Old becomes new!

Behold my new pen!

Somewhat of a Pilot Super clone with that big (brassed) cap band, this pen is actually made by "Ever", a low-tier maker active in 1950's Japan. I rediscovered this humble pen in my junk box this afternoon, and became especially interested in it when I noticed that the inlaid steel nib appeared to be exceptionally fine. The potential for exceptionally fine nibs always excites me, so I decided to give the pen a little TLC.

The pen had been in the junk box for about two years - with good reason. It had been given to me as a parts pen, even though it was NOS and still had two stickers on it. The clip was loose and the trim showing a lot of brass. I tried various methods to tighten the loose cap without success, so in the end, out came the two-part epoxy adhesive! I removed the stickers, cleaned the pen up, and polished the cap, barrel and trim with a bit of carnuba wax. The feed is ebonite, as is the whole grip section. This made the pen slightly more interesting - the less potentially brittle plastic, the better.

The steel nib is imprinted with 'Venus', and bears the 〄 mark. The tines were quite misaligned, but I soon had that fixed, and then inked the pen with Pilot Iroshizuku Shin-Ryoku. I'm pleased to report that the line is ridiculously fine! :)

Sailor "Hougado" Edition Pens

Two very beautiful Sailor Professional Gear Slim pens joined my collection this week: a Hougado Brown and a Hougado Green.
Inked with Sailor-Hougado Deep Rust Black and Deep Moss Black respectively.

Third Nakaya

I am about to sign-off on the design for my third Nakaya Piccolo!

I'm very excited about this special order... but I won't be revealing any details - all I will say is that it will feature the Chinkin / Chinkoku technique.

Happy, happy, happy!

Pens Incoming...

The following pens will hopefully join my collection soon...

• Danitrio Takumi "Mt Fuji"
• Nakaya Piccolo Special Order
• Sailor Pro Gear LE, "KAN"
• Sailor Pro Gear Slim LE, "Hougado Brown"
• Sailor Pro Gear Slim LE, "Hougado Green"
• Sailor 1911 LE, "Hanshin Tigers"

Yay!!!

Sailor Sapporo Arrivals!

It's late (10PM), which is never a good time to be shooting photos of anything, let alone nicely detailed photos of my beloved Sapporo pens. However, this blog has been a bit neglected of late, and I guess a couple of bad photos are better than no photos at all. So without further ado, I present my three latest Sailor Sapporo (Pro Gear Slim) acquisitions:


From the bottom: Dark Metallic Green, 14K F; Spring Orange, 14K F; Spring White (Ivory), 14K F; Snow White LE Mini.

There is a considerable difference between the Ivory and pure white Snow White LE - the Ivory could be better called Beige Putty, but I suppose Ivory sounds more appealing. ;)

Even though you cannot see one hint of green in the above photo, hopefully the next photo shows the colour of my Dark Metallic Green Sapporo a bit better (please excuse the appalling flash):


I have chosen to ink my beauties as follows:

• Spring Orange - Noodler's Apache Sunset
• Spring White - Penman Ruby
  
• Dark Green - 1:1 Noodler's Zhivago and Noodler's Pushkin.

These pens only have Fine nibs (Extra Fine was not available), so I chose inks which are slightly dry-writing - when you have handwriting as small as I do, every bit helps! ;)

May Update

A brief update for today, but hopefully some photos will follow tomorrow. A few interesting pens have joined the collection these last few weeks... some fine sterling silver Sailor pens, a silver Pilot Elite and two less commonly seen inexpensive Japanese pens from the 70s featuring pretty gold sparkles... ooh.

A nice metallic Dark Green Sapporo arrived last week, followed by my Spring White Sapporo a few days later. Both have great 14K Fine nibs. The Spring Orange Sapporo should arrive this week. :)

The Spring White and Spring Orange pens were purchased from MelPens. Mel's service was excellent and the entire transaction has been a pleasure. Highly recommended!

