Blue Marbled Urushi Lacquered Rollerball Pen

The Blue Marbled Urushi Lacquered Rollerball Pen is a handmade Japanese rollerball pen turned from solid keyaki (Japanese zelkova) wood and finished in layered colored urushi lacquer with sprinkled tin powder. It takes a standard International rollerball refill, so it writes wet and smooth and stays a working pen for years rather than a display piece.

Toshiyuki Tatsumi builds the surface from many coats of colored urushi (iro-urushi), sprinkling fine tin powder between the layers so the colors break and drift into each other. Here deep indigo and pale grey gather into cloud-like patches, and the tin reads as a soft matte shimmer rather than a metallic gloss. Every barrel is finished individually, so no two carry the same pattern.

Genuine urushi lacquer hardens with humidity instead of drying like paint, and it keeps changing after it leaves the workshop. In his own note Tatsumi writes that the surface wears down very slightly with use, so the coats laid underneath begin to show. He builds the pen expecting this, and it is worth using rather than keeping in a drawer.

The same pen is made in Red and Translucent Brown. Urushi artist Kyoko Sasaki paints her own mosaic urushi pens on octagonal barrels turned by Tatsumi.

Details

• Size: 5.7" × 0.51" (14.5 cm × 1.3 cm)
• Grip: 0.35" (0.9 cm)
• Weight: 1.3 oz (38 g)
• Refill: standard International rollerball. Schmidt 888 F fitted; Schneider Topball 850, Hauser bill 707 SF and Pilot LP2RF gel also fit.
• Material: keyaki (Japanese zelkova) wood, natural urushi, tin powder
• Origin: Japan
• Artist: Toshiyuki Tatsumi
• Note: Each pen is finished by hand, so color and pattern vary from the photographs. Colored urushi can leave a trace of pigment if the barrel rubs against paper. Wipe with a soft, dry cloth, and keep away from water, heat, and long direct sunlight. In rare cases natural urushi may cause a skin reaction.

The Story of Toshiyuki Tatsumi

Toshiyuki Tatsumi works alone across a range that usually belongs to two separate trades. He turns the barrel and he lays the lacquer, so the shape is decided with the finish already in mind instead of being handed to a lacquerer afterwards.

He trained at the Kyoto Traditional Arts and Crafts College, then spent years in a karaki sashimono atelier in Kyoto, joinery in dense hardwoods where a joint either closes or it does not. He later joined the restoration of CYNARA, a wooden yacht launched about a century ago, building the deck hatches and much of the interior below deck. That work had to survive salt water and another hundred years.

He calls each pen one of a kind and means it literally. The layering of color and the drift of tin are worked out on the barrel itself rather than planned in advance, so no two come out alike. He chooses keyaki for its density and its grain, and finishes so the wood carries the surface instead of disappearing under it.