it is also available in an 0.9 mm.

While the barrel color made the purchasing decision easy for me, I was curious about them working with Delfonics for this pencil. Pentel has dabbled in collaborations, most notably with Craft Design Technology, who has taken many of Pentel’s classic designs and reimagined them into a premium brand. This more direct collaboration with Delfonics surprised me in its simple styling, and is not something I recall seeing much of from the brand.

It wouldn’t shock me if these types of “Brand X Pentel” collaborations were more widely available in Japan. Delfonics, a Japanese brand themselves, is mostly known for their paper goods and stationery accessories, so collaborating with a big big brand on a popular product - even if that collaboration is a simple barrel stamping - is a good match for both.

For my money, Pentel has the best mechanical pencil lineup on the market. There are single pencils, like the Rotring 600 or Uni-ball Kuru Toga, that may be better, but as a full collection from top to bottom, no one does it better than Pentel. They are consistently high quality, fairly priced, and feature my favorite stock graphite in the Pentel Super Hi-Polymer. Even the eraser is top-notch.

The Pentel Sharp is an all-time stationery great. The only downside I can list is that the barrel may be too small and light for larger hands. Even the price is right, at under $6 for standard editions, and around $8 for limited and special editions, and collaborations like this one.

I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for the classic black P205, or the pale blue of the P207. But these bright colors - I’ve added more since acquiring this one - are the ones I want living on my desk.

(Vanness Pens provided this product at a discount to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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