Before the internet, finding and communicating with fellow mechanical pencil collectors was a near impossible task. Over the course of this blog I have had the pleasure of communicating with several Korean pencil-folk. There are quite a few Korean manufacturers and brands of writing instruments, but it seems most are not generally regarded by Koreans as particularly good quality, which surprises me. I think Korean manufactured products generally have a reasonable reputation, that there is some value in “Made in Korea” Sure, it’s not “Made in Japan” or Germany, but it’s better than many.

Micro was one of the larger Korean manufacturers, but they went bankrupt quite a few years ago. However their legacy continues on under the name eMicro. Recently I have been in contact with Kent from South Korea who publishesI asked him a few questions about eMicro, the use of the term Jedo, etc and he accepted the challenge. Putting on his Sherlock Holmes detective hat, he picked up the phone and let his fingers do the walking, making some calls to eMicro and others. The answers were limited, but interesting.

eMicro was founded by former staff of Micro, but there is no legal relationship or continuation between the two. It appears that Korean companies consider the Korean word '제도' and its pronunciation as written in English as 'Jedo' are both proper nouns and thus not copyrightable. Kind of interesting. I wonder if the Japanese consider the English wording “Sharp” (for mechanical pencil) in the same way?

Well, that’s just another little snippet or two of information. Kent also sent me an eMicro Jedo M105 mechanical pencil. I actually already had one of these, purchased a few years ago at Morning Glory. Like the other Koreans I have communicated with, Kent was at pains to point out that the M105 was not highly regarded in Korea, but was common because of its very low price and variable quality.
I must admit that my original eMicro Jedo M105 mechanical pencil didn’t strike me as that bad. Just another Pentel P205 rip-off. Well, that’s another point. Is it a rip-off or is it a legally licensed copy? I hear both stories.
Moving on, whilst my original M105 seemed reasonable enough, the more recent M105 sent by Kent is a shocker. Clearly eMicro suffer from wildly variable quality, or their quality has declined substantially over the past few years.

Take a look at the pocket clip. The original has some pitting but is otherwise acceptable.
But look, the recent one has a bent clip!!! Surely this would never make it out of the door at Pentel or Pilot.
My camera, photographic skills and photo editing software are stretched to the limit, but note the differences in stamping in the pocket clips.
And the wording moulded into the body.
The real shocker though is the part line on the body of newer Jedo M105. The part line is where the two halves of the mould come together. If the two halves of the mould don’t match exactly together or if the edges are a little rounded and worn then you get a noticeable joint, a sharp little ridge of plastic, or in this case a “Yowie, almost cut my finger” type of knife edge of plastic. I’ve mucked around with the photo as much as I can to try and show the sharp part line below. It really is bad. In Japan, surely someone would lose their job over this.