Japanese Pocket Pens (in general)

[christof]

After noticing that one of the most interesting bloggers when it comes to fountain pens, Bruno Taut (aka Iosepo), is a long time member of Fountainpengeeks, I asked him backchannel if he woul be willing to support a thread about Japanese fountain pens. To my surprise, he agreed...

He just asked me to start the thread, and here I am, composing a starting post about Japanese pocket fountain pens. Let's go!

Japanese pocket fountain pens have always fascinated me. However, at the beginning I knew very few. Pilot Myu and Pilot Elite, and that was it. Only after increasing interest and deeper knowledge I found out two things:

1. I am not the only one who is interested in pocket fountain pens (Yay!).

2. japanese pocket fountain pens are an unbelievable wide area! There are endless models and brands as we do not know in the western world (ouch!).

Richard Binder, one of my mentors when I started collecting and restoring American fountain pens has written an incredibly comprehensive and multi-faceted article on this subject. You should definitely have read this article.

At this point, my heartfelt thanks to Richard for this incredible work!

http://www.richardspens.com/ref/prof...ocket_pens.htm

According to Richard Binder, it was not Pilot, but Sailor who invented the Pocket Pen or "Long/Short" pen, the Sailor mini. Of course I had to have one:



But then, there was still this fascination for these unbelieveable and breathtaking elegant stainless steel pens with integrated nib, made by Pilot. The Myu and similar models. Of course I also had to have some of these:



(...and I will not even start to talk about the Murex, which is a brother of the Myu but not a pocket pen)

Pocket Pens ar not only a Japanese thing:



But honestly, the Japanese made some of the most brilliant Pocket Pens ever.

That's why this thread is dedicated to Japanese Pocket Pens. Show us what pens are in your collections, or simply write what you think about them. Thank you in advance!