55°

On a Japanese rarity:

There are lines, and there are squares in several sizes; there is the Seyès ruling at French schools, the Cornell note-taking scheme in notebooks, the genkõ yõshi ruling for writing in Japanese, and even ruling for left handed people (no affiliation)… And now, the ruling for those who write at an angle. That is, at least what the cover of this notebook says.

The cover of the Tsubame notebook. It is made by Life Stationery Company.

The unusual ruling of this particular notebook. The angle is 55°.

This is a Tsubame notebook, a product of Life Stationery Co., in size B5 (179x250 mm²). The paper, as is customary in Tsubame notebooks, is very well pressed and shows no problems of feathering or bleeding: it is perfectly suited for fountain pens. The paper density, secondary to the paper pressing quality, is 83.5 g/m². The price is JPY 310 (52 pages).

The paper is very good. No feathering...

... and no bleeding. Not even with very wet nibs.

But the distinctive element of this notebook in particular is its ruling. Guiding lines are rotated 55° over the horizontal. The utility? As the cover says, for those who write with crooked lines. This angle, that many consider excessive, is nothing fancy nor was ever carefully considered. It is simply the angle of the diagonal of a B or A type of paper over the horizontal (arctg √2 = 54.7°).

The looks of a written page are... unusual as well.

However, would it not be easier and cheaper to rotate a regular notebook? A regular ruled notebook of this size by Tsubame costs JPY 170 (plus tax).

Ban-ei in black urushi – Pilot Blue

Bruno Taut
Nakano, April 17th, 2016
etiquetas: papelería, Life Stationery

One Logo, Three Companies (II)

Now that we know about what Mitsubishi and its three-diamond logo meant in terms of companies and activities, we can take a look at a couple of products with some relevance in the world of writing.

The first of them is the paper manufactured by Mitsubishi Paper Mills, of the Mitsubishi keiretsu. This company mostly manufactures hi-tech papers for a variety of applications, which do not seem to include hand-writing. However, Mitsubishi Paper Mills is the maker of the Bank Paper marketed by Life Stationery Co., which is also behind the school notebook Tsubame.

The Life Bank Paper writing pad.

The quality of the Life Bank Paper has already been tested by fellow blogger The Unroyal Warrant, and I have nothing to add to his text. Suffice to say that this paper is fountain-pen friendly, and that it seem to be the only example of such included in the Mitsubishi Paper Mills catalog.

The revealing watermark.

The second product belongs to the company Mitsubishi Pencil Co. The UNI series of lead pencils was launched in 1958. Then, in 1966, the higher quality HI-UNI were marketed. And in 2008, 50 years after the initial UNI series, the gamut of pencil grades reached the amazing number of 22—from 10H to 10B, plus F and HB. In that same year of 2008, a box with all those 22 grades was available. It is called the HI-UNI Art Set.

The HI-UNI Art Set box.

The 22 grades.

On the occasion of the 130th anniversary of Mitsubishi Pencil Co to be celebrated in 2017, a limited number of sets of pencils and notebook have come for sale in this year of 2016. Three are the options: boxes of 12 UNI pencils of grades HB, B ord 2B, plus a notebook (JPY 1080, plus tax); boxes of 12 HI-UNI pencils of grades HB, B or 2B, plus notebook (JPY 1680, plus tax); and a metal box with all 22 grades of HI-UNI pencils plus, of course, the notebook (JPY 3300, plus tax).

One of the anniversary boxes. It is a limited release, but the number of units has not been declared.

The maker of the notebook is not revealed.

Platinum Platinum pocket pen – Aurora Black

Bruno Taut
Nakano March 30th, 2016
etiquetas: Mitsubishi Pencil, Mitsubishi Paper, papelería, Life Stationery