I was at a friend’s house the other day and I saw an Uni Kuro Toga pipe slide discarded on the floor. I picked it up, only to discover that with the cap and eraser missing, the pencil no longer worked. Well, that’s a problem. Let’s assume pencils in the post-apocalypse don’t have caps, and a rat chewed off the erasers. Sure, we’ll find other uses for them, but which pencils would actually work as pencils? Here are the contestants (from bottom up): Uni Kuru Toga Pipe Slide, Ohto Horizon, Pentel p205, Muji Low Center of Gravity.

We’ve established the Uni Kuru Toga Pipe Slide doesn’t work. Here is a close-up of the situation:

The eraser holder is too short to get the sleeve out, so it doesn’t work at all. I was able to use another pencil to advance it..

Next up is the Ohto Horizon:

The Ohto was a weird one, because it is an auto advance. If there is some lead in the sleeve, it’s going to advance, but you are not going to be able to click it out.

Next is the Pentel P205:

The Pentel P205 worked fine. No sleeve to advance, didn’t take much to click it out. In the post apocalypse, the p205 may be the Twinkie of the mechanical pencils.

Last up is the Muji Low Center of gravity:

Like the pentel p205, the Muji clicked out fine. Again, the lack of a sliding sleeve helped it. And the sleeve is nice and pointy, just in case you need to go after that rat. That’s it from the lab-Thanks for reading.

Bonus: I checked the Lamy Safari – doesn’t work.

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