Sailor Iro-Miyabi Fountain Pen - Usukou - Limited Edition. Usukou, "light scent" or incense, is obtained from fragrant wood and was very popular during Japan's Heian era.
Originally released in Japan in December 2020, Sailor Iro-Miyabi Fountain Pens are handcrafted using the traditional lacquer technique called Ishime-nuri. The body of these fountain pens are oversize and has identical dimensions to Sailor's 1911 King of Pen. Iro in Japanese means "color" and the character for Miyabi can translate to "beauty," "elegant," and "graceful" so the name Iro-Miyabi literally translates to "beautiful colors."
The urushi master who created Sailor's Iro-Miyabi Fountain Pens is Isana Kobayashi, who has worked with urushi techniques for over thirty years in Kaga City, Japan in the Ishikawa Prefecture, where many of Japan's urushi artists practice today. Utilizing the Ishime-nuri technique, which starts off with a thin application of urushi lacquer followed by a sprinkling of charcoal powder or urushi powder, which is left to cure, then polished repeatedly, the resulting body of Iro-Miyabi pens are a unique expression of smooth polished layers of urushi over the individual textured grains of sprinkled charcoal powder. Underneath all the layers of urushi, Iro-Miyabi pens are made of ebonite, giving the pens a light feel for their overall large size.
In May 2023, Sailor's Iro-Miyabi fountain pens were presented to the heads of the G7 countries and international organizations at the G7 Hiroshima Summit. The initials of each world leader were engraved on the nibs. The pens, which come in traditionally significant Japanese colors were gifts representing Japan's beauty and grace, handmade with a Japanese craft perfected over centuries.
- Released in December 2020
- 21k KOP gold nib (two-tone)
- Fill Mechanism: Cartridge/converter (Sailor proprietary)
- Comes with a converter and a cartridge
- Comes in a Paulownia wood box and Sanada string
- Note that these pens are designed not to be posted to protect the urushi lacquer
- More Sailor Iro-Miyabi
Dimensions:
- Diameter: 2 cm
- Length (capped): 15.4 cm
- Weight: 32 g
Sailor was founded in 1911. The founder Kyugoro Sakata was given a fountain pen by a friend returning from the UK after studying at the Royal Navy. He was inspired and determined to start making fountain pens in Japan. Sailor became the first fountain pen company in Japan, and earned many more firsts in Japan—first ballpoint pen in 1948, first ink cartridge in 1954 and first brush pen in 1972, etc.
In the 1970s, Sailor made a popular beginner fountain pen, "Candy," that sold more than 15 million within a few years. However, the number of the fountain pen users were declining as ballpoint pens became more mainstream.
In 1981, Sailor decided to go in the opposite direction from their "Candy" pen and began focusing on producing a higher standard series, which is the 1911 series we see today. Their focus on making a higher standard provides a great foundation for their later series of pens. Today, Sailor makes one of the most diverse lines of nibs, some of which are designed for specific writing purposes such as writing musical notes to one that is best for character writing.