The Spanish Connection

Thanks to a fellow stylophile I could access the following instruction booklet. It corresponds to the Pilot Capless model released in spring of 1965, and described on these pages some days ago.

The pen...

The interesting detail of this booklet is that it is written in Spanish. And the obvious question is on which market Pilot was thinking at the time of printing it. Or, where in the Spanish speaking world were these Pilot Capless distributed by the mid 1960s? I do not have any answer. The obvious candidates, in my opinion, were Argentina, Mexico and Spain, and given the vocabulary I would think of Mexico as the final destination. But this is just a guess.

... and its instructions.

Nevertheless, this booklet shows some early attempts to distribute Pilot pens, or at least its Capless model, in less developed markets—the world for Pilot was not just Japan, for obvious reasons, and the US. At the time, mid 1960s, Spanish-speaking markets were dominated by Parker, in competition with some local brands if those existed. Such was the case in Spain.

Around 1960, should we remember now, Platinum pens were present in several European countries, albeit under the name of local brands: Joker in Italy, and Presidente in Spain.

My thanks and appreciation to Mr. Nikos Syrigonakis.

New Clip (Arabian Ford) Jumbo pen – Unknown black ink

Bruno Taut
August 6th, 2012
etiquetas: España, Japón, Presidente, Platinum, Joker, español (idioma), Pilot, Capless, México.