Brazilian Capless (III)

The following ad appeared June 1968 in the Brazilian magazine Realidade:

Realidade. June 1968.

We see two different Capless models on it. On top, a C-300GW made in Brazil like the one described on a previous Chronicle. And right under it, a long RW unit.

Just like the pen shown on the following picture—a RW Capless marketed in Brazil:

Capless C-100RW.

It is made in Japan and its manufacturing dates are June 1st 1967 (HF01) for the body and June of 1967 for the nib. A converter is included, and in fact it is of the type we saw attached to the model C-3000GW made in Brazil.

Steel nib made June 1967.

So all looks fine, right? Well, not really.

As we have also seen on these pages, the RW pens could implement both steel and gold nibs, And the external difference was on the clip: a golden clip was associated to gold nibs, and silver clips to steel nibs. And this pen has a steel nib and a golden clip.

I am well aware that replacing the nib in a Capless pen is a trivial matter. However, the manufacturing dates of nib and body match perfectly –June of 1967-, and a second RW unit also marketed in Brazil had this same association of clip and nib.

Therefore I think there are grounds to consider that the RW Capless sent to Brazil were somehow special in the combination of clip and nib. And this is a question our Brazilian friends could answer.


My thanks to TM.

Sailor Profit Sr, 18 K HB nib – Sailor Blue

Bruno Taut
April 27th 2023
etiquetas: Pilot, Capless, Brasil

Brazilian Capless (II)

NOTE (April 23rd, 2023): I have added a couple of sentences and a picture of the instruction sheet to show the lack of mention to ink cartridges re how to ink the Brazilian Capless.


There is nothing like reading the pen.

Some months ago I published a text on the very obscure Pilot Capless made in Brazil. Now I have on such pen in my hands and can look further into the details.

The Brazilian Capless. A revolutionary pen, apparently.

A direct comparison between these two pens shows some subtle differences:

Brazilian on top (teal), Japanese on bottom (red).

– The Brazilian pen implements a steel nib, and both nib and body are labeled as products of the “Industria Brasileira” (imprints “IND. BRAS.” and “IND. BRASILEIRA).

On its side, the Japanese Capless sports a 14 K gold nib marked with the JIS logo and imprint “MADE IN JAPAN”.

The Brazilian engraving is fainter than the Japanese. Note also the old Pilot logo --with the L underlining the O-- on the Brazilian nib.

– The central ring on these Capless are different. It is a groove on the Japanese pen, and is flat on the Brazilian unit.

The very different central ring. Brazilian on top, Japanese on bottom.

– Contrary to what I had said, the Brazilian pen does use a converter. It is a form of CON-W, as the nipple corresponds to a double-spare cartridge.

In this regards, both the Japanese and the Brazilian Capless are not different. However, the Japanese pen was not marketed with the converter attached.

The nib unit with the red tail corresponds to the Brazilian pen, with the converter attached. The Japanese unit shows a metallic sheath to cover the cartriges and provide the necessary length for the release mechanism to operate.

We could question then whether double-spare cartridges were actually marketed in Brazil or these pens –and others like later Capless and the model 77- relied solely on inkwells as ink supply. In fact, the instruction sheet of this Capless pen does not mention the use of cartridges at all.

Instruction shet of the Brazilian Capless written, obviously, in Portuguese. To fill the pen, it says, immerse the nib in the inkwell and pump ink into it. There is no mention to any type of cartridge to ink the pen.

All this is relevant because there exist the question of whether this Brazilian Capless was actually made in Brazil or merely assembled in Brazil out of parts sent out from Japan. An obvious third option would have been that the whole pen had been manufactured in Japan and sent to Brazil for the local market.

So far it is not possible to know which one of those possibilities was the right one. Only a peek onto the Brazilian records of Pilot do Brasil would give us a complete answer, but they seem to be off-limits now. In Japan, Pilot does not have records related to the foreign production.

But the details above described, especially those on the different central ring, do point out at a different manufacturing line for the Brazilian Capless.

Because in the absence of records there is nothing like reading the pen. Instruction sheets are also helpful.


My thanks to TM.

Parker 51 aerometric, burgundy – Tomikei Blue (Sailor)

Bruno Taut
April 20th 2023
etiquetas: Pilot, Capless, Brasil

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

The Marzullo Collection

“A maior casa de canetas-tinteiros da America do Sul”. The largest shop of fountain pens in South America—that was the claim of Casa Marzullo in the early 1940s.

Published in A Noite, August 1944.

