The Litmus Test

Within a newspaper, there is often tension between two departments that are, at least in theory, far apart: accounting and editorial. While the journalist focuses on reality, the accountant ensures that the books balance — and those books largely depend on the advertising the publication attracts to its pages. The conflict arises when a news story is critical of a company that advertises in that same medium.

– “But did you really have to publish that? Couldn’t you give it a softer tone?”

This conflict is unavoidable, but it is also survivable. The powers at work manage their differences because the field covered by news reporting is much broader than the specific interests of any single advertiser. Thus, the publication does not depend excessively on any one external source of funding.

A very different situation arises when the publication’s raison d’être is the consumer goods available on the market — and there are many such publications, particularly in Japan. Their fields are diverse: cars, watches, fashion, gastronomy…

Publications in Japan.

And the problem now is obvious — the number of potential advertisers is very limited, and the publication becomes more vulnerable to any negative reaction its reporting might provoke.
But who is the reader of the publication? For whom is it produced? Where does the publication’s loyalty truly lie?

Beyond polite words and public relations, the litmus test is simple: does that publication ever say anything negative about a product? According to them, is there a bad car on the market? A bad watch? A bad pen? Do they ever dare to publish a negative review?

Because at the end of the day, they must decide whether they are in the business of reporting — or in the business of collecting advertisements.

Mannenhitsu-no Yamada – Akkerman #13 Simpliest Violet


Bruno Taut
October 28th, 2025
etiquetas: mercado, publicaciones

The Lonesome Death of the Pilot Petit

New pens are widely advertised―and that makes sense. Makers need to recoup the investment made to develop and market them. The fanfare and drumroll are loud, designed to create a sense of anticipation in buyers.

Conversely, when a model is discontinued, its demise is silent—almost secret. The pen simply vanishes from the catalog.

Such was the case of the Pilot Petit, which disappeared from the catalog sometime in 2025.

The three generations of the Pilot Petit 1.

This family of pens was first launched in 2010 and went through three different generations. It was an inexpensive model—JPY 300 for the first iteration and JPY 200 for the rest (..2.., ..3..)— with only one nib option, F. The nib unit was shared with the nominally disposable Vpen (also known as the Pilot “Prince of Wales”), in which both F and M points were available.

All three generations—plus the additional signature pen (Petit 2) and brush pen (Petit 3) introduced in the second generation—used the same type of dedicated ink cartridge. These cartridges were specific to the series because their size prevented the use of any Pilot converter or regular cartridge—they simply did not fit inside.

Petit vs. regular Pilot cartridges.

Now, about 15 years after its debut, the Pilot Petit is no more. Pilot has phased it out, and it is hard to find any leftover stock—even in those small stationery shops that time forgot. The spare cartridges now appear as “available while stocks last,” suggesting they are no longer manufactured.

The typical presentation of the Pilot Petit spare cartridges from the second generation on. Its price, JPY 100, plus taxes.

The consequences are clear: for how long will we be able to use our Pilot Petit pens? Surely, we will treasure and refill the old cartridges, but how long will they last before cracking?

And that is the problem with creating pens that rely on unique systems—they are highly vulnerable to marketing decisions. And the Petit is gone with the cartridge.

Pilot Décimo – Pilot Black

Bruno Taut
October 7th, 2025
etiquetas: Pilot, mercado, conversor

TIPS et al.

To anyone who has read my texts on the Tokyo International Pen Show (TIPS) over the years, it will come as no surprise that I am not particularly fond of the format. My main complaint —allow me to reiterate— is that, despite its name, TIPS is not truly a pen show, but rather a stationery salon where companies —makers, retailers, artisans— gather to showcase their products. Occasionally, you may come across some used pens, but they are far from being the main attraction of the event.

However, the show works—and it works very well—with thousands of visitors attending each edition. So, all is well, and the concept, for the most part, is unlikely to change. The problem, though, is that its formula is simple—and easy to replicate. And that is exactly what’s happening.

