Signs of Change

Along these past months there have been a number of events that might show something is changing in the stylographic scene. Isolated, these might be regarded as anecdotes, even if unpleasant at times. However, coincidence in time can be a sign of something more relevant.


These are the facts:

1. The Montblanc-Fountain Pen Network (FPN) controversy (::1::, ::2::). Back in January, some FPN members published pictures of the not yet released Montblanc William Shakespeare model. Apparently, those pictures had been leaked by some Montblanc shops. Anyway, Montblanc complained before the administrators of FPN, who decided to remove the related threads.

Some controversy (see ::1:: and ::2::, especially the comment sections), mostly outside the FPN, followed, but that is not the issue here. What matters now is that Montblanc felt the need to react instead of ignoring the whole issue or resolving it internally by disciplining those who leaked the information.


2. Brown and the trolls. Well-known blogger and pen connoisseur SBRE Brown complained on his blog about the personal attacks he had been receiving recently through the comment section of his videos in YouTube. Brown expressed his surprise for what he considered a change in the community that he had thought as exemplary.

Again, Brown’s and other’s (Armstrong of The Pen Habit, Deans of Fountain Pen Economics, thread on Reddit, thread on Fountain Pen Geeks forum, etc.) comments are secondary to this argument. The relevant detail is that now we see people who take time and effort to express their dislike about something pen related.

I understand this phenomenon as an indication of an increased popularity of those videos. More viewers mean more exposure also on those lists of suggested videos on YouTube. And more viewers imply more probabilities of undesired personalities, of trolls with nothing of interest to say. In any case, the bottom line is a larger number of people exposed to pens.


3. Delta and Marte Modena (The best summary I have found is this link by Pedro Haddock: http://elpajareteorquidiado.blogspot.jp/2016/04/el-asunto-delta.html). Italian brand Delta has decided to market some of its products exclusively through an online retailer—Marte Modena. This decision has alienated the traditional retailers as Delta is focusing on online customers, usually more acquainted with their products than the occasional customer of a brick and mortar shop.


4. Two more details, even if minor to the whole picture. Ian Hedley, of Pen! Paper! Pencils!, took the effort of writing a letter to Pilot UK to ask about Pilot’s import and pricing policies, and Pilot responded with detailed information (or detailed excuses). And in an operation of public relations, Pilot USA invited the Goulets for a visit to their facilities in Florida in November of 2015.

Both cases illustrate the importance given by Pilot to the online scene. And this is a new development.



So, what do all those facts mean?

All in all, they could be interpreted along the line of the pen community becoming larger and stronger. I have always argued that we, stylophiles, were a small group, economically weak, almost irrelevant in the economic balance of pen makers when compared to the group of occasional pen buyers. In other words, no matter how many pens we stylophiles could buy, we were no match to the volume of new fountain pens acquired by those occasional consumers.

But that imbalance might be changing. We might have become more attractive to brands like Montblanc, Delta and Pilot in the examples here described.

If my interpretation was true, the consequences would be very interesting. The business model of pen makers would evolve to cater some of our obsessions and cravings. Our opinions on fountain pens would, in fact, matter. Maybe then, the general frustration about the limited availability of nib points of most brands could be solved, for instance.

But, of course, this could just be wishful thinking.

Daiso Chinese pen with Mochizuki cross nib – unknown blue ink

Bruno Taut
Nakano, April 15th 2016
etiquetas: Montblanc, Delta, Pilot, mercado, fora, metabitácora

Twist

I have already said that in the area of fountain pens, we can see Japan as a huge laboratory of experiments with filling systems. Sure enough, several systems developed in America and Europe have been implemented by Japanese companies –pistons, lever fillers, plungers --, but there are many others –A-shiki, easy-drinking system, Nakahara-shiki, among others—that have never been attempted beyond these islands.

To the best of my knowledge, the following pen is an example of the latter.

Figure 1. Two of these pens. Brand unknown, but they implement an interesting filling system. The clips carry two different engravings: "NEW FOUNTAIN PEN" on the red unit; "NEW STEAL" (sic) on the greenish grey.