Might that be right or just a marketing slogan, the fact is that Casa Marzullo was a very prominent stationer in the 1930s in Rio de Janeiro. According to their ads, and there were many of them, Casa Marzullo offered a wide range brands—Sheaffer, Parker, Esterbrook, Pelikan... And Pilot too.

Published in O Jornal, December 1939. Pelikan, Eagle, Sheaffer, ... and Pilot too. Other ads included Montblanc, Esterbrook, and others.

This ad is not specific of Casa Marzullo, although this shop appears among those selling the Pilot 38R on display. Published in O Malho, December 1940.

The Pilot pens we see on those ads, and those by Hachiya Company, are primarily the 38R with “nomikomi-shiki” filling system, “abastecimento magico” in Portuguese. But there is also evidence –although not ads—of high end Pilot pens in Brazil. And those are maki-e decorated pens that somehow ended up in the hands of Casa Marzullo. That is the Marzullo Collection.

The Marzullo Collection.

In all likelihood, these pens were imported by Hachiya, Irmãos e Companhia and passed –or sold— to Casa Marzullo. And they saw the light at the liquidation of the old assets of the stationer.

The set is formed by 10 pens, not all of them complete. Some lack nib and feed, others lack the whole section; a couple of them have their clip damaged or broken. All of them are branded as Pilot, as opposed to those similar pens marketed at the time in the West as Namiki or Dunhill-Namiki.

Their filling systems are “nomikomi-shiki”, albeit these pens lack the internal deposit. This detail is not new on pens from those early 1940s.

A complete section together with nib --size 3-- and feed. The internal deposit is missing.

The pens, or rather their decoration, are signed by some of the heavyweight craftsmen of the Kokkokai: Kõho (光甫), Shõetsu (松悦), Ritsuzan (立山), Shisen (紫川), Shõmi (松美).

Signed by Shõetsu (松悦). Produced by the Namiki Kan, as was the case of all pre-war maki-e pens nade by Pilot-Namiki.

Signed by Shisen (紫川).

Not much else is really known about these pens. Their presence in Brazil is surprising enough, and opens up the possibility of finding other maki-e pens in this and in neighboring countries.

The Marzullo Collection is now in the hands of a Brazilian stylophile.

Pilot Custom 74, Yamada Seisakusho – Diamine Teal

TM - BT
March 28th, 2023
labels: Brasil, Pilot, maki-e

The Hachiya Brothers

The country of Brazil has already shown up on these Chronicles. Pilot built its first manufacturing plant in this country in 1954, and since then pens and inks an other products have supplied the local market.

But the history of Pilot in Brazil started some years before that 1954.

Undated ad of Hachiya e Irmãos.

The migration of Japanese people to the Americas started by the end of 1800s with the end of the “closed country” policy of Japan. First they went to Hawaii and North America, but the 1908 gentleman's agreement between Japan the US redirected those migrating movements to Latin America. As a result, Brazil became the home to the largest number of descendants of Japanese in the world.

Almanak Laemmert, 1915. Reference of the company Hachiya e Irmão, located in the street Theophilo Ottoni 99.

The first member of the Hachiya (蜂谷) family to arrive in Brazil was Gosuke Hachiya in 1907. By 1910 the Hachiya company was founded to import Japanese products –chinaware from Nagoya, celluloid goods from Osaka--, and to export semi-precious stones from Brazil.

Undated ad of Franklin pens signed by Hachiya, Irmãos e Companhia.

And by 1938, the Hachiya, Irmãos e Companhia (Hachiya, Brothers and Co.) started offering fountain pens. The first mention is about a brand called Franklin, a name used by Pilot for export pens in those years. And in March of 1939 Hachiya the ads were about Pilot pens directly.

Among them we can see the well known 38R with the easy-drinking –nomikomi— filling system, dubbed in Portuguese as “abastecimento magico”.

Vida domestica, 1939. Ad of Pilot pens: duravel, bonita, mais barata. Durable, beautiful, inexpensive!

O Cruzeiro, 1940.

All this came to an end in December of 1941 with the Pearl Harbor attack and the beginning of the war between Japan and the US.

Hachiya Irmãos tried to re-structure the company to avoid the confiscation of assets. That, in fact, took place four months later—in March of 1942 the Brazilian government ordered the confiscation of all goods owned by German, Italian and Japanese citizens.

Hachiya Irmãos was effectively dissolved in March of 1944.

So this is, in summary, the short history of Pilot in Brazil before the War. And in another text we will speak about some of the pens from that period found in Brazil.

Lamy Al-Star – Lamy Blue

TM - BT
March 24th, 2023
labels: Brasil, Pilot

Ink Color or Ink Properties?

