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I've long known that 尚羽堂 Fine Writing International's Chinese Constellations series and Wancher's Crystal series of fountain pens are essentially the same model just branded differently and offered in different (mutually exclusive) colourways, and FWI's Planets series and Wancher's Crystal II series must have rolled off the same production line. So, why on Earth was I still surprised when I came across these images, in a listing for the Chinese Constellations series on Taobao this morning? Source: Taobao item listing

Background Here is a short review (and lots of pictures) of the Wancher Japan Blue limited edition fountain pen. This is a Wancher pen with Sailor base. TLDR - it is a beautiful made, striking pen whcih writes like a Sailor pro gear slim/1911 Std but feels more substantial (in a positive way) in the hand. It is a great collector's item as it is a limited edition, but also a very functional writer. Speaking of being LE, that is somewhat diluted by several repeat runs (I think 3 now). Packaging I personally don't care much for packaging, but a pen of this price probably warrants a good effort, which can double as display case. Wancher does not disappoint. The pen comes in a nice packaging which splits open from the middle to reveal the pen. Not much else is supplied except the pen, the converter and some papers about the pen. But this is nice understated display case which has my approval. Appearance & Design - The pen is, simply put, gorgeous and writes very well. The pen has a beaten aluminium body and cap dyed with real indigo flowers to provide an absolutely beautiful deep blue colour that veers to purple at some angles from the light. the hand hammered pattern is exquisite, and (according to Wancher) is meant to invoke the designing on the guards of samurai swords (Tsuba). The section is a black standard to Sailor's pro gear slim and 1911 Std pens. The finial has a sailor logo. there are 5 Chrome rings: at the top and base of the cap, before the section threads, and at the beginning and end of the metal part fo the barrel. The one at the bottom of the cap is a thick one (about 0.5 inch) and has the words "Oita made" and "Japan Blue" engraved. Here is a picture of the pen uncapped, with the nice (though for my tastes a bit small) Sailor 14K medium nib on display: There is no clip. This causes the pen to roll on a desk without a roll stop. It may have been a design decision to showcase more of that beaten metal pattern, but I personally don't think that a clip would be amiss. Some more pictures near the window (where the purple gleam comes through nicely : Construction & Quality The construction seems to be of the beaten aluminium tubes attached to an resin base. This means there is a step down at the top and bottom extremes where the aluminium tubes end and the black resin is exposed. Construction is to a high standard. Everything feels dense, solid and just right. there is a satisfying heft to it, which makes it easier to hold (though see my comments on writing comfort below). The only asterisk to this is that the inner cap liner disengaged from the cap and came with the barrel once. I had probably screwed in the barrel too tight on that occassion but this should not have happened. Nevertheless, after I firmly pushed the cap liner into place, it has never come off again. Weight, Dimensions and ergonomics I would call this a medium size, but weighty pen. The size dimensions (which are below) are very similar to a pelikan M600 or between a duofold centennial and international. However, the weight is higher than either because of the aluminium body (but still, I wouldn't call this pen heavy). Length/ weight (capped): 133.3mm (5.25 inch) / 36 gms (the website says 45 gms for some reason; but my pen definitely weights 36gms) Length/ weight (uncapped) : 122 mm (4.8 inch) / 19 gms Length (posted) : 163 mm (6.42 inch) The posting is not deep at all. The cap basically covers the exposed resin part at the very bottom of the barrel. But it is very secure as there is a clicking mechanism to hold the cap in place. The pen is longer and heftier than both its close cousins the Sailors pro gear slim and 1911 std. It is therefore more comfortable to hold than either. But not perfect, because : the pen is just about long enough to use uncapped, but I find it marginally small. However, I find it marginally back weighted when using it capped (the cap is almost half the weight, after all, and doesn't post deep)! Solution: to stop cribbing, and just get used to one of them! Nib & Performance It has the 14K smaller Sailor nib found in the Pro Gear Slim and 1911 Std. and mine is a M. It writes beautifully as expected of a Sailor, but like all their 14K hard nibs, there is very little springiness. There is that typcally Sailor 'pencil like' feedback, and the flow is good, without being gushing. The pen did write a little dry out of the box when I received it, and I had to work on the feed and nib a wee bit to get it just right. I don't mind, but a pen of this price shouldn't require user mod to work perfectly, especially since a lot of buyers will not be comfortable tinkering with such a costly item. Some writing samples: First with Pelikan Edelstein Topaz: This one with Lamy Azurite (sorry about the bleed through from the other side); which I think is the perfect shade of ink for this pen! Filling System & Maintenance – It has basic Sailor CC as filling mechanism; which as you know...em..works. But it doesn't hold much ink, which may disappoint some. I mostly don't mind as I like changing pens and inks often. Cost & Value – It costs about $ 550. The value will depend if you want an EDC, in which case you can get the same sailor nib and performance on a cheaper pen, such as any std. Pro Gear Slim or Sapporo. If you like this size of pen, a Pelikan M600 will generally be cheaper. However, if you like pens which are unique, made of unique materials, and still function as perfectly good writers, then this may appeal to you. Conclusion Beautiful pen and glad to have bought it. I wish they found a way to put a 21K sailor nib without increasing the cost and thickness (as I really love those); but it is still great as it is.

