日本輸入筆記具協会 / Japan Imported Pen Association

Established in 1978, the non-profit organization "Japan Imported Pen Association" is an importer and distributor of fountain pens, ballpoint pens, mechanical pencils, roller-balls, and other writing instruments made in foreign countries.

Apparently, they distributed a catalog to their members since the start of the association but I haven't seen any pictures of such a catalogue from before 1990. If you search, please be aware that until 1992, the name of the catalogue was "The Pen". From 1993, it was renamed into "The Pen Catalogue".

Many famous pen brands were members, even Montblanc was there until the mid 1990s.

I have a complete set from 1998 until 2019. Older issues became increasingly expensive to acquire, so I stopped collecting them after I stopped collecting pens. This set is for sale now. (このセットは現在販売予定である。) Contact

You can see the newest catalogue (at the time of writing the catalogue from 2024) here: https://www.ebis.co.jp/mochizuki/ebook/pencatalogue/HTML5/pc.html#/page/1

It was (is) a valuable source to check if sellers at Yahoo Auctions reported correct prices for their pens offered. Often they didn't.

Below is an example of the pen catalogue from 2013.

And another example; the pen catalogue from 2004.

Comments

Waldmann - over the years

Preserving the Legacy A Note on This Research I am presenting these collected findings on Waldmann Pens to ensure that this historical data is preserved for the community, even after I eventually step away from active collecting. I would be deeply grateful for any corrections or additional information that fellow enthusiasts might be able to share to further complete this record. in progress Introduction "Gold und Silber mag ich sehr"—so goes the line of a classic German folk song. While the English equivalent, "I like gold and silver very much," is a simple translation, it became my personal mantra when I began collecting pens. Fate struck in 2017 in the form of a seemingly overlooked pen on Yahoo Auctions. According to the description, it was a Waldmann, crafted in Germany from sterling silver with a star-shaped guilloché pattern. Curiously, it languished through several auction rounds without a single bid. For four weeks, I checked back anxiously, watching and wa...

Waldmann Tuscany

I nearly missed buying this pen. Story of a near miss While scanning for gold and silver pens on Yahoo Auctions (Japan), I stumbled over an auction of a pen resembling very much a Parker 75, I have - see picture below. The pen was described being a Waldmann Tuscany Silver 925. This was the first time I saw a Waldmann fountain pen. I had heard the name before because a friend of mine is the proud owner of a Waldmann pen. However, because it was not cheap and resembled so much the Parker 75, I decided against buying it. Text written with the Tuscany Nobody else bought it either over several rounds (1 week each). But because of the Yahoo automatisms, it stayed on my watch-list. The more often I saw it, the more I got interested and finally thought some actions would be good to decide if I finally buy or not. I contacted the customer support of Waldmann, asking if the pen is for real or not. The nib marked "Schmidt Iridium Point" resembled very much the nib...

Beat your pistols into fountain pens

Have you ever thought what happens to old Police weapons when they are replaced by newer ones. Are they reworked, even sold to pistol sportsmen or to police forces of other countries? Not anymore! Due to the many problems with weapons being stolen or resold illegally, German police is not selling their retired weapons to anyone. Instead, they are sent back to the maker for recycling. In 2018, the Police of Lower Saxony in Germany had the idea to show their support for non-proliferation of firearms and a weaponless peaceful society. They thought, nothing can be better than following the reference of the bible which says: “... they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks....” [ Isaiah 2:4 ]. The idea was born to adjust this quote to modern times, producing a symbolic fountain pen from the metal parts of the retired weapons. When they contacted the German producer of silver fountain pens, Waldmann Pens in Pforzheim about this idea, ...

MKE's view on pens

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