Fountain Pens: Starting Young

The mailman brought a breeze of fresh air on Saturday. No matter the enticement of lush green outside my windows, August is ablaze in eastern Florida and days are defined by heat, humidity and mosquitos ready to pounce. Happily, a good part of all that was relieved by the arrival from a longtime Tokyo friend, of the latest issue of Stationery Hobby Box (Shumi no bungu bako). Since leaving Japan a few years back, Kumiko has never missed sending the magazine as quickly as a new issue appears on bookstore shelves. Volume 26 came out in June and like every issue contains over 150 glossy pages of articles and photographs highlighting fountain pens, ink and paper, pencils and a few dozen other stationery-related products.

The bold black copy on the cover this time suggests that people want to write with fountain pens (mannenhitsu de kakitai) and in Japan that is a not an exaggeration. Related to that idea is the magazine’s feature article about eight people who treasure their fountain pens and use them as a daily tool. Among them is a film producer, a stylist, a couple of businessmen, a teacher, and a high school student.

Yûdai Kamei is a seventeen year-old high school student in the Tokyo suburb of Saitama who got his first fountain pen in the third grade. Since that early age his enthusiasm has been nourished by parents who share to some extent their son’s interest in fountain pen history and quality writing instruments. How many fathers take their son on a summer holiday with the specific aim of browsing pen shops?

Yûdai’s collection of fountain pens now numbers ten. The article offers no listing of exactly what those pens are, but looking closely at the photos it is easy to spot a Montblanc Meisterstück 146 Doué, Pelikan 800, Pelikan M200 Demonstrator, Pelikano Junior, Pilot Custom 742, Lami Safari, Lami AL-Star, Platinum 3376 Century and two others difficult to distinguish, though one is a Montblanc. The photograph below shows his stated favorite, the Meisterstück 146 Doué, a gift from his parents at the time he entered high school.

Below the fountain pen in the photo is a bottle of Sailor Jentle Ink and a page from Yûdai’s school notes. The bottle of ink is Miyougi Amber bought on the above mentioned summer pen-trip with his father. The color is reflected in the brown ribbon running down the bottle from cap to base and again at the bottom of the page to the right. The ink is one he first saw in the August 2011, vol. 20 issue of Shumi no bungu bako. To the right is a page of school notes from the morning newspaper, different articles distinguished by a different ink. 

As a way of trial and error, Yûdai uses his journal to get a feeling for his pens used with different inks, a natural extension for any fountain pen aficionado striving to better understand a specific pen or ink. The photo shows a sample of writing with the Pelikan 800 and the Sailor Miyougi Amber ink.

Born in Saitama Prefecture in 1996, Yûdai is currently in the 11th grade and his favorite subject is government economy. Apart from fountain pens, his interests include cars and leather goods. He is also an avid reader, getting through about two books a week.

……………

For those who deny themselves nothing in the way of fine writing instruments, a full page advertisement in this latest issue of Stationery Hobby Box offers the new Montblanc Paul Klee Limited Edition fountain pen for a mere $28,643. ‘Limited Edition’ in this case means Montblanc made only seventy-nine of them.

Capricorn the Goat

The only thing that surprises me about the heightened interest in sepia and other brown inks that has flared over the past year is its lateness in coming. There was a time centuries ago when sepia ink was the norm, as common as royal blue ink is today. But then fads change and eventually traditionals are replaced with something deemed more right for the time. There is probably a good chance that royal blue ink will fall out of favor, to be replaced with another sober and conservative color of ink suitable for business documents and important signings. It might even turn out to be a return to sepia-like browns.

I’ve had a thing for brown inks for some time, and back when there were few to choose from among available stocks I had them mixed by Osamu Ishimaru, premier ink blender at Sailor. The opportunity to have custom inks mixed on the spot is something I lament about no longer living in Tokyo. In a city the size of Tokyo, where fountain pen and ink hobbyists are well served by pen clinics and festivals occurring several times a year, and where pen shops are numerous, the events and opportunities provide a near paradise for pen and ink enthusiasts. Sadly, where I live now it’s an Internet fueled hobby for the most part. Can’t say that has cured me of a mania for ink. A new ink, manufacturer or shade still has the power to set heartstrings humming.

