Nebotek

Nebotek is one of the small operations—that is, other than the big three—producing pens in Japan. Its mother company is Nikko Ebonite, established in 1952 as manufacturer of ebonite (vulcanized hard rubber), a material with a number of applications. Nikko Ebonite is also the supplier of this material for all Japanese fountain pen manufacturers with the sole exception of Hakase. So, creating their own pen brand was only natural, and that happened in 2009.

Assorted Nobotek pens at a sale event in a department store in Tokyo.

Nebotek pens are created by Mr. Kanesaki Noritoshi　(金崎徳稔), disciple of the well know (well, in Japan) nibmeister Kubo Kohei　(久保幸平), now almost completely retired. Mr. Kanesaki lathes the in-house ebonite to make fountain pens and ball-pens. Fountain pens come in three different filling systems: (international) cartridge-converter, button filler, and eyedropper with shut-off valve. Nibs and feeds are provided by Peter Bock, in Germany, and are available in four points: F, FM, M, and B. They can also be made soft (springy).

Currently, the pens carry no inscription naming the maker or the model. They look anonymous save for the nib, imprinted with the Bock logo. So, the unknowing user might take this pen as a no-brand pen or as a German pen made by Bock itself.

The Nebotek Onoto-type.

The following pen is one of the Nebotek models. It is called Onoto-type, and it indeed resembles the old Onotos that arrived in Japan at the break of the twentieth century. This pen is an eyedropper with shut-off valve manned from the tail. It is medium sized out of the three possibilities (S, M, L). The nib is a size 220 (in the Bock catalog) made of 14 K gold. These are the pen dimensions:

Length closed: 141 mm
Length open: 134 mm
Length posted: 175 mm
Diameter: 15 mm
Weight (dry): 23.4 g

A typical Japanese eyedropper pen.

The Bock nib, engraved with the Bock logo.

Nobotek pens are indeed good and interesting products, but its poor marketing makes them almost unknown. And anonymous.


P. S: Around January 2014, Nebotek pens changed its name to Eboya.

Pilot Super (cartridge-converter), soft nib – Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Brown

Bruno Taut
April 5th, 2013
etiquetas: Nebotek, Bock, Eboya, Kanesaki Noritoshi

The Kubo Singularity

The big three Japanese pen companies make their own nibs, and it seems very hard to get those nibs as spare parts or as third party nibs for other makers. However, there are cases of that:

Hakase uses Pilot and Sailor nibs with their own original imprint. Ohashido and Taccia do the same with Sailor nibs.

A Pilot nib labeled as Hakase.

The rest either use Pilot nibs without any modification –StyloArt Karuizawa— or use some of the traditional supplies of third party nibs: Bock for Eboya and Masahiro (although previously Masahiro implemented Pilot nibs); JoWo for Taccia (lower end pens) and Wajimaya Zen-ni.

A JoWo nib labeled as Taccia.

The newcomer Iwase Seisakusho aims at sourcing its nibs from old nibmeister Kubo Kohei for its original pens. However, this is still an uncertain operation whose continuity we can only speculate about. Not to mention that the old age of Kubo Kohei –pushing 90 years old-- might affect any plan for a long term supply of parts.

A music nib made by Kubo Kohei.

Nibmeister Kubo at work.

But the bottom line is that Kubo Kohei is the sole independent maker of nibs in Japan, and his production is small, slow and artisanal.

Is there room –and market— for another independent operation in Japan to supply nibs and feeds to small pen companies?

Iwase Seisakusho prototype with Henckel nib – Takeda Jimiku Hisoku

Bruno Taut
Chuo, February 12th 2019
Etiquetas: Pilot, plumín, mercado, Sailor, Eboya, Hakase, Ohashido, Iwase Seisakusho, Taccia, Bock, JoWo, Wajimaya, nibmeister Kubo Kohei

Fountain Pens of the World Festival (I)

Fountain pen events in Tokyo there are many. From the quasi-monthly meetings of the Wagner group to single-brand promotions at some department store, the gamut is wide. And some of them really stand out in the calendar.