TIPS 2024.

TIPS is built on the idea of attracting all kinds of businesses related to stationery. You then gather them in one room and hope people will come. And they do!

In a country like Japan, with its rich stationery culture, this model is easy to reproduce. Bungu Market, Shumi-no Bungu Matsuri, and Bungu Joshi are just some of the stationery events held in Tokyo throughout the year—sometimes even multiple times a year!

Bungu Market in Ota ward in Tokyo. January 2025. This event is celebrated 4 times per year, and there are other Bungu Market events in other locations—Osaka, Fukuoka, Kyoto... .

Bungu Joshi in June 2025 (https://youtu.be/pApUJqImr1c?si=-HXWmzS4Ed22tp_z). Twice a year event.

Shumi-no Bungu Matsuri. Organized by the magazine Shumi-no Bungubako. July 2025. Photo courtesy of Inktraveler.

TIPS may have been the early bird that caught the worm, but it is no longer unique. Both visitors and locals now have the option to choose which event to attend, and they are no longer bound to being in Tokyo in November to see the latest in stationery. Time will tell whether the market is large enough to sustain so many shows.

Jinhao 82 ― Private Reserve Dakota Red

Bruno Taut
July 25th, 2025
etiquetas: Tokyo, evento, mercado

A Pen with a Story

Once upon a time, Lamy was a German brand... and Japanese tourists in Germany would buy Lamy pens to bring them back home as souvenir (omiyage, おみやげ) for coworkers, friends, and family members.

That was the case of the following pen.

A boxed Lamy 37.

And this pen's story is told through the contents of the box: what looks like a wrapping paper, and a hand-written text in Japanese.

The wrapping paper. Note the faint writing around the circular FVS logo on the upper right area of the paper.

The hand-written text.

The wrapping paper likely belongs to the shop “Julius Vaternahm” in Frankfurt (am Main) in Germany. A quick research online tells us that the publishing company Julius Vaternahm had also been very successful through the business of station bookshops.

There is also a faint annotation in Japanese made with a pencil on the paper. It reads something like “Uehara-sama”, 植原様.

The handwritten text inside the box is a lot more informative. It says that (the pen) had been a gift of the Governor of Osaka Satô after his trip to Germany between February 3rd and 13th 1962.

So here we have a Lamy pen that found its way from Frankfurt to Japan in the luggage of a prominent Japanese politician in 1962 to be given away to friends or political supporters. And that Mr. Uehara on the wrapping paper was possibly one of them.

It would be interesting to know how many pens the Governor --and his entourage-- had purchased during his time in Germany, and whether all of them were Lamy or some other brands were also included.

The Lamy 37 is surprisingly absent from the usual sources of information (*), and nothing very specific can be said about it. It certainly shows some similarities with the very popular 27, but the 37 does not match any of the numerous documented variations. A very comprehensive document on the Lamy 27 was published in the Fountain Pen Network in 2017 (thanks, Christof!).

The Lamy 37.

The Lamy 37 is a piston filler with a semi-hooded nib, made of 58.5% gold. The feed is clear and transluscent.

Gold nib, clear feed.

The cap is made of steel, and has the brand name engraved on the clip and on the cap lip. There is no logo on the cap jewel, which seems to be a feature on 1962 models and beyond.

The body is made of plastic and includes four ink windows. The brand name, in a rounder font, is imprinted on the barrel. The model name and the nib point are declared on the piston knob.

The rounder font of the "LAMY" imprint on the barrel.

These are the dimensions of the Lamy 37:

Length closed: 133 mm
Length open: 123 mm
Length posted: 146 mm
Diameter: 11.8 mm
Weight: 15.9 g (dry)
Ink deposit: 1.4 ml

And about 60 years later, Lamy became Japanese.


(*) The video on this link is the only source of information specifically on the Lamy 37 I have found online so far. Note it refers to a newer version of the model which includes a logo on the cap jewel.


