2020 was the year of online events, glass pens, pocket pens, e-commerce, and pastel-colored chromo-shading inks.

Fenestro is Fine Writing International’s latest model: An acrylic, eyedropper-friendly cartridge-converter pen with an ink window and spring-loaded cap.

Sailor’s Theta pens, released in 1996, were inspired by a spiritual concept called hado. The nibs were said to be treated by a hado specialist and purportedly had mysterious health benefits.

Eureka Dodecagon aka-tamenuri is a handmade ebonite pen with urushi lacquer, custom ebonite feed, and Argentium silver nib, all created by a one-man pen maker in South Korea.

Platinum’s Little Shooting Star (小流星钢笔) is a low-cost pen that looks like a Pilot Kakuno. It was released in July 2019 and is currently available in China only.

PenBBS 500 is a new release from popular Chinese pen maker PenBBS, with an all-new filling system that combines elements from TWSBI’s Go and Conid’s bulk fillers.

Major trends in Japan this year: Brands, events, and more. One new ink maker made a big splash. This post is part of a collaborative year-end summary by our Tokyo pen group.

Tokyo International Pen Show (TIPS) and pen club Wagner’s autumn event, in one weekend!

Gary is a fountain pen enthusiast from southern Japan with a knack for chemistry. A few years ago, he started experimenting with iron gall inks. This eventually led to a collaboration with Platinum, resulting in the Classic Ink series. He has also made inks for Pen Saloon and Wagner.

A few months ago, Gary published a few observations and lessons using iron gall inks in fountain pens, on his Japanese blog. Given his knowledge on the subject, and as iron gall ink safety is a question that often comes up on pen forums, I thought it was worth summarizing his findings in English.

The nib is fine! Don’t worry. In fact, it’s more than fine: It’s a Concord, by none less than grandmaster Yukio Nagahara (“Nagahara Junior”), who recently started his own business, The Nib Shaper. But let’s start from the beginning.

It was a busy weekend at Bungubox in Omotesando: Nagahara did nib grinding, Eboya had a small pop-up shop around the corner, and Ken Takeda (who recently appeared on The World Unknown To Matsuko to talk about ink) did “ink fortune-telling”.

Sailor has its Pro Gears, Pilot has Custom 91 and 912, and now PenBBS has model 352: Flat-top cartridge-converter pens with stylish clips. Modern-looking complements to classic, cigar-shaped models in their respective product lineups.

Model 352 is one of PenBBS’s two new releases in June (the other one being vac filler 268), and comes in a number of different acrylics and with several nib options. The one I got is called Galaxy, and has PenBBS’s new extra-fine or REF nib.

Fine Writing International (FWI) is a Taiwanese pen maker and stationery store. In addition to their own production line pens, FWI produces exotic, one-off urushi creations, and imports and sells foreign brands (see Inkantadora’s video tour).

Until recently, FWI was relatively unheard of internationally. As late as May last year, when I got my first FWI pen, I had to order it directly from Taiwan, via email.

Pen Trading in Tokyo (ペントレ) is an annual pen show organized by “Pen Collectors of Japan”. It is arguably the place to find rare Japanese pens, and thus attended by some of the most dedicated collectors around. It is not just about vintage pens though.

This year’s show was the 19th. It was a three-day event, with the first day focused on presentations, paraphernalia, and Kakuno hacking, and the two remaining days on gold-nibbed pens, new and old.

Japan has a long tradition of urushi lacquerware, going all the way back to the Jomon period. Over the years, multiple regional forms such as Wajima-nuri and Kyo Shikki, and decorative techniques like maki-e and chinkin, have evolved.

Urushi is a time-consuming craft. Sap is extracted from the lacquer tree, filtered, often mixed with pigment such as vermilion, and painstakingly coated in many layers, on everything from rice bowls and trays to cars. This coating is not only decorative but has practical benefits, being durable and resistant to heat and moisture.

Eboya is a Tokyo-based pen maker that has been around since 2009. Their specialty is pens made of ebonite, polished on traditional rokuro lathes. Eboya’s parent company is Nikko Ebonite, the only producer of ebonite in Japan.

