A Review Of Namiki Emperor In Vermillion Urushi

[sannidh]

damn I was planning on keeping my $1500 pen in the fridge at all times.

 

ha ha

 

One of the very best pens no matter the price. Excellent Review btw.

 

Thank you

[Preacher8]

Very nice. Way out of my league (!), but very nice.

 

I also like the portable chess set (that's what it appears to be anyway).

[Greenpenman111]

this is my grail pen.

[sannidh]

Very nice. Way out of my league (!), but very nice.

 

I also like the portable chess set (that's what it appears to be anyway).

 

I had the same thoughts from day1, however things change quickly once you start with fountain pens

So beware, nothing is permanent, as some wise man said

Yes that's a portable chess set , gives energy to the photography background

[ygv]

Sannidh your reviews are fantastic. Thank you for sharing yet another great review of this monster (in a good way) of a pen.

[sannidh]

Sannidh your reviews are fantastic. Thank you for sharing yet another great review of this monster (in a good way) of a pen.

 

Thanks again John

Yes another one which you might like to try, is the WE Decoband. A giant again, with a much different nib

[georges zaslavsky]

A potential grail but not for now

[sannidh]

A potential grail but not for now

 

Now perhaps georges , I keep drooling over your sheaffers vintages though

[Harry44]

I love the look of the vermillion emperor but for the price of £2k it's on the really high end of pens and you can get a lot of pens for that kind of money, personally I prefer the older style nib with the writing on compared to the modern ones. It'd also be nicer if Namiki offered broader nibs like BB or stub. Nice review

[sannidh]

I love the look of the vermillion emperor but for the price of £2k it's on the really high end of pens and you can get a lot of pens for that kind of money, personally I prefer the older style nib with the writing on compared to the modern ones. It'd also be nicer if Namiki offered broader nibs like BB or stub. Nice review

 

Thanks so much, Harry. You will probably get better prices in Japan (Itoya/local shops - around £1k ). Engeika's indian arm (it no longer exists) was very kind in arranging this pen for me and a couple of friends later. Pilot had started offering BB widths in entry level gold nib pens, but not the flagships iirc.

[modernovervintage]

I wonder why sailor has many finishes for their urushi king of pens but namiki is sticking to two finishes? Great pen anyway.

Edited January 18, 2020 by modernovervintage

[sannidh]

I wonder why sailor has many finishes for their urushi king of pens but namiki is sticking to two finishes? Great pen anyway.

 

My guess (i may be wrong here), is that there is a fair bit of pricing economics (along with market share & volumes, my area of work too) at play here, other than demand/supply equations.

 

Top Pie 1: Pilot/Namiki unlike Sailor has a stable portion of the highest end of the luxury pen market, with the Emperor Maki-e (Gold Fish/Dragon/Owl collection along with limited runs) which commands a premium of 400-500% over the Plain Urushi Emperor collection. Volumes of Namiki could be countable but the revenue would be significant.

 

Middle Pie 2: Now the second pie of Pilot/Namiki comes with the Plain Urushi Collections, where it has a fair bit of competition with Sailor KOP urushi etc priced similarly at $ 1900. It still offers a bigger nib and a different filling system, which would be competitive advantage in this segment. Volumes would be more than Top Pie 1, to make the revenue sizeable. Middle Pie 2 preserves the Market Premium of Top Pie 1.

 

Lower Pie 3: The last one for Namiki comes with the Yukari Royale/ Yukari etc collections where both the volumes and competition would be higher.

 

1. If Namiki introduces more colors in the Urushi collection it may mean movement of its own buyers from Top Pie 1 to Middle Pie 2 which may be greater than the movement from Lower Pie 3 to Middle Pie 2. Namiki may not want to cannibalize the top pie to realize less revenue/sales units.

 

2. There might not be enough demand for plain urushi colored units, which would justify a supply for more variants. So unless it gets new customers in Middle Pie 2, it may not make sense to sell more plain urushi units to its existing customers. Namiki would like existing ones to upgrade to higher segments.

[cgreenberg19]

Very pretty. I have an Emperor that I soon hope to review.