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!

[Jon Szanto]

They seem to be fairly common on the West coast of the US, which makes sense. I have a number of friends in the San Fransico area, part of a large pen community up there, who collect those regularly. One friend had a good fine recently, a Platinum in cherry wood from 1972. I'll see if I can get permission to post a photo. Good idea for the thread.

Annnnd... permission granted!

[Jon Szanto]

Here is a pen I purchased from the collection of Susan Wirth. If you didn't know her, she was a wonderful personality and pen afficianado who had a large influence in the US pen hobby. This pen was part of the research collection from Parker, after they had traveled to Japan to purchase examples of pens in vogue over there; the label is part of the Parker cataloging system. I treasure this pen because she was such a remarkable person. This one is maybe a little outside the range of the "long/short" but still petite and part of that style (I think!).

[iosepus]

Thanks, Christof, for your nice words.

Nice examples you show, and to be up to your pens I will show some Sailor pocket (Mini in their own words) in line with yours.

As you said, quoting R Binder, Sailor invented this idea. That was in 1963, and the first pen you showed on your post belong to that early generation. The following pen has a manufacturing date of December 1962:

IMG_1295-blog-12-7-WM.jpg

And on the following pic you can see three models made in 1963:

IMG_9857-blog-WM.jpg

And I will finish this post with an image of four Sailor pens made of steel. In a sense these are the Sailor alternative to the well known Pilot pens Christof has already shown:

P1070662-blog-8-5-WM.jpg

Note how all those four nibs are different. That variability in the nibs is a characteristic of the Sailor Mini pens of the time.

Cheers,

BT

[OCArt]

Very happy to see this thread and look forward to more!

[christof]

Thank you @Jon Szanto and @iosepus for your contributions. This is a very good start and I look forward to more posts on this exciting topic.


@Jon Szanto: this Platinum wood pen is a gem!


@iosepus: thank you for the additional informations. these Sailors are great. Some of them I have never seen before!


I can contribute photos of another example of a black striped Pocket Pen. I particularly like this Platinum:

[forester]

Christof:

Thanks for starting this thread!

While happily a Sailor Pro Gear owner I never looked into these pens.

You have opened a new chapter for me to discover.

[penwash]

A delightful thread.



How about these two similarly dapper pens from rival companies.
I picked up the Sailor for a pen friend, and the Pilot is actually a rollerball with a nifty short cap design, one of my EDC pens.

[christof]

This Myu has a special meaning to me as it comes from the collection of my late friend Alain Vanderauwera:

[catbert]

This Myu has a special meaning for me as it comes from the collection of my late friend Alain Vanderauwera:

Elegant sketch and pen.

Didn't your late friend design a special Conid?

[christof]

Yes, that is correct. Alain had a friendly relationship to Francis Goossens. I think that the modified Conid Minimalistica was a cooperation.

[iosepus]

The big three Japanese companies pay close attention to each other. So it is no surprise that the same style of pens can be seen as Pilot, Platinum and Sailor, and even more.

Here I am showing some examples:

Plain steel bodies:
P1070749-blog-2-1-WM.jpg

Black stripes:
P1070751-blog-2-1-WM.jpg

Black pens:
IMG_2529-blog-6-5-WM.jpg

These formal black style pens came in a number of variations within each company. Here I am showing just a random selection of them from four different brands: Ferme, Pilot, Platinum and Sailor (left to right).

Cheers,

BT

[KrazyIvan]

I really enjoy pocket pens but I have none as lovely as these!

[Chrissy]

Lovely looking examples Christof and everyone. Thanks to you all for sharing.

It is a type of pen that I used to want an example of but I could never find a good looking one with anything other than an EF or F nib.
I don't search for them anymore.

[FredRydr]

My Japanese pocket collection consists of one pen, a gift from a Canadian pen friend who writes from very interesting destinations in his travels around the world. A fellow vendor at a pen show identified it for me as an 18k Platinum "PKT 3000 No. 1," circa 1973. I know not more than that. It is probably the extra-finest writer I have, great for squeezing complete correspondence on the back of a postcard! Cartridges only. The sticker is still there.

EE75A8AD-6316-4E37-8913-08E152D80287.jpeg

IMG_3757.jpeg

[iosepus]

It is true that most of these pens come with fine and medium nibs, but there were other nib points, particularly in the Platinum line. Here you can see four somehow exotic nibs together with a medium one. All belong to the same model of Platinum from around 1968:

IMG_2882-blog-1-1-WM.jpg

IMG_2887-blog-1-1-WM.jpg

IMG_2899-blog-3-4-WM.jpg

Platinum Pockets1960s Writing-blog-3-4-WM.jpg

Finally, the pen model:

IMG_2817-blog-9-5-WM.jpg

So, do not give up...

Cheers,

BT

[christof]

Thank you for this. The area of the topic becomes wider and wider...

[penwash]

Bruno's post above reminded me of this one I had a long time ago:

[Jon Szanto]

Another small batch, some being duplicates or family members to pens recently shown. The Pletinum are interesting in that they are nearly identical, but the one on the left has a 22k nib, while the middle one is 14k. In between is a contemporary Muji pen, which is quite inexpensive, a steel nib, but yet a very interesting take on the long/short model. Finally, as influenced by the others, a recent Ensso aluminum pen in all matte black.

(P.S. I just had eye surgery last week, I'm not thinking these are the greatest photos - apologies for blurriness!)

[christof]

here is a modern one, a Sailor Sapporo Mini, sold under the name PenStyle memo, which is a special edition made for Nagasawa, Kobe.



These pens are still availabel.

The nib is a nice writing H-EF: