Pilot Signing

In a recent Chronicle I published the following picture:

Three Pilot pens, three ways of signing them.

On it we can see three different Pilot pens with some forms of maki-e and raden decoration. And those pens also show the three different ways of stating the authorship of the decoration used by Pilot.

1. The Raden Toki pen (90th anniversary pen), decorated mostly with raden (mother of pearl), is not signed at all save for the obvious Pilot marking on clip and nib.

The Raden Toki of the 90th anniversary of Pilot (2008).

2. The Niô pen (Pilot's 88th anniversary pen) is signed by the “Kokkokai”, the guild of maki-e artisans working for Pilot.

The Niô pen from 2006 is signed collectively by the 国光會, Kokkokai.

The Kokkokai (国光會, the “Group Light of the Nation” in Japanese) was founded in 1931 by Gonroku Matsuda –the father of Pilot's maki-e-- with the support of Pilot's founder Ryosuke Namiki. Since then, about 140 craftsmen have formed part of the group, including about 20 currently active members.

3. Finally, any of those craftsmen could sign a pen individually together with the ideograms of Kokkokai.

That is the case of the Heisei pen of 1989. The author of the maki-e decoration was Yoshida Kyûsai, (久齋, 吉田久夫) as we can see on the pen barrel.

The Heisei pen (1989) is signed by Kyûsai (久齋) and the Kokkokai.

As I already said, the Kokkokai was founded in 1931, but it is not until after the Second World War that the name appeared on pens and other maki-e-decorated objects made by Pilot. Before the War, those same objects were labeled as “Namiki Kan” (並木监, Produced by Namiki) together with the name of the craftsman. As is the case today, there were also cases of collective authorship signed by the whole group (Namiki Kan) without the name of any particular artisan.

This pre-War pen (ca. 1938) is signed by Shisen (紫川; real name, 佐藤 紫川, Ei Sato) and produced by Namiki (Namiki Kan, 並木监). Picture by TM.

This difference is an excellent sign to determine a basic dating element of a Pilot pen: if 並木监 (Namiki Kan), pre-War. If 国光會 (Kokkokai), post-War.


My thanks to TM, whose picture is greatly appreciated.

Platinum Curidas – Private Reserve Dakota Red

Bruno Taut
Nakano, August 5th 2020
etiquetas: Pilot, maki-e