The pen has no clear indication of the manufacturer, but its construction is remarkable in many ways. But first and foremost because of its filling system.

Figure 2. One of the pens almost completely disassembled: the barrel can be detached from the section. But there is a key part not visible on the picture: inside the bulky brass piece, second from the right, there is another smaller piece that moves along this one.

It is a sac-based system, but with a very original way of pressing (without twisting) the sac. The pen tail can rotate a small angle –about 30°-- with respect to the barrel. Then, a number of small pieces transform that into a movement along the pen axis. The final element is a pressing bar pushed in that longitudinal movement.

Figure 3. These pieces transform the rotation of the back knob (the red celluloid piece on the right) into a movement along the axis of the pen. Inside the central piece there is another smaller one whose notch can be seen through the slit. This internal piece is coupled to the external celluloid knob (see Fig. 4). The central piece is screwed to the barrel.

Figure 4. This is the piece from which the whole filling mechanism is operated. It rotates with respect to the barrel while driving the small piece described on the Figure 3.

Figure 5. On this figure, the whole filling mechanism is assembled outside the barrel. Note how the pressing bard if attached to the set of pieces attached to the actual knob.

As is the case with any sac-based system, twisting the rear knob several times is needed to ensure a good filling of the pen. However, the absence of an internal breathing tube, as is the case in many other systems, hinders the full filling of the sac regardless of the number of twisting moves.

The basic benefit of this system is how secure the filling mechanism is inside the pen. Operating it is, thus, easier than a lever filler, for instance. The negative side is the number of parts required to transfer the rotation into a push onto the sac, plus the need of a good coupling among them.

The construction quality of this filling system is very good—all the pieces, save the external layer of the pan tail and the push bar, are made of brass, and the coupling among them, excellent. The drawback is a tail heavy pen, albeit the total weight of the pen is far from exaggerated at about 20 g.

Figure 6. Steel nib, ebonite feed. The inscription on the nib: "SMOOTH / POSTING / 4 / HARDEST / IRIDIUM / PEN.140".

The pen itself is made of celluloid, and several colors were available. The clip carried different inscriptions –NEW FOUNTAIN PEN and NEW STEAL (sic)--, and can hardly be considered as brand names. Nibs are made of steel, gold plated.

These are their dimensions:
Length closed: 121 mm
Length open: 110 mm
Length posted: 143 mm
Diameter: 11.5 mm
Weight: 20.5 g (dry, no sac)

These are, most likely, postwar pens, but the filling system can be found in some Platon (Nakayama Taiyôdô) pens in the 1930s.

My thanks to Mr. Mochizuki.

Pelikan M800 – Tomiya Tomikei Blue (by Sailor)

Bruno Taut
Nakano, April 13th, 2016
etiquetas: Platon, soluciones técnicas, marca desconocida

Ebony Phoenix

Usually, fountain pens with urushi and maki-e and chinkin decoration are made of vulcanized hard rubber (ebonite). However, in the Japanese tradition of these decorative techniques, the typical substrate is wood. So, there should be some examples of wooden fountain pens with these forms of decoration. And indeed there are, albeit they are rare. More often than not, the decoration is limited to a coating of transparent lacquer that left the wooden textured exposed.

Around 1970, Sailor made some wooden pens in small and limited editions. The first of them was an ebony pen made in 1968 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Meiji period. Then, some other models followed in ebony and ironwood, and some of them were decorated with maki-e designs. Acording to Masa Sunami (A LAMBROU & M SUNAMI. Fountain Pens of Japan. 2012), over 30 different patterns were produced in several of the traditional techniques of maki-e in Japan: Wajima-nuri, Tsugaru-nuri, and Kimma-nuri.

A Sailor with maki-e decoration.

Such is the case of the pen on display today—a Sailor made of ebony wood with a maki-e motif in the Wajima-nuri style. Wajima is a city in Noto Peninsula (Ishikawa Prefecture) with a long tradition in urushi-related techniques. This dates back to, at least, the 15th century, and nowadays Wajima is the origin of the largest production of urushiware in Japan. In fact, Wajima-nuri says more about the origin of the piece than about the actual technique employed on it.