Wancher has launched a kickstarter for a series of fountain pens with the name Seven Treasures. They are made from Bakelite and feature Shippoyaki; Japanese Cloisonne artwork. Current super early bird reward is at $240 for the basic version with steel nib and plastic feed. Black ebonite feed is an aditional $30 Red ebonite feed is +$50 Gold nib is +$130 https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wancher/seven-treasures

Hello friends, how are you? Please allow me to share with an Urushi technique for fountain pen that I have been working on last three years. It is called 季映塗り or Kieinuri (季映is pronounced /ki ei/ which means seasons reflection) It is real leaf on Urushi and then gold powder and then matt Urushi. The process is double what it takes with making Urushi. In the second picture you can see the leaf veins after steaming and pounding process. Left is Camelia Japonica (さざんか）and right is Holly Olive (ひいらぎ） This is just one third way. Next is to dye with gold powder and continue with urushi coating to put on the pen. I would really appreciate any of your thought about this. Thank you very much!

This is my new Wancher Dream Pen True Urushi in midori or green gloss urushi. The Japanese pen with the German (?) sounding name. I ordered this pen in January so it took about 6 months to complete and ship to me. The original promise was for 3-4 months, which seemed unreasonably fast for an urushi pen so I was not surprised or disappointed to be asked to wait another few months. It was worth the wait. The pen started on Kickstarter but I did not back that launch. The options I chose were 18k gold nib (thought gold would go well with the green) in broad size and black ebonite feed, both of which were both modestly priced upgrades. At some point during the wait I was asked if I might like to receive the brand new Wancher branded nib. Of course, I said yes. This may be one of the first looks at this new nib. The presentation box is a typical Japanese Paulownia wood affair painted with an image of Mt. Fuji, the Wancher logo, and some text. My Google translator app does not recognize the characters as Japanese, which is odd but the one on the left at least reads something like "fountain pen". Inside the box is a continuation of the nice packaging including a letter from the Wancher president and letter of authenticity that this is hand-made urushi pen lacquered by experts in Wajima, Japan using the finest quality urushi. Also included is a cute envelope of a penguin holding some ink cartridges, a bookmark, a card with a QR code for product instructions, and the pen itself in a nice bag with loop closure. Someday it will catch on that these are bags, bukuro, not kimono but I digress. The pen is very attractive and much darker to the eye than official photos led me to expect. Urushi is mixed by the craftsmen so color varies so I'm not surprised to see a different shade of green than what I expected. Actually, it really depends on the lighting and as the urushi continues to cure and age it will change somewhat in shade over time. In bright light you can capture a photo like this, at least against a black background. Context matters. The pen feeds via cartridge converter and writes a wet line. When it arrived the nib needed work. The tipping on one of the tines was longer than the other. This made the nib scratchy. I fixed that with 12,000 grit sand paper, and now it writes beautifully, but that was a little bit disappointing, especially since it is their new house branded nib. While it appears that my photos are a bit fuzzy the nib imprint/laser etching is itself a bit fuzzy. I reckon it's a #6 Jowo nib that writes between a Western medium and broad. That is, it writes a bit wider than a typical Japanese eg Platinum broad nib. It's a pretty stiff nib so no softness or flex. There is also Wancher branding on the flange that encircles the cartridge, just a laser loge etch but a nice touch. Pardon the ink, it's Yama-budo, but I ought to mention that the nib had a tiny amount of ink dried on it between the tines when it arrived suggesting it had been tested. Don't know how it passed inspection unless used at a low angle. If you look closely you can see the slightly offset tines in this picture. There are large bare ebonite threads like on a Taccia and also a strongly sprung slip n' seal cap mechanism. The former nicely has only 1.5 turns to release the cap. Take that AP Limited, Danitrio, and Sailor to name a few. The latter should keep the nib from drying out. Lastly, it's a big pen, but not heavy or unbalanced because of the ebonite body. I did not opt for a roll stopper as I wanted the pen to have the cleanest lines possible. I like it quite a bit and more and more the more I use it. All things considered it's a great value for the money. I'll probably get some more!

