Reference to nib inscription, in Japanese

[MYU]

ＰＩＬＯＴ　ペン先にＰＩＬＯＴ　ＭＡＤＥ　ＩＮ　ＪＡＰＡＮ　１４Ｋ　ジスマーク　軸に名を消した跡がございます。

 

This is being translated as (via Babelfish):

"There is a mark which in the PILOT nib turns off name in the PILOT MADE IN JAPAN 14K [jisumaku] axis."

 

What exactly is "jisumaku"? I'm trying to understand if this means there is a non-standard inscription on the pen. Thanks!

[troglokev]

Gotta love machine translation. :ltcapd: The lack of punctuation doesn't help.

 

ジスマーク is the JIS mark (Japan Industry Standard). Usually a little sticker stuck on items for export.

 

I would translate it as:

PILOT

PILOT MADE IN JAPAN 14K on the nib

JIS mark

The maker's mark on the shaft of the pen has been partially erased.

 

Edited for dyslexic fingers

Edited December 2, 2008 by troglokev

[Taki]

troglokev got it, but I think what erased off the barrel was probably an engraved name of the original owner.

Edited December 3, 2008 by Taki

[kamakura-pens]

A while back I published this article about the JIS mark and what it means to Japanese pen collectors"

 

 

A few weeks ago a well-known ebay seller listed what he described as a perfectly mint 1930’s Platinum maki-e pen. The final bid was nearly $2,000. The pen was signed by Rosui, one of Platinum’s main artists in the 1930’s, and the pen indeed looked beautiful, but was it truly mint? Mint meaning exactly in the same condition as when it left the factory.

 

From this first paragraph you may have already concluded that this is an article about guidelines or standards and the misuse of the words “Rare” or “Mint.” If so then you are mistaken. This article will discus the little-known, often misunderstood, JIS mark and the important implications it raises for Japanese pen collectors. Pay attention, I really do not want to see anymore collectors being cheated.

 

Today, nearly everything you can buy in Japan carries the JIS mark; cameras, toasters, ice cream and even cars. JIS stands for Japanese Industrial Standards. This governmental institution was established in 1947 to control the quality of Japanese manufactured goods. Before the war, buying any Japanese product was always a risky endeavor. In the pen market for example, it was common to find nibs stamped 14K Gold Plate, but the word “Plate” would be positioned close to the nib’s foot and hidden from view inside the section. Sometimes the word “Plate” was absent altogether. The buyer would use the pen for awhile, and as the plating wore off he would find that his nib was actually 14k steel. The JIS was to end all of this. The movement started slowly, but soon every company in every area of industry was applying and being tested to gain the mark.

 

By 1954 the JIS Committee established the guidelines for “Field G”, metallurgy, which included nib making. The Pilot Pen Company boasted that it was the first pen maker to acquire the mark for its nibs on July 15th of that year. By 1955 all of the Japanese pen makers had the mark.

 

What this means is that a nib with a JIS mark on the nib could not have been made before 1954. If someone is offering a “Pre-war” maki-e pen, but the nib has the JIS mark, then something is amiss. It is rather frightful to see how often this happens.

 

However, a JIS nib doesn't’t automatically mean that the pen is not from before 1954. In late 1937 gold was prohibited for commercial use by the Japanese imperial government. A large portion of the Japanese population donated all of their gold and money for the war effort. Prior to the ban, the value of gold shot up so high that the gold value of a pen’s nib was higher than the price of the pen. Some quick thinking investors went into all of the stationary shops and department stores and bought up all the pens they could carry. They pulled the nibs and melted them down and sold the gold for a small profit. Nearly all of the wonderful prewar maki-e pens in Pilot’s pen museum are without nibs, which were donated to the war effort. What this all means is that there were a lot of prewar pens divorced from their original nibs. In the mid 1950’s, as gold became available again, a pen owner could bring in his old pen and have it fitted with a new gold nib. Some department stores had pen fares just for this purpose.

