07 September 2013

Datation of Japanese Pens. II. Pilot Nibs

This is the easy and well known part—the date code present on most Pilot nibs along its whole history.

The basic structure of this code is as follows:

xMMYY

On it, x is a letter; often omitted, especially on old pens. But when present, the options and meanings are as follows:
T: manufactured at the Tokyo plant (in Shimura, Itabashi).
H: manufactured at the Hiratsuka plant in Kanagawa prefecture.
A, a: production line A at the Hiratsuka plant.
B, b: production line B at the Hiratsuka plant.
F: manufactured at overseas plants (India, Burma...).


The nib of a Pilot Justus, original model, dated in Hiratsuka (production line A) on December of 1993.

Those in Shimura (JIS code 3249) and in Hiratsuka (JIS code 3248) have been the two traditional Pilot plants in Japan. However, Pilot had some other plants overseas: Brazil, India, Burma, Thailand. Nibs made on those might carry the label F --foreign-- stamped.

MM are one or two digits to show the month of the year YY, vid infra, in which the nib was produced.

Finally, YY are the last two digits of the production year. Pilot has consistently used the Western calendar for these codes. That was not the case of other Japanese companies.


A Myu 701's and a M90's nib dates. On these cases, nib's and the pen's dates are one and the same.

Few Pilot nibs are not engraved with this code, and those are mostly inexpensive units made of steel, like the nibs of the Petit-1 and V-pen.

This code allows for a good and accurate dating of the pen—provided the nib had not been replaced. On another Chronicle I will speak about other dating codes present on some Pilot pens.


Pilot Vpen – Platinum Black

Bruno Taut
Yokohama, September 6th, 2013
etiquetas: Pilot

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Hello! I've noticed that my modern Pilot Capless nib units carry a date stamp and underneath a stamp that read "PP [Namiki logo] F" - does that mean that those nibs are made in a production plant outside of Japan?

Thanks in advance!

Bruno Taut said...

Dear Unknown,

As of today, all Pilot nibs are made in Japan.

Cheers,

BT

Unknown said...

Hello again and thank you for your answer. Do you know what "PP-F" refers to? I've seen the stamping on some Namiki-labeled nibs as well (such as: https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qoq2OA4LsB4/UtczmvE2fFI/AAAAAAAAAbk/o3Wzro4G12Y/s1600/17ba31fb.jpg) and I'm curious about what it entails. I've also noticed that some of my #5 size Pilot nibs that were made in 2016 bear the mark as well.

With regards,

CC

Bruno Taut said...

240snusit,

Sorry for the late reply. Somehow I had not seen your comment at the right time. My apologies.

I am gathering info on the PP-F hallmark. Not that much is available, but I will try to write something on the matter.

Thanks for passing by and commenting.

BT

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