There's a pen/stationary store in Japan named Engeika, or something like that. They have a small line of inks under their own brand "Wancher". Like some others I received a sample of a new color Chocolate. visvamitra recently reviewed it as well. This isn't a bad ink at all, but not anything special. It has a milk chocolate kind of look to it that didn't get captured by the images. It has some water resistance which surprised me. It's not like Noodler's water resistant or waterproof inks, though the image looks good some ink was lost. The dye composition of the ink is interesting: purple, green, turquoise. On Tomoe River there was some drying problems with punctuation; even after several minutes, they'd still smear. I hadn't really encountered that before. No staining on the pen in the ink window. So if you are in Japan, or ordering from this shop, it may be worth giving the ink a try as it's not that expensive. But I'm not sure whether it's worth it to go out of your way to get some. Pen: Pelikan M200 (M-steel) Papers: MvL=Mohawk via Linen, TR=Tomoe River, Hij=Hammermill 28 lb inkjet, Rhodia=Rhodia 90g ivory. Camera: iPhone 7

As I received samples of all Wancher colors I thought I'll make comparison. Full text of my comparison can be found on Polish fountain pen forum. However you don't have to read it, colors have language of their own. I hope that you'll like it. ASUKA BROWN: nice but dull shade of brown. Too little shading for my taste. http://imageshack.com/a/img834/1547/3d0hs.jpg EBINE VIOLET: this one is really cool. http://imageshack.com/a/img842/6190/bocjz.jpg IMARI BLUE: saturated blue. More than decent. http://imageshack.com/a/img850/2093/qavq.jpg MATCHA TEA GREEN: it's OK. http://imageshack.com/a/img819/3984/8il6z.jpg TENMOKU BLACK: black with brown accents. I hate black ink so I see nothing interesting here. http://imageshack.com/a/img822/2923/ecm5.jpg Let's check scans and photos: SWABS ON MONDI 90G PAPER (scan + photo) http://imageshack.com/a/img820/8949/0yxx.jpg http://imageshack.com/a/img822/9863/lmark.jpg DROPS OF INK ON KITCHEN TOWEL http://imageshack.com/a/img823/7449/g7938.jpg TEXT WRITTEN WITH PILOT 78G (BROAD NIB) IN CALENDAR http://imageshack.com/a/img855/4889/v0od.jpg TEXT WRITTEN WITH PILOT 78G (BROAD NIB) IN OXFORD NOTEBOOK http://imageshack.com/a/img855/5688/sibr.jpg http://imageshack.com/a/img823/522/nn2vj.jpg TEXT WRITTEN WITH PILOT 78G (BROAD NIB) ON RHODIA PAPER http://imageshack.com/a/img853/9771/4vtu.jpg http://imageshack.com/a/img823/6457/dxz5.jpg http://imageshack.com/a/img829/3530/nek8.jpg http://imageshack.com/a/img843/8682/n0rro.jpg TEXT WRITTEN WITH PILOT 78G (BROAD NIB) IN CHEAP NOTEBOOK http://imageshack.com/a/img853/9033/f8vi.jpg DRY TIMES http://imageshack.com/a/img840/7370/8m8a.jpg WATERPROOF (photos) Before "immersion" http://imageshack.com/a/img850/3530/6p24.jpg Few seconds after http://imageshack.com/a/img820/9393/ntb9.jpg After 1 minute http://imageshack.com/a/img823/4742/muk96.jpg After 5 minutes http://imageshack.com/a/img856/5894/cp78.jpg Summary I like these inks. My two favourites are Ebine Violet + Imari Blue.

Wancher is a brand offered by Engeika in his shop. First five inks were introduced few years ago and names as a Silk Road series. Packaging The inks come in few kind of bottles. The one I have is a simple, cheaply looking 100 ml bottle. It's not bas as long as tehre's more than half of it. When the ink level decreases it becomes harder to fill a converter pen - the neck is too long and when you want to insert nib and feed into ink you'll have to make your hands disrty. Also some converters and nib/feed assemblies are simply too short for this bottle. Imari Blue isn't particularly exciting but it's good ink. If you look for everyday, cheap blue ink you may consider adding it to your order. Whie I'm not crazy about the color, behavior is very good. Drops of ink on kitchen towel Color ID Color range Tomoe River, Jinhao 159, medium nib Leuchtturm 1917, Pelikan 205, medium No name copy paper, Pelikan M205, medium Rhodia, Pelikan M205, medium Water resistance