More later. :)

Sailor Pro Gear SE

In my last post I mentioned my latest Sailor - a Professional Gear Special Edition produced for the Japanese market.
I wrote a little about this pen over at the Fountain Pen Network when I first received it, and I've been using it ever since. When I bought this pen, I was concerned about the F nib (having only ever used modern Sailor EF nibs in the past), but I was lucky enough to have gotten a very EF-like F nib.

The white trim is perfect, even though I am normally a fan of gold trim, and the nib is very attractive. PR Fiesta Red has turned out to be the perfect colour for this pen, and now I can't think of inking it with anything else. This is really a very striking pen, and I'm so pleased that I paid a little extra to acquire it. :)

Happy, happy, happy!

Special Japanese Pens

November has been a fruitful month for Japanese pens. In a very short period I have acquired several pens I have wanted for some time now! Most of these are stainless steel Sailor pens which are not too common.

The most magnificent pen of them all is the Sailor Egyptian Hieroglyphs model.
I was very lucky to be able to add the Hieroglyphs pen to my collection, and once again, such a thing was made possible by the wonderful Stan Klemanowicz, who has provided me with some of my best-loved Japanese pens.

Another interesting pen heading my way is a Limited Edition Sailor Professional Gear - in a Red Metallic lacquer finish!

More about the Sailor LE later... ;)

A Quiet Day...

Life in pendom has been quiet of late, but I have a couple of small pen and ink notes to report:

• I've ordered two bottles of the FPN Dumas Tulipe Noire ink, which is a dark red-violet shade possibly resembling a mixture of Noodler's Red Black and PR Burgundy Mist.
• I recently acquired a vintage Sailor 'Egyptian Hieroglyphs' pen, which is a model from the mid 1970's or so. Striking design! It is a rare short-long version of the full-size Hieroglyphs pen. (Picture to come.)

More news next time, I hope!

Nakaya Piccolo II

Earlier this week my spectacular Special Order Nakaya Piccolo arrived! It is gorgeous.

A full Review has been posted over at the Fountain Pen Network. :)

Urushi Eyedropper

Some photos of my lovely 1950's Eyedropper:



This pen is big and beautiful! The coppery-red colour is especially nice.

Incoming Pens!

It's been awhile since my last posting, so today's entry will be a large one - I have lots of nice pen news to share. :)

Last month I acquired some unusual Japanese pens, and while I promised some photos, I didn't get around to posting any. However, they are here now!

Platinum 'Zogan' (1970's)
Initially, I didn't know what to make of this pen, as it was much larger than I had anticipated it would be. I pondered it for a couple of hours, and debated whether it should remain in my collection or not. Eventually, I decided I did like the 'Zogan' and upon inking it with R&K Sepia, I found I liked it even more.

Pilot Etched Floral (1970's)
I saw a couple of these pens sell on eBay earlier this year, but they sold for more than I was prepared to pay (and more than they were worth). Stan had one for sale recently, and I managed to snag my first colour choice at a great price. This is a gorgeous pen, and the photo doesn't do it justice. The metallic enamel inside the deep etching changes under different lighting conditions - really pretty.

Pilot-Namiki Black Red Celluloid (1930's)
I was really pleased to acquire this pen as a NOS item with its box, papers, barrel label etc. It is in great condition, and the dark celluloid and black urushi jewels make a very nice contrast with the nickel trim.

Well Black Urushi Eyedropper (1930's)
Another nice one! The black urushi coating on this pen is perfect, and quite thick. The urushi-clad clip is most sexy, in my opinion. The nib is a nice one, with a cut-out on either side to increase flexibility. I have a Nakaya with an Elastic nib which features similar cut-outs. It's nice to have an early example of such a nib, as well as a modern one.

* * *

In other news, I have several exciting new pens winging their way to me as I type! July has been another good month for interesting pens. A brief summary:

• Platinum PKH-2500. I have one of these cute short-long pens already, as shown here. My current short has a Clover motif, the new short has a Maple Leaf motif.


• Platinum Ivory Celluloid. I’m looking forward to this one. A 1950's Platinum 10 Year model in a lever-fill configuration.


