Jumbo

During the thirties, Japanese pen companies produced the so called Jumbo pens. These pens were aimed at senior customers who had problems with the grip of standard pens. So, they were, they are, very thick pens with regular nibs.

The diameter of the pen is about 3.5 cm. The length, 13.5 cm.

The production of these pens continued even after the War, although by that time, they were sold mainly as souvenirs.

On this pic, the security valve is open, allowing the ink to reach the section and nib.

The pen I am showing now has no brand indication save the inscription on the nib—a Platinum-Nakaya in 14 K gold, semi-flexible. The feed is smooth underneath, indicating that it is probably a pre-war pen. The body is made in ebonite. It is, as many a Japanese pen from that time, an eyedropper filler with a security valve. The ink deposit –I am tempted of calling it a tank— holds about 15 ml of ink. Enough to write for months.

14 KARAT GOLD. PLATINUM -4- NAKAYA PEN.

Clip and cap ring have lost all its luster, and the barrel is discolored, probably due to direct sunlight exposure. However, the main problem was the broken feed. Among other issues, it made the nib-feed set to be loosely attached to the section.

Smooth underneath—most likely, a pre-war pen.

These thick pens are very comfortable in the hand. The grip is relaxed on the fingers. This one in particular is well balanced both posted and unposted—the extra 15 grams of ink make the center of gravity to be relatively low.

The broken feed.

I liked this pen a lot. But the broken feed pushed me to return it.

(Sailor Profit 14 in burgundy – Noodler’s Old Dutch Sepia)

Bruno Taut
(Inagi, September 4, 2010)
[labels: Platinum, Japón]

Realo

Japanese pens are well renown by the quality of their nibs, and quite rightly so although with some exceptions I will speak about in a near future. However, it seems that this devotion for the nibs –some say— has the price of not paying much attention to the filling systems.

Most Japanese pens use the very convenient and simple system of the cartridge and converter. But for many stylophiles, this system is simply not good enough. This system, they argue, eliminates the ritual of filling the pen with ink; something that some enthusiasts consider a very important element in the pleasure of using a fountain pen.

Limited edition of the first Realo. On the cap, the number of the pen, the 424 over a total of 500, can be seen.

Sailor’s market strategy includes the Realo model—a piston filler based on the Profit and Professional Gear models. However, the first Realo was a limited edition of 500 units based on their biggest pen—the King of Pen. It commemorated the 95th anniversary of the company in 2006.

The ring with the inscription on the 95th anniversary of Sailor.

Only afterwards, upon seeing the success of the self-filling system, Sailor created the more affordable Realo we now see in the catalog and in the shops. But the differences between these two pens are… a bit sad. If only, because the original King of Pen Realo is very difficult to find nowadays.

A comparison between the current Realo and the original limited edition. Note the differences in the ink windows—those in the original Realo are similar to the Montblanc 149 windows. The difference in the nib size is remarkable.

I had the chance to take these pictures on the last Wagner Pen Clinic. My thanks to Mr. Noguchi.

(Pilot Custom 74 with music nib – Sailor Red Brown)

Bruno Taut
(Inagi, September 2, 2010)
[labels: Sailor, evento, Japón]

Counterfeit

The debate is always open: how far can anyone go in copying things? Where do we set the line between inspiration and counterfeiting? Is it honest to buy a counterfeited good?

My previous chronicle spoke about the Platinum Knock 18, the capless pen manufactured by Platinum in 1965. As I said, Pilot’s threats of legal actions made Platinum to discontinue this model.

Is this a counterfeit? Platinum's Knock 18 (1965).

But, was Pilot the inventor of this push-pull system? Pilot certainly filed some patents in the US for a “Retractable Nib Fountain Pen” in 1964 and in later years.

The "Retractable Nib Fountain Pen" patent by Pilot in 1964 (published in 1966).

However, about twenty years before, some Grover C. Smith had already patented a similar invention:

A capless-like patent from 1944, published in 1946.

So, can we say Pilot was completely original in its creation? No, definitely not. Was Pilot the most successful? Yes, certainly.

I do not have the answers to the questions I asked in the beginning of this text. But by now I know that there are very few original ideas in the world of fountain pens. Accepting some copies as legitimate but not others is at anybody’s discretion.

Montblanc and non Montblanc torpedo pens.

Would we like to see copies of the Pilot Capless in the market? Do we enjoy torpedo-like pens not made by Montblanc? And what about Chinese-made copies of well-known pens?

A China-made Montblanc. Does anybody ever think this is a real Montblanc?

We should not forget that plagiarism is accepted when it becomes assassination.

With thanks to Grafopasión forum member Estilográficas.

(Platinum 3776 music nib – Sailor Red Brown)

Bruno Taut
Inagi, September 2, 2010
[labels: Pilot, Platinum, Montblanc, fora]

Knock

The Platinum Knock-18 is one of those mysterious fountain pens. The books say it existed, you can even see some pictures of it in the Internet, but it is quite unlikely to run into it for real.

The Platinum Knock 18.

Last Sunday, at the monthly Wagner Pen Clinic I had the chance to put my hands in one of them.

The Knock 19 compared to the 1965 Pilot Capless model. The later, in red, is about 1 cm longer.

The push buttons are totally different. While the Pilot has a relatively small button entering the barrel, in the Platinum pen, the whole barrel is the button.

Transparent feeders on both nibs. Platinum nib moves further out from the section than Pilot's.

The openings for the nibs. Both are closed when the pen is not in use, although that cannot be seen on the pic.

Pilot marketed its first Capless model in 1963 at a whooping price of JPY 6000, which could be something in the order of JPY 60000 nowadays. Given the limited success, a JPY 3000 version was released the following year –aiming at students, some sources say— and it became a real success. Platinum then made its own model –this Knock 18— trying to take benefit of the new trend. This model was short-lived due to patent infringement issues.

