Visiting 590&co in Kobe

[RPD]

I’m doing a trip around Japan before coming back home and I had the chance of visiting the most peculiar stationery store I’ve ever seen. It’s on the 1st floor of a residential building next to the commercial district, you’d only go there if you knew it was there.

I was very optimistic about finding some store-exclusive Nohara Kougei but of course they had none. They had some copycat thin-barrel MPs with the same tips and grips and I was quite disappointed with how they felt. I’ve never used a Nohara but I hope that the original ones have a more solid feel and higher quality.
Aside from that, they had a ton of interesting stuff. Parafernalia, postal co, craft A (no metal gripped versions, sadly), wooden barrels for multiple pencils, marvelous wood MPs and multipens, tons of designer leather and wood instruments…
I also tried the store limited wooden barrel luddite tech graph. They look amazing but the grip is thin and I know I’ll never use it. Lovely pencil for anyone that likes rotring 600.

There was a stand by an artisan called Flambert, which I had never heard about. He had some titanium gripped wooden barrel pencils, as well as some straight shaft pencils, but he seemed to focus on box cutters. The quality was astounding and the prices weren’t that high for the woods he was using.

This was my final haul: a marvelous wood MP made of Briar wood (19900 yen) and a Rosewood burl cutter from Flambert (8800 yen). My friend bought another one for himself.
I want to use the marvelous wood MP more before writing in depth about it, but I’ll just say it’s construction seems to be exquisite. Full brass internals , double threading to the tip and to the body, brass inserts in all weak parts, (supposedly) exclusive internals, super tight tolerances on the machined back cap. And to top it all, a beautiful wooden barrel.

[popossum]

Damn, I’m so jealous! I need to plan a Japan trip soon

I follow these folks on Twitter and they sell a lot of handmade limited editions with wood barrels. Shame they didn’t have more of a selection in store, but I bet a lot of those highly sought after pencils sell out quickly on their online store. I need to check out those Flambert cutters - they look amazing!

[Stu]

Gorgeous. That would be the quickest 19900 yen I’ve ever spent.

[First_Sail]

They have their own mechanism? A pencil that costs 20K must be worth it. Very interesting.

[Stu]

Man, if you are willing to disassemble it again at some point, i’d love to see the internals.

[RPD]

I plan on taking it apart again and taking some nice photos at some point in the future!

Btw these pencils don’t resell with a premium like nohara and some craft a, so it’s possible to pick them up off mercari cheaper than MSRP. Also, depending on the wood type there’s cheaper and more expensive models.

[cytherian]

I only recently learned about Nohara Kougei as I watched a number of auctions suffer crazy bidding on some really impressive looking wooden writing instruments. Not having held a Nohara first hand, I didn’t want to take a chance on buying blind. This one you picked up, Diego – it looks marvelous! So are these mechanical pencils sold through other channels? Are they also branded as “Flambert” like the cutter?

There’s a seller on YAJ named “evecraft.” I’ve bought from them in the past. They’ve periodically taken decent quality Olfa box cutters that have a distinct inset shape for a rubberized insert, and replaced them with precious wood. Here’s an example:

[RPD]

The brand is “marvelous wood”, I think that 590&co also sells them through their online store as well as marvelous wood through their official site. There’s some from time to time on mercari.

That box cutter looks great! I like the contrast between the metal and the wood grain.

[RPD]

Some photos of the internals.

[Heath]

That’s going on the list! Wow that looks so good!

[Stu]

Thanks man! 100% on the list, as Heath says.