Daiso's Fountain Pens

Daiso, the Wikipedia says, is a franchise of 100-yen shops original from Hiroshima, in Japan. This company is present in a number of countries including US, Canada and Australia.

Among the many products present on the Daiso’s shelves we can always find some fountain pens. On this Chronicle I will describe some recent examples. All of them cost JPY 100, plus tax.

This picture taken in 2010 shows a number of inexpensive pens present in the Japanese market. Among them, some of the pens marketed by Daiso analyzed on this Chronicle.

1. Daiso Mini, ca. 2008. This was a small pen to be used posted. It uses Sailor cartridges, but it has no room for the regular Sailor converter. The nib is made of stainless steel and carries no engraving at all.

Daiso Mini.

Daiso Mini's nib, shared with the Regular model.

2. Daiso Regular, ca. 2008. This is the sister pen of the Daiso Mini. It is a regular size pen and accepts a converter. Section and nib are identical –and interchangeable – on both pens. This model could be found in black and in red.

Daiso Regular in red.

3. Sailor Ink Pen, ca. 2008. This is the cheapest Sailor fountain pen in recent years. It is a regular size pen that uses Sailor-proprietary cartridges and converter. The nib is labeled as F-4, is made of stainless steel, and is not tipped.

The Sailor Ink Pen, now discontinued.

The untipped F-4 nib of the Sailor Ink Pen.

4. Platinum Riviere. I saw this pen at Daiso shops back in 2008 and it is still available. Again, this is a cartridge-converter (Platinum proprietary) pen with steel nib. The nib is engraved with the platinum logo and the nib point—M. It is tipped and the pen is a smooth writer. Several colors --at least, black, blue and red— have existed, but lately only black seems to be available.

The Platinum Riviere in blue.

The Platinum nib of a 100-yen pen.

5. Daiso metal pen, ca. 2015 on. The latest arrival is this all metal pen save for the section. It implements a steel nib and uses international cartridges and converters. This pen is available in grey and white.

The non-branded fountain pens on sale at Daiso's shops nowadays.

Not much information is provided by the nib itself.

This last pen is, by far, the most attractive of those here described. On the other end we encounter the Sailor Ink Pen, whose untipped nib made it a bit tricky to use for the novice.

In any event, these Daiso pens show that there are refillable pens in the market for less than a US dollar or a Euro.

Pelikan M800 – Tomiya Tomikei blue (by Sailor)

Bruno Taut
Nakano, April 30th, 2016
etiquetas: Daiso, mercado, Japón, Sailor, Platinum.

Sailor's Plunger

Plungers are old and new, particularly in Japan. Some of the first fountain pens arriving in this country were Onoto plunger fillers, and the well known Japanese eyedropper system (::1::, ::2::) of storing ink in the pen is a simplification of the original Onoto system.

However common the Japanese eyedropper is, Japanese companies continued making plungers for some of their models. Pilot’s examples, the P type, are well documented, but these are by no means the only ones.

This is a Sailor, not an Omas.

The clip is clearly signed as Sailor.

Sailor also made some, and such is the case of the pen on display today. It is a small celluloid pen made around 1935. The nib, not that big, is labeled as being a size 20.

The size-20 nib. The engraving reads "14 CR GOLD / Sailor / REGISTERED / PATENT OFFICE / -20-".

These are the dimensions of this pen:
Length closed: 124 mm
Length open: 112 mm
Length posted: 151 mm
Diameter: 11 mm
Weight: 15.2 g (dry)

The plunger, half retracted.

The basic problem of this filling system is its vulnerability. It is very fragile and prone to break down due to failures in the plunger seal.

The plunger, disassembled.

My thanks to Mr. Sugimoto and to Mr. Mochizuki.

Pelikan M800 – Tomiya Tomikei Blue (by Sailor)

Bruno Taut
Nakano, April 25th, 2016
etiquetas: Japón, soluciones técnicas, Sailor, Pilot, Onoto

Pens at an Exhibition

The National Museum of Japanese History, in the city of Sakura (Chiba prefecture), hosts these days –March 8th to May 8th 2016—an exhibition on fountain pens: “Fountain Pens: Their History ad Art in Japan”. That is the official English title. However, the original in Japanese is more along the lines of “Lifestyle and Fountain Pens. The Modernization of Writing”.