The other day I pulled from an out of sight corner in my stacks of ink a shade of brown mixed for me by Sailor’s Mr Ishimaru maybe fours years ago at a pen clinic sponsored by Maruzen Department Store in Tokyo. At this remove it’s hard to recall my description of the brown I was looking for at the time, but surely it was something ‘woody, darkish and robust with a hearty splash of black.’ Whatever the description at the time, Mr Ishimaru as always was game for a mix and match, dip and dab search for the desired shade. The result was an ink that he suggested we call Capricorn. No idea where he came up with that name but it suited me fine. I still have a bottle half full of that woody, robust and blackish brown Capricorn.

Not a lot of critical commentary this time, but more a sampling of what the color looks like. Sailor Jentle Ink is well represented among the bottles on my shelves and I honestly cannot recall even one among them disappointing in terms of saturation, shading, purity and smoothness. If you look at the 1-3-5-7-9-10 drying time samples in the top photo, it’s clear that this Sailor ink at least is not especially quick drying. Even after nine seconds some wetness remains, though ten seconds are enough for non-smear dryness.

But look at that chocolate pudding richness in the swab in the top photo. It looks quite different from the Capricorn in the comparative brown swabs in the second picture. Fact is, the ink looks much, much better in lines of script on a page than in any quick and doubly saturated Q-tip swab. A page full of writing in Sailor Capricorn ink is a beautiful sight.

For us here in the US, the ability to acquire this ink is not so easy, since Sailor doesn’t send its ink blenders on tour to America. But for those living in Japan the difficulty evaporates when you have the ink’s mix code and the chance to attend one of the many pen clinics in most large Japanese cities. The mix code for Sailor Capricorn is: 070313031. Give this number to any Sailor ink blender and he should be able to mix up a bottle of Capricorn in about ten minutes.

The writing in the top photograph was done with a Pelikan Souverän M1000 with a broad nib.

Another Hobby Box

Always a thrill to receive a new issue of Japan’s stylish magazine for stationery goods, Shumi no bungu bako, or Stationery Hobby Box. The new issue, volume 18 was published in Tokyo on December 20 and a faithful friend immediately posted a shiny ink-scented copy off to me in Florida. True with each issue, the magazine is filled with articles and lush advertisements across the entire spectrum of pens, ink, paper and related products. Always a lot to read and see, but the main articles this time focus on the depth and variety of nibs. There are twelve different perspectives on nib types and shaping from pen makers and nib specialists. Gratifying to see that one of the experts consulted is Moriyama Nobuhiko, who crafted the nibs on three of my own fountain pens.

Seems like Sailor Jentle Ink always has a few new inks to introduce in these quarterly issues, and the December number is no different. Six new colors are offered and are shown in the second photograph on the right. One is a dark green called EPINAR, which Sailor likens to spinach; GRENATE is a deep red related to the color of pomegranate; ULTRA MARINE a purplish blue that Sailor sees as ocean blue; APRICOT is another bright orange in the line of Edelstein Mandarin; the other blue they call SKY HIGH and from the magazine sample appears to resemble anything but the blue of the sky; the pink called PECHE is not peachy at all, but a rather ordinary pink.

Montblanc has at last come out with something to replace the discontinued Racing Green. The third photo shows the new IRISH GREEN alongside the old Racing Green on the left. The ad assures readers that this new green is now available in Japan, but it will require a Monday phone call to the Millennium Montblanc store in Orlando to see if this ink has reached the US.

The bottom photo all-a-jumble with pencils, pens, clips, erasers and a dozen other things is a shot inside a small, popular stationery store called Traveler’s Stationery in Kichijôji, a area of western Tokyo. I include the photo only because it impressed me as an especially good composition that holds the eye.

Stationery Hobby Box is a thick magazine that always draws me back again and again to linger over the wealth of photos and information. Older issues alway serve as an excellent source of reference for fountain pen enthusiasts.

