Pilot Inks at Flea Markets

The desire to collect pens and to learn about them can easily be enlarged through collecting all kinds of memorabilia and accessories. Inkwells are easy targets—durable, abundant, not too expensive (albeit with many exceptions)… and certainly nostalgic. They are a common find at flea markets and antique shops.

Some old inkwells at a flea market.

The following inkwell is one such example. It is a 30 ml inkwell by Pilot produced in the 1940s and 1950s. Its original price went from JPY 30 to JPY 50. A bigger inkwell, 50 ml, was also available. And there exist schematics of 20 ml inkwells which might very well have existed, but I have never seen.

The dimensions correspond to an inkwell of about 20 ml. Published on Pilot Times (パイロットタイムス), Sept 1959.

A set of two 30-ml inkwells on display at the Pilot Museum the Pen Station. The price was JPY 70 in 1949.

Nothing fancy or rare, but very characteristic of that time. Pilot’s pen museum –Pen Station—truly reflects that with a variety of basically the same inkwell from several years along its lifetime. Nothing unusual, but the history of pens is mostly written through common tools rather than with those one-of-a-kind pens and inkwells nobody could find.

Platinum Century, music nib – Platinum Pigment Blue

Bruno Taut
June 20th 2013
etiquetas: Pilot, tinta