Ultra (III)

At the time of speaking about the Super Ultra 500 (::1::, ::2::) I mentioned that despite its limited commercial success --it was in the market for just a couple of years-- the Chiba Shigeki’s design had a great impact among Japanese pen manufacturers. Many a pen company released its own version of the Ultra pen with innovative and original ways to mimic the elegant nib design of the Pilot pen.

A typical example is the following pen by Ryo. Not much is known about this company. It was located in Nakano, Tokyo, and belonged to a company named Otani.

The decoration on the section is limited to the upper part. This picture corresponds to the Ryo Ultra with gold-plated steel nib.

This Ryo pen is equipped with a 14 K gold nib, quite springy, that is partially hidden inside the section. And this is decorated with a gold-plated damascene in the shape of the Pilot Super Ultra inlaid nib. This decoration, however, is limited to the upper part of the section. The filling system of the pen is aerometric. Its overall quality is quite high. These are its dimensions:

Length closed: 136 mm
Length open: 123 mm
Length posted: 154 mm
Diameter: 11 mm
Weight (dry): 14.3 mm
Ink deposit: 0.8 ml.

Its original price was JPY 1000, in sharp contrast with the JPY 5000 of the Pilot original. Ryo also marketed another version with a gold plated steel nib.

On top, Ryo Ultra with steel nib. On bottom, with 14 K gold nib.

Pilot and Ryo, side to side. The differences are clear.

All in all, these are interesting pens. They show the existence of an active pen industry around 1960s struggling in a very competitive market.

Twsbi Diamond 530 – Sailor 土用 - Doyô

Bruno Taut
Machida, February 8th, 2013
etiquetas: Pilot, Japón, Ryo

Rhetorical Question (II)

For 金野さん

Lamy 2000 in stainless steel.

-- My last purchase was a Lamy 2000 in stainless steel.
-- Oh! Nice. But, isn’t it too heavy?
-- Who’s gonna write with it?

Pilot Myu 701 – Sailor Yama-dori

Bruno Taut
Shinjuku, February 7th, 2013
labels: Lamy, estilofilia

Ultra (II)

Some days ago I spoke, once more, about the Pilot Super Ultra 500 and the later replica Pilot Ultra. This one was a limited edition with a cartridge-converter filling system. Paradoxically, the reissue is a lot heavier than the self-filling (hose system) original.

The orginal Pilot Super Ultra 500 from 1959.

In a sense, this Pilot Ultra was a romantic pen, but to a limit. Cartridge-converter pens, as we all know, are easier to clean and to maintain, and that is particularly the case when comparing these two pens.

Replacing the sac and releasing the feed of the 1959 Pilot are not easy tasks unless you knew the actual procedure. The basic problem is that the nipple where the sac is attached is well inside the gripping section and is almost unreachable from outside. So, how do we proceed?

The inlaid nib and the feed.

The white piece on the feed is the nipple to attach the sac.

The Pilot Super Ultra 500, disassembled.

There exists a dummy barrel that could be attached to the section instead of the delicate urushi-coated original. With this dummy barrel in place, the pen, nib up, should be vigorously thrown against the table. This action will release the whole feed into the dummy barrel. Then, attaching the new sac is easy.

The often damaged tassie at the back of the barrel.

The original barrel of the Super Ultra 500 is finished with a small gold-plated tassie, and it is often damaged. And the reason for this is, most likely, that there was the need to replace the sac and that was done without the dummy barrel.

And, needless to say, this is not an issue with the cartridge-converter replica of 1995.

Twsbi Diamond 530 – Diamine Graphite (an unpleasant combination)

Bruno Taut
Machida, February 8th, 2013
etiquetas: Pilot, soluciones técnicas

Rhetorical Question (I)

Recently, a friend confessed –yes, that is the right word— that she had purchased a luxury mechanical pencil for the amount of JPY 1575 (about EUR 16 or USD 17), and that was expensive. Sure enough, to any normal person, to any healthy mind, any writing tool over EUR 10 (or USD 10, or JPY 1000), is expensive. We stylophiles are the abnormal ones in here, and we might need to rethink our perceptions on what is cheap or expensive in our small world.

Lamy Safari, JPY 3800. Cartridge-converter. Converter not included.

Parker IM, JPY 2900. Cartridge-converter. Converter not included.

Pilot Prera, JPY 3500. Converter included.

Twsbi Diamond 540, USD 40. Piston filler.

Case in point—can we really say that a EUR 30 fountain pen is an entry level fountain pen? Can we seduce any sane person into buying a writing tool that is about 10 times more expensive than those regular pens he might use?

Sailor Profit Junior, music nib – Diamine Graphite

Bruno Taut
Yokohama, January 30th, 2013
labels: mercado, estilofilia, Lamy, Parker, Pilot, Twsbi

On Candies. Correction

Some months ago I wrote several texts (::1::, ::2::) on the Clear Candy fountain pen Sailor released in 2011. On those texts, I mentioned that the origin of those pens was a previous line called A. S. Manhattaner. Well, that was true, but just in part.

The 2011 Sailor Clear Candy.

