is a Japanese pen manufacturer based in

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

. It produces writing instruments,

stationery Stationery refers to writing materials, including cut paper, envelopes, continuous form paper, and other office supplies. Stationery usually specifies materials to be written on by hand (e.g., letter paper) or by equipment such as computer p ...

and

jewellery Jewellery (or jewelry in American English) consists of decorative items worn for personal adornment such as brooches, ring (jewellery), rings, necklaces, earrings, pendants, bracelets, and cufflinks. Jewellery may be attached to the body or the ...

, but is best known for its

pen PEN may refer to: * (National Ecological Party), former name of the Brazilian political party Patriota (PATRI) * PEN International, a worldwide association of writers ** English PEN, the founding centre of PEN International ** PEN America, located ...

s. It is the largest pen manufacturer in Japan, with competition globally from other pen companies like Japanese

Pentel is a privately-held Japanese manufacturing company of stationery products. The name comes from one of their first widely known products and is a portmanteau of the English words ''pen'' and ''pastel''. Pentel is also the inventor of non-perma ...

Co., Mitsubishi Pencil Co. (

Uni-ball (stylized as uniball) and are brands of pens and pencils, made by the of Japan. The brand was introduced in 1979 as a rollerball pen model, then expanding to the rest of Mitsubishi Pencil products. Mitsubishi Pencil Company distributes over ...

), French Bic and American

Paper Mate Paper Mate is a division of Sanford L.P., a Newell Brands company that produces writing instruments. Paper Mate's offices are located in Oak Brook, Illinois, along with those of Newell Rubbermaid's other office products divisions. Its product ...

. Pilot has many

subsidiaries A subsidiary, subsidiary company, or daughter company is a company completely or partially owned or controlled by another company, called the parent company or holding company, which has legal and financial control over the subsidiary company. Unl ...

throughout the world, including in the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

and

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. Most Pilot pens are made in

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, France and the US.

Namiki Namiki is a Japanese brand of writing implements, most specifically, fountain pens, owned by the Pilot Corporation. Namiki is mostly famous for its handmade ''maki-e'' (a Japanese lacquerware craft with a wide range of fine and decorative arts) ...

, Pilot's fountain pens with

maki-e is a Japanese lacquerware, Japanese lacquer decoration technique in which pictures, patterns, and letters are drawn with lacquer on the surface of lacquerware, and then metal powder such as gold or silver is sprinkled and fixed on the surface ...

lacquering designs, are made in the

Hiratsuka file:Hiratsuka City Office 20150222.JPG, 260px, Hiratsuka City Hall is a Cities of Japan, city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 257,316 and a population density of 3800 persons per km². The total area of t ...

factory.

History

In 1915, Ryōsuke Namiki (並木良輔), a professor from Tokyo Nautical College in Japan, left his job to found a small factory near Tokyo to produce gold pen nibs."Pilot Pen: History"
, Pilot website. In 1916, Namiki expanded his product line and became a full-fledged manufacturer of writing instruments. The Pilot Pen Corporation was founded by Ryosuke Namiki with Masao Wada (和田正雄) in 1918 under the name of the Namiki Manufacturing Company. In 1926 it established overseas offices in

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

and

Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...

. In 1938 the name of the company changed to the Pilot Pen Co., Ltd. It was again renamed in 1950 as the Pilot Ink Company, Ltd. In 1954 a branch was opened in Brazil. From 1972 to 1999 various sub-companies were formed to cover the various branches, and the collective name for these is Pilot Corporation. More recently, Pilot began the BeGreen range of pens and pencils which are composed of mostly recycled content. In 1995 and 1996, they raced a Ferrari F40 LM at the

24 Hours Of Le Mans The 24 Hours of Le Mans () is an endurance-focused Sports car racing, sports car race held annually near the city of Le Mans, France. It is widely considered to be one of the world's most prestigious races, and is one of the races—along with ...

. The racing team that entered the F40 LM was at first named Pilot-Aldix Racing, but was soon named under Pilot Pen Racing and Pilot Racing. It won at the 4 Hours of Anderstorp and finished 12th at Le Mans. Pilot created the Aquadoodle drawing toy for children with disappearing hydrochromic ink. Aquadoodle was marketed through a partnership with

Spin Master Spin Master Corp. (formerly known as Spin Master Toys) is a Canadian multinational toy and entertainment company. Spin Master employs over 1,600 people globally with offices in Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Ital ...

beginning in 2003, and won the American Toy of the Year award. In 2018 Pilot celebrated the company's 100th anniversary with a number of special pages to its website and special edition pens. In 2023, Pilot ended its forty-year-old partnership with Indian stationery company Luxor Writing Instruments, and is set to enter the Indian market individually.