 

In any case, a pen with a JIS mark nib is either a prewar pen with a replacement nib, or the pen is from the later 1950’s. Anyone telling you differently is either ignorant of the truth or hoping that you are.

 

 

http://www.lionandpen.com/Dutcher/Images/nib.jpg

 

Pilot Nib Anatomy 101

This nib is from a 1960's Pilot Super

 

Signature = This refers to the pen's point. Pilot's Signature points are rather rare because they are so broad. It is nearly impossible to write anything in Japanese with these pens except for large bold signatures, hence the name.

 

Pilot Note the fancy "L" in Pilot. This is the logo used in the early 1960's.

 

6 60 This is the nib's date code, which simply stands for June of 1960. Some sellers will tell you that All Pilot nibs have a date code. This is simply not true, but most of them do. Nibs made in the 1920's and 1930's had the code stamped on the underside of the nib.

 

JIS mark. While this nib is a Pilot, practically all Japanese nibs made after 1954 will have this same mark somewhere on the nib.

 

 

 

[Siv]

Ron, as always, your post are education. Thank you!

[troglokev]

troglokev got it, but I think what erased off the barrel was probably an engraved name of the original owner.

Yup. That could well be it. (I was guessing that 名 (name) was referring to the maker's mark, rather than the owner's, but in any case it has been erased, but is still visible)

 

Thanks also to Ron for the most educational article. It's great to have such knowledge available around the forum.

[MYU]

Thanks for all the help Kevin, Taki, and especially Ron for that fascinating trivia about the use of JIS. I never knew what that little circle symbol meant--now I do! Interesting how Kanji wasn't used for it, BUT... the letters drift from right to left as they descend; are Japanese characters read from right to left?

[kamakura-pens]

Thanks for all the help Kevin, Taki, and especially Ron for that fascinating trivia about the use of JIS. I never knew what that little circle symbol meant--now I do! Interesting how Kanji wasn't used for it, BUT... the letters drift from right to left as they descend; are Japanese characters read from right to left?

 

 

Hey Guys, I am very happy to hear that the article was helpful. And yes Myu, traditionally, Japanese text was written vertically and from right to left.

 

Once you learn kanji it is much easier to read than the hiragana and katakana characters. My biggest headache in reading old Japanese katakana is that before the war horizontal katakana was writen right to left, but after the war it became more common to be written left to right. So sometimes when I see an old Japanese pen ad, it takes me a while to figure out if I am reading frontwards or backwards.

 

Here is an example

This is an ad for the early Japanese pen company called Nile from 1935. Nile started out as an ink company and began making pens as well. All of the pens that I have seen from this maker were all pre-war pens, so I suspect that they did not survive the war.

http://www.kamakurapens.com/FPN/NileInkPens.jpg

See that the katakana for the name Nile reads right to left.

 

Here is a 1937 ad for Sailor. See how the kana is now left to right?

http://www.kamakurapens.com/FPN/Sailor1937a.jpg

 

 

Stay Well

Ron Dutcher

[Dillo]

Hi,

 

Some time before, Japanese written horizontally had the words written from left to right OR right to left. Right now, horizontally written Japanese is from left to right as in English. Vertically written Japanese is still written from the top to the bottom in columns from right to left.

 

Dillon

[Guy M]

if any of you are still about, I have come across a hoard of probably quite insignificant nibs, but also have a few vintage pens needing nibs. Are you able to identify any of the attached? Or give an idea of what era they might belong to? Over 100 in all, sizes 5 down to .500

[stan]

All of the nibs are post-war, likely 1950s. Master was a mid-size pen maker that offered second tier, at best, pens. The Maruzen nibs are from pens sold by Maruzen, a large bookseller that still sells pens. Some of thier models were of decent quality.

 

All of the nibs are steel. Some appear to have a gold finish. 

[Number99]

 

For informational purposes only.

Regarding the nibs in the third and fourth pictures from the top.

