Nakaya
Nakaya Piccolo Writer Chinkin Housoge Black Gold
Nakaya Piccolo Writer Chinkin Housoge Black Gold
The adornment of this Piccolo fountain pen elevates it beyond utility. ""Housoge"" has the poetic connotations of being a flower in the imagination, or a blossom in paradise.
Chinkin is a technique in which a sharp instrument is used to cut the fine, narrow lines of a motif onto a lacquered surface. The lines are then filled in with metallic or pigmented powder. This is another time-intensive and meticulous method - most of the pens seen here take five months or more to be created.
The Nakaya Piccolo Chinkoku Housoge Black and Gold fountain pen is not just a writing instrument but also a striking work of art. Each gold-filled line on this pen has been hand-engraved by a skilled Maki-e artist.
The Piccolo is the most compact Nakaya model, but will still be a very comfortable fit for most hands. As with all Nakaya ebonite pens, it has been hand turned from naturally harvested hard rubber and then sent to the Wajima region on the west coast of Japan to the Chinkin artist.
The arabesque patterns are typical of the Japanese Tenpyo period.
Black Urushi covers the cap and barrel of this fountain pen. A Maki-e artist then carves the Housoge motif using a sharp instrument with the Chinkin technique. Gold powder is sprinkled on to fill the fine, narrow lines of the design.
Nakaya pens can be filled with bottled fountain pen ink using the provided converter and can also use Platinum brand ink cartridges. Hand-painted Maki-e converters are also available. Note how the engraved pattern continues even on to the crown of the cap and the gripping section on the barrel, highlighting Nakaya's attention to detail.
The Nakaya Piccolo Writer Chinkoku Housoge Black and Gold fountain pen comes standard with your choice of solid gold 14k single-tone nib in Extra Fine, Fine, Medium, Broad, or Extra Broad, with Fine Soft, Medium Soft, and Super Extra Fine nibs also available. The double slit Music nib is also available at an added premium, as are plated nibs in Pink Gold, Rhodium, Ruthenium, or Two-Tone. 14k nibs are well-suited to customizations including Architect's, Stub, Cursive Italic, and 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.
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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.. |