Wajima hosts the only museum on maki-e works in Japan--the Wajima Museum of Urushi Art.

The pen shows a theme of hôô (鳳凰, phoenix) in taka-maki-e technique (raised, with some relief over the surface). The ebony grain is visible under the transparent urushi. The pen is not signed.

The decoration is simple, but well executed. The pen is not signed.

Pen-wise, this is a cartridge-converter unit with a 23 K gold nib, dated November of 1972. That was at the peak of the gold fever among pen makers in Japan.

The nib is made of 23 K gold. Its nib point is M, or 4 in the Sailor system of nib points of the time. Note the three ink channels of the feed.

These are the dimensions of the pen:
Length closed: 140 mm
Length open: 121 mm
Length posted: 160 mm
Diameter: 13.8 mm
Weight: 30.2 g (dry)
Ink deposit: 1.2 ml (cartridge) / 0.7 ml (converter)

Platinum Platinum pocket pen – Aurora Black

Bruno Taut
Nakano, April 6th, 2016
etiquetas: Sailor, maki-e

Last Day

Thursday 31st (yesterday at the time of publishing this text) was the last day of Pen Station, the pen museum and café of Pilot in Tokyo. I went out of my way to have one last look and a last cub of coffee. A Pilot Myu-701 did the writing.

Yes, this place will be missed.

Pilot Myu-701 – Pilot Black

Bruno Taut
Chuo, March 31st, 2016
etiquetas: Tokyo, Pilot

One Logo, Three Companies (II)

Now that we know about what Mitsubishi and its three-diamond logo meant in terms of companies and activities, we can take a look at a couple of products with some relevance in the world of writing.

The first of them is the paper manufactured by Mitsubishi Paper Mills, of the Mitsubishi keiretsu. This company mostly manufactures hi-tech papers for a variety of applications, which do not seem to include hand-writing. However, Mitsubishi Paper Mills is the maker of the Bank Paper marketed by Life Stationery Co., which is also behind the school notebook Tsubame.

The Life Bank Paper writing pad.

The quality of the Life Bank Paper has already been tested by fellow blogger The Unroyal Warrant, and I have nothing to add to his text. Suffice to say that this paper is fountain-pen friendly, and that it seem to be the only example of such included in the Mitsubishi Paper Mills catalog.

The revealing watermark.

The second product belongs to the company Mitsubishi Pencil Co. The UNI series of lead pencils was launched in 1958. Then, in 1966, the higher quality HI-UNI were marketed. And in 2008, 50 years after the initial UNI series, the gamut of pencil grades reached the amazing number of 22—from 10H to 10B, plus F and HB. In that same year of 2008, a box with all those 22 grades was available. It is called the HI-UNI Art Set.

The HI-UNI Art Set box.

The 22 grades.

On the occasion of the 130th anniversary of Mitsubishi Pencil Co to be celebrated in 2017, a limited number of sets of pencils and notebook have come for sale in this year of 2016. Three are the options: boxes of 12 UNI pencils of grades HB, B ord 2B, plus a notebook (JPY 1080, plus tax); boxes of 12 HI-UNI pencils of grades HB, B or 2B, plus notebook (JPY 1680, plus tax); and a metal box with all 22 grades of HI-UNI pencils plus, of course, the notebook (JPY 3300, plus tax).

One of the anniversary boxes. It is a limited release, but the number of units has not been declared.

The maker of the notebook is not revealed.

Platinum Platinum pocket pen – Aurora Black

Bruno Taut
Nakano March 30th, 2016
etiquetas: Mitsubishi Pencil, Mitsubishi Paper, papelería, Life Stationery

One Logo, Three Companies (I)

I am not going to speak about fountain pens today but about pencils and paper… and whisky and cars…

The brand Mitsubishi is well known for a number of products and services available in the market. So, we can buy a Mitsubishi Pajero, open an account in the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi-UFJ, drink a Mitsubishi cider, write with a Mitsubishi UNI pencil on a paper with a THREE DIAMOND watermark… and even more without realizing we still were in the Mitsubishi realm: a picture with a Nikon camera, a Kirin whisky,…

Is this a car, a pencil, a bank, a cider...?

