I had a few requests for pictures of this thing... sorry for the delay. As far as I know this is a true demonstrator, made for salesmen to show off the wonders of the MYU's internal organs. I don't believe they were ever for sale...

/Woody

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Look like a pretty cool pen. The only thing I would prefer in a demonstrator would be less of the pen's body getting in the way of seeing the ink inside. I'm thinking I will be getting a Piston/vac filler soon.

Haywoody: I have never even heard of this model. Where did you find it? Any chance on there being more ? Put me on the list if you ever want to part with it-or maybe put me in your will!!! Nice. Tberry

I heard about this version of the MYU from Stan but ended up getting it from an eBay seller. He only had one but there must be a few more out there. Tberry, I will see what I can do about the will.

It would be nice if the cap was transparent too. Unfortunately the cap on these pens is metal and, as far as I know, those metallurgist dudes are still working on transparent metal.

/Woody

Thanks a lot for the photos woody. It is a beautiful and rare pen for sure. I agree with you that with a transparent cap it would have look super-cool but we can't have it all i guess.

Nikolaos

That's a nice looking pen. Thanks for sharing the photos.

That is SO cool! Thanks for sharing!!

I'll say it too: Wow!

Woody, you're killin' me!

You know, this pen answers a question that came up for me tonight. I was trying to look into the nib unit on a VP and I was trying to understand the interface to the cart.

The structure is clearly visible here!

It seems most people like demonstrators for the looks. They are cool but aesthetically I think seeing the guts just mucks up the looks of the pen.

The engineer in me likes them because it lets me see how they were made and put together. I have another transparent Pilot long/short in a lovely pink shade. I bought it mainly to get a clue how the feed/nib of Pilots fingernail nib pens from the 60's and 70's were put together. It was cool to see that these nibs are actually date stamped. You just can see the date because it is buried in the section.

/Woody

Pilot did not make demonstrators, per se, during this period. AFAIK, they did a very few pens in the 1930s that were true demonstrators. Clear plastic pens have been regularly produced in small quantities in Japan since the early 1950s. Interestingly, I have a few from the early 1950s and they had higher prices than simple makie by the same maker. 1950s plastic pens can be found in clear and colored plastics, like yellow, blue, red, and with pieces of color in the plastic. One can find models even in eyedroppers too, which could provide the interesting experience of watching how it leaked.

Back to the Pilot in question. I recall seeing that pen with both plastic and solid metal caps. The colors of the plastic were clear, bluish, and green. They are harder to find than the standard models and my guess is they addressed a very small sub-market segment interested in novelty pens. I don't check out the latest offerings by the Big three penmakers but remember Sailor and Nakaya sold clear plastic pens at regular prices. Pilot and Platinum market demonstrators at lower prices but, they have gold-colored nibs.

Japanese people like clear things, and they are often called "skeleton" (sukeruton スケルトン). When you google or serch on Japanese auctions you might have better chance finding one with the term skeleton rather than demo/demonstrator. IIRC that term came from a clear model of Swatch in 80's.

Very cool looking pen!