My thanks to Mr. Niikura, who allowed me to inspect his never inked pen.

(Platinum 3776 music nib – Sailor Red Brown)

Bruno Taut
Inagi, August 31, 2010
labels: Pilot, evento, Platinum

Deals

Speaking some days ago about my experiments swapping nibs and feeds between a Platinum and a Nakaya I said I had to speak about its economic aspects. So, here I go.

The two nibs.

The basic facts are these:

Price in Japan of the cheapest Nakaya (celluloid): JPY 36750
Price supplement in Japan of the Nakaya music nib: JPY 10500
Price in Japan of the Platinum 3776 with music nib: JPY 15750
Price in Japan of the Platinum 3776 with a non-music nib: JPY 10500

A Nakaya in red lacquer with its original soft-fine nib.

The numbers are easy to add:

Option one:
Celluloid Nakaya with music nib: JPY 47250

Option two:
Celluloid Nakaya: JPY 36750
Platinum 3776 with music nib: JPY 15750
Total: JPY 52500

The Platinum 3776 with its original Platinum nib.

In the second case, those extra JPY 5250 buy an additional nice writer with a Nakaya nib. The main inconvenient? Having a Nakaya with a Platinum-engraved nib, and a Platinum with a Nakaya engraving. Is it so grievous?

A Platinum with a Nakaya nib.

These options make sense in the case we could not find a Platinum music nib and feed sold as separate parts. The alternative is to look in the second hand market for a used Platinum music nib pen. But I have rarely seen any of those for sale.

The decision, of course, is on the side of the buyer.

Platinum Celluloid pen with music nib. This one belonged to Leigh Reyes, whose picture I gratefully acknowledge.

All these considerations did not make sense some months ago, when the Platinum 3776 in celluloid with music nib was still in the market for JPY 31500. That is no longer the case. Was it a case of direct competition within the same company?

(Pilot Custom 74 music nib – Sailor Red Brown)

Bruno Taut
(Inagi, August 22, 2010)
[labels: plumín, Platinum]

Drilling

This coming Sunday 29th, the August meeting of the Wagner Association will take place at the Subaru building in Ebisu, Tokyo. And now, checking my notes of the July Pen Clinic I see some pens worth to mention here.

On a previous entry I spoke about the creations of Mr. Yamada. This time I focused my attention on his modification of a Pilot Custom 823.


On these chronicles and in some other discussion fora, pen users have complained about the boring looks of the pens equipped with more interesting nibs. The case of Pilot is very significant. This company makes as much as 15 different nibs –actually, many more--, of which five or six really stand off the common trend of purely symmetric points. But these interesting nibs only come in black torpedo pens.

Mr. Yamada’s way to correct this problem is quite radical—and inspiring. He modifies the nibs by thinning the nib plate and by drilling holes on them with the final goal of making those rigid nibs more flexible. When needed, he also works on the feeds.


On its side, the Custom 823 model is often praised by its self-filling system (one of the few self-filling pens in the Japanese pen scene) and by its huge ink capacity. On its cons, the small selection of nibs: F, M, and B.


Then, he chose this interesting pen to create a more exciting writer. The result, looks aside, is not spectacular. Maybe because the baseline of this nib is a B, quite broad by default. Therefore, the apparent increase in the line-width is compared to an already wide line. To create more striking results, a fine nib would be more suitable.


There is, however, another alternative to this DIY (do it yourself) approach. Pilot’s size 15 nibs come also as a flexible falcon (FA). Exchanging the nib and feed in a Custom 823 is easy—just grab them firmly and yank them out of the section. A different story might be where and how to find this extra nib and feed.

The discussion on how efficient the falcon nib actually is should be the topic of another chronicle.

(Pilot Custom 742 music nib – Sailor Red Brown)

Bruno Taut
(Inagi, August 21, 2010)
[labels: plumín, evento, Pilot, Tokyo]

Swap

On my previous chronicle, in which I compared two music nibs, I complained about the boring looks of the costume of those exciting nibs.

In the elaboration of that review, I tried a number of things with several pens. I even dared to extract the nib and the feed of some of them to take some pictures. And once the box is open, experiments are in order.

Externally, it was not difficult to see how similar the Platinum 3776 and the Nakaya feeds were. And once disassembled, it became evident that they were basically the same, save, of course, the beautiful detail of the twin grooves for the music nib.

Nakaya's feed and nib on the left, labeled as Nakata. Platinum's set on the right.

So, what if I swapped the nib and the feed between those two pens? No problem, and this is the result:


So, finally I got an exciting nib in a beautiful urushi pen.


This should be no surprise. After all, Nakaya and Platinum are closely related. I cannot say for sure whether they are the same company or not, but I tend to consider Nakaya as the luxury division of Platinum, much in the fashion of Namiki as the luxury division of Pilot.

Nakaya has music nibs among its options for their custom-made pens, and there even exist the additional possibility of making it flexible. However, all these come at premium prices, not to mention the overprice of both the music nib (additional JPY 10000, or USD 80) and the flexible character (another JPY 10000 on top of the previous surcharge). I will leave the economic analysis of these figures for another chronicle. (Figures and availability as seen on Nakaya's website on August 2010).

Similar nib swapping can be made within the Pilot family of pens. Most Pilot maki-e pens and some Namiki (Yukari and Nippon Art collections) use size 5 and size 10 nibs. In those, the implementation of music or falcon or stub nibs is easy and straightforward. The obvious question, then, is why Pilot does not offer those exciting nibs as an option.

(Nakaya aka-tamenuri with Platinum music nib – Sailor Red Brown)

Bruno Taut
(Inagi, August 17, 2010)
[labels: plumín, Pilot, Platinum]