My thanks to Poplicola-san.

Parker 75 – Diamine Bilberry

Bruno Taut
March 25th, 2025
labels: Lamy, Alemania, Japón

Davidoff After 10 Years

In 2015, a “techincal partnership” between luxury brand Davidoff and Sailor gave rise to the Very Zino line of pens which were, in actual terms, made by the Japanese company.

The two resulting models, the unnamed regular and the Mini, were generated around the big and the medium sizes of Sailor nibs, following the company's naming. In fact, the pens are little else than variations on the Profit and ProGear units included in its catalog, but priced at a much higher point.

	. 2015 .		. 2025 .
	. Sailor .	. Davidoff .	. Sailor .	. Davidoff .
Medium / Mini .	. 10000 (14 K) . 15000 (21 K)	. 28000 (18 K) .	. 18000 (14 K) (*) . 28000 (21 K)	. 33000 (18 K) (**) .
Big	20000 (21 K)	30000 (18 K)	32000 (21 K)	35000 (18 K) (**)

Prices of Davidoff and equivalent Sailor pens in 2015 and 2025 in JPY before taxes. For Sailor models the cheaper possible price among the different variants was chosen.
(*) In 2025, the transparent version of the Sailor Profit Light/Standard has a price of JPY 17000.
(**) The 2025 prices of the Davidoff pens are those of the later catalog. Discounts up to 50% can be found in Tokyo.

For some reason, the Davidoff pens did not do well, and by 2018 the brand was nowhere to be seen in the pen scene in Japan. Well, not exactly true—leftover Davidoff pens can be seen heavily discounted at some retailers.

On the picture, a Davidoff Very Zino Resin in black with a silver trim and a rhodiated nib.

Davidoff Very Zino Resin.

This pen, as well as its smaller sibling the Very Zino Resin Mini, came with two possible trims –gold and silver, with matching nibs—, and in two different colors—black and red (burgundy). The nib points, on both models, were EF, F, M, and B.

The Very Zino on its catalog.

Davidoff's nibs are geometrically identical –therefore, interchangeable— to those in the Sailor pens. The only difference, besides the obvious detail of the engraving, lies on the purity of the gold—21 K and 14 K for Sailor, 18 K for Davidoff, although in some distant past, Sailor also used 18 K gold for their big nibs.

From top to bottom, Sailor Black Luster, Davidoff Very Zino Resin, and Sailor ProGear.

The Very Zino pens use standard cartridges and converters, and for that purpose the Sailor feeds and sections had to be modified to accommodate a different cartridge nipple.

Sailor on the left, Davidoff on the right. In between, their corresponding feeds.

Davidoff's pens share the fundamental dimensions with the Sailor counterparts. The differences are limited to the finials, and caps, sections and barrels are interchangeable among them. The only limitation is associated to the extra length of the standard converter in the Davidoff—it does not fit in the Sailor barrels.

These are the dimensions of the Davidoff Very Zino Resin (regular) pen together with those of the Sailor Profit (in the Black Luster version) and of the ProGear:

	Davidoff .Very Zino.	Sailor .Black Luster.	Sailor . ProGear .
Length closed (mm)	133	141	128
Length open (mm)	120	123	116
Length posted (mm)	149	154	148
Diameter (mm)	16.7	16.0	15.9
Weight (dry, g)	38.6	28.4	24.5
Ink deposit (ml)	. 0.7/1.45/0.8 (*) .	1.2/0.7 (**)	. 1.2/0.7 (**) .

Dimensions of the standard size Davidoff Very Zino together with those of the 21 Series of the Sailor (Profit) Black Luster and Pro Gear.
(*) Volumes of the short standard cartridge, long standard cartrige, and the Davidoff standard converter.
(**) Volumes of the Sailor cartridge and Sailor converter.

The Davidoff pen in standard size shares the section with the Profit Black Luster (and other FL models, of course). In the case of the Mini, there is no equivalent in the Sailor catalog. This detail adds some value to the Davidoffs as they are either unique or higher in the their position compared to Sailor models.

