Kobo Setu's eleven shapes and thirty-five timbers — and the one wood that is everywhere

In Hashima, Gifu, there is a workshop that turns each pen barrel individually from figured timber gathered worldwide. Kobo Setu, founded in 2004 by woodworker Atsushi Nagata.

There are only eleven shapes. But there are thirty-five timber choices. Lay them all out and the numbers reveal what this workshop actually cares about.

One timber turns up almost everywhere

Of the thirty-five, amboyna burl alone appears in nine of the eleven shapes.

African blackwood follows with eight and tulipwood with seven — but amboyna's presence is different in kind. It is offered even on the 0.7 mm pencil, which has only two timber choices in total.

The wood that survives when the list is cut to the bone is, fairly, the face of the workshop.

Meanwhile, fifteen timbers appear in one shape only

Fifteen of the thirty-five are used on a single shape: Yakusugi cedar, curly cherry, camphor burl, snakewood, desert ironwood, claro walnut, Siamese ebony, Cuban mahogany, ebony, and more.

Almost all of them cluster on one model.

Only one model is split three ways by timber

Among all of Kobo Setu's pens, only the Patriot Pen is divided into standard, premium and rare timber. Same shape; the grade of wood alone makes it a separate model.

• Standard — ¥6,600. Ebony, palo santo, Honduras rosewood
• Premium timber — ¥7,700. Yakusugi cedar, curly cherry, camphor burl, briar
• Rare timber — ¥8,800 to ¥22,000. Snakewood, desert ironwood, peacock-figured black persimmon

Most of the single-shape timbers sit in premium and rare. It reads like a workshop that has a designated body waiting for whenever one remarkable board turns up.

The same pen can more than double in price

The Luce Pen, the broadest range, runs from ¥8,800 to ¥18,700. Identical shape; only the timber changes. More than double.

Across the whole workshop the cheapest is the Manhattan Pen at ¥6,050 and the dearest the Panache Pen at ¥28,600.

The lead holder drops two different ways

The 2 mm lead holder comes as a click type and a drop type — the latter releasing the lead under its own weight, the draughtsman's mechanism.

The interesting part is the pricing: the drop type starts higher. Click begins at ¥9,900, drop at ¥13,200. The timber choice narrows too — twelve for the click type against six for the drop.

What the timber names give away

Many of Kobo Setu's timbers carry the word *moku*: amboyna burl, peacock-figured black persimmon, curly maple, curly walnut, bird's eye maple, teak burl.

*Moku* means figure — grain that arrives as burl, ripple or eye rather than plain stripe. It does not occur throughout a tree; only the part that has it can be used.

Close to a third of the thirty-five specifications name a figure explicitly. The same species without the figure is treated as a different thing altogether.

PencilDB holds every combination this workshop makes, so you can see at a glance which timber is available in which shape.

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