Family Portrait (VI)

I will be a bit narcissistic today and will show my collection of music nibs. All of them are Japanese.

Clock-wise from the top, these are the pens:

At 12 o’clock: Pilot Super 200 made in 1962. Hose filling (quarter-switch) system. 14 K gold nib.

Pilot Super 250, E model, made in 1967. Hose filling (quarter switch) system. 14 K gold nib.

Pilot Custom Grandee made in 1982. Cartridge-converter. 14 K gold nib.

Pilot Custom 74 made in 2010. Cartridge-converter. 14 K gold nib.

Twsbi Diamond 530, red, with a Kubo Kohei’s nib in size 2. Piston filler. Steel nib. This is a “frankenpen”. Twsbi does not sell music nibs for its pens. The best we can get are italic nibs.

Platinum P-300 made in 1969. Cartridge-converter. 18 K gold nib.

Platinum pocket with wingflow nib, made in 1978. Cartridge. 14 K gold nib.

Platinum 3776 in celluloid (calico pattern) made in 2009. Cartridge-converter. 14 K gold nib.

Platinum 3776 Century, made in 2012. Cartridge-converter. 14 K gold nib.

For this list, I have purposely ignored the music nibs currently made by Sailor in 14 K gold and steel. Those have failed in attracting my attention and their writing was never very pleasant. But Sailor, nonetheless, had manufactured three-tined music nibs in the past. The current Cross-music nib, by nibmeister Nagahara, is a totally different animal.

All these nibs, save for those currently on production, are rare finds in the second hand market. Rare, however, only means that it takes longer to find. Collecting has a lot to do with being patient.

Parker 51, octanium nib – Pilot Blue

Bruno Taut
In flight over Europe, November 13th, 2013
etiquetas: Pilot, Platinum, nibmeister Kubo Kohei, plumín, plumín musical, Sailor, estilofilia, Twsbi

On Kawakubo

Kawakubo is a Japanese nibmeister working in Tokyo. His main activity is as a repair man, but he is also well known among stylophiles and now and then we run into some of his creations. At the last meeting of the Wagner group in Tokyo I could check the following pen.

But there is catch—the pen is not entirely Kawakubo’s. The base is an old Japanese pen (I guess from around 1955); eyedropper with shut-off valve, in ebonite, and with a 14 K gold nib. And then –and only then— the work of Mr. Kawabuko's started.

First, fixing the issues most old pens have. In particular, fixing the seal of the shut-off valve, a typical problem found in Japanese eyedroppers.

Second, polishing the gold nib to remove all previous engravings.

Third, retipping the nib and cutting it to a variable point (what Sailor calls a “zoom” nib).

Fourth, creating a maki-e decoration on cap and barrel. The pattern of this pen is called tanzaku, which are poem cards and strips used in a number of Japanese rituals.

These are the dimensions of the pen:

• Length closed: 129 mm
• Length open: 113 mm
• Length posted: 159 mm
• Diameter: 12 mm
• Weight: 16.0 g (dry)

The result is truly interesting and makes a very nice writer. Now, is this a form of pen making or just a form of tunning a pen? Anonymizing it by polishing the nib to a blank slate, so to speak, makes me uncomfortable. Was that really needed?

My thanks to Mr. Sekinen.

Pilot Vpen, M nib – Pilot Blue (refilled)

Bruno Taut
In transit, November 13th, 2013
etiquetas: evento, nibmeister Kawakubo

Psychedelic

Most of what could be said about today’s pen was already said. But yet, it triggers some reflections on pens and their roles nowadays.

Maki-e does not make the pen, I have often heard in Japan. Or any other decoration, I am quick to add. A pen, in essence, is a system to control the dynamics of the ink in its way between an ink deposit and the nib tip through the feed. And the rest is accessory. Beautiful at times, but accessory. And maybe we should state the obvious—the decoration does not make the pen to write any better.

Therefore, decorative techniques, even if used on pens, do not truly belong to books on pens. Maki-e and lacquer techniques, to name just two handy examples, were developed well before they were applied to fountain pens in the twentieth century.

And so this pen was described in the past. Summarily said, it is an eyedropper with shut-off valve; implements a size-50 nib of 14 K gold; and was made by Pilot in the late 1980s.