Eboya has seven pen fountain pen models, including the Onoto-inspired Kyouka, the bamboo-like Ricchiku, and the torpedo-shaped Houga. Each model is available in several types of marbled ebonite, in small, medium, and large sizes, with an appropriately-sized 14K Bock nib in F, FM, M, or B.

Storied stationery retailer and bookstore Maruzen is celebrating their 150th anniversary this year. To commemorate this occasion, Maruzen produced three limited edition pens: A Sailor KOP in micarta (Voyage), a yellow Pilot based on Custom 912 (Lemon), and the subject of this post: Athena the Pen.

The name, Athena, may be familiar to fountain pen enthusiasts. Maruzen has a popular series of inks carrying this label, including the sought-after Eternal Blue, and even more exotic ones sold only once a year, at their annual pen fair.

Long37, the mastermind behind Chinese pen maker PenBBS and owner of its namesake discussion forum, has been on a roll lately. Last autumn, PenBBS released the double-ended 469 and 456 vacuum filler in rapid succession, followed by the somewhat controversial 355 “bulkfiller” just before year-end. This year has already seen two new models: The 471 pocket pen, and the subject of this post: Model 380.

In late December, PenBBS member Beini posted a teaser image on Instagram. Less than three weeks later, the pen was released on their Etsy store and sold out faster than a Franklin-Christoph stock room drop. I managed to snag one in “silver velvet,” one of three finishes, with a medium nib (380-106SM).

One of the joys of attending pen shows is discovering new products. At Wagner’s year-end event, I picked up a type of paper called Null Refill. It wasn’t the first time this paper was sold at a pen show I attended, but for some reason, I had missed it until now.

Null Refill is based on a synthetic paper called Yupo, known for its water resistance. Because of this property, it is commonly used for e.g. posters and shampoo labels. It isn’t considered fountain pen friendly, as it takes forever for liquid ink to dry.

Wagner is a Japanese pen club that I have previously written about. On December 30th, Wagner held a year-end meetup and sale event at their favorite venue in Ryogoku.

As usual, there were plenty of exotic pens available, including Wagner-commissioned limited runs, various vintage pens, and other rare items such as y.y Pen Club’s red Sailor Realo.

A new ink, a turquoise iron gall one called 喜望峰 (Cape of Good Hope), was available for testing and pre-order. This ink has been developed by a Wagner member and ink mixer called Gary, who’s also worked with Platinum on their classic inks.

This autumn was a busy time for stationery fans in Tokyo, with no less than four events between late September and early October.

Starting it off was Pelikan Hubs. The one in Tokyo was held in trendy Meguro, in Atlas Tower near Naka-meguro station. It was my first time joining, so I didn’t know what to expect, but around 20 people showed up, almost half of them foreigners.

Most people had brought far more exotic pens than I did, including vintage Pilots, rare anniversary Sailor KOPs, Bokumondoh-customized Pelikans, and more. My own pen case contained, among other pens, a vintage Sailor with soft nib, a pre-production PenBBS vacuum filler, and a pen with a Franklin-Christoph SIG flex nib. The last one garnered most interest.

My first PenBBS pen was a white 309 piston filler. I liked the nib a lot, a #6 size fine steel nib slightly bent upward, almost like a waverly nib. However, the rest of the pen wasn’t quite to my liking: Too light and with a somewhat cheap overall feeling, especially the piston mechanism. So I ended up selling it after a while.

After watching chrisrap52 repeatedly singing praise of PenBBS, I was keen on giving the brand another try, but I wanted a pen with a bit of heft, as I find it more comfortable to write that way. When PenBBS 350 came out, I quickly ordered the brass version.

Last year, Leo of Inquisitive Quill fame posted on Reddit about a new pen called Bronze Age, from Taiwanese pen maker Fine Writing International. I was taken aback by the beauty of this pen but quickly gave up trying to purchase one for myself, as the only method of payment at the time required a bank account in Taiwan.

A few weeks ago, this pen started showing up on my Instagram feed for unknown reasons, which rekindled my interest. This time I decided to make an effort to purchase the pen, so I searched for a found this Taiwanese pen maker’s website, and although I didn’t understand a word, I managed to find an email address.