Several months ago I was fortunate to visit one of my Japanese pen friends. He retired from the Pilot sales team several years ago, but he has a wealth of knowledge about old Pilot pens, and I never get tired of hearing his stories. I first met him at the Tokyo Pen show a year ago, and he was stunned to see that I had a 1918, first year Pilot pen. When I said I had more early Pilot's in my collection at home, he invited me to visit his home some afternoon for coffee and to talk pens for awhile. In Japan this happens a lot, people make invitations out of politeness, but they rarely have any intention to actually have anyone come to their home. Just a weird bit of this culture that I have long grown used to, so I graciously accepted, never expecting to see him again.

A few weeks later, I was surprised when he called me and asked when I was free. Wow. He was serious. So we made arrangements and I made my way to his lovely home, pen case in hand. We took turns showing off our pens, and I had to bow my head in defeat. I do not feel like I am a slouch as a pen collector, but I just couldn't compete with this guy as he pulled out one Dunhill Namiki after another. He had a lovely Dunhill Namiki goldfish pen and after holding it for a long time, I handed it back to him. That was the greatest act of will power I have ever made.

After a spell of answering my questions he pulled out a tattered old manila folder that had several letters inside written in English. He asked if I would read these and interpret them for him. They were from the 1930's, and most were between Pilot and The Chicago Compass Company. The Chicago company wanted to buy iridium from Pilot to be used in their precision compass points. Sadly these letters were not very cordial due to a little misunderstanding. In Japanese, people often use the word "Muzukashii" which roughly translates as "Difficult", but the nuance is completely different. When American's hear the word "difficult" they assume that it is possible, but may take a little extra time or effort. However, when the Japanese use this word, it is basically a very polite way to say "No way in Hell" I explained this to my friend, and he slapped his head to his forehead in shock. For 60 years people at Pilot had wondered what the problem was.

My friend was grateful for my help. He knew I was a big fan of his goldfish and he made me a generous gift in return for my efforts. Gift is not the right word, but I can't think of a better one. It was more like a test. He showed me three maki-e pen barrels. He said I could choose one. One was very valuable, but the other two were not worth nearly as much. I remembered the old Indy Jones movie..."Choose, but choose wisely."

I was far too ignorant to choose wisely. I figured the value was in the signatures, but I did not have these memorized at the time, and I thought it would be cheating to look them up. The first barrel was a lovely Goldfish Maki-e. Tons of togidashi gold dust, actually heavy with it, but the barrel had a tiny crack, and since this was an eyedropper barrel, I realized what a pain it would be to restore. The second pen was another goldfish eyedropper and again it was beautiful. Not as much gold dust, but it had no cracks. The third pen had the least gold dust, and it had a very subtle feel to it. The colors were less striking than the other pens, but the barrel was for a lever filler, and I thought this would be the easiest for me to restore, so I selected this barrel.

My friend beamed with pride as if his pupil solved a difficult algebra problem. "You chose wisely," he said.

As soon as I got home, I looked up the pen and discovered why it is so precious. The signature is that of Enomoto Shoetsu, one of Pilot's grand masters who entered the company in 1930. He was one of the leading artists for the Dunhill Namiki pens. I always wanted one of these pens, but never thought I would ever find one, and if I did, I could never afford it.

I spent three restless months, searching for parts to complete the pen, and eventually I got it pretty close to what it would have looked like. The main difference is that this pen should have a cap with another maki-e goldfish. But this is something that you just aren't going to find in someone's parts box.

My friend told me later the story behind this pen. The story seems too good to be true and I wonder how much has been exaggerated, but this is how it goes.

One summer morning back in 1951, while my friend arrived at Pilot's Hiratsuka factory he saw Namiki Ryouske, the founder of Pilot. It was one of the few times that he actually saw Namiki at the factory and everyone there was tense as Namiki and his upper managers inspected the factory. They made their way to the Maki-e area and Namiki stopped in front of Shoetsu and picked up one of the pen barrels that he was working on. While Namiki was examining the pen he dropped it onto the concrete floor and this put a tiny crack into the barrel right at the threads. Namiki apologized and quickly left. After things settled down, Shoetsu swore something under his breath and threw the barrel into the trash. Later my friend went back and retrieved the barrel. He loved the maki-e pens but as a young salesman he could hardly afford one.

I hadn't even noticed the crack before, but after looking closely with a loupe, I spotted it. Just a very tiny hairline, but it is there.

I guess a crack in a Pilot maki-e pen is not so bad if Namiki put it there himself.

Ron Dutcher has lived in Japan for over 15 years, where he owns and runs a small orthopedic clinic with his wife, Keiko; which leads him to many Japanese pen finds. His patients, once they learn of his pen hobby often give him pens as gifts or offer to sell them to him. He is a member of the Tokyo Pen Association, and has learned a great deal from Japanese pen collectors. He sells a great many Japanese pens on ebay under the name Kamakura-Pens, but his true love is for early American pens. He can be contacted at rd@kamakurapens.com Click on the link below to visit http://www.kamakurapens.com