Nakaya
Nakaya Portable Cigar Fox With Nine Tails
Nakaya Portable Cigar Fox With Nine Tails
The Nakaya Portable Cigar Fox With Nine Tails fountain pen has been hand-finished in Shiro-tamenuri Tame-sukashi technique, in which a final layer of clear urushi lacquer is applied over the tamenuri surface. This added layer of clear lacquer gives the surface of the pen a deep, luminous presence.
As with any pen you purchase from us, the Fox With Nine Tails qualifies for our complimentary nib tuning services, which adjust ink flow and pressure to your own personal writing characteristics. Nakaya 14k solid gold nibs also serve as excellent starting points for our exclusive nib customizations, which add flair and distinctiveness to your writing on the page and can also serve to make this pen an excellent tool for the professional or amateur calligrapher.
The Fox With Nine Tails is a familiar motif in Chinese mythology and throughout East Asia with origins leading as far back as the fourth century B.C.E. Though commonly seen as a good omen, the Fox, or Kitsune as it is known in Japan, is also known for its mischievous trickster spirit, similar to Coyote in the Native American world view.
To realize the motif on this hand-turned ebonite pen, skilled Urushi and Maki-e artists in Wajima on the west coast of Japan utilize a combination of techniques, including clear Tame-sukashi for the final layer on the pen's surface, and textured Ishime-Kanshitsu for the pen's gripping section. The combination of the smooth Tame-sukashi and textured Ishime-Kanshitsu might also be seen as a subtle reference to the dualistic nature of the character of the Fox itself.
While a beautifully realized work of Maki-e art on its own terms, this pen is also a highly practical writing instrument - the solid durability of Urushi lacquer finish means that this is a pen that can and should be used on an everyday basis. Nakaya's convenient cartridge-converter filling system allows for the use of either Platinum brand cartridges or any bottled fountain pen ink when utilizing the provided converter.
The pen ships in a softwood presentation box decorated with kanji-style script and also includes a fabric pen kimono. The tasteful packaging adds to the long-term value of this pen and also makes it an excellent gift item for special occasions.
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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.. |