 

Found a fountain pen from a manufacturer called ŌZA (王座 oh-za or ouza) Fountain Pens. Unfortunately, the image of the nib is unclear.

 

http://m-kanjiya.com/?pid=47251308

 

http://m-kanjiya.com/?pid=47251972

 

http://m-kanjiya.com/?pid=47252080

 

*Note.

These are links to products that are sold out. They are not available for purchase and are not an endorsement of this store, they are shared for reference only.

 

There is a nib by the letter "王座 ŌZA" that is scratched and looks like an "玉座 gyo-ku-za", but I think the letter on the nib without the scratch is correct.

 

There are many incorrect information about the old postings. I will not correct them because there are too many mistakes, as if they were creative, and it is difficult to correct them.

 

P.S. 

The "王座" means the throne of a king, and the "玉座" means the throne of an emperor. "大" means Large and "小" means Small.

 

Edited May 15 by Number99
I made some corrections to the translation.

[Number99]

On 12/4/2008 at 11:33 AM, Dillo said:

Hi,

 

Some time before, Japanese written horizontally had the words written from left to right OR right to left. Right now, horizontally written Japanese is from left to right as in English. Vertically written Japanese is still written from the top to the bottom in columns from right to left.

 

Dillon

 

You are most likely correct.

However, there is no right-to-left horizontal writing in the old notation.

There is only vertical writing with line breaks from right to left.

What appears to be right-to-left horizontal writing is vertical writing with one character per line, which is practiced on signs with limited space for entry.

It may seem like the same thing, but if you don't know this, you will be confused about how to read vertical writing, which is aligned several letters per line.

In a normal letter or document, it is easily identifiable because the different sizes of the letters shift the space between the horizontal alignment of the letters.

 

Edited May 15 by Number99
The translation has been changed.

[A Smug Dill]

(You do realise you were replying to a post written over seventeen years ago, right?)

4 hours ago, Number99 said:

However, there is no right-to-left horizontal writing in the old notation.

 

Image from the page at https://en.sailor.co.jp/company/our-history/:

 

4 hours ago, Number99 said:

There is only vertical writing with line breaks from right to left.

What appears to be right-to-left horizontal writing is vertical writing with one character per line, which is practiced on signs with limited space for entry.

 

Image from the page at https://www.pilot.co.jp/100th/en/history/:

 

パイロット万年筆 in the image above is quite obviously a single, continuous text string written right-to-left and split over two consecutive lines.

 

Image from the page at https://www.platinum-pen.co.jp/100th_3/e-history.html:

 

I trust the hiragana in the image above reads ピートンプラチナ (with プラチナ being Platinum), not ピプーラトチンナ, when written in left-to-right on one line.

 

And what about here?

 

 

 

 

[Number99]

1 hour ago, A Smug Dill said:

（You do realise you were replying to a post written over seventeen years ago, right?)

 

Absolutely! 

I did not want to ruin my friendship with him by my mention above. Please don't ask any more questions than that.

 

1 hour ago, A Smug Dill said:

Image from the page at https://en.sailor.co.jp/company/our-history/:

 

 

Image from the page at https://www.pilot.co.jp/100th/en/history/:

 

パイロット万年筆 in the image above is quite obviously a single, continuous text string written right-to-left and split over two consecutive lines.

 

Image from the page at https://www.platinum-pen.co.jp/100th_3/e-history.html:

 

I trust the hiragana in the image above reads ピートンプラチナ (with プラチナ being Platinum), not ピプーラトチンナ, when written in left-to-right on one line.

 

And what about here?

 

 

 

 

 

Of course there are perverse examples.

Most of your examples are interpretable in principle. So they are not perverse cases. (All of them are signs or titles, and should be interpreted as two vertical rows of space for vertical writing with one character per line.)

 

Was Hong Kong different in the past?

 

I ask this question as a separate discussion from this issue. Hong Kong was probably the earliest to move to horizontal writing, but when did it become horizontal?

 

https://ja.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/縦書きと横書き

 

The following translation was taken from the Wikipedia link above and translated by a translation app. Below the translated text is the original text.

