10 January 2020

2-Fold Nibs

I cannot say for sure that it was Nibmeister Nobuyoshi Nagahara's idea on the first place, but certainly it was him who popularized the idea of two- and three-folded nibs with the support of Sailor.

Some early examples by him date back to the 1990s, as were reported on these pages.


An early Cross nib by Nobuyoshi Nagahara.

Those initial nibs later evolved into what we know today—open nibs with or without overfeed that made their way to the catalog of the brand and to commercial success.


Three generations of Cross nibs.

Then some nibmeisters copied this idea. Wagner-resident Yamada used Pelikan M800 as the base for his version.


Yamada's approach to a 2-fold nib-two overlapping Pelikan M800 nibs.

Wagner member Mr. Mochizuki, on his side, used a much more affordable canvas—a Chinese pen available at the 100-yen chain shop Daiso.


Mochizuki's approach based on a Daiso pen. A steel 2-fold nib.

Only recently, in the last couple of years, non-Japanese nibmeisters have attempted these two-fold nibs. The most brilliant of them, dare I say, is nib wizard Ralph Reyes of Regalia Writing Labs with his continuous development of old and new ideas. The nib here shows is a nice example of this—it is a cross-concord nib, in Sailor terms, with an overfeed; but the overfeed is made out of a third nib and is nicely integrated on the unit.


A 2-foold nib by Ralph Reyes based on JoWo #6 nibs.


My thanks to Inky.Rocks.


NOTE (16/January/2020): Writng samples of some of those nibs can be seen on the following Chronicle: https://estilofilos.blogspot.com/2020/01/2-fold-nibs-writing-samples.html


Opus 88 Koloro #6 – De Atramentis Beethoven

Bruno Taut
Shinjuku, January 10th, 2020
etiquetas: Sailor, nibmeister Nobuyoshi Nagahara, Nibmeister Yamada, nibmeister Ralph Reyes, plumín, Mr. Mochizuki

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Also:
https://www.montywinnfield.com/collections/nibs

dputydwg said...

Thank you. I would be interested to see some writing samples along side these nib variations!

dputydwg said...

I took a look at https://www.montywinnfield.com/collections/nibs and that is an expressive site!

dputydwg said...

I meant *impressive*!!

Inky.Rocks said...

Awesome pictorial history of these nibs! Nibs are the heart of a pen and seeing innovation in them is exciting. I hope we see more in the future.

Bruno Taut said...

Thanks you all for passing by and commenting.

I have added some writing samples on the following Chronicle: https://estilofilos.blogspot.com/2020/01/2-fold-nibs-writing-samples.html

Innovation is exciting, but this idea is already old. We need to look further ahead, and Ralph Reyes might be the guy to follow to see those new developments.

BT

Anonymous said...

Writing sample(s)?

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