Finally I had the chance to attend it and these are my recollections:

Sakura is a small town (population around 180000) in the prefecture of Chiba, about 60 minutes away from Tokyo Station by train. The Museum is connected to the train station by a bus route that takes 15 min. The admission fee to the exhibition is JPY 830. No pictures are allowed.

This is the outline:

Lifestyle and Fountain Pens. The Modernization of Writing.
0. Introduction. Literature and writing in Japan.
1. Fountain pens in Japan and their craftsmanship.
1.1 History of fountain pens in Japan.
1.2 Craftsmanship.
-- Lathe masters.
-- Maki-e.
2. Fountain pens and contemporary Japan.
2.1 The time of fountain pens.
2.2 Fountain pens and the modern organization.
2.3 Fountain pens and daily life.
3. Epilogue. Writing revisited.

The starting point of the exhibition is the role fountain pens played around 1900 in Japan. Fountain pens –that is, a reliable writing tool with an integrated ink deposit—were a much better writing device in a highly literate society whose writing system was based on handwriting. This starting point, somehow, defines the whole exhibition whose focus is on the social influence of pens and not on the historical development of them.

In fact, as could be seen on the outline, the part dedicated to the history of pen in Japan is limited to the first section (1.1). It is, however, rather limited and is organized by brands, with the big three companies taking most of the available space. A more chronological display would have been a lot more illustrative. There is also the obvious void of pens made after 1980 (save for some contemporary Pilot Capless and some Kato Seisakusho’s models).

Given the focus of the exhibition, most of the pens on display are common tools that were available to the average citizen. The most obvious exception to this rule is the selection of maki-e decorated pens used to illustrate the section on Japanese craftsmanship.

This section is completed with assorted memorabilia: ads, display cases, sale materials, etc.

More importance is given to the theme of craftsmanship of pens (section 1.2), focused on two aspects: pen turning and maki-e decoration.

Pen turning by rather primitive means has always been an important part of the Japanese pen industry. Let us remember brands as Ban-ei, Kato Seisakusho, Hakase, Eboya, Ohashido, and many others. Several of those lathes --pedal operated, with precarious chucks more often than not, and unstable toolposts— together with sets of tools can be seen at the museum.

Maki-e is also very well presented. The selection of pens, many from private collections, is magnificent and is supported by a computer system where visitors can explore the decorative motifs in detail through high quality pictures.

Page 111 of the catalog. It displays a maki-e decorated pen by Platinum. A pen, actually, already described on these Chronicles.

The exhibition is interesting and worth the trip from Tokyo. After all, pens rarely show up collectively in museums. Unfortunately, pictures are not allowed. However, there is a very serious flaw: pens and other objects are not dated. This is an inexplicable mistake to any curator.

The catalog is nicely printed and is affordable in price (JPY 1800, plus tax). Pictures, and in particular those of maki-e pens, are very good. But the editor made a big mistake. There are a number of pictures of pens that are seamless compositions of pictures of single pens. At the time of putting them together, someone made the stupid decision of representing all the pens in the same length, not respecting the actual differences in size. The result is ridiculous: a pocket pen of the same length of a full size Pilot Custom Sterling, as can be seen on the accompanying pictures.

Page 30 of the catalog shows these six Pilot pens. All of them, apparently, have the same length.

This is how those six pens (save minor decorative details) really look like with respect to each other. This ridiculous mistake is repeated in a number of pages of the catalog.

The lack of dates in the exhibition is not corrected in the catalog. Again, we are deprived of that valuable piece of information.

But I would visit the exhibition “Lifestyle and Fountain Pens” again.

My thanks to Poplicola-san.

Ban-ei in black urushi – Pilot Blue

Bruno Taut
Nakano, April 20th 2016
etiquetas: evento, Japón, estilofilia