 

>

At first glance, the titles of flat plaques and stone monuments appear to be written horizontally on the right, but in pre-modern times, these were usually written "one character per line," that is, with the vertical writing norm, not horizontally on the right. If the space is high, the line proceeds from right to left as two or more characters per line [3]. Therefore, these are only in the vertical writing category. In both kanji and kana, all horizontal strokes are written from left to right and all vertical strokes are written from top to bottom, just as vertical writing from bottom to top is not possible.

 

扁額や石碑の題字などは一見すると右横書きのように見えるが、前近代にあっては、これらは「1行1文字の縦書き」、つまり縦書きの規範で書かれたものであって右横書きではないのが通常である。スペースに高さがある場合は1行2文字以上として右から左へ行が進むこととなる[3]。したがってこれらはあくまでも縦書きの範疇にある。漢字も仮名も、横画はすべて左から右へ、縦画はすべて上から下へ書くものであり、下から上へ縦書きしないのと同様に、左横書きは可能でも右横書きには無理が生じる[4]。

 

 

Edited May 15 by Number99
A newline space was inserted.

[A Smug Dill]

10 hours ago, Number99 said:

Was Hong Kong different in the past?

 

I was always taught that the text flow of a single, self-contained horizontal row of Chinese hanzi is (simply) ambiguous, but not “because” it's one line of text if written left to right, but multiple short (one-character tall) columns of text arranged right to left. Absent punctuation (specifically the Chinese equivalent of a full stop: 。), one has to make sense of the row of text, and hence decide how it is meant to flow).

 

There's the old joke of a village charlatan putting up a banner that reads ⟨王閰見包醫惡毒大瘡⟩. Read left-to-right, it lends itself to be parsed thus: Wang Ju Jian (which is plausibly someone's full name, and by implication the person putting up the advertising banner) guarantees a cure for huge, nasty sores (or boils, ulcers, abscesses, etc.). Read in the other direction, it parses as: Large sores [are] nasty [and] difficult to cure [and the sufferer is] sure to meet the Lord of the realm of the dead; in other words, a disclaimer that doesn't stop the charlatan ineffectively ‘treating‘ desperate patients for a fee and letting them die. Perverse enough?

 

10 hours ago, Number99 said:

Hong Kong was probably the earliest to move to horizontal writing, but when did it become horizontal?

 

I wouldn't know. Most likely when English became an official language in Hong Kong upon colonisation, and locals started having to buy and use horizontally ruled notebooks/paper for writing in English.

 

The use of horizontal rows of Chinese text as signs and banners predates that by centuries, and traditionally they were to be read right-to-left. The ambiguity in text flow direction only came into play after it became acceptable and common to write a “wall of text” left-to-right and breaking long continuous lines/paragraphs into consecutive horizontal rows.

[Dillo]

13 hours ago, Number99 said:

 

You are most likely correct.

However, there is no right-to-left horizontal writing in the old notation.

There is only vertical writing with line breaks from right to left.

What appears to be right-to-left horizontal writing is vertical writing with one character per line, which is practiced on signs with limited space for entry.

It may seem like the same thing, but if you don't know this, you will be confused about how to read vertical writing, which is aligned several letters per line.

In a normal letter or document, it is easily identifiable because the different sizes of the letters shift the space between the horizontal alignment of the letters.

 

 

Yes, this is technically correct, but maybe 17 years ago me did not express clearly before.

 

In Chinese, the problem is very similar. Some lettering around that time period was also "horizontal" right to left (or you can consider it like vertical one character per column). It was not spaced like it would have been written vertical left to right though, spacing is identical to normal left to right horizontal writing, similar to the perverse examples shown above.

[A Smug Dill]

1 hour ago, Dillo said:

Some lettering around that time period was also "horizontal" right to left (or you can consider it like vertical one character per column).

