Curiouser and Curiouser: Who Makes Uni Water Color Pencils?

 

Sisters of different mothers? 

A reader recently informed me of a huge curiosity! While researching Mitsubishi Uni Water Color Pencils, she found a review on the blog Robot Ninja Monsters in which the blogger had made a stunning observation. A regular user of his favorite Faber-Castell Albrecht Dürer Watercolor Pencils, Robot Ninja noticed that the Uni pencils matched corresponding colors in his Dürer set:

“While the hue of their barrels might be slightly different, their lead cores’ hues were virtually identical. The color swatches perfectly matched both when dry and when they were blended with a waterbrush.” He also observed that the color coding matched “perfectly.” He speculates that “Mitsubishi Uni-ball pencil company might have outsourced production of their watercolor pencils to the German manufacturer Faber Castell.” [insert emoji of Tina’s head exploding].

The blog post is dated July 2009, which means his observations and speculation have been out there for 13 years! Where have I been?!

I wasted no time in getting out my Dürer and Uni Water Color (both the full length and mini sets) pencils to make my own comparison. In my Uni review, I had already determined that the full-size and mini pencils contain identical cores, but I wanted to include both sets in the comparison anyway. I chose six colors that were common to all three sets.

Although some names differ, the cores are identical, and the last two digits of color numbers match.

As the Ninja had observed, the last two digits of the color numbers match exactly. The color names differ in some cases, which threw me off (my eye tends to look for color names instead of numbers when I’m searching pencil barrels). For example, I was looking for Prussian Blue in all three sets, but the Dürer number for Prussian is (2)46, not Uni’s (8)51. I could see that the Dürer color called Prussian was not the same as Uni’s Prussian, but when I ignored the names and matched the numbers, Dürer’s (1)51 (Helioblue-Reddish) matched Uni’s (8)51. Both wet and dry, I’d have to agree with the Ninja that the cores are identical! The cores also look to be the same thickness (sadly, I still don’t own calipers to measure . . . I know I should have some).

The barrels are different enough – Dürers are slightly wider – that I don’t believe Mitsubishi is simply repackaging Dürer pencils with a different paint job. I tend to agree with another blog reader who commented that perhaps only the cores are made by Faber-Castell, while the pencils are assembled in Japan by Mitsubishi. As the Uni sets state, they are technically “made in Japan,” – but while their bodies may be Japanese, their hearts and souls are German!

As noted in my review, although many non-soluble colored pencils are manufactured by major Japanese makers (notably Mitsubishi, Tombow and Holbein), Japanese water-soluble sets are rare. In fact, the Uni sets are the only ones I am aware of – and now I’m convinced that the cores are not Japanese at all! What does it all mean? More sleepless nights for me as I stuff the pieces of my brain back into my skull.