This decoration is a form of Tsugaru-nuri--maki-e from Aomori (part of the old Tsugaru province). Its particular form is called kara-nuri, ao-age. Ao-age means that green color is the main dye used in this pattern.

The engraving on the nib reads "14 KARAT GOLD / "PILOT" / REGISTERED / PATENT OFFICE / -(50)-".

And only now we can speak about the decoration. It is a form of urushi-e called kara-nuri, originally from Aomori, the northernmost province in the biggest of the Japanese islands. This technique consists in applying several layers of different-colored lacquer with an uneven spatula. The thickness of those layers is not constant and when the surface is polished, after a long drying time, the different colors show up in this capricious pattern. Additionally, the pen shows some small pieces of shells pasted in the lacquer (raden technique).

The feed is also lacquered.

The final result is fairly psychedelic, albeit not unpleasant to the eye. The pen is imposing due mostly to its sheer size and this abstract decoration does not distract our attention as more figurative decoration would.

This pen was made in the late 1980s or early 1990s. It is still labeled as Pilot instead of Namiki. The nib is engraved with the brand name and an indication of the gold purity.

These are its dimensions:

Length closed: 173 mm
Length open: 158 mm
Length posted: 213 mm
Diameter: 20 mm
Weight (dry): 49.3 g
Ink deposit: 4.5 ml

Sailor pocket pen, 18 K nib – Daiso Red (cartridge)

Bruno Taut
Yokohama, November 6th, 2013
etiquetas: Pilot, urushi-e, raden

Kaküno

Pilot has just released a new entry-level fountain pen—the Kaküno (カクノ). It aims, as we can see on the promotional leaflet, at the school-student market, like if Japan were Germany or France and children had to learn to write with these tools.

The pen comes in six different colors (orange, red, pink, light green, blue and grey), limited to the cap, and two different nib points: F and M. The nib is very well known as it is the same implemented on the Prera, Cocoon/Metropolitan/Urban and 78G models (at least!). The only difference is the engraving on it—a face to attract all those young users.

The filling system is the obvious, clean, and convenient cartridge-converter (Pilot proprietary).

The cap snaps on the body and does not have any clip. Its hexagonal shape plus a notch prevents it from rolling on the table uncontrollably.

The name Kaküno is related to the verb "to write" in Japanese: kakimasu (書きます). And most likely, the dots on the u are just two eyes on the smiling u --as on the nib-- instead of any reference to a German umlaut.

These are its dimensions:

• Length closed: 130 mm
• Length open: 128 mm
• Length posted: 159 mm
• Diameter: 12.5 mm
• Weight: 11.3 g (dry, no converter)

The official price is JPY 1000, plus taxes. The natural competitors to this pen are the Sailor Clear Candy, and the Platinum Plaisir. The German armada of Lamy ABC, Pelikan Pelikano Jr and Staedtler Learner’s are significantly more expensive in Japan.

My thanks to Mr. Nakai.

Pilot Capless CS-200RW – Platinum Black

Bruno Taut
Yokohama, November 6th, 2013
etiquetas: Pilot, mercado

Vanco

The Fuente meeting in October is a regular event in Tokyo during the last 20 years. It is more of a social than of a trading encounter, and the highlight of it is the final auction on Sunday afternoon.

The social part is easy to understand: we stylophiles love to be around pens and we enjoy showing our treasures to other like ourselves. At this past Fuente meeting I have seen several wonders. This is one of them:

Already in the 1920s, there existed about 500 pen operations in the city of Osaka. Most of them were small family business. Among them was the Etô family, responsible for the brand Vanco, active until the 1950s. Around 1935, Vanco marketed the following pen:

A brown celluloid...

It is a piston filler made of celluloid. The filling mechanism is a telescopic system, made of brass, to increase the capacity of the ink deposit—a well known technical solution in the hands of Montblanc. But this pen is a mostly unknown Vanco.

The Vanco uncapped. Note the piston half way through the ink window.

The nib is made of gold, although it is not imprinted as such. This claim is supported by electric resistivity measurements—gold is about 10 times better conductor than steel.

The gold nib. The inscription reads "WARRANTED / FINE / VANCO / REG. PAT. OFF. / <6> / POINTED / HARDEST Ir."

These are the dimensions of the pen:

• Length closed: 128 mm
• Length open: 120 mm
• Length posted: 157 mm
• Diameter: 12 mm
• Weight (dry): 24.4 g

The whole piston can be released from the pen by unscrewing it out of the piston knob.

