Copy cats

I never thought that I will see pencil rip offs but it seems that there are quite a lot on the market.

I am trying to understand this market. What is the reason, well you get the same look a lower price. There are expensive products for which it makes sense to me to make a copy but why would you copy the design of a 3 - 4$ product? Could it be that they are just lazy?

Here are a few of the culprits

Rotring Tikky III vs Daco:

Between the two the differences are minor. The lack of the red ring and a grip that is more rhomboid shaped is all the visual difference Daco made to the visual aspect of the Rotring Tikky III

Rotring 600 vs Daco Metalix:

and again Rotring vs Daco, red vs black.

Pentel P205 vs Forpus Aztec vs Bic Criterium

or maybe Bic Criterium, ish. The cap is missing, Bic uses an eraser that looks similar to the Faber Castell 1345, so this is a mixed cat.

Pilot H327 vs Ico

With shame, I have to say this one I actually own. This 0.5 $ mechanical pencil made me think about this post.

If you have other copy cats in mind let me know in the comments.

"Paul" sketch with Pentel Graphgear 500

A new mechanical pencil spot in the movie "Paul". An older movie with Simon Peg where Graeme Willy (played by Simon) is trying to help the alien with the name Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen) to escape from earth.

While in the RV, Willy is drawing a sketch of Paul, using a mechanical pencil.

Even though the image is not very clear I think it is safe to say that Willy is using a Pentel Graphgear 500

Not very clear but if you zoom enough you see that the cap and clip are metal while the barrel is not. Also at very close inspection the clip attaches to the barrel leaving a small gap in the back

The tip is "technical" with long sleeve and a knurled grip

This last picture is where you can see the entire pencil. Again with high magnification, it is more clear that the mechanical pencil used by Simon Pegg is a Pentel.

It seems that Pentel's are pretty used in movies (see the Doctor Who seen on screen post)