One such example is the Fountain Pens of the World Festival organized by Mitsukoshi department store. This annual event is celebrated usually in March at the Nihonbashi branch in Tokyo.

General view of the Festival. Pilot's stand on the front, Sailor's and Eboya's to the right, Platinum-Nakaya's and Ohashido's on the back.

More brands: Kuretake, Parker, Waterman, Cross, Dupont, Conway-Stewart...

Eboya on the front, Pilot on the back.

This week-long festival congregates most of the pen makers and pen importers to be found in Japan. Therefore, it is an interesting opportunity to check what was going on in the market. but there is more to it: there are some special editions of pens and inks, some brands promote their new goods, and there are pen masters of every brand to service pens, new and old.

Mr. Yoshida, of Nakaya, on duty.

Ohashido's lathe... and Ohashido's pen master.

Nibmeister Yukio Nagahara.

Sailor's ink mixer, Mr. Ishimaru.

Pelikan's nibmeister.

Pilot's pen doctor at work.

Calligraphy lessons courtesy of Pilot. Any better way to promote Pilot's Parallel Pens?

Most Italian brands, plus some others like Monteverde and Dupont, shared the same pen master. Here he was adjusting a Delta Dolce Vita.

Mitsukoshi’s event, might be worth to insist, is not the only one of its kind, but it is the one congregating more brands and more visitors. Event like this are a powerful do bring pens to the public and potential new user. Consequently, it should be no surprise that the Japanese pen scene was so active nowadays.

On another text I will report on the special edition pens released at this event. There are already too many pictures on this Chronicle.

Platinum 3776 (1984), B nib – Parker Quink Blue

Bruno Taut
Nakano, March 30th, 2015
etiquetas: evento, mercado

The Namiki Effect

Stylophiles are a special bunch. Driven by our anachronistic passion we often crave for certain features: gold nibs, self-filling mechanisms (as opposed to cartridges and converters), ebonite feeds, some specific materials like celluloid or ebonite,… And we demand those features for pens over certain price. Or, in other words, we might despise pens over certain price if they didn't offer some of them.

But the market might be telling us that we are mistaken. Just a quick look at today's catalogs shows how many luxury brands offer nothing but cartridge-converter pens with plastic feeds. Materials and gold nibs are less of a problem, though.

An expensive Pilot. Cartridge-converter and plastic feed.

Luxury pens of Platinum-Nakaya and Sailor are cartridge-converters. Pilot-Namiki does offer Japanese eyedroppers, but only for the biggest nib size. All the others, with nibs sizes 5, 10, and 20, are cartridge-converters despite how expensive they are.

An expensive Hakase.

Then, small makers like Eboya, Hakase, Ohashido, Stylo-Art Karuizawa, all focussed on higher-end pens only offer cartridge-converter pens. The only exception to this trend might be Masahiro and the newly-arrived Iwase Seisakusho.

Now, are these two brands –Masahiro and Iwase Seisakusho— on the right path or the success of all the other brands shows the opposite? How important are those details like ebonite feed and self-filling mechanisms in the final price –and in the final value-- of the pen?

A Masahiro pen. Expensive, but it implements an ebonite feed, a self-filling mechanism, an ebonite body, and a gold nib.

The market might be telling us that we stylophiles are still a minority in the business. Or it might only be that I am very mistaken about what we demand, and cartridge and converters and plastic feeds are perfectly all right even on very expensive pens.

Or it might be that we are very easy targets. After all, every pen has its charm, and all those cravings are not so important.

And that is the Namiki effect--expensive pens can be, in essence, very simple. Namiki has proven it through years in the market.