 

In the case of Japanese, though, if the katakana セーラー (for Sailor) was truly written as vertical columns, then the prolonged sound mark would have been written as a vertical stroke as opposed to a (right-to-left?) horizontal stroke. So that's a strong argument against seeing the sign in the old photo below as being short vertical columns of text placed next to each other starting from the right.

 

[Number99]

On 5/16/2025 at 4:42 AM, A Smug Dill said:

王閰見包醫惡毒大瘡

 

I am a modern people and would be easily fooled. I don't know how the meaning changes with the arrangement of Chinese characters, but if you interpret "見" as an act of visual medical examination, the name sounds like "King of the Dark Doctors".

😅

 

On 5/16/2025 at 10:33 AM, Dillo said:

 

Yes, this is technically correct, but maybe 17 years ago me did not express clearly before.

 

In Chinese, the problem is very similar. Some lettering around that time period was also "horizontal" right to left (or you can consider it like vertical one character per column). It was not spaced like it would have been written vertical left to right though, spacing is identical to normal left to right horizontal writing, similar to the perverse examples shown above.

 

I am sorry to have caused you so much time and effort. I believe I gave the same explanation as you did 17 years ago.

 

On 5/16/2025 at 12:49 PM, A Smug Dill said:

 

In the case of Japanese, though, if the katakana セーラー (for Sailor) was truly written as vertical columns, then the prolonged sound mark would have been written as a vertical stroke as opposed to a (right-to-left?) horizontal stroke. So that's a strong argument against seeing the sign in the old photo below as being short vertical columns of text placed next to each other starting from the right.

 

 

My reference is to the history and perspective of (brush) calligraphy and is only a statement of principle and does not explain everything.

So, as Wikipedia explains, I think I explained that the horizontal display from the left is a method of displaying signs and titles only, and is a different matter from the explanation regarding writing, which is expressed as "Japanese is written from the right". They are not written as documents but painted with a paintbrush and are printed matter.

Other exceptions include writing horizontally on votive offerings when making offerings at temples and shrines, but usually people are greedy and write a lot vertically in order to write a lot of requests.

 

The long note (ー) is used to write foreign words in katakana, and is a symbol that originated from the right side of the letter "引" and became common during the Meiji period (1868-1912), and is not a letter.

It was first taught in elementary schools in 1900, but was abolished by the Ministry of Education in 1908.

The current educational basis is a law enacted 30 years ago. Therefore, there were no rules during that time.

 

In the beginning, only vertical long notes were used, and horizontal long notes were not common because they fell under the category of perversions. ( Because it would be to overturn the "引", the Japanese Kanji character from which it was derived.)

 

Even today, the use of long vowels (Duplicated vowel notation) instead of long notes is legally allowed, and there is no legal basis for requiring the use of long notes.

 

Wikipedia Japanese version.

https://ja.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/長音符

 

Therefore, any explanation for the long note on the Sailor fountain pen sign could be "to avoid misidentification with the alphanumeric 1" or "an exception for vertical writing" or whatever.

 

One thing is for certain: ordinary people at that time usually wrote only vertically, and since they only experienced vertical writing as a concept of writing, it is not clear whether they would have recognized it as horizontal writing or not. (These were people who had no concept of horizontal writing.)

 

This is a debate that we are having today, and I would like to hear how people back then would have felt when they read this.

 

P.S.

I'm curious as to how English speakers would perceive the picture below, which I'm sure you've already read. What would vertical English be written in handwritten calligraphy? Isn't vertical writing in English the subject of calligraphy?

 

 

I would also like to add that in Japanese brush calligraphy (including Japanese pen calligraphy), it is impossible to write continuously in horizontal cursive script.

 

 Image from the blog site "Contemporary Calligrapher Artist Hazuki Harada".

https://ameblo.jp/aruruitigomito/entry-12488622340.html

 

This is something I wanted to explain in another sub-forum more than half a year ago, but that thread was closed, so I wrote it here.

😀

Edited May 17 by Number99
I added an explanation in the postscript and in the text.