The Painting above shows Emperor Meiji with his Chrysanthemum Jacket. Note that the gold flowers and ivy with the blue field is the same as found on this pen. Below is an image of Meiji in 1870, just at the beginning of the Meiji Restoration where he quickly westernized much of Japan's society.
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Kamakura Pens is proud to offer our 3rd Limited Edition pen. Our first pen, released in 2002, was a maki-e music pen that depicted a scene of Kamakura's Shonan coast. We were surprised at how fast these sold out. 100 pens in just thee months. Our second LE Pen, in honor of our relocating to Okinawa, we offered the Ryuku Dragon pen. We sold all 200 pens in just four days. This year we are offering two designs, The Mikaeri Bijin and this President Grant pen. How Grant became associated with a maki-e design is quite a story. Ex-president Grant along with his wife, Julia and their son Col. Frederick Grant sailed into Yokohama on July 3rd, 1879. While Grant was acting president, he had stressed to congress that Japan was an important market and allay that the US shouldn't ignore. In 1879, Japan was having struggles with Russia and China. Japan desperately sought to become associated with the US, and they saw the former president as an excellent ambassador, so they invited the Grants to visit Japan. The Grants were greeted in Yokohama with huge crowds of cheering welcomers. Japanese and US flags filled the sky. This was the first time that any important US dignitary had visited Japan, and the Japanese pulled no stops in giving the Grants a royal welcome. A band had been arranged months earlier for the occasion and learned how to play western musical instruments. As Grant walked from the ship to the train they played and repeated "Hail Columbia" the only song they had time enough to master. The Grants were taken by train from Yokohama to Tokyo and shown their quarters at the Enryokan. This was a building inside the emperor's palace grounds that had been refurbished for western guests. President Grant was then taken to meet emperor Meiji in person. This meeting was quite tense both for the Japanese and the American Party. Just a few years earlier Emperor Meiji was still wearing the traditional silk kimonos. But now he was wearing an ornate military uniform. The shocking point of the meeting was when Emperor Meiji shook hands with Grant. Never before had a Japanese emperor touched a commoner, let alone a Western person. In the movie, "Last Samurai" with Tom Cruise, there was a scene where Captain Aldren meets Emperor Meiji. This scene was based on Grant's meeting with the Emperor. With the success of that meeting, The Grants were waited on hand and foot. At one dinner, Mrs. Grant complimented the lacquerware at the Palace. The next day, messengers delivered a complete duplicate set. Later, in Grant's last meeting with Emperor Meiji, President Grant was presented a maki-e cigar box with a special design, and this is the design we have used to adorn this pen. It is a little hard to see, but look at Meiji's uniform. It is a dark, royal blue with Gold Chrysanthemums and ivy. This design was utilized on Grant's Cigar box. The design was to signify that this was a special gift from the emperor himself. The Cigar box still exists and is presently a part of the Smithsonian collection. The pen itself is a Platinum 3776 with the famous three tined music nib. The 3776 is Platinum's longest selling line of pens, which was first released in 1978 and is still in production today. The pen was originally planned by a group of designers lead by the late Mr. Umeda. They put together several prototypes, and gave them to 30 famous Japanese writers; people who typically wrote for 30 pages or more with their pens every day. From these writers' feed back, Platinum was able to learn several of their golden rules for the 3776. Rule #1 was have a thick barrel: The radius of the barrel is 13mm. The length with the cap at the end of the barrel should be a little less than 160mm. Length of the nib 22mm. The balance point is in the rear, at the point of 56~57%. Rule #2 Was the nib should be big. A big 14K gold nib is durable and highly suitable for heavy writing. The nib on this Pen is Platinum's large 14k 3776 Music Pen nibs. Music pens are named as such because they are designed to make an extra broad Down stroke and a fine side stroke, which is needed for writing musical staffs and notes. However, few of my customers in the past bought these pens to write music. Instead they bought them for italic style calligraphy or simply because they wanted an extra broad nib with some great line variation. Three tines are needed to ensure a constant flow over such a broad nib. The lacquer work was done in Wajima, Japan at one of the greatest studios known for gold leaf maki-e. The technique is Kinpaku. The most difficult part of this technique is keeping the blue dots the same size and equally spaced apart. Each pen takes three months to complete. The Pen's come with the Kanmakura Pens box with signature mark. The pens are numbered from 1-100 on the signed papers inside. The suggested retail price was $1,100 but the Kamakura Pens price is $695. Last year we sold out quickly because several dealers bought them up and then resold them at pen shows. Be sure to keep an eyeout for the next update of Stylophiles.com for a review of this pen. Certainly Bill Ripel will be able to offer far better images than I have. To place an order or to reserve a pen send an e-mail to KPLE@kamakurapens.com
Though the maki-e design is different, the base pen is the same as the 2002 pen, so I would like to share two reviews of the earlier pen. |
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