Nakaya
Nakaya Portable Writer Sumiko Skull
Nakaya Portable Writer Sumiko Skull
The gothic-inspired Nakaya Portable Writer Sumiko Skull fountain pen is hand-crafted by skilled Maki-e artists in Wajima on the west coast of Japan - each pen requires a year or more to be produced. It is provided standard with the silver skull and Maki-e painted spine clip seen here, and with your choice of 14k solid gold ruthenium-plated nib.
Our complimentary nib tuning adjusts pressure and ink flow to your personal preferences, and our optional nib customizations can provide for additional character and distinctiveness in your writing on the page. We are an authorized Nakaya dealer.
Combining Nakaya's unique aesthetic with a Gothic sensibility, the Portable Writer Sumiko Skull pen utilizes layers of sumi charcoal finish to create a textured, weathered surface.
The ruthenium plated skull, with Maki-e painting of a spine, completes the design of this delightfully macabre writing instrument and is included in the price of the pen.
Sumiko finish is always pleasing to the touch, and the textured surface of this pen adds to the tactile pleasure. As one owner has remarked, this is the perfect Halloween pen.
As with all Nakaya pens, the Sumiko Skull pen can be filled with bottled fountain pen ink using the provided converter, and can also use Platinum brand cartridges. Hand-painted Maki-e converters are also available.
Sumiko is a technique which involves mixing charcoal powder with Urushi lacquer. Once cured, the Sumiko finish is highly stable.
Nakaya 14k solid gold nibs are themselves hand-crafted in a small factory workshop outside Tokyo. The production process for each nib requires over twenty individual steps, with skilled technicians overseeing the use of specially built tools and equipment. Nibs are carefully examined for quality and consistency at each step in the process.
The silver skull nests over the top of the cap and faces inward when the pen is pocketed.
Decorative rice paper, a simple solid softwood shipping box decorated with Japanese Kanji script, and a fabric pen ""kimono"" are all included with this pen, making it a lovely presentation item.
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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.. |