10 April 2013

Nebotek

Nebotek is one of the small operations—that is, other than the big three—producing pens in Japan. Its mother company is Nikko Ebonite, established in 1952 as manufacturer of ebonite (vulcanized hard rubber), a material with a number of applications. Nikko Ebonite is also the supplier of this material for all Japanese fountain pen manufacturers with the sole exception of Hakase. So, creating their own pen brand was only natural, and that happened in 2009.


Assorted Nobotek pens at a sale event in a department store in Tokyo.

Nebotek pens are created by Mr. Kanesaki Noritoshi (金崎徳稔), disciple of the well know (well, in Japan) nibmeister Kubo Kohei (久保幸平), now almost completely retired. Mr. Kanesaki lathes the in-house ebonite to make fountain pens and ball-pens. Fountain pens come in three different filling systems: (international) cartridge-converter, button filler, and eyedropper with shut-off valve. Nibs and feeds are provided by Peter Bock, in Germany, and are available in four points: F, FM, M, and B. They can also be made soft (springy).

Currently, the pens carry no inscription naming the maker or the model. They look anonymous save for the nib, imprinted with the Bock logo. So, the unknowing user might take this pen as a no-brand pen or as a German pen made by Bock itself.


The Nebotek Onoto-type.

The following pen is one of the Nebotek models. It is called Onoto-type, and it indeed resembles the old Onotos that arrived in Japan at the break of the twentieth century. This pen is an eyedropper with shut-off valve manned from the tail. It is medium sized out of the three possibilities (S, M, L). The nib is a size 220 (in the Bock catalog) made of 14 K gold. These are the pen dimensions:

Length closed: 141 mm
Length open: 134 mm
Length posted: 175 mm
Diameter: 15 mm
Weight (dry): 23.4 g



The Bock nib, engraved with the Bock logo.

Nobotek pens are indeed good and interesting products, but its poor marketing makes them almost unknown. And anonymous.


P. S: Around January 2014, Nebotek pens changed its name to Eboya.


Pilot Super (cartridge-converter), soft nib – Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Brown

Bruno Taut
April 5th, 2013
etiquetas: Nebotek, Bock, Eboya, Kanesaki Noritoshi

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do you have any experience with Eboya's Japanese eyedropper pens? Does the system work well?

Bruno Taut said...

Eboya --Mr. Kanesaki, in fact-- uses elastomer o-rings instead of cork (the old way) to seal the axis of the shut-off valve. The system is reliable and durable.

Thanks for passing by and commenting.

BT

Anonymous said...

Thank you. I will be ordering one of the eyedroppers from John Mottishaw. He only carries the C/C Eboya pens in stock, but will do special orders for the eyedroppers. I couldn't find a review of an Eboya with the system and was wanting to know if it worked well. In modern pens, I think this is the most economical option for a Japanese eyedropper. Danitrio is probably the next most economical. I've heard that Danitrio's system works very well aslo. If I like the Eboya, I will probably get a shut-off valve Danitrio later on, as I love urushi pens.

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