Family Portrait (I)

My first chronicle was entitled Metamorfosis, and it was about the internal change many of us, stylophiles, go through when we acquire a passion like this. It does not come without mixed feelings and I have already spoken about how many pen aficionados insist in being users over collectors … if not hoarders! On my side, I did give up some time ago—I am a collector, even if modest, and a hoarder.

Small family portrait: Four hoshiawase pens.

Then, the following family picture makes some sense. It displays my modest collection of Pilot hoshiawase pens from the 1920s. All four of them are late models, from between 1926 and 1928.


The latest arrival dated from August 1927. It has a 14 K gold nib in size 3, and the hard rubber body is chased. Its overall condition is fairly good.

The latest arrival.

These are its dimensions:
Diameter: 12 mm.
Length capped: 122 mm.
Length uncapped: 117 mm.
Length posted: 155 mm.
Weight: 12 g.


The hoshiawase system was finally dropped because it never worked well enough in its purpose to seal the ink deposit. Therefore, its interest nowadays lies more in its originality and rarity than on the actual functionality of these pens. But the temptation to use them is always present. How would the experience of writing with such a pen be?

(Sailor Profit Junior – Pilot Iroshizuku Yama-budo)

Bruno Taut
December 29th, 2011
[labels: Pilot, estilofilia]

Swiss Bank

On my previous chronicle I mentioned the existence of this Sailor’s nib engraved with the rather cryptic text “Gold from the Swiss Bank”. Nibs like this are made of 14 K gold and were present in a number of pens, both in pocket and full sizes.

The Swiss Bank gold.

But what about this reference to banks in Switzerland or, better, THE Swiss Bank? Does it account for any actual origin of the gold or was it a mere cosmetic detail or a marketing trick?

This inscription could also be seen on older Sailor pens (I, II), probably from the 1970s, whose nibs were very different to the one here shown. As for this particular one, in this original shape, dating it should not be difficult. It is engraved with what looks like a date: 902. It could correspond to September of Heisei year 2, which corresponds to 1990. Although a bit late for pocket pens, it might still be reasonable.

Where did this white gold come from?

A similar nib is present on this other pen, made of steel with black stripes. This time, the nib is made of 18 K white gold and has no engraving stating the origin of the gold. It seems to be dated in 610, which could correspond to June 1998 (Heisei 10). However, these two pens share an air of familiarity that suggest a common origin.

These are the pen dimensions:


Pocket pen. Catalog number 11-0408 220. 14 K gold nib:
Diameter: 12 mm.
Length capped: 120 mm.
Length uncapped: 102 mm.
Length posted: 141 mm.
Weight: 17 g.


Full size pen. Catalog number 11-0604 220. 18 K white gold nib:
Diameter: 11 mm.
Length capped: 136 mm.
Length uncapped: 121 mm.
Length posted: 150 mm.
Weight: 15 g.

(Pilot Custom 74 with music nib – Pilot Iroshizuku Sho-ro)

Bruno Taut
December 27th, 2011)
[etiquetas: plumín, Sailor]

Sailor's Pockets

Sailor’s approach to pocket pens –that Japanese invention initiated by Platinum in 1964—was quite erratic. Even though pocket pens indeed came in a number of nib points and body decorations, the nib styles were limited for both Platinum and Pilot pens.



In contrast, Sailor’s pocket pens display almost all kinds of nib shapes —from semi-hooded to inlaid— and on materials, although in this department Pilot and Platinum were also quite promiscuous. However, only Sailor made nibs with "gold from the Swiss bank". But that should the topic of another chronicle.

A collection of different nibs, all from Sailor's pocket pens. All of them are made of gold with purities between 14 and 23 K. Two of them are made of white gold.

(Parker 51 – Pilot Iroshizuku Kon-peki)

Bruno Taut
December 22nd, 2011
[etiquetas: Sailor, plumín]

ED (III)

On these chronicles, I have spoken several times about eyedropper transformations of some pens—Pilot Prera, Kaweco Sport, Platinum Preppy… Good, correct writers as those are, they are not the most charming pens in the market, and filling their barrels with ink is a safe bet for having them inked for a long and boring while. But those experiments show a couple of things.

A Kaweco Sport filled as eyedropper. In this case, the italic nib from the Kaweco Calligraphy set makes this pen a lot more interesting.

Making an eyedropper pen is easy. Easy for the user and, more important, easy for the manufacturer. However, very few companies market pens openly as eyedroppers: Stipula, Pilot-Namiki, Romillopens, Danitrio, Eboya-Nebotek,… And with the exception of the Stipula T, all those pens are very expensive. But the market of stylophiles, on its side, demands arcane filling systems like this.

The Stipula T. A good idea for a poorly performing pen.

Stipula seems to be the only company truly understanding this, although its eyedropper-cartridge-converter pen –the Stipula T— does not perform correctly. Then, why do other companies not try this approach? Why do Pilot, Platinum and Sailor not try to create affordable eyedroppers with their admirable selection of nibs? On top of that, as Stipula showed, eyedropper pens are not incompatible with the convenience of cartridges and converters.

Maybe they are pushing us into buying vintage pens instead of their newly crafted goods...

(Sailor Realo with Cross-music nib – Pelikan 4001 Royal Blue)

Bruno Taut
December 18th, 2011
[etiquetas: soluciones técnicas, mercado, estilofilia, Stipula]

Spheres

For my friend Kugel 149.

