Coupy Pencil Colored Pencil Set / SAKURA

• Core: All-core (entire shaft is the drawing core)
• Core capacity: Approximately 4x that of conventional colored pencils
• Erasability: Erasable with a standard eraser
• Sharpenable: Yes
• Hand cleanliness: Does not transfer color to hands
• Includes: Sharpener and eraser
• Refillable: Individual replacement pencils available separately
• Set sizes available: 12, 15, 18, 24, 30, 60 colors
• Case types available: Tin Can, Soft Case, Paper Box

Coupy Pencil launched in 1973 with a single structural idea: remove the wood and make the entire shaft the core. Conventional colored pencils wrap a thin pigment rod in wood, which limits how much color you can lay down before the pencil needs sharpening and means the core is always protected from the paper by a narrow tip. The Coupy Pencil eliminates that constraint entirely.

The core uses synthetic resin as its binder rather than the wax or oil used in most crayons. That choice has three consequences: the color sits on top of paper fibers rather than sinking into the surface texture, which is why an ordinary eraser can remove it; the hands stay clean because the resin doesn't transfer the way wax does; and the core is hard enough to sharpen to a point without crumbling.

The name is a coined word built from the French "COUP" (a strike or blow) with a "Y" appended. Both "Coupy" and "COUPY-PENCIL" are registered trademarks of Sakura Craypas. More than fifty years after its introduction, the product remains largely unchanged, which says something about how well the original design worked.