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The
JIS Mark
A few weeks ago a well-known ebay seller listed what he described as a perfectly mint 1930’s Platinum maki-e pen. The final bid was nearly $2,000. The pen was signed by Rosui, one of Platinum’s main artists in the 1930’s, and the pen indeed looked beautiful, but was it truly mint? Mint meaning exactly in the same condition as when it left the factory. From this first paragraph you may have already concluded that this is an article about guidelines or standards and the misuse of the words “Rare” or “Mint.” If so then you are mistaken. This article will discus the little-known, often misunderstood, JIS mark and the important implications it raises for Japanese pen collectors. Pay attention, I really do not want to see anymore collectors being cheated. Today, nearly everything you can buy in Japan carries the JIS mark; cameras, toasters, ice cream and even cars. JIS stands for Japanese Industrial Standards. This governmental institution was established in 1947 to control the quality of Japanese manufactured goods. Before the war, buying any Japanese product was always a risky endeavor. In the pen market for example, it was common to find nibs stamped 14K Gold Plate, but the word “Plate” would be positioned close to the nib’s foot and hidden from view inside the section. Sometimes the word “Plate” was absent altogether. The buyer would use the pen for awhile, and as the plating wore off he would find that his nib was actually 14k steel. The JIS was to end all of this. The movement started slowly, but soon every company in every area of industry was applying and being tested to gain the mark. By 1954 the JIS Committee established the guidelines for “Field G”, metallurgy, which included nib making. The Pilot Pen Company boasted that it was the first pen maker to acquire the mark for its nibs on July 15th of that year. By 1955 all of the Japanese pen makers had the mark. What this means is that a nib with a JIS mark on the nib could not have been made before 1954. If someone is offering a “Pre-war” maki-e pen, but the nib has the JIS mark, then something is amiss. It is rather frightful to see how often this happens. However, a JIS nib doesn't’t automatically mean that the pen is not from before 1954. In late 1937 gold was prohibited for commercial use by the Japanese imperial government. A large portion of the Japanese population donated all of their gold and money for the war effort. Prior to the ban, the value of gold shot up so high that the gold value of a pen’s nib was higher than the price of the pen. Some quick thinking investors went into all of the stationary shops and department stores and bought up all the pens they could carry. They pulled the nibs and melted them down and sold the gold for a small profit. Nearly all of the wonderful prewar maki-e pens in Pilot’s pen museum are without nibs, which were donated to the war effort. What this all means is that there were a lot of prewar pens divorced from their original nibs. In the mid 1950’s, as gold became available again, a pen owner could bring in his old pen and have it fitted with a new gold nib. Some department stores had pen fares just for this purpose. In any case, a pen with a JIS mark nib is either a prewar pen with a replacement nib, or the pen is from the later 1950’s. Anyone telling you differently is either ignorant of the truth or hoping that you are.
Much of this information was translated by Megumi Ikeda from the book “Pilot History – 60th Anniversary”
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