The Pearl of Inks

I have long yearned for a solid gray ink with a degree of saturation that doesn’t leave me straining to make out the words. In my experience this is a rare quality in gray inks. In addition to the Montblanc Oyster Grey being reviewed here, I have four other grays—Sailor Jentle Ink Gray, Pilot Iroshizuku Fuyu-syogun and Kiri-same, and J Herbin’s Gris Nuage—all rarely used. The reason is, none of them have a saturation that makes reading easy, but often require squinting or holding the paper under my nose. I mean, let’s face it, gray almost implies vagueness; it’s a diluted shade of black, the hue most often described as colorless. Unless the ink blender is very, very careful, the mix is going to end up pale and hard to read.

Des Atramentis hit upon a brilliant stroke when they added a dollop of green to gray and created the very readable Charles Dickens famous name ink. That green is the key to its easiness on the eyes. The Jentle Ink Gray from Sailor never worked for me, and after an initial infatuation, the two Iroshizuku inks paled. The J. Herbin Gris Nuage I used once and promptly forgot about. But along came Montblanc Oyster Grey and I am once again excited about a gray ink. In talking about a visit to the Montblanc store yesterday, I described the Oyster Grey as an elegant and aristocratic shade of gray. It also has the saturation necessary to make the color easy to read. The shading also impresses me, though I realize there are some who prefer less obvious deviation in the flow of ink. The Montblanc Grey gives what you could call shading plus.

I tested the Oyster Grey in two pens on four different kinds of paper: First, a Montblanc Meisterstuck 146, and then a Sailor 1911 Professional Gear, each pen on Clairefontaine, Moleskine, Life Noble Note, and common 20 lb white copy paper. The opinion of three people reflected a like choice. Oyster Grey in the Sailor 1911 (Medium 14k gold nib) on Clairefontaine 90g Triomphe stationery was the pick for ease of reading.

But here’s what surprised me—this ink is completely waterproof. I wrote three lines, allowed it to dry for ten minutes and then held the paper under running water for no less than thirty seconds. Every letter, every word was perfectly clear and legible at the end of that bath. Drying time for the ink is not so terribly slow, and might work fine for even left-handed writers. No bleed through, feathering or nib creep was there with either pen, on any of the four papers.

The feeling now is that I’ve found a gray ink I will go back to on a more regular basis.

MONTBLANC OYSTER GREY INK • 60ML BOTTLE • $16.00 AT MONTBLANC

Another Look at Stationery Hobby Box

On December 23 of last year, I introduced a Japanese magazine devoted to pens, inks and other stationery goods. The name of the magazine is Shumi no bungu bako, or in English, Stationery Hobby Box. To my regret the magazine is published only three times a year, and the wait between issues seems terribly long. In the earlier post I expressed my opinion that Shumi no bungu bako is at the top of the heap as far as magazines about stationery go. You won’t find better.

The latest issue, released on March 19, has as its main theme, or topic, stationery goods convenient for travel. All of that is beautifully presented in many of the magazine’s 152 pages, but I am more interested in showing two pages on another subject.

More and more these days, ink specialists are moving into the area of subtle and natural, perhaps even organic shades of ink. Basic colors are now taken for granted. We all know, can name and have in our collections the standard blues, blacks, reds and greens. Now the ink blenders are showing us more adventurous shades. Imagine an ink described as ‘Young Nightingale.’ The name all by itself makes me want to own a bottle.

In connection with the photographs here, I want to introduce some of the new and adventurous shades of ink from Sailor. The Voltaire and Ishida Bungu inks are both under the Sailor Jentle Ink label. In the middle photo to the right you can see two vertical rows, with four bottles on the right, four on the left. Starting with the Sailor inks on the right, at the top is something called Sakura-Mori, or Cherry Forest; below that is Miruai, and the best translation I can come up with is Deep Green-Black. The color is described as coming from the darkening pine trees growing along the rocky seacoasts of Japan. Third is the very beautiful, Waka-Uguisu, or Young Nightingale Green. The bottom example on the right is named Nioi-Sumire, which in English becomes Fragrant Violet. The description makes no mention of a fragrance, though the word is in the name.

