Nakaya
Nakaya Long Cigar Shobu
Nakaya Long Cigar Shobu
Although the Nakaya Long Cigar Shobu fountain pen has a ceremonial look to it, in hand you sense this is a pen to be used. These pens are hand turned from solid rod stock, then lacquered with multiple layers of natural resin.
No need to post a cap on this pen-- Nakaya were not joking when they named this ""long size."" Capped, the Cigar Long Size Shobu seems even longer than it really is. Shown here is the Long size Cigar (No Clip) fountain pen in Shobu (Purple).
Like all the Nakayas, this pen is a pleasure to hold, and the size and lustrous Urushi give this model a magisterial aura.
The Nakayas always seem to have little surprises in store for you-- here the nib has a strong curve, yet is engraved with a rather delicate pattern, featuring a charming heart-shaped breather hole. The effect is both modern yet invokes the fin-de-siecle era of pen craft.
Photographs don't do justice to the feeling of surprise-- how light the pen is, how elegant, how ""right"" the pen feels in hand, with its softly rounded, slightly voluptuous design.
The Nakaya nib, imprinted Nakata, the family name of the manufacturer, is made of solid 14K gold. Each of these nibs is suitable for our customization to extra flexible. The medium and broad tip can be customized into cursive italic, stub or oblique points.
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Customization Guide
Stub
 
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Above is the same size nib after a regrind to Stub. A regrind to Stub is often a good place to start for your first customization. Â A Stub nib provides broad down-strokes and narrow cross-strokes while writing, and is less position-sensitive on the paper than the crisper and slightly more demanding cursive italic.
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Cursive Italic
 
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More demanding, but also providing crisper edges and more line-width variation, is the very popular customization to Cursive Italic. This also provides broad down-strokes and narrow cross-strokes, but is also more position-sensitive in terms of how the pen is held and requires more skill on the part of the user. This is a common customization for artists and calligraphers, but is still smooth enough to make for a good everyday writer.
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Formal Italic
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Formal Italic is an even crisper and more demanding customization than either cursive italic or left oblique, and is usually utilized for calligraphy and by the most experienced users. This provides broad down-strokes and narrow cross-strokes, with even crisper corners and edges than a cursive italic - this is an extremely position-sensitive customization.
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Left Oblique
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 Commonly used for signatures and correspondence, the Left Oblique customization provides broad diagonal strokes and narrow cross-strokes, and like a cursive italic, is more position-sensitive and demanding than a stub. The whole pen must be rotated to the left in order to write smoothly, without skipping. The "Left" in Left Oblique refers to the cut of the nib itself, and does not refer to the handedness of the writer. |
Architect's Point (Also for Arabic and Hebraic writing)
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A more exotic regrind is that to Architect’s Point. Named after the style of writing used by Frank Lloyd Wright, this regrind is the opposite of cursive italic, and provides for broad cross-strokes and narrow down-strokes. This also tends to be a particularly useful customization for those practicing Arabic or Hebraic calligraphy. |
Spencerian
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Perhaps our most popular customization, but also one of the most advanced, the Mottishaw Spencerian Customization has gained special attention from being featured in a customer's YouTube video which has now received over twelve million views! The Spencerian starts from a semi-soft 14k nib and adds additional flex and a regrind to needlepoint to create a specialized writing point used for copperplate calligraphy. For more details, visit our special Spencerian page.. |