But, as previously mentioned, three years after their release in Japan, Davidoff was gone. I dare to say that the pricing was wrong and the goal of positioning those pens as a more luxurious product with respect to the equivalent Sailor models did not really work. After all, Davidoff might very well be a luxury brand, but it is a nobody in the world of fountain pens.

JD Fake Custom Urushi – Taccia Kuro

Bruno Taut
February 25th, 2025
etiquetas: Sailor, Davidoff, mercado

Ohashido No More

Some weeks ago, blogger Fudefan released the news—Mr. Uehara had stopped the production of Ôhashidô pens in December of 2024.

Ôhashidô's lathe in 2023.

These news have surprised most of us. Not much information we really know and we can only speculate.

We do know, though, that Mr. Uehara had been struggling to source nibs for several years. Let us remember that he was using Sailor nibs, and Sailor went as far as engraving them in origin —that is in Kure— with the Ôhashidô imprint. But at some point, that relationship strained leaving Mr. Uehara in a difficult situation—fewer nibs meant fewer pens and lower sales. Making ends meet, therefore, became harder.

Some Ôhashidô pens on display at Maruzen's Pen Fair, March 2022.

Was that all the problem? Probably not, but it surely contributed to the demise of the brand.

Long ago I described Ôhashidô as a preindustrial operation, a one-man company without any system in the production. Chaotic as it might sound, that was also part of the appeal.

Some Ôhashidô products.

But Ôhashidô is no more, and we can only turn our eyes to all those old pens –even if there were recently made— to enjoy the charms of Uehara's works.

Well, we can also look for leftover pens in the hands of some retailers...

Ôhashidô's booth at Mitsukoshi's Fountain Pens of the World fair in 2017.

Ôhashidô, you will be missed. Uehara-san, please come back soon.

Asvine V126 – Waterman Florida Blue

Bruno Taut
February 17th, 2025
etiquetas: Ôhashidô, mercado

Even More Chinese Capless

By now we know how Chinese pen makers, when trying to capitalize the success of capless pens, have taken the route of copying well-known models: Lanbitou copied Platinum, Jinhao and Moonman copied Pilot. But, is there room for creating new and different models?

It seems so, actually.

The following pen is a Dianshi, and it is a capless pen, an inexpensive capless pen.

Dianshi DS-784

The Dianshi DS-784's price is about 4 to 5 USD. It is made entirely of plastic and, most likely, it can only be inked with proprietary cartridges. It carries no markings save a fairly big sticker by the clip, and on the box.

These are its dimensions:

Length closed: 14.1 mm
Length open: 13.9 mm
Diameter: 10.5 mm
Weight: 14.0 g (with an empty cartridge)

Externally, the pen looks very symmetrical (save for the obvious clip). However, the area close to the nose is molded in a quasi triangular shape to ease the grip.

The nib lid –essential on a capless pen to prevent it from drying up-- opens to the right of the nib. By means of an elastic material (see the pic). This movement makes the nib point very visible to the user as long as he was right-handed. Lefties, though, might be left in the dark, although this would depend on each particular grip.

How durable is that mechanism?

The lid, to the right. The nib, made of steel.

The clip, interestingly enough, is located on the upper side of the pen, close to the push button. This detail might please some users, but the undesirable effect is that the nib will face downwards when carrying the pen on a shirt pocket. Who would want to take this risk?

Moonman and Dianshi, side by side.

All in all, this Dianshi pen seems an interesting product as it is an attempt to create an original pen instead of being just a copy of a well-known product by other maker. It also comes with some defects, but there is hope in honest error, as C. R. MacIntosh once said.


My thanks to Mr. Shimizu.

Jinhao Dadao 9019 – Diamine Bilberry

Bruno Taut
February 4th, 2025
Etiquetas: Dianshi, capless, mercado