Montblanc offers 1, Nohara offers 49 — the same "one model" can differ 44-fold
Say "Custom 74" and it sounds like one pen. Try to buy it and you face dozens of combinations of colour and nib.
So how much does that — the number of choices behind one product name — vary by brand? Recounting all 52, it varies by an order of magnitude.
Choices per product name
- Nohara Kogei — 48.8
- Mitsubishi Pencil — 13.7
- Zebra — 10.7
- Pilot — 8.4
- Kobo Setu — 8.3
- Sailor — 4.3
- Eboya — 3.3
- Wancher — 2.7
- Montblanc — 1.1
Top to bottom, a 44-fold spread.
Montblanc: one pen per name
Montblanc carries 242 product names and only 256 choices between them. Very nearly one to one.
Which means Montblanc does not issue one pen in many colours; it issues new pens, one after another. Given how much of the range is limited editions and writers' series, that fits. The customer chooses *which pen*, not *which colour*.
Nohara Kogei is the exact opposite
Nohara has five product names in total — three ballpoints, two pencils — and 244 choices among them.
It does not add shapes; it competes on how many timbers pass through the same shape. Among 52 brands that figure stands alone.
Japan's stationery makers compete on colour
Mitsubishi's 13.7 and Zebra's 10.7 show two companies that sell by colour count — dozens of colours behind a single pen, the familiar sight of a Japanese stationery aisle.
Pilot's 8.4 is what you get when fountain pen colours multiply by nib widths.
More models does not mean more choice
Wancher has 405 product names, the most of any brand here. Its choices per name is 2.7. The number of models and the number of things you can actually pick are two different rulers.
Ask which brand is "big" and the answer changes entirely depending on what you count.
(Compiled from the 52 brands recorded in PencilDB, August 2026. The figures move as records grow.)