This pen stands firm on any comparison with many Western pens. The beautiful celluloid, together with this filling system make a wonderful combination. A rare treat in a Japanese pen from the 1930s.

My thanks to Mr. Sugimoto. Please, have a look at his blog with several entries on Vanco pens, and very interesting photographs of the piston mechanism (::1::, ::2::, ::3::, ::4::, ::5::, ::6::, ::7::).

Sailor pocket pen, 18 K nib - Daiso red cartridge

Bruno Taut
Chuo (Tokyo), October 27th, 2013
etiquetas: evento, Vanco, soluciones técnicas, Montblanc

New Batch

(Some modifications to the original post were added on Nov 4th, 2013)

I think I could see this coming. The ink business is too profitable for companies to give up on milking that cow. And the trick of limited releases –that cheap marketing strategy—worked well among pen, and ink, aficionados.

So, here we go again. After the success of the four series of seasonal inks Sailor marketed between December 2009 and July 2010, this company had settled down with a gamut of nine basic (Jentle), released in April 2011, and two nanopigmented inks. Plus, should we add, the number of custom-made inks for several shops in Japan.

Sailor-made inks for the stationery shop Bung Box in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka.

And that has just changed. Sailor has released a new batch of inks in a limited release. It is the so-called Sherbet Colors. This new line is composed of four different inks in pink, purple, blue and green (mint). The price, as was the usual policy of Sailor, is the same as that of regular, unlimited, Jentle inks: JPY 1000, plus tax, for 50 ml.

These inks have some transparent quality, although some might just say they showed very little saturation. The colors shown on the picture are very broad approximations to the real tones.

These Sherbet inks, as can be seen on the picture, come in transparent boxes made of plastic. The packaging is very similar to that of Platinum’s Mix Free inks.

Lamy Safari 150 Jahre Freundschaft – Pelikan Brilliant Brown

Bruno Taut
Yokohama, October 28th, 2013
etiquetas: Sailor, tinta, mercado, Platinum

Context and Research

On these Chronicles I have extensively spoken about the Capless family of pens by Pilot. So much, in fact, that I ended up creating its own label to access all those texts easily. Some might say that this follows from a deep appreciation of these pens, but the actual reason is a lot more mundane—it is easy to speak about them because it is easy to provide a context for them as a whole, and for each of the models. And that makes a huge difference with respect to many other pens.

This picture alone provides most of the context we need to analyze any Capless model.

That is, in fact, a major advantage of the big three pen companies on this blog. Their history is relatively well known and available. What can we say, in contrast, about pen brands as Opal, North Star, Ramie, Tokyo, Asahi Tsubasa…? And this problem feeds back—known brands become better known while minor companies fall into oblivion.

Is there a way to revert the situation? The point is not about forgetting all we know about Pilot, Platinum and Sailor, but about how to increase our knowledge on all those minor brands that played some role, even if small, in the history of these tools. And there is only one way—research.

Then we encounter a discouraging situation. First is how reduced this world of fountain pens is. And most of the money in it is associated to new pens, on which some obvious companies have a clear interest. Their investment, needless to say, favors their own products.

Then we have the community of stylophiles—that is, collectors who are seldom satisfied with one single pen and who buy a number of pens just for the sake of owning them (even if under the excuse of thinking of themselves as users). But this community, even if very active and noisy, is small and divided. And little research they do other than satisfying their own curiosity. Some even publish their findings.

A third actor in this scenario are vintage pen traders. They might be very interested in adding value, that of the actual knowledge, on those unknown pens they need to sell. And in fact some traders do that and even publish their knowledge. But not much investment is done on this activity.

Two books with the same title: Fountain Pens of the World. By Nakazono and by Lambrou.

And now and then, some visionary entrepreneur thinks that publishing a book on pens might be a good idea. And they even publish it… Whether they make any money is yet to be seen.

And that is all we have. Those initiatives, mostly personal, might be fragmentary, and might be of good or of bad quality; but that is all we have. And the conclusion is that it is up to us, stylophiles, to improve this situation.

Sailor pocket pen, 18 K gold nib – Daiso red cartridge

Bruno Taut
Yokohama, October 2013
etiquetas: metabitácora, mercado, estilofilia, Capless