A Description of Japanese Eyedropper Fountain Pens

Perhaps no type of fountain pen is more misunderstood than the Japanese Eyedropper. This is not so surprising. To the casual pen collector, a Japanese eyedropper pen looks like some kind of strange plunger filler, and nearly everyday I can find a seller on ebay mistakingly calling one of these pens a Plunger filler that seems broken. Hopefully this page can help prevent future misunderstandings.

First let's clear up what an "eye dropper" pen actually is.

The first widely used pens had no way to fill themselves on their own. They needed to be filled manually, and this was often done with a bulb eyedropper. This was the same tool that doctors used to drop medicine into people's eyes. It seemed like the perfect tool for driping ink into a pen as well. After Self-filling pens were on the market, people started using the term eyedropper-filler to distinguish a pen from the newer self fillers.

The first Japanese-made fountain pens were influenced by the popular Onoto pens that the import company, Maruzen, was selling in their Nihonbashi store. These pens were also eyedropper fillers, but they had a special plunger. These early pens were probably influenced by the Onoto plunger fillers. The Onoto's could actually fill themselves with ink, using the plunger. The Japanese were not so interested in self-fillers. What they cared about was sealing the ink inside the pen so that it could not leak out. In the early 1900's, indeed as late as the 1950's most Japanese still wore silk or cotton kimonos on a daily basis. Staining a kimono with ink was a tragedy, so these safety plungers were of the upmost importance. The plunger has nothing to do with filling the pen with ink. It is only there to serve as a safety feature. Pictured here is one of the first pens made in Japan An Orion. It is pictured on a 1912 Maruzen catalog that described the "ink stopping" plunger

So if the plunger has nothing to do with filling the fountain pen, how does one fill a Japanese eyedropper?

1. Hold the pen, nib up, and unscrew the section from the barrel.
2. Unscrew the blind cap at the end of the barrel and pull it down about 1cm (about a 1/4 inch)
4. Drip ink into the barrel, careful not to drip ink on your hand or the floor...
5. Screw the section back in place.
6. Slowly and carefully screw the blind cap back in place. You might want to have some tissue handy for this. Often a drop or two of ink will drip from the nib and feed as you do this, but then the rest of the ink should be perfectly sealed inside the barrel.

How does one write with a Japaense eyedropper fountain pen?

1. Remove the cap.
2. Hold the pen nib down and unscrew the blind cap. Pull out the plunger no more than half a centemeter. The idea is to open the plunger just enough to allow ink into the feed.
3. Write. When finished, hold the pen over a tissue or blotter and screw the blind cap home.