Kagaribi Tsugaru-nuri Urushi Fountain Pen, 14K Gold Nib

The Kagaribi Tsugaru-nuri Urushi Fountain Pen is a Japanese urushi lacquer fountain pen with a hand-turned ebonite body, finished in red and black hineri-nuri by a Tsugaru-nuri artisan in Hirosaki, Aomori, and fitted with a 14K gold JoWo nib in Fine. Kagaribi means a bonfire burning in the dark, and the red rises through the black in much the same way.

Hineri-nuri is one of the many variation finishes of Tsugaru-nuri. The artisan raises a twisting pattern on the barrel, buries it under layers of red and black lacquer, and then sands the surface flat. The raised ridges are cut through first, so the red beneath the final coat of black comes up along their twists. In places the swirls curl like opening roses.

None of this can be hurried. Urushi does not dry like paint. It hardens slowly in a humid cabinet, so each coat has to cure before the next one can go on. The layers are built up one at a time, and the pattern only appears at the very end, when the surface is sanded and polished. For a batch of these pens, the artisan asks for about three months.

How much red shows depends on the thickness of that extra red layer, a difference of a few microns laid by hand. The artisan cannot make two pens alike, so the pen you receive is one of a kind.

The pen fills with the included converter or with standard international short cartridges, two of which come in the box. It is a straight, capped pen with brass fittings, and it arrives in a paulownia (kiri) wood box with a fitted foam insert, ready to give.

The same pen is also lacquered as Hoshizukiyo, gold speckles on black, and Hanagasumi, purple drifting through pale pink. See more of our Japanese fountain pens.

Details

• In the box: fountain pen, converter, 2 ink cartridges, paulownia (kiri) wood box with foam insert
• Size: 5.9" × 0.63" (15 cm × 1.6 cm), capped
• Weight: 1.2 oz (35 g)
• Nib: JoWo #6, 14K gold (585), Fine
• Filling: converter (included) or standard international short cartridges
• Materials: ebonite, natural urushi lacquer, brass fittings
• Origin: Japan. Lacquered in Hirosaki, Aomori. Nib made in Germany.
• Brand: Komorebi Stationery
• Note:
  - Each pen is lacquered and sanded by hand, so the pattern and color differ from pen to pen and from the photographs. 
  - The cap does not post. The lacquer continues onto the grip section, so wipe off any ink after filling from a bottle, and do not pull the nib out of the section.
  - Wipe with a soft, dry cloth and keep away from heat and long direct sunlight. In rare cases natural urushi may cause a skin reaction.

The Story of Tsugaru-nuri

Tsugaru-nuri is the lacquerware of Hirosaki and the surrounding Tsugaru region of Aomori, at the northern tip of Japan's main island. It goes back more than 300 years to the late 17th century, when the Tsugaru domain brought lacquer craftsmen to the region. It was designated a Traditional Craft of Japan in 1975, and in 2017 its techniques were recognized as an Important Intangible Cultural Property.

The craft has four signature techniques, kara-nuri, nanako-nuri, monsha-nuri and nishiki-nuri, along with many variation finishes. What they share is the method: lacquer is built up layer by layer, each coat left to cure, and sanded back down through those layers again and again, so a single piece can take a month and a half or more. The work asks so much patience that locals jokingly call it baka-nuri, roughly "fool's lacquer."

Komorebi had each pen made by two specialists. A woodturner shapes the ebonite barrel and cap on a lathe, and a Tsugaru-nuri lacquer artisan in Hirosaki lays and sands the lacquer by hand. Ebonite, a hard rubber long used for fountain pens, holds urushi well, and Japanese makers have been lacquering ebonite pens since the 1920s.