Actually, some sources (Masa Sunami and Andreas Lambrou, magazine Shumi no Bungubako –issue 19-- and some websites like ::1::, ::2:: and ::3::, all three checked on January 2013) teach that there was a Candy fountain pen, by Sailor, released in the 1970s. It was, actually, a big success, selling about four million units in two years. The structure of this first Candy was entirely the same as the current model, as can be seen on the pictures. But as commentator and friend Koskas K pointed out, these early Candy pens had their nibs marked as made in Taiwan.

Several ads of the Sailor Candy from 1970s. Picture taken from Sailor's shop website, as shown on the picture's watermark.

A 1970s Sailor Candy. The motiff of the cap jewel has changed along the history of the model since 1976. Picture by Kostas K.

The F-2 nib made in Taiwan. Picture by Kostas K.

Incidentally, I will add that in 1979 there existed the option of a three-tined music nib made of steel on these inexpensive pens. They were called Candy Music and are now a rarity. Let us remember that the current line of music nibs by Sailor has only two tines.

The 2011 Clear Candy pen does not have its nib imprinted with the "MADE IN TAIWAN" sign.

2011 Clear Candy pens at stationery shops in Japan (2011).

To summarize—the true origin of the Sailor Clear Candy line of pens released in 2011 on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the company dates back from 1976, when the first Sailor Candy was released.

My thanks and appreciation to Mr. Kostas K.

Sailor Profit Junior, 14 K music nib – Diamine Graphite

Bruno Taut
Yokohama, January 30th, 2013
etiquetas: Sailor, plumín musical, Shumi no Bungubako, plumín, Taiwan

On Gold and Steel

This is, lately, a recurrent topic of discussion: how important is to have a gold nib? What are the differences in performance between those materials? These are my experiences, my conclusions, and also my doubts.

1. Nib flexibility is more a matter of its geometry than of the material it was made of. To illustrate this point, I am including two pictures. First, a Pilot’s steel nib from the 1950s with remarkable flexibility.

Second, a very rigid modern Sailor nib modified by nibmeister Yamada to make it flexible. Needless to say, Mr. Yamada did not change the composition of the nib but just its shape.

2. Now, in the case of two identically shaped nibs, the one made of 14 K gold is more flexible than that of steel. But higher gold content does not make the nib more flexible. In fact, higher gold content makes the material more prone to plastic deformation. Therefore, high grade gold nibs –21 K and up— must be very rigid to avoid deformations.

Nothing can I say about the flexibility of poorer, below the usual 14 K, gold alloys. Those, in any event, are rare in the pen industry.

On top, a 22 K gold nib by Platinum. On bottom, a 23 K nib by Sailor. Both are very rigid.

3. The raison d’être of gold nibs is, over any other consideration, its very high resistance to corrosion. But with modern inks and correct pen hygiene nib corrosion is a very minor risk despite what some ink producers might claim. Consequently, the wish, or the need, to implement a gold nib is mostly a matter of marketing over any practical justification.

4. Writing smoothness has nothing to do with the nib material. The contact point between pen and paper is the iridium point (no longer made of this metal), and the smoothness of that contact point lays on the tipping material and on the quality of the polishing.

5. Having said that, I also want to add a caveat. In my experience, gold nibs tend to run a tad wetter that their steel counterparts. The reason for this might be related to differences in the interactions of the ink with the different nib materials. More ink, then, means more lubrication on the tip and a smoother writing experience. But this factor is secondary to the quality of the polishing or to the characteristics of ink and paper, and it could easily be corrected with an adequate design of the feed.

6. Finally, we should never forget that the writing experience depends on the pen, on the ink, and on the paper. And on our way of writing.

Morison pocket pen, 18 K nib – Sailor Jentle Black

Bruno Taut
Yokohama, February 2013
etiquetas: soluciones técnicas, mercado, plumín, Sailor, Pilot, Platinum, Yamada

Out of Production (I)

I can think of a very big reason to rather self-filling over cartridge-converter. With self-filling pens, the owner will never run out those essential elements, cartridges and converters, to use the pen. An acceptable alternative might be standard/international cartridges whose manufacture is shared by a big number of companies.

A Morison pocket pen from the 1970s.

The risk is clear—should the maker of that particular pen disappear, its proprietary cartridges and converters might also become extinct from stationery shops. That is the case of the following Morison. It is a well made pocket pen with a semi-hooded 18 K gold nib. But it uses Morison-proprietary cartridges, long gone and very hard to find after the company stopped the production of pens in the early 1990s.

In an attempt to ink this pen, I tried to use Sailor slim cartridges (for the Chalana model). These are thin enough, but too long to fit inside the barrel. On the side, the plastic tassie of the barrel.

Some other models of this brand can use Platinum cartridges, and in fact, the cartridge nipple of this pen accepts Platinum cartridges, but not the rest of the pen. Its body is too small –both short and narrow— to host it. And neither can this Morison be used as eyedropper as the tassie at the back of the barrel does not seal the body and can easily be removed.

Therefore, this pen is not usable without the proper –and missing—cartridge or converter. And it is frustrating as the pen is in perfect working conditions with only minor cosmetic defects. This issue obviously reduces the value of this pen in the second hand market.

Platinum P-300, music nib – Diamine Graphite

Bruno Taut
Taito (Tokyo), January 27-29th, 2013
etiquetas: Morison, conversor