Japan's only ebonite maker sells its own pens — and every colour is named after a scene

One fountain pen in five is made of ebonite — natural rubber hardened with sulphur, invented in the mid-nineteenth century. A material older than plastic, still in active service.

The only company in Japan that still manufactures the ebonite itself sits in Arakawa, Tokyo. Nikko Ebonite Manufacturing, founded in 1952.

And that company sells fountain pens of its own, under the name Eboya.

What happens when the material maker builds the pen

Lay out everything Eboya makes and it is startlingly orderly.

Five shapes × eight colours × three sizes.

The shapes are Hakobune, Houju, Natsume, Houga and Kyouka. Each is offered in the same eight colours, and each in large, medium and small. Whichever shape you choose, the same colours are available.

That symmetry is only possible because they make the material. The colour is decided while the ebonite is being compounded.

Every colour is named after a scene

The naming is the delightful part. Nothing is called red, orange or yellow.

• Tanshin — "crimson heart" (red)
• Higure — "nightfall" (orange)
• Kougetsu — "moon on the river" (yellow)
• Shinkai — "deep sea" (blue)
• Shinryu — "divine dragon" (beige)
• Wakaba — "young leaves" (yellow-green)
• Kunpuu — "scented wind" (green)
• Kuro — black

*Kunpuu* is the early-summer wind that crosses new foliage. *Kougetsu* is the moon reflected on a river. These are less colour names than descriptions of the scene in which that colour is seen.

Ebonite also changes with age, browning into a patina. The idea that the colour you buy is not where it stops seems built into the naming.

An Edo-period writing tool, still in production

The range includes a yatate.

A yatate is a portable writing set — brush and ink pot joined in one body — widely carried in the Edo period. Eboya builds one as a modern fountain pen. ¥77,000, above the ¥65,000 of the five core shapes.

A related Ricchiku sits at ¥75,000. These two alone use different colour names — *akebono*, "daybreak", among them — apparently treated as a separate palette from the core eight.

The inks are named after the neighbourhood

Eboya makes ink too. Three colours, beautifully named:

• Shitamachi no yuuzora — "the evening sky of the old town" (pink)
• Shitamachi no seiran — "the indigo of the old town" (navy)
• Shitamachi no uguisucha — "the warbler-brown of the old town" (sepia)

*Shitamachi* is the old low-lying quarter of Tokyo — Arakawa, where the factory stands. The address of the material works has become the name of the ink.

Price follows size

Same shape, same colour, different size, different price.

• Large — ¥65,000
• Small — ¥51,000

A ¥14,000 gap. Ebonite is turned from solid stock, so a larger barrel consumes more material. Fittingly for a material maker's brand, the price follows the quantity of material honestly.

The dearest is the yatate at ¥77,000; the most accessible the tan-pen at ¥47,800. Ink is ¥3,000.

What to settle first

Decide colour and size before shape. Every shape carries the same eight colours, and the price is set almost entirely by size.

And remember that ebonite browns with use. The colour you buy is a waypoint, not a destination.

(List prices include tax, as of August 2026. Company details from nikkoebonite.main.jp.)