With its light-weight feel and unique style, the Nakaya Kago-amime Wakakusa-iro fountain pen employs ancient basket weaving techniques and fuses them with a modern color and shape. Vivid bright green pops against a mesh black overlay.
With its basket mesh pattern delicately woven on top of ebonite, Nakaya's Kago-amime (Basket Mesh) Wakakusa-iro fountain pen provides a textural and visual writing experience. Nakaya has produced an innovative model to add to its line of writing instruments.
In 1924 Platinum, Nakaya's parent company, produced a pen called "Tou-amime" which was made of rattan tubes woven in a basket pattern over the cap and body. Nakaya's Kago-amime fountain pen replicates this look but uses black shaved bamboo instead of rattan to produce the intricate mesh weave. This is laid on top of ebonite which is painted with a yellow-green Urushi lacquer. Even with its innovative look the Kago-amime pen remains true to Nakaya's tendency to favor materials found in nature.
This is a fairly lightweight mid-size pen that will be a comfortable fit for most users. It most closely resembles the Piccolo model in terms of size and weight, although it assumes a very different shape with its cylindrical cap and barrel, along with its flat cap ends. Please note that Nakaya will only be making this pen model available with the basket weave technique seen here.
This woven bamboo pattern has several names, commonly known as a hexagonal weave, triaxial weave, and basket weave. In order to form this pattern bamboo strips are crossed in horizontal, vertical, as well as diagonal directions -- the same method used to strengthen bamboo baskets. This is a time-intensive process that is completed by hand. The lacquer almost resembles new grass sprouting from beneath the basket mesh.
Black details on the cap bands and the flat cap ends complement the woven "corset". The top cap end is almost oversized in nature while the bottom one is narrower than the pen body, creating harmony between the diameter of the gripping section and the pen's tail. This is a well-balanced fountain pen.
The Nakaya Kago-amime Basket Mesh can be furnished with any of the standard range of Nakaya 14k single-tone nibs. Plated and two-tone nibs are also available at an additional cost, as are rhodium, ruthenium, and rose gold plated clips.
Nakaya 14k nibs are well-suited to customizations including Stub, Cursive Italic, or Left Oblique, as well as the modification for added flex.
Nakaya pens ship in a solid softwood shipping box decorated with Japanese Kanji script and lined with decorative rice paper. A fabric pen "kimono" and starter box of Platinum brand cartridges are also included, making this pen a lovely presentation item. Sensible and elegant packaging has long been a hallmark of the Nakaya brand.
Nakaya pens are individually handcrafted in a process that requires a minimum of three to six months and often much longer.
Unless requested otherwise, each pen or nib you purchase from us will be carefully examined, tested, and optimized for your personal writing characteristics before it ships.