Iwase Seisakusho prototype – Takeda Jimuki Hisoku

Bruno Taut
Bunkyo, February 9th 2019
etiquetas: estilofilia, mercado, makie, Eboya, Hakase, StyloArt Karuizawa, Masahiro, Sailor, Ohashido, Iwase Seisakusho, Pilot, Platinum

Early Pilot Nibs. I. Introduction

Few things are standard in the world of fountain pens. Each pen brand seems to create its small world with its own systems of names and measurements. A very clear example of this lack of standards is the way pen makers number their nibs. Many aficionados as well as traders simplify the wide gamut of Bock nibs as being of sizes 5, 6 or 8, which are, in actual terms, the diameters of their corresponding feeds. But those numbers have little to do with Pilot’s –to name just one company— nibs labeled as 3, 5, 10, 15, 20 and 50. Sailor and Platinum, on their side, do not even bother to number their nibs nowadays.

A Bock nib, with a 6 mm feed, on an Eboya pen (formerly Nebotek).

Sailor nibs in three different sizes.

Four modern Pilot nibs in size 15.

In the early days of Pilot, the numbering system was very different: from 0 to 8, with the possible exception of 7, plus 20 and 50. Now, do those numbers mean anything?

With this text I am starting a new series of Chronicles aiming at describing all these nibs, and to analyze whether those numbers really meant anything. This is, needless to say, a work in progress.

Four Pilot nibs from the 1920s. They are labeled as sizes 1 and 3.

One additional note: The title speaks of “early” nibs. By that I mean all those nibs that followed a more or les consistent system of numeration. This came to an end with the implementation of the Super model in 1955. Up to that year, the vast majority of Pilot pens sported open nibs (i. e, showing the feed as well) labeled with what seemed to be a normalized numbering. Therefore, “early” means, more or less, before 1955. And implicit on this classification is the hope that those standards were maintained over all those years.

This series is a joint effort of some pen enthusiasts who offered their assistance to compile all the information. Their names are N. Syrigonakis and A. Zúñiga.

Platinum pocket pen, black stripes – Platinum Black

Bruno Taut
Chuo, June 13th, 2015
etiquetas: plumín, Pilot, Bock, Sailor, Platinum, Eboya

Eclectic or Weak?

I have said this a number of times: fountain pens are obsolete objects, and there is nothing necessary in them. Then, on top of wanting fountain pens, we want them to be in certain way, even though some of those ways might be plain silly.

We want gold nibs. Sure steel nibs can be excellent and more often than not, a blind test would confuse most of us. But gold is gold; and, for some, the more the better.

We want feeders made of ebonite. Japanese makers have proved that plastic feeders work well when properly designed, but the more expensive ebonite is what rocks the boat of stylophiles.

We want self-filling mechanisms. Or, in other words, stylophiles want their fingers stained with ink. Cartridges and converters are too clean, too efficient, too functional. And if not a self-filling mechanism, an eyedropper pen would do it.

We want exotic and outdated materials for the pen body. Many despise current plastics and long for ancient and unstable celluloid like if current acrylic were not colorful enough. Ebonite is also a beloved material despite its propensity to discolor.

Those are, dare I say, the features many –or most— pen aficionados look for on modern pens. And they connect the collector of modern pens with those more fond of vintage fountain pens. In essence, this is the niche market for modern brands like Danitrio, Kanesaki-time Eboya, Gama, Masahiro, Romillo …

An old pen by Eboya--ebonite body, ebonite feeder, button filler, gold nib. It belongs to the time when Kanesaki Noritoshi was in charge of the pen production.

And it goes without saying that most contemporary pens don’t fulfill those characteristics. The typical modern pen is made of plastic, implements plastic feeders and uses cartridges and converters. But that is not an obstacle for some of them to become iconic: Pilot Capless, Japanese pocket pens including the Pilot Myu, Lamy Safari…

An iconic pen despite its steel nib, its plastic feeder, its filling system, and its material.

So, what do we want? Probably we want old fashioned pens, but we are also happy with almost any pen. Then, the competition in the market selects who wins. And given the available offer, we stylophiles are still too weak in front of the mass of occasional buyers. That or we are too eclectic and in one way or another any pen makes us happy.

Muji Aluminum – Diamine China Blue

Bruno Taut
Nakano, July 21st 2018
etiquetas: mercado, estilofilia

Nib Sizes, Feed Diameters

Few elements in a pen are really standardized. Each maker created –still creates– many of the components and they only had to match the other parts of the pen without any regard to other manufacturers.