Mitsubishi is all that and more. But Mitsubishi is, first, three very different things.

Mitsubishi is the Mitsubishi Group of Companies, a keiretsu of companies operating in a very wide variety of fields. It all started in 1870 by the hand of Yatarô Iwasaki as a freight transporter. Around 1913, the company registered the well known logo with the three diamonds. Among the fields included in the activities of the Group we can find finances, nuclear technology, cars and industrial vehicles, paper milling… Some of the companies in the Group use the three diamond logo, but not all of them.

Kirin and Nikon are also part of the Mitsubishi Group of Companies.

A second company by the same name is Mitsubishi Pencil Co. This has no ties with the big Mitsubishi Group. The pencil company was founded in 1887 by Jinroku Masaki as Masaki Pencil Co. (Masaki Enpitsu), and in 1903 he registered the three diamond logo based on the family crest. The activities of this company, soon to celebrate its 130 years of history, are limited to the production of writing tools, but not of paper.

HI-uni is one of the lines of graphie pencils of Mitsubishi Pencil Co.

Finally, Mitsubishi is also the name of a cider –in the Japanese meaning of it, a non-alcoholic, carbonated soda—produced by the company Konyusha, from Kumamoto, unrelated to the Mitsubishi keiretsu. It was founded in 1883 and registered the three diamond logo in 1919.

Yeah, Mitsubishi cider... together with the three diamond logo as well.

So, there we have three different companies using the same name and the same logo. No wonder, then, the existence of the Mitsubishi Corporate Name and Trademark Committee to control and prevent any fraud in the use of both name and logo. But the problem and the confusion are deeply rooted.

Romillo Essential Black – Montblanc Racing Green

Bruno Taut
Nakano March, 2016
etiquetas: Mitsubishi Pencil, Mitsubishi Paper Mills, papelería

Swan 3253

Swan was also a Japanese brand of fountain pens. Its history has already been told on these Chronicles, but it might be worth to remember that it had been founded in 1900 by U. of Waseda alumni Nobuo Ito. Swan Mannenhitsu Seisakushô (Swan Fountain Pens Industries) got the favor of the Japanese courts to win the lawsuits of Mabie Todd & Co., owner of the brand Swan in the West, and became the biggest pen maker in Japan around 1918. The company began its decline after the Second World War when it started making ball pens and pen parts. This lasted until the 1970s, albeit some Pilot OEM pens branded as Swan were made in 1991.

The following pocket pen is one of the last models made by Swan on those 1970s:

A pocket pen by Swan. It was made in the 1970s.

It is mostly made of plastic, including the central ring coupling section and barrel together. This is a clear sign of the cheap construction of this pen. Another is the fact that the gold plated steel nib was outsourced from the company Teikoku Kinpen, as is clearly stated by the engraved JIS number 3253. The pen must be inked using Platinum cartridges, as was often the case of lesser brands after the introduction of cartridges in Japan. No modern ink converter fits in the pen.

The pen, disassembled. Note the plastic central ring. The nib slides off the feed. Contrary to the case of most pocket pens, nib and feed are friction fit in the section.

The steel nib was made by Teikoku Kinpen, whose JIS registry number was 3253.

This model is green with golden cap. It was also made in black, with black cap and golden accents.

These are its dimensions:
Length closed: 116 mm
Length open: 97 mm
Length posted: 145 mm
Diameter: 12.0 mm
Weight: 9.0 g (dry, no cartridge)
Ink deposit: 1.1 ml (Platinum cartridge)

The feed is interesting--two ink channels. It is made of plastic.

All in all, this is a mostly boring and irrelevant pen, save for the detail of being one of the latest models made by Swan Mannenhitsu Seisakushô, indeed a very important actor in the history of Japanese fountain pens.

Sailor Magna – Tomiya Original Ink (Sailor)

Bruno Taut
Nakano, March 24th, 2016
etiquetas: Swan, Platinum, Pilot