Nakabayashi Again

The name Nakabayashi is not new on these Chronicles. It is a Japanese company making stationeries and office supplies, and some months ago entered the market of fountain pen inks through a collaboration with Sailor.

Now, Nakabayashi is back on the spotlight with another line of inks—Taccia inks. And these inks deserve some comments.

Taccia inks, by Nakabayashi.

First are the news of Nakabayashi becoming the primary owner of Taccia pens since last April. At that time, Itoya of America handed its share to Nakabayashi.

The second issue if about the actual maker of these new inks. As I said before, the first Nakabayashi inks –those themed after ukiyo-e colors—had been made by Sailor, and being a recent development (June-July of 2018), it was reasonable to assume that the connection between Nakabayashi and Sailor continued.

No news from Sailor on the label.

But that is not the case, and Taccia inks are made by Nakabayashi itself. Then, will there be new batches –new revolutions- in the ukiyo-e line of inks? Who will make them?

13 new colors: kuro, tsuchi, cha, daidai, aka, momo, ebi, murasaki, ao, aoguro, sora, midori, uguisu.

Aoguro. Blue-black.

The Taccia inks are a collection of 13 colors with Japanese names. The inkwells contain 40 ml of ink and cost JPY 1000 (plus taxes). That means JPY 25/ml of ink.

Not an inexpensive ink, but a lot more economical than most Sailor inks, including those made for Nakabayashi.

Is Taccia becoming finally Japanese?

Montblanc 149 – Pelikan Black

Bruno Taut
Nakano, September 27th, 2018
etiquetas: Nakabayashi, Taccia, tinta, Itoya, Sailor, mercado

Signs of Change? (Ink Market)

On July 25th I wrote about a new line of inks by Sailor commissioned by Nakabayashi, a stationery company. As is often the case with Chronicles on new inks, I expected a big impact resulting in an increase in visits and a number of links point out at these pages.

But that was not the case at all. In fact, the news on these new inks on English-speaking fora barely raised any brow. This is a sharp contrast with the passionate reactions new inks, particularly by Sailor provoked not so long ago.

The "Blue Revolution" did not mobilize the masses.

Are ink aficionados saturated with all these new colors? Or is the market saturated of inks? The ironic detail is that at JPY 54/ml, these Sailor-Nakabayashi inks were not the most expensive Sailor inks in the market…

Maybe the reasons are completely different. Maybe the colors of the “Blue Revolution” were not attractive. Maybe 50 ml inkwells were too big… All this is, so far, mere speculation, but I also think that the ink market has grown into a bubble of colors and prices.

And we might be seeing some signs of change.

Pelikan M800 "kodaishu" by Iwase – Sailor Red Brown

Bruno Taut
Nakano, August 17th 2018
etiquetas: Sailor, tinta, mercado, Nakabayashi

More Sailor Inks: Nakabayashi

The ink business seems very attractive… even to companies with no interests in the fountain pen world.

Such is the case of Nakabayashi, a Japanese company producing stationeries and office supplies. And the closest to a fountain pen it has is a set of notebooks with a decent paper—and no pen, although there is a link to Taccia pens on its website in Japanese. But ink business might be too good to ignore and Nakabayashi searched the company of Sailor to produce its own line.

The five brand-new inks by Sailor... or by Nakabayashi.

So far, these Nakabayashi-Sailor inks follow a very Japanese argument—colors from ukiyo-e engravings by Hokusai and Hiroshige. The first batch of colors is named “Blue Revolution” and suggest that there might be more revolutions in the future. Well, more colors.

The first revolution was blue. Can we be sure thse colors could not be found in the market before?

The “Blue Revolution” is formed by five colors named as “konjô”, “konpeki”, “ai-iro”, “tetsukon” and “koiai”. They come in 50 ml bottles and the boxes are decorated with reproductions of popular engravings by the above-mention artists.

The ink bottle resembles the new presentation of regular (black, blue and blue-black) Sailor inks, but the aspect ratio is different. Photo courtesy of TinJapan.

The price in JPY 2700 plus tax. This means JPY 54/ml, which is in between the Shikiori line of inks at JPY 50/ml and the Ink Studio series at JPY 60/ml.

Many actors involved in the this operation: Nakabayashi, Sailor, a "stationery sommelier" by the name of Hiroshi Isuzu, and a color supervisor named Hide Matsumoto.

Am interesting feature of these Nakabayashi inks is that they are not associated to a particular shop –with a limited distribution—but to a whole company whose distribution network spans over the whole country and beyond. We might need to wait, though, to see where these inks might become available.

In any event, these moves are showing that the ink market is still attractive. Will it ever become saturated? Only at that time prices will go down.

My thanks to FPN member and friend TinJapan.

Platinum Preppy – Platinum Blue-black

Bruno Taut
Nakano, July 24th 2018
etiquetas: tinta, Sailor, Nakabayashi, mercado