Now we know that the Pilot Tsuwairo inks –or at least the blue one-- do work in the water resistance department. And I will assume that the claims of being lightfast are also true, although I have not tested that.

So all is good and well, but do we really need all that? Is there a demand for inks with those properties?

Before the bath.

Some water resistance might indeed be useful. Back in 2015, the Peaceable Writer wanted her inks to “have decent water resistance, so that my pages survive an inevitable coffee ring or spill” (::1::). Do we need much more than that? And my point now is that the old fashioned Pilot Blue and Blue-black inks do show an acceptable resistance to water at a much lower price.

The bath.

Something similar can be said about lightfast capabilities. The usual action is to close the notebook or to file the document after writing. Then, how much more resistance to light do we need?

And more importantly, how much are we willing to pay?

And back to the first question—is there really a demand for inks like these by Pilot—or by Platinum, Sailor, etc?

After the bath.

I confess my lack of understanding of the ink market. The inflation in colors, brands, and also in prices defies any rational analysis, but the inkunuma creature –the dweller in that colorful swamp of inks—seems driven mosre by the ink color than by the actual characteristics of the ink.

And that is why I do not understand these new inks by Pilot.

Parker 51 — Sailor Yama-dori

Bruno Taut
February 24th, 2023
etiquetas: Pilot, tinta, mercado

CON-70N

On the previous text I mentioned that the Pilot Tsuwairo inks should not be used in the old converter CON-70. I am showing side-by-side pics of the old and the new versions of this converter.

Top, old CON-70. Bottom, CON-70N.

The same modifications were applied to the black version common to the urushi-based decorated pens under Pilot and Namiki brands.

There are a number of differences between them, but the one that looks more significant is the internal cylinder right behind the rubber stopper. Pilot, in fact, points at it when warning about the usage of Tsuwairo inks. The ink capacities of both versions have not changed significantly—they are 1.0 ml (with a margin of error of +-0.05 ml).

Pilot Custom 74, Yamada Seisakusho — Diamine Teal

Bruno Taut
February 15th, 2023
etiquetas: Pilot, conversor

Old vs. New. Regular vs. Tsuwairo Inks by Pilot.

Abstract.

Pilot has recently released a new line of inks called Tsuwairo (see Fig. 1). Interesting as these inks might be, they also come with a list of inconveniences the old inks in similar colors did not have.

How do these two lines of inks compare?

That is the question I want to answer on this text.

Figure 1.

Introduction.

Among the big three Japanese pen companies, Pilot was the last one to release a pigmented ink. The reason for that was that Pilot already had a permanent ink—the Pilot Blue-black ink. But in 2022, Pilot finally marketed three pigmented inks under the series name of Tsuwairo (強色; literally, “strong color”).

Pilot declares these inks are lightfast and water resistant. But Pilot also warns about their risks (see Fig. 2):

– Not to be used in urushi-decorated pens.
– Not to be used in three Pilot pen models Custom Heritage 92, Custom 823, and Justus 95.
– Not to be used with the old converter CON-70 but only with the newer version CON-70N and with the CON-40.
– Not to be used with non-Pilot pens.

Figure 2. The instructions and warning of Pilot about the use of Tsuwairo inks. It also describes the differences between the old CON-70 and the newer CON-70N.

And their price is 2.5 times higher than those of the regular inks by Pilot—JPY 1000 vs JPY 400, taxes aside; 30 ml.

But if the Pilot Blue-black is also permanent, albeit by different means and possibly not lightfast, are the new Tsuwairo inks worth the extra cost and the extra risks? How permanent are those older inks?


Methodology.

To answer those questions I performed some simple experiments. In essence, three inks were tested against water immersion.

The inks were Pilot Blue, Pilot Tsuwairo Blue, and Pilot Blue-black. The paper was Pilot sample paper, manufactured by Life. (See Fig. 3).

The writing was done with Sailor fude nibs and with Pilot M and calligraphy (CM, stub) nibs made of steel.

The immersion in water was made at two different times: about 5 min after being written and after several hours after that.

Figure 3. The inks and the papers used on the experiments.

Results.

On figure 4 we can see the written sample made with Pilot nibs before (top) and after (bottom) immersion in water. On the left, the sample was exposed to water 6 minutes after being written. That on the right, after 4 hours.

Figure 4. Written samples. Pilot nibs (M and CM). Sample on the left immersed in water 6 minutes after written. Right sample, immersed 4 hours after being written.

