A Description of the Japanese Shiro Pens

Above is a 1939 Pilot Customer Service card showing a shiro pen.

Even before the war effort seized gold from comercial use in Japan on September 1st 1938, Pilot had been experimenting with steel nibs for some time. Some of the Pilot engineers argued that if Pilot's goal was to produce the highest quality pens then they should look hard at steel pens. When tempered just right and loaded with iridium, the writing qualities of steel were superior to 14K gold. The marketing people argued that more importantly was the customer's perception of quality. Customers naturally prized gold over steel despite the advantages. The engineers must have been pleased when gold was no longer an option, and Pilot was forced to find an alternative.

Two months after the gold ban, Pilot came out with their first Shiro pen. In Japanese "shiro" means "white", and these pens certainly were a stark contrast to the earlier gold pens.

I've learned from some of the retired Pilot salesmen that Pilot secretly kept a stockpile of gold. This was for the Dunhill Namiki export pens, but soon the war grew and all pen exports were stopped. A lot of people wonder where this secret Namiki gold went becasue it never resurfaced after the war.

I have in my possession a few notebooks written by Pilot Nib Engineer K. Watanabe. In one of these notebooks are some metallurgy notes on the alloy used for these nibs. The metals used listed in order of percentage Include: Chrome , Nickel , Carbon, Silicon, Mobelium, Titanium, Magnesium, Tungsten and Copper. Pilot claimed the trick was all in the smelting process.

Even though the ink of the day was rather acidic and corrosive, Pilot claimed that the nibs could stand 25 years of daily use and show no signs of corrosion. This was a bold statement since other penmaker's nibs were corroding in a matter of weeks. In some cases the pens rusted in a matter of days if the pens weren't cleaned after using. But soon it was learned that Pilot hadn't invented this alloy on their own, they had basically borrowed a few English and American steel patents, and modified them slightly to be used with nibs. In his notes Watanabe constantly refers to the patents of A. L. Marsh, C.M. Johnson, and Frith Brown, who had created steel alloys to be used in the US Airforce plane's wing tips.

The story goes that some of Pilot's engineers left the company for other pen makers at this time and took the process with them. Soon all of the pen makers were using the same type of alloy for their nibs.

Here are a few Japanese shiro pens lined up like the soldiers who carried them. To the far left is a Sailor. The next two are Platinum's Shiro pens, and the next two are Pilots. All of the makers offered the pens in either Japanese eyedroppers or lever fillers. Pilot also had a very unusual capilary filler, but I will write more about that one later.