Brazil Ink (I)

The Pilot Pen Station, the old museum of Pilot Corporation in Tokyo, was an invaluable source of information. In there, more than ten years ago. I took the following picture of an ink bottle of the brand:

24 ounces, 709 ml. It seems Japan was not yet metric in the 1950s...

24 ounces of ink for JPY 270. In rational units, 710 ml assuming US ounces instead of imperial ounces. And the wooden frame speaks about other presentations: 1 ounce for JPY 30, 2 for JPY 50.

This is the 1 ounce inkwell, released initially in 1949:

1 ounce, JPY 30.

And this is the 2 ounce bottle:

In 1954, Pilot built a manufacturing plant in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. And Pilot started making ink in Brazil:

Tinta Pilot. "Industria Brasileira". Note the faint stamped sign saying 709 cm3, the result of rounding down the 709.76... ml in 24 ounces. It seems Brazil was more metric than Japan at the time.

The Pilot Times reproduced some of the ads published in the local media at the time:

Ad published March 9th, 1956 in Folha da Manha. Reported in Pilot Times some months later.

We see how Pilot used the same ink bottles and simply translated the labels. What we do not know is whether the ink followed the same formulation. To check that I need a sample of the Japanese version of the blue-black ink of the time, as we already know it changed with time.


My thanks to TM.

Moonman T2 with Kanwrite nib – Pilot (Thai) Black

Bruno Taut
April 6th 2023
etiquetas: Pilot, tinta, Brasil