The closes one could get to normalization was in the area of nibs, where at some point there was a consensus about their sizes. In that environment, sizes 6 and 8 were quite big; sizes 10 and 12 were huge, rare, expensive and highly desirable.

And half the world away, Japanese pen makers had their own life to live. Sure Pilot numbered their nibs in a similar fashion --from 0 to 8--, but the consistency in the size was far from exemplary. Sailor, on its side, used some crazy numbers—sizes 30, 80, and 200 for some of the nibs that, in actuality, were rather small.

An old Sailor nib labeled as size 30.

Nowadays, Japanese makers are very consistent in the sizing of their nibs, but the naming is very arbitrary.

Pilot, on its more common line of nibs, calls them as 3, 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 50. These numbers, however, do not mean much.

Platinum has three basic nibs—the 3776 with two and three tines, and the President. There is no indication of size.

Sailor, finally, has three basic sizes called medium, big and superbig.

And in the West, German nibs –third party nibs—tend to follow a more systematic approach. Bock nibs, albeit having their own number, follow a relevant pattern—the diameter of the feed. And the same happens with JoWo nibs: the feed diameter sets the nib size.

So, the question is how all these nibs –Japanese and German—compare. The following tables show the diameters of the feed of some manufacturers:

Pilot-Namiki

Nib description	Feed diameter (mm)
5	6.0
10	6.2
15	6.4
20	6.5
30	7.6
50	9.0

Pilot and Namiki nibs. From left to right, sizes 5, 10, 15, 20, and 50. Sizes 20 and 50 are implemented currently only on Namiki pens. However, the examples here shown are still Pilot (::1::, ::2::). Missing on the table is size 3. And from the picture, sizes 3 and 30.

Platinum-Nakaya

Nib description	Feed diameter (mm)
3776 old model music 2-tined nib	6.0
3776 new model	6.5

Two 3776 nibs. These are the nibs implemented on Nakaya pens, the "alter ego" of Platinum. On the left, the feed and the nib of the old version of the regular nibs. This feed is still used on the music nibs of Platinum and Nakaya. On the right, the modern nib and feed of the 3776 series of pens and of Nakaya pens save for the cases of music nibs. Missing on the table and on the picture, the President nib.

Sailor

Nib description	Feed diameter (mm)
Medium	5.8
Big	6.4

Sailor nibs and feeds of sizes medium (left) and big. Missing on the picture and on the table, the "super big" size of the "King of Pen" models.

Bock

Nib description	Feed diameter (mm)
060, 076, 180	5.0
220, 250	6.0
380	8.0

JoWo

Nib description	Feed diameter (mm)
#5	5.0
#6	6.0
#8	8.0

From left to right: Bock model 250 (6.0 mm in diameter), Bock model 380 (8.0 mm), and JoWo nib of size #6. All the feeds on the picture are made of ebonite.

The following pictures show how some of those nibs compare across brands.

Japanese nibs with similar external sizes. From the top left, clockwise: Sailor nib size big, Platinum 3776 Century (current model), Platinum 3776 (previous model), Pilot size 10.

Assorted pens whose nibs are about the size of a size 6 nib. From bottom left, clockwise: Pelikan M800, Clavijo with a JoWo #6, Senator pen with a Bock 250 (6.0 in diameter), Eboya with a Bock 250, Romillo with a Bock 250, Pilot with a size 20 nib, Pilot with a size 15 nib, and a Montblanc 146.

Assorted pens with nibs of about a size 8. From the bottom, clockwise: Romillo with a Bock 380, Eboya with a Bock 380, Montblanc 149, Pelikan M1000, and Sailor King of Pen.

The conclusion is interesting: Japanese follow their own systems and the actual sizes are very different to those of the German manufacturers.

Montblanc 149 – Platinum Black

Bruno Taut
Nakano, July 13th 2018
etiquetas: plumín, Japón, Alemania, Pilot, Platinum, Sailor, Bock, JoWo

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]

Pens at an Exhibition

The National Museum of Japanese History, in the city of Sakura (Chiba prefecture), hosts these days –March 8th to May 8th 2016—an exhibition on fountain pens: “Fountain Pens: Their History ad Art in Japan”. That is the official English title. However, the original in Japanese is more along the lines of “Lifestyle and Fountain Pens. The Modernization of Writing”.