Products

Fountain pens

In 1963, Pilot Corporation introduced the ''Capless''. Unlike other

fountain pens A fountain pen is a writing instrument that uses a metal nib to apply water-based ink, or special pigment ink—suitable for fountain pens—to paper. It is distinguished from earlier dip pens by using an internal reservoir to hold ink, elimi ...

during its time, the Pilot Capless featured a fully retractable nib. The ''Capless'' was later reintroduced as the ''Vanishing Point'' in 1972. In 2012, the company released the ''Metropolitan'' (known as ''Cocoon'' in Japan), a popular entry-level fountain pen. The ''Varsity'' is a disposable fountain pen that is pre-loaded with ink, while the ''Prera'' is a smaller pocket pen. Other offerings include the Pilot ''Falcon'', which has a semi-flexible gold nib. The ''Kakuno'', is a beginner fountain pen meant for children, that is often sold in fun colors, and has a smiley face on the fountain pen's nib.

Pilot Custom Pens

Some of Pilot’s higher-end pens bear the name of ''"Custom"'' or ''"Custom Heritage"'' and a two or three digit number. "Custom" models are cigar-shaped, while "Custom Heritage" models have flat tops and bottoms. The number is based on the year of introduction (from the foundation of the company; the ''Custom 74'' was introduced in 1992) for models with two digits, while the third digit on models with three digits represents a list price when multiplied by ¥10,000 (the ''Custom 823'' was introduced in 2000 when it cost ¥30,000). Models include: *Custom K. Introduced in 1971. A resin version was added to the range in 1972. *Custom Grandee Tomo. Introduced in 1978. Clip has a split. *Custom 67. Introduced in 1985. *Custom 74. Introduced in 1992. *Custom 742. Introduced in 1993. *Custom 743. Introduced in 1993. *Custom 823. Introduced in 2000. Equipped with a plunger ink suction mechanism. *Custom 845. Introduced in 2002. *Custom Heritage 91. Introduced in 2009. Cartridge or converter. *Custom Heritage 92. Introduced in 2010. Piston filler. *Custom Urushi. Introduced in 2016.

Inks

Fountain pen

* ''Namiki'': Pilot's basic line of ink. Some are available in bottles, all in Pilot's proprietary cartridge format. * ''Parallel Mixable Color'': A line of 12 colors, only available in Pilot's proprietary cartridge format. These cartridges are intended for use in the Pilot Parallel Pen, a calligraphy pen designed to mix the content of two different cartridges while writing. * ''Iroshizuku'' (15 ml, 50 ml): **Core range created by Kiyomi Hasegawa with 21 colours introduced from 2007. The name Iroshizuku is a blend of two different Japanese words. "Iro" meaning coloured, and "shizuku" meaning dew or drop. Range now comprises 24 themes of "beautiful scenery of Japan". All are available as bottled inks. A number are also available in Pilot's proprietary cartridge format. **Three Tokyo Limited Edition inks were introduced in 2009 at a few limited retailers in Tokyo. These were re-issued more widely in 2016 and again in 2020. **Seven limited edition inks inspired by the seven gods of good fortune were issued in 2018 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Pilot inspired by the seven gods of good fortune.

Other

* Drawing ink (30ml, 350ml), securities ink (30ml): It is an ink for each application and is used with a pen or brush.

Pens from recycled bottles

Pilot Corporation published some ecological facts about its pens in 2015. The most eco-friendly is the Bottle-2-Pen (B2P) which is made of 90.4% recycled components.

PET A pet, or companion animal, is an animal kept primarily for a person's company or entertainment rather than as a working animal, livestock, or a laboratory animal. Popular pets are often considered to have attractive/ cute appearances, inte ...

plastic from bottles are used for much of it, so it is sometimes nicknamed the 'PetPen' or 'PetBall'.

Others

The brand manufactures and commercialises a wide range of products under its own name and other brands, such as ''FriXion'' (erasable ink gel pens, highlighters, and stamps), ''Acroball'' (hybrid ink ballpoint pens); ''Pintor''; ''B2P'' and ''Begreen'' (both, products with recycled components). Sub-brands include ''Better'', ''Rex-Grip'', ''Super Grip G'' (oil-based ballpoint); ''Precise'', ''Hi-Tecpoint'' (rollerballs); ''Hi-Tec-C'', Pilot ''G-2'', ''Juice'' (or ''Pop'lol'') (gel pens); and ''Coleto'' (customizable multi-pen system); ''Mogulair'', '' Dr. Grip'' series, ''Super Grip'', ''Fure Fure'' (2020) series (mechanical pencils); ''Automac'' (mechanical pencil equipped with automatic function); ''S'' series: ''S3'', ''S5'', ''S10'', ''S20'', ''S30'' (drafting pencils). The following table contains the Pilot product lines in Asia, Europe, and North and South America, as of December 2019:

Notes

References

External links

* {{Authority control Fountain pen and ink manufacturers Manufacturing companies based in Tokyo Office supply companies of Japan Pen manufacturers Japanese stationery Manufacturing companies established in 1918 Manufacturing companies established in 2002 Companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Japanese brands Japanese companies established in 1918 Japanese companies established in 2002 Chūō, Tokyo Midori-kai Ink brands 2002 mergers and acquisitions