Kugel is the German word for sphere or ball, and it is also a label associated to some nibs of, to my knowledge, German manufacturers: Montblanc, Pelikan, Lamy. The idea behind a Kugel nib was to enlarge the “sweet” spot of the nib and to make it easier and more pleasant to write with those fountain pens.

Kugel nib of a Montblanc 149 from the early 1950s. It is a KOB.

These nibs can easily be spotted—the nib point is a small sphere that clearly sticks out over the nib’s upper side. Kugel nibs are usually labeled with a K before the actual nib point—KM, KB, KOB… However, there are a number of nibs sporting this same feature that are not labeled as “Kugel”. Does that mean these were not Kugel nibs?

I see a big ball here. Parker Falcon 50, from ca. 1980.

This question would be irrelevant might not be that German Kugel nibs, labeled as such, reach much higher prices in the second hand market that those not labeled as such. So, what do stylophiles value? The rarity of the label or the actual nib, labeled or not?

Another sphere. A Pilot Capless nib currently on production.

Modern nibs tend to have larger tips, as can be seen on the pictures. I can think of two reasons to explain this: The first one is the current lower price of the raw materials –mostly Ruthenium alloys in modern nibs— with respect to the labor costs of producing smooth and material-efficient points. The second is the lack of use of fountain pens—for people raised in the era of ball-points and keyboards, fountain pens with larger sweet spots and smoother nibs might be arguments to attract new users.

Anyway, that is just a hypothesis. The main conclusion is that there are more Kugel nibs in the market that just those labeled with a K.

(Parker Falcon 50 – Sailor Miruai)

Bruno Taut
December 15th, 2011
[etiquetas: Alemania, plumín, estilofilia]

Hepburn

When writing about Japan in English or Spanish soon one encounters a linguistic problem—that of the transliteration of Japanese words into alphabet. And this is an important issue as we, non-Japanese, need a consistent way of writing those, otherwise, mostly incomprehensible terms and names.

The most common set of rules for these transcriptions, or in Japanese terms, to write in Romaji, is the so called Hepburn Romanization, after James Curtis Hepburn, who proposed his system by the end of the nineteen century. The problem arises when Japanese native speakers are not really familiar with it. Needless to say, they do not need any transliteration in their daily life, and Romaji is not seriously covered at school. However, sooner or later, many a Japanese will have to write something in alphabet —a name, an address…— and mistakes are in order. The first type of mistakes is to follow the writing of the Japanese syllabaries. The second is to make the pronunciation of the written word in alphabet close to the Japanese sound when read by an (American) English speaker.

Behind the first mistake lays the inconsistency of writing certain sounds –mostly long o and most diphthongs (Yôon, 拗音). This is the reason why we see the name of the founder of the Japanese brand Swan written as Itou instead of Itô.

The second type of mistake --to help English native speakers to pronounce Japanese more correctly—accounts for spelling Ohto (大戸), a Japanese pen brand and a common family name—instead of Oto or Ôto, although this case creates no problem as the commercial name is well known and is not subject to different spellings.


At the end, the basic problem is one of consistency. Consistency both within any given text as well as with respect to other texts. Andreas Lambrou’s Fountain Pens of the World (1995) is an example of the opposite. The founder of Swan in Japan is spelled both as Itou and as Ito; SSS’s founder is both Asahirou and Asahiro Hosonuma; workshop or works (製作所) is randomly written as seisakusyo and as seisakusho; to name just a few examples.


I hope these problems were absent in the incoming Fountain Pens of Japan, by A. Lambrou and Masamichi Sunami. This book is bound to become a basic reference on Japanese fountain pens, and everything would be easier with good foundations.

(Pilot Prera, eyedropper – Senator Regent Royal Blue)

Bruno Taut
December 13th, 2011
[labels: japonés (idioma), libro, Japón]

Retirement

Sailor’s nibmeister Nagahara Nobuyoshi (長原宣義) has announced his retirement on the last issue (December 2011) of magazine Shumi-no Bungubako. Logical as it is at his age (he was born in 1932), it is indeed a big loss for the fountain pen scene.

Nibmeister Mr. Nagahara Nobuyoshi at the past Fuente Pen Show (Tokyo, October 2011).

As I have already stated on previous chronicles, Nagahara’s specialty nibs are the single most exciting innovation in fountain pens in many years. After over one hundred years of pen history, not much room there seems to be for changes in an out-of-fashion writing tool. Filling systems, body materials, and nibs and feeds are the basic areas of evolution in a fountain pen. However, it is hard to become impressed by new materials and nothing new we have seen in ages re filling systems and feeds.

Cover of issue 21 of Shumi no Bungubako where the retirement of Mr. Nahagara is announced.

In the nib department, most companies became content with a very limited selection of points, mostly based on the F-M-B triad. A small number of companies, fortunately, are working on revisiting some arcane nib points—flexible and stub, mostly. And then came Sailor and the radical approach to nibs of Mr. Nobuyoshi Nagahara.

In 2007, Mr Nagahara was awarded by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare of Japan with the distinction of Master of Modern Arts. At the time, Sailor released this limited edition pen whose nib is engraved with Mr. Nagahara's first name: Nobuyoshi (宣義).

I hope his retirement did not mean Sailor abandoned either the will to innovate or the production of these impressive specialty nibs.

My thanks to Mr. Noguchi.

(Sailor Realo with Cross-music nib – Pelikan 4001 Royal Blue)

Bruno Taut
December 10th, 2011
[labels: Sailor, soluciones técnicas, plumín, Shumi no Bungubako]