• Well Eyedropper. Yep, another Well... but not quite as old as the first one. This one has a very interesting nib also - instead of a traditional round or heart-shaped vent hole, this Well has the letter W instead. Nifty!


• Yotsubishi Eyedropper. My first Yotsubishi, and hopefully not my last. What makes this 1950's example nice is that it has been finished with a Red Urushi coating.

Lastly, I have my eye on a couple of brand new modern pens. The first is a delicious new Aurora, the Fuoco Minima. I think this Aurora series is based on natural elements, as the Fuoco features a flame motif, just as the Sole Aurea Minima features a sun motif. The colour is beautiful!

The other modern pen I am considering is a Danitrio maki-e pen. I've not yet decided exactly what to purchase though... decisions, decisions!

More Japanese Pens + Fascinating Facts!

This week, I was very pleased to add a few more nifty Japanese pens to my collection. Here's a summary - I will add some nicer photos when they arrive:

• Platinum 'Zogan'. This is a 1970's Platinum with interesting Lamy 2000-esque styling. The cap band has a floral motif in the decorative zogan technique, which is the inlaying of gold into a surface. Platinum revisited the 'Zogan' in the 1990's, this time styling the pen on their classic #3776 model.
  I dislike using other peoples images, but for now here is the 'Zogan':
  The top image is from Stan Klemanowicz, and shows the 1970's model. The bottom image is from the Internet, and shows the 1990's model.


• Pilot Etched Floral. This is a 1970's stainless steel Pilot with gold trim and deep floral sprigs etched into the body. The etchings are filled with a green-gold reflective lacquer. Pretty!


• Pilot 'L'. Someone on eBay advertises these under the name of "Lex" or the more ridiculous "Mysterious Reflections". The other name for this model is simply the "Lady" - however, while browsing Yahoo! Japan one day, I found one of these pens marked "Laureat":
  My "L" fountain pen is on the left, the Yahoo "L" ballpoint pen is on the right. I wonder what Waterman thought of Pilot using the name Laureat?! Ah, the oddities of the pen world...


• Pilot-Namiki Celluloid. This is a nice, red-black mottled celluloid lever filler which is stickered, and has the original box and instructions. I was especially pleased to find this pen, as it is a prewar model bearing a "N" (Namiki) logo on the barrel. In 1938 the logo letter changed from "N" to "P" for Pilot, so I would put my pen as being from 1936/1937. The pen has a steel 'Shiro' nib.
  Pilot fountain pens from the 1930's to 1960's had a couple of different barrel stamps, as shown below:
  The first two lines of text are the standard imprint - sometimes model names or patent info is present, but that's the basic text. The central round 'lifebuoy' is depicted as one of the above three logos, of which the dates concerning the later two are approximate.


• Well Eyedropper. The Well Fountain Pen Company was founded in the 1920's and was a popular prewar manufacturer. However, after the war, the company had a short lifespan and eventually closed in the 1950's. The pen I bought is an Ebonite (hard rubber) eyedropper, coated with black Urushi lacquer - even the clip is lacquered black! This pen also has a steel 'Shiro' nib.

I'll have these pens in a week or two, so look out for some photos then - this is an interesting group! :)

Long Time, No Pens...

...well, not really. Some very nice pens arrived in April, and it looks like May will bring more of the same.

The above image shows a few nice Japanese pens I acquired last month. From the top:

• Platinum. White enamel with clover motif. 18K Fine.
• Platinum. Pale gold arabesque motif. C/C. 18K Fine.
• Platinum. Stainless steel. C/C. 18K White Fine.
• Pilot. Black with stainless cap. Lever. 'Hardgilt' Steel Flexible Fine.

Also, I received an Aurora 14K EF nib which had been reground to an XF Stub.

Japanese Pens

Picked up a couple of nice Japanese pens recently - three Platinum pens from the 1970's, and one Pilot pen from the 1950's.

I am particularly interested in the Pilot, which is a lever-filler with a flexible steel nib. My Sailor eyedropper has a flexible steel 'Shiro' nib, which is quite wonderful, so I am hoping the Pilot nib will be similar.