In the same photo, but on the left hand side, are four Voltaire colors. The top ink is called Kôbai-Iro, which becomes something like Plum Blossom Pink in English. Below that is Hana-Asagi, or Pale Flower Blue. Third in line is Moegi, which implies Early Spring Green. Last in the Voltaire four is Kuro-Tsurubami, a difficult translation that I have made into Iron Black.

Looking at the next photo you will see three inks from Ishida Bungu, but carrying the Sailor Jentle Ink label. The colors are originals of the Ishida Bungu store in Hokkaido, and my guess is they have been licensed to Sailor. The theme is ‘a taste of the local’ referring to the city of Hakodate in Hokkaido, Japan’s northern island. From left to right, the colors are: Hakodate Seaweed, named for a brownish green seaweed common to the area; in the center is Hakodate Curry, which recognizes the brownish-yellow curry sauce at a curry restaurant which opened in the city in 1879. On the right is Hakodate Twilight Blue, said to resemble the blue of twilight in the area.

In time, I expect these inks will be exported to stores outside of Japan, and that probably includes the Voltaire as well as the Hakodate colors. Voltaire is a store located in Kyoto, and they do have online shopping, but I doubt that they ship overseas. Voltaire

From the Hearth

At this cold time of year, I often remember countryside visits with good friends in their 200 year old farmhouse situated among fields and mountains in a little village two hours west of Tokyo. One of my first visits to tiny Hakushu in Yamanashi Prefecture was at year end, a season that can be bitter cold, with both snow and ice. I remember the snow dusted rice paddies and icy streams of crystal clean water trickling past frozen banks, the snow-topped mountains near enough to reach in thirty minutes of walking. Remember too the rosy cheeks of children playing in front of a neighbor's house, and at the mountain shrine, the milky white warmth of amazake, a sweet drink made from fermented rice.

I have passed many enjoyable hours and days in all seasons with those friends, but the times I remember best are the cold, cold winter days, when we sat for long hours in the toasty warmth of the irori, the sunken hearth with its heap of glowing embers under a wire grill beneath our feet. Those were the days before centralized heating was heard of, especially in the old farmhouses, and those areas away from the hearth were freezing cold despite being indoors. For that reason, the irori was always the focal point of home life.

Many times in those days, I either watched or helped when a fresh shovel load of hot coals was brought to replenish the dwindling heat in the hearth. There remains a snapshot in my mind of those glowing embers, the hot red of burning wood blocks.

Sailor Jentle Ink has recently come out with a new shade of red they call IRORI. And in fact, the color bears some resemblance to the hot coals described above in the sunken hearth of that old farmhouse. Though it is a red ink, there is definitely some orange in it, and when I first used the ink, my initial thought was of that old methiolate or Mercurochrome that we used to put on scrapes when I was a kid. It has that orangish hint, though I would never call it a red-orange ink. A note on the photo above—The fault is with my poor photography, and the actual ink is not so orange as it appears in the photo. I would have to say that Sailor chose a fitting name for this ink. Be poetic and call it “Hearth Glow Red.”

I’m impressed by how consistently smooth this ink is on different kinds of paper. No Moleskine, Clairefontaine or Rhodia, but two kinds of high quality Japanese paper, a page in a cheap Muji notebook, and a trial on ordinary white copy paper; the Irori ink wrote evenly and smoothly on all four. Saturation is very good with this red, and shading to any degree is pretty much absent. I used a Sailor Professional Gear fountain pen with a 14 carat M nib. This is a wet nib with almost all inks, so the flow onto the page was smooth and generous, but without any feathering or bleed through. Drying time is not especially slow, but then neither is it very fast. You can pretty much count on dry ink after fifteen seconds. One thing you can say about this ink is, it’s bold and eye-catching and will definitely be noticed, maybe even with a compliment on your choice of ink.