The Lamy Naginata?

Not much new can be said about the Lamy Safari—a 1980 design by Wolfgang Fabian endlessly reissued and copied. And Lamy regularly uses it for yearly limited editions and regional variations.

In 2022, Lamy has released the Lamy Kanji in East Asia. But this edition, developed by Lamy Hong Kong, is more more than just a variation of colors, as is the case of those special editions above mentioned. On this occasion, Lamy came with an original nib—the Kanji nib.

Interestingly enough, the explanations on the specifics of the nib come in Chinese, English and Thai.

The variations with respect to the regular Safari nib –the Z50 nib- are easy to spot: longer and narrower tines, and a specific nib point akin to a fine architect.

The selling argument is that this nib is more suitable for writing Chinese ideograms... Well, just like Sailor claimed re the Nagahara's Naginata.

The Kanji nib offers some line variation on the angle between pen and paper. Not extreme, but noticeable.

So, is this the Lamy version of the Sailor Naginata Togi nib?

The price of the Safari Kanji is JPY 6000, plus taxes, which is 50% more expensive than a regular, non-Kanji, Safari.

Lamy Safari Kanji – Franklin Christoph Urushi Red.


Bruno Taut
November 3rd, 2022
etiquetas: Lamy, plumín, mercado

Prototypes

Prototype pens, proofs of concept, are some of the holy grails of collecting almost anything. The reasons are clear: they are rare –very few units were indeed made-, and they were not supposed to be sold. So, rarity, the added value of any collectable, speaks loudly through prototypes.

Last week, at the annual Mitsukoshi “Fountain Pens of the World” Festival, nibmeister Nagahara Yukio was on duty fixing pens despite the very sad family news. And he had his personal pen case with him.

Nibmeister Yukio Nagahara's pen case.

Few of the pens in there were standard—one of them was the following cross nib.

An unusual cross nib.

Cross nibs, in the Nagahara tradition, are two-fold nibs based on a Naginata Togi. Over it, then, a second set of tines are welded. That is called an “over-cross” nib. This prototype is, on the contrary, an “under-cross” nib. The noble side, engraved, is a flat regular nib, and the crossing half-nib is nested between that one and the feed.

The clean-looking upper side of the "under-cross" nib. Note the two-fold tip of the nib.

The result is a cleaner looking nib, although it does not really ad that much to the well-known over-cross unit. So, this might only be a prototype... or maybe a test for a future change in the geometry of Sailor’s cross nibs. In any event, this nib shows that Sailor has ideas under development. Experiments are indeed needed, and nibmeister Nagahara Yukio is alive and well.

Clear enough--Yukio Nagahara's personal pen. But many would be happy to own such a signed experiment.

And this under-cross pen would be a most valuable possession for mostly any collector.

Pilot Ladypearl – Parker Quink Blue

Bruno Taut
Nakano ward, March 12th, 2015
etiquetas: Sailor, soluciones técnicas, evento, nibmeister Nagahara Yukio, plumín

Sailor's Shut-Off

The topic of the shut-off valve in Japanese pens has already been covered on these Chronicles (::1::, ::2::). This mechanism has been used for about 100 years in Japanese pens (and in some pretenders) and is known as the “Japanese eyedropper”, even though there exists eyedropper pens in Japan without this system.

Needless to say, there are many examples of this system and some have been reviewed in here. However, few of them are as illustrative as today’s pen.

This is a demonstrator version of a Sailor eyedropper. It was probably made in the early 1950s. The engraving on the barrel, reading "Sailor / fountain pens", is the same as the one seen on a bulb-filler Sailor from 1952. The nib is made of steel and does not show any JIS mark.

The incription on the nib reads as follows: "Super Point / Sailor Logo / Non Corrosion / Pen / -4-".

An interesting feature is this pen is the metallic rod operating the shut-off valve from the tail. Usual concerns about the corrosive effects of ink on metallic part might induce to think that this pen was not for sale and was intended solely as a marketing tool for Sailor’s salesmen. The pen on display does not seem to have ever been inked.

The actual shut-off mechanism, controlled by the rod attached to the tail. In this case, the rod is made of stainless steel.

These are its dimensions:
Length closed: 131 mm
Length open: 118 mm
Length posted: 162 mm
Diameter: 12 mm
Weight (dry): 17.4 g

My thanks to Mr. Sugimoto.

Sailor Profit, Naginata Togi nib – Pilot Blue

Bruno Taut
Yokohama, July 30th 2013
etiquetas: Sailor, soluciones técnicas, Japón

The Case of Naginata. IV. Writing

On the previous text I tried to deconstruct what a Naginata Togi nib was. I concluded that in essence, a Naginata Togi nib is a variable nib. My friend and fellow blogger Fudefan reminded me how Sailor marketed these nibs as optimized to write beautifully in Japanese.

A Naginata Togi nib.

Now, how true is that?

The following picture shows the same text (焼肉定食, yakiniku teishoku) with seven different pens. Only one of them is a Naginata Togi.

焼肉定食 with seven different pens. Some were Japanese, some Western.

Can anyone figure out which one was written with a Naginata Togi?

Which one do you think is more beautiful?

Finally, does this matter?


My thanks to Fudefan and to Poplicola-san.

Iwase Seisakusho prototype – Hôgadô Doroai (Sailor)

Bruno Taut
Bunkyo, March 26th, 2019
etiquetas: Sailor, plumín, japonés, mercado

Datation of Japanese Pens. VII. Sailor's Nibs (II)

Some years ago I spoke about dating marks on Sailor nibs: up to 2016, the manufacturing date on Sailor nibs was encoded in the form

abb

where a was the last digit of the year, and bb was the ordinal of the month: 01 for January, 02 for February, and so on.

710. On this case, October of 1957.

212. December of 1982? Maybe 1972?

A Naginata Togi nib from October 1999 (910).

Starting at some point in 2017, Sailor changed this code for another one in the form

ccX

Now, cc are the two last digits of the year, and X is a letter that encodes the month of production in the form A for January, B for February, and so on until L for December.

July of 2017 (17G). Photo courtesy of Inktraveler.

17K: November of 2017.

And now, the former ambiguities (does this 9 mean 1979, 1989 or 1999?) are eliminated.

Muji Aluminum pocket pen – Pelikan Black

Bruno Taut
Nakano, October 29th, 2018
etiquetas: Sailor, plumín.

Hina Ningyo

March 3rd is, in Japan, Girl’s Day. People celebrate it with altars –the hina ningyo, 雛人形-- showing male and female dolls –the emperor and the empress— dressed in Heian period (794-1185 aD) costumes, and, space permits, a number of attendants and musicians.

The emperors in a Japanese home.

Pen people have an alternative, money permits, according to Pilot.

The hina ningyo I would like to have.

Pilot’s luxury brand Namiki has released a pair of maki-e decorated pens –two Yukari Royale-- with maki-e decoration, made by master Wakabayashi. The price, JPY 700000 (both pens, taxes not included).

Details of the main decorative themes.

These pens, in case you cared, are cartridge-converters (Pilot proprietary) and implement 18 K gold nibs in size 20.

Sailor Profit Naginata togi – Pilot Blue

Bruno Taut
Chuo, February 27th, 2015
etiquetas: Japan, Pilot, maki-e