Finally I had the chance to attend it and these are my recollections:

Sakura is a small town (population around 180000) in the prefecture of Chiba, about 60 minutes away from Tokyo Station by train. The Museum is connected to the train station by a bus route that takes 15 min. The admission fee to the exhibition is JPY 830. No pictures are allowed.

This is the outline:

Lifestyle and Fountain Pens. The Modernization of Writing.
0. Introduction. Literature and writing in Japan.
1. Fountain pens in Japan and their craftsmanship.
1.1 History of fountain pens in Japan.
1.2 Craftsmanship.
-- Lathe masters.
-- Maki-e.
2. Fountain pens and contemporary Japan.
2.1 The time of fountain pens.
2.2 Fountain pens and the modern organization.
2.3 Fountain pens and daily life.
3. Epilogue. Writing revisited.

The starting point of the exhibition is the role fountain pens played around 1900 in Japan. Fountain pens –that is, a reliable writing tool with an integrated ink deposit—were a much better writing device in a highly literate society whose writing system was based on handwriting. This starting point, somehow, defines the whole exhibition whose focus is on the social influence of pens and not on the historical development of them.

In fact, as could be seen on the outline, the part dedicated to the history of pen in Japan is limited to the first section (1.1). It is, however, rather limited and is organized by brands, with the big three companies taking most of the available space. A more chronological display would have been a lot more illustrative. There is also the obvious void of pens made after 1980 (save for some contemporary Pilot Capless and some Kato Seisakusho’s models).

Given the focus of the exhibition, most of the pens on display are common tools that were available to the average citizen. The most obvious exception to this rule is the selection of maki-e decorated pens used to illustrate the section on Japanese craftsmanship.

This section is completed with assorted memorabilia: ads, display cases, sale materials, etc.

More importance is given to the theme of craftsmanship of pens (section 1.2), focused on two aspects: pen turning and maki-e decoration.

Pen turning by rather primitive means has always been an important part of the Japanese pen industry. Let us remember brands as Ban-ei, Kato Seisakusho, Hakase, Eboya, Ohashido, and many others. Several of those lathes --pedal operated, with precarious chucks more often than not, and unstable toolposts— together with sets of tools can be seen at the museum.

Maki-e is also very well presented. The selection of pens, many from private collections, is magnificent and is supported by a computer system where visitors can explore the decorative motifs in detail through high quality pictures.

Page 111 of the catalog. It displays a maki-e decorated pen by Platinum. A pen, actually, already described on these Chronicles.

The exhibition is interesting and worth the trip from Tokyo. After all, pens rarely show up collectively in museums. Unfortunately, pictures are not allowed. However, there is a very serious flaw: pens and other objects are not dated. This is an inexplicable mistake to any curator.

The catalog is nicely printed and is affordable in price (JPY 1800, plus tax). Pictures, and in particular those of maki-e pens, are very good. But the editor made a big mistake. There are a number of pictures of pens that are seamless compositions of pictures of single pens. At the time of putting them together, someone made the stupid decision of representing all the pens in the same length, not respecting the actual differences in size. The result is ridiculous: a pocket pen of the same length of a full size Pilot Custom Sterling, as can be seen on the accompanying pictures.

Page 30 of the catalog shows these six Pilot pens. All of them, apparently, have the same length.

This is how those six pens (save minor decorative details) really look like with respect to each other. This ridiculous mistake is repeated in a number of pages of the catalog.

The lack of dates in the exhibition is not corrected in the catalog. Again, we are deprived of that valuable piece of information.

But I would visit the exhibition “Lifestyle and Fountain Pens” again.

My thanks to Poplicola-san.

Ban-ei in black urushi – Pilot Blue

Bruno Taut
Nakano, April 20th 2016
etiquetas: evento, Japón, estilofilia