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

One Logo, Three Companies (I)

I am not going to speak about fountain pens today but about pencils and paper… and whisky and cars…

The brand Mitsubishi is well known for a number of products and services available in the market. So, we can buy a Mitsubishi Pajero, open an account in the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi-UFJ, drink a Mitsubishi cider, write with a Mitsubishi UNI pencil on a paper with a THREE DIAMOND watermark… and even more without realizing we still were in the Mitsubishi realm: a picture with a Nikon camera, a Kirin whisky,…

Is this a car, a pencil, a bank, a cider...?

Mitsubishi is all that and more. But Mitsubishi is, first, three very different things.

Mitsubishi is the Mitsubishi Group of Companies, a keiretsu of companies operating in a very wide variety of fields. It all started in 1870 by the hand of Yatarô Iwasaki as a freight transporter. Around 1913, the company registered the well known logo with the three diamonds. Among the fields included in the activities of the Group we can find finances, nuclear technology, cars and industrial vehicles, paper milling… Some of the companies in the Group use the three diamond logo, but not all of them.

Kirin and Nikon are also part of the Mitsubishi Group of Companies.

A second company by the same name is Mitsubishi Pencil Co. This has no ties with the big Mitsubishi Group. The pencil company was founded in 1887 by Jinroku Masaki as Masaki Pencil Co. (Masaki Enpitsu), and in 1903 he registered the three diamond logo based on the family crest. The activities of this company, soon to celebrate its 130 years of history, are limited to the production of writing tools, but not of paper.

HI-uni is one of the lines of graphie pencils of Mitsubishi Pencil Co.

Finally, Mitsubishi is also the name of a cider –in the Japanese meaning of it, a non-alcoholic, carbonated soda—produced by the company Konyusha, from Kumamoto, unrelated to the Mitsubishi keiretsu. It was founded in 1883 and registered the three diamond logo in 1919.

Yeah, Mitsubishi cider... together with the three diamond logo as well.

So, there we have three different companies using the same name and the same logo. No wonder, then, the existence of the Mitsubishi Corporate Name and Trademark Committee to control and prevent any fraud in the use of both name and logo. But the problem and the confusion are deeply rooted.

Romillo Essential Black – Montblanc Racing Green

Bruno Taut
Nakano March, 2016
etiquetas: Mitsubishi Pencil, Mitsubishi Paper Mills, papelería