When Did The Japanese Pen Industry Become So Mainstream?

[GabrielleDuVent]

Back in my parents' days, in the 70s, Japanese pen industry wasn't that booming, at least from the Japanese' pt of view. Parker was the common man's luxury pen, and Mont Blanc was used by writers. Inks were predominantly German if you wanted quality and class. Pilot was "cheap and bad".

 

This trend continued on, with slight edge giving to the German pen industry in the 80s. Pelikan was the premier for those who "made living with their pens"; Mont Blanc was too mainstream for those people who required "intense care and personal crafting" (there's a funny story about my father's professor - MB user - being envious of my father's Pelikan). Those who didn't make living by their words bought Parkers. Still no sign of Pilot in the luxury corner. Ink was still MB or Pelikan.

 

90s. Pelikan and Mont Blanc. 100% of professors at London School of Economics were Mont Blanc users.

 

Enter 2000s, when my father settled down with inks and pens, and I picked up the obsession. Suddenly the market was flooding with expensive Japanese inks and pens. Nowadays the most expensive inks are Pilot or Sailor. People are frantically buying Maruman or Kokuyo. Namiki pens are in the same display case, or even better ones, than MB.

 

I'm certainly elated to see my home country being treated as producers of luxury items, but I'm currently mystified as to when this phenomenon happened. I was under the impression that Japan was still a "newcomer and still learning" when it came to European-based luxury goods... and pens are certainly one of them. Does anyone have any idea why and when this happened?

[Readymade]

I can't be certain if you're of Japanese descent, but my impression of the Japanese pen industry is that the big 3 -- Pilot, Platinum and Sailor -- have had sophisticated quality offerings for decades now.

 

It seems to me not that the Japanese pen industry has "suddenly caught up", but that the development of the internet -- FPN, eBay, Paypal etc -- has greatly increased demand outside Japan, and naturally retailers are trying to meet that demand.

 

For more info on pens, a good place to start would be with reading the histories of the big 3 on their corporate websites.

 

Bruno Taut's page - http://estilofilos.blogspot.sg/ - is a good resource for English speakers.

 

If you can, it'd be a good idea to track down a copy of Lambrou and Sunami's recently released "Fountain Pens of Japan" or at a least a copy of Lambrou's "Fountain Pens of the World". The latter has a section on Japanese pens.

Edited May 30, 2013 by Readymade

[jar]

Speaking only from personal experience in the US.

 

The big three Japanese pens manufacturers have been mainstream for a long, long time. When Dunhill wanted to add a luxury fountain pen they contracted to have it made in Japan.

 

Certainly in the 70s the Japanese pens from the big three were well known by those of us who saw fountain pens as more than just a tool.

 

MB and Pelikan inks were not all that popular although the MB Shoe bottle was almost as functional as the Sheaffer bottle.

 

In the 80s MB and Pelikan were making inroads but they were still pretty much fringe pens. Namaki has always been seen as on a par with Montblanc. Remember the devolution of MB from a full range fountain pen manufacturer to a Jewelery high end only company is a really recent change.

[hari317]

Pilot has always been considered a "good" pen in India. it ranked after Parker and Sheaffer here. The rich gave their children Parker and Sheaffer, the salaried middle class kids used Pilot, slightly cheaper were Indian makers like Plato etc.

 

Pilot had a very good market goodwill in India, in fact they even had a local FP manufacturing plant at Madras. Later on when the Pilot Hitecpoint 05 was introduced in the 80s, these picked on and Pilot FPs were forgotten by most here.

Edited May 30, 2013 by hari317

[Pennata Penna]

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MVI5-Hvzb_8/TdKa7Y-78_I/AAAAAAAAGXY/o2uzqKARDYQ/s1600/3.JPG

 

A 1952 Sailor Warranty Card stamped by their Indonesian distributor, and full replacement authorization was written on the back under three years warranty for 14K nib.

[GabrielleDuVent]

I'm Japanese. My parents grew up there until adulthood (I moved abroad since infancy), and went through the ritual of "buy the child a fountain pen when (s)he's sixteen". It was always a common impression amongst the Japanese that Pilot was third rate; my mother, who's from a well-off family, received a Parker set for her sixteenth. My father, from a not-so-well-off, received a Pilot.

 

My mother's high school class was well-off (the students in her class had Dior watches and Omegas). They mostly used Parker, she says. I've always used Pilot pens and Zebras since I learned to write - I think I was two or three - and so you can imagine my shock when I went to England, had to buy a pen (V5), and had to fork out three quid for one!

 

That is one of the reasons why I received a Mont Blanc when I turned sixteen. Watch I didn't really much care for (it's always a watch and a pen) so I received Seiko, but pens I did care for, since I write a lot. Pelikan was a bit out of reach - the Bernstein model I originally had my eyes on when I first saw it was 300 pounds, the Mozart model from Pelikan 500 - but Pilot wasn't even within options, because my parents deemed it everyday use and mundane, nothing special.

[hari317]

It was always a common impression amongst the Japanese that Pilot was third rate

We have a saying in Hindi "If the Chicken dish is homemade, its value is like lentils", meaning domestic products are always looked down upon even if they are good. We in India had and still have a fixation for "foreign" products.

[rwilsonedn]

We have a saying in Hindi "If the Chicken dish is homemade, its value is like lentils", meaning domestic products are always looked down upon even if they are good. We in India had and still have a fixation for "foreign" products.

I think that is a phase that every country goes through as it industrializes. There was a long period when all the prestige goods in the USA had to come from Europe. Nobody here belived that US manufacturers could build good quality things. Then there was a period, starting perhaps after the Second World War, where US-made goods were models for the world, and European countries struggled to keep up. Now there almost are no US-made goods, and we lust after European and Japanese brands.

ron

[Luiz]

Japan is awesome.

[ancreanchor]

I'd argue you probably wouldn't even know the extent of the market if you used the pen as a tool as opposed to making a hobby of it.

 

As a related example, you received a Seiko. You might be surprised they have time pieces costing several hundred thousand dollars in the Japanese market under their Credor line... Your perception of "dior watches and omegas" might reflect popular opinion of perceived top end brands, but may not reflect the view of watch enthusiasts.

 

The general public does not have the time and interest to research and test every product. So naturally perceptions can be skewed.

[XiaoMG]

And most folks have virtually no understanding of the larger scale markets and even cultural values of their home countries. Xenocentrism exists in many social circles in Japan, and that strongly influences local assumptions about products. The Japanese make superior pencils as well and have a pretty good market between at least Tombow and Mitsubishi, but many folks in Japan would rather buy Caran d'Ache, Derwent, Staedtler, or Faber-Castell. Still, there are certainly those in Japan who appreciate and much prefer their domestic products, whether for ethnocentric/nationalistic reasons, or simply out of practical experience.