And on figure 5, the results of a similar experiment but with Sailor fude nibs. The sample on the left was immersed after 5 minutes of written. The one on the right, 12 hours later.

Figure 5. Written samples. Sailor fude nib. Sample on the left immersed in water 5 minutes after written. The one on the right, immersed 12 hours after being written.

Pilot nibs, on figure 4, carry a lot less ink that those by Sailor (Fig 5).

The results are quite clear and do not change significantly with the variables explored on these experiments—time of the ink on the paper, and amount of ink in the nib and on the paper.

The Tsuwairo ink clearly performs better than the regular inks, and there are not major differences between the behaviors of the regular Blue and Blue-black inks re their resistance to water.

However, the traditional inks are perfectly legible after 15 minutes in water, and they do this at a much lower cost, and without the risks associated to the pigmented inks, as warned by Pilot.


Conclusions.

The Tsuwairo Blue ink is indeed water resistant, but according to the manufacturer it should not be use under certain conditions.

On the other hand, the traditional Blue and Blue-black inks show a remarkable resistance to water without any of those risks and at much lower cost.

Moonman A1 — Montblanc Burgundy Red

Bruno Taut
February 13th, 2023
etiquetas: Pilot, tinta

Moonman vs. Pilot

Over a year ago, Chinese pen maker Moonman released the model A1, also marketed as Majohn A1. In actual terms, this is a capless pen remarkably similar –being polite-- to the Pilot Capless. So, how do they compare? Or, more precisely, how does the A1 compare to the older original by Pilot?

Size-wise, their dimensions are very close. The Chinese capless is slightly longer and thinner, and is a couple of grams heavier.

Pilot vs. Moonman. A1 vs. Capless.

Externally, the main difference between them is the central ring—almost flat on the Moonman, two toroidal bands on the Pilot. In fact, this flat central ring in the Chinese pen explains its thinner girth.

These are the dimensions of these pens:

	.Moonman A1.	.Pilot Capless.
Length closed (mm)	142	141
Length open (mm)	139	137
Max diameter (mm)	12.9	13.2
Weight, dry (g)	33.7	30.0
Ink deposit (ml)	0.9 (cart) 0.4 (conv)	0.9 (cart) 0.5 (CON-40)

The flat central ring in the Moonman A1.

Regarding the nibs, the Moonman comes only with a silver-color, stainless steel unit in EF. The Pilot, let us remember, can implement both steel and 18 K gold nibs with up to six different points –from EF to B, plus a stub— and three different finishes —golden, silver, and black— depending on the specific model. However, the most interesting feature is that Moonman made its nib units entirely compatible with those by Pilot: cartridges and converters are interchangeable between brands, and Moonman nibs can be used in Pilot pens, and the other way around.

The Moonman nib.

And all that at a fraction of the cost of the Pilot Capless. About EUR 30 for the Moonman, and between EUR 80 and EUR 140 for the Pilot. (Japan prices. EUR 140 is approximately the price of the matte black model (FC-18SR-BM). There are more expensive variations in the Pilot catalog).

Then, the question is whether the Moonman A1 is a copy of the Pilot Capless. I think it is, and the fact that the brand Moonman was clearly written on the nib and on the body does not really change anything. After all, nothing truly original can we see on this Chinese pen.

Now, is Moonman legitimized to manufacture this pen? Moonman is not the first company doing so. In Japan, about 100 years ago, Nobuo Ito's Swan was copying UK's Swan pens under the protection of Japanese laws and courts. After all, every industrial revolution –save the British- was made copying other's products. And then the idea of fairness depends on the side of the border we stand on.

The problem, then, is a different one. The current technological environment is very different from that at the heyday of fountain pens. In other words, fountain pens are no longer the essential tool they once were, and their market is not so driven by the necessity as by the craving. Not by the regular user but by the aficionado. And the Moonman A1 does not offer anything the Pilot didn't several years before... save an excellent price.

Is that enough? Regardless of the answer, Pilot –and others– should pay close attention to whatever might come out of China.


NOTE (Dec 30th): An anonymous commenter pointed out a detail I had overseen--there is a clipless version of the Moonman A1, and that caters the claims of a number of users of the Pilot model. This shows the attention Moonman --and other Chinese makers-- pay to the Net and what users and aficionados say in there. I reckon this Chinese clipless capless variation does offer something new, as Platinum did with the removable clip on its Curidas, and it can be an argument for some older users of the Pilot to choose it.

Thanks, anonymous commenter.

Moonman A1 - Montblanc Burgundy Red

Bruno Taut
December 28th, 2022
etiquetas: Moonman, Pilot, capless, mercado