Wancher is a brand offered by Engeika in his shop. First five inks were introduced few years ago and names as a Silk Road series. Packaging The inks come in few kind of bottles. The one I have is a simple, cheaply looking 100 ml bottle. It's not bas as long as tehre's more than half of it. When the ink level decreases it becomes harder to fill a converter pen - the neck is too long and when you want to insert nib and feed into ink you'll have to make your hands disrty. Also some converters and nib/feed assemblies are simply too short for this bottle. Ebine Violet is fun ink. It's not violet. It;s not pink. It's somewhere in between. It's not as saturated as R&K Solferino but it's definitely not subdued. The ink can cause feathering and bleedthrough. It's quite wet and I would say it's decent ink. Drops of ink on kitchen towel Color ID Color range Tomoe River, Jinhao 159, medium nib Midori, Jinhao 159, medium nib Leuchtturm 1917, Jinhao 159, medium nib

Received Wancher Ebine last week, loaded it into a Baoer 388 fine and have been using it off and on since then; now it's time for the review. As you can see, Ebine is a dark-ish red-violet color. It's somewhat similar to Yama-budo, except lighter and redder and, of course, no sheen at all. I came across Sandy1's review of Ebine after having bought YB based on dizzypen's comparison of it and Saguaro Wine. Ebine seems to fall squarely between those two - lighter & less purple than YB, darker & less pink than Saguaro. The color itself is pleasant enough (if you like red-violet), bold yet slightly understated and not as in-your-face as Rose Cyclamen. OK for casual inter-office use, not for client-side. Same for school, ok for taking notes but not for turned-in assignments. Definitely fine for personal use. Pretty well-behaved, overall. Flows pretty well once it's started; took a couple minutes to get going after the pen sat for a couple days. Ever so slight nib creep but no evidence of nib crud after eight days. Seems fairly water resistant (that was probably 15-20 secs on the water test). Shading appears pretty minimal, the line looks fairly consistent. As you can see from the next scan, show-through is very slight on the 24 lb copy paper, better than both YB and Cyclamen; bleed-through also more apparent on the Rose. So, any reason to use this particular ink over something else? Well, it's a pretty color and it's pretty well-behaved. And it's also really cheap inexpensive. The color is somewhat similar to Yama-budo but my Yama-budo cost $18.50 with free ship for 25 ml while Ebine cost $7 + $5.50 ship for 100 ml, so 4x as much ink for 2/3 the price. Now, am I saying Ebine is as nice as YB? Um ... no. There's no sheen, for one thing, and the purple color of YB is a little more appealing. But for casual everyday use where you might go through a lot of ink it's a good alternative. I think that's about it; if I think of anything else, I'll add it.

Wancher is a fun brand offered by Engerika in his shop. Chocolate is their new ink. It's rather cheap and quite decent. I'm not amazed by the color but it's cheap and for the price you get good ink. I think it's perfectly reasonable to add one (or other Wancher color) to the order in his shop http://imageshack.com/a/img909/9826/cG6mGG.jpg Ink splash http://imageshack.com/a/img540/7226/6Mcm48.jpg http://imageshack.com/a/img538/7982/XUEDmd.jpg Software ID http://imageshack.com/a/img673/2540/aetRdQ.jpg Waterproofness http://imageshack.com/a/img537/9339/k2NkLu.jpg Oxford recycled, 90g, Omas Ogiva Alba, M http://imageshack.com/a/img538/3493/poaazx.jpg http://imageshack.com/a/img913/7554/KAtaCQ.jpg http://imageshack.com/a/img538/9661/wMIv6X.jpg Clairefontaine, Omas Ogiva Alba, M http://imageshack.com/a/img909/6189/iePyVs.jpg http://imageshack.com/a/img912/3446/IL14xY.jpg Franklin-Christoph notebook, Omas Ogiva Alba, M http://imageshack.com/a/img537/840/5BASM5.jpg http://imageshack.com/a/img537/6295/fHsAm7.jpg Copy paper, Omas Ogiva Alba, M http://imageshack.com/a/img673/7016/DTfYao.jpg http://imageshack.com/a/img538/1884/xWYO8I.jpg As you see Franklin-Christoph notebook helps ink to rock. On other papers the ink looks more flat though.

One of my newest accquistions is the Sailor Young Somiko Fountain pen in M nib. This is my first Sailor pen. I had bought it from pensindia.com, a subsidary of the famous engeika.com which provided japanese writing instruments. The service was quick and I was happy with Mr. Raul from pensindia who handles my correspondence promptly. All I can say is I am happy with their product and I will patronise them in the future (Disclaimer: No relation to pensindia.com or engeika.com) PACKAGING The pen comes in a small cardboard pack which houses a plastic pen case. The case contains the pen itself, a Sailor converter and two sailor catridges of black ink. The packaging is nothing to talk home about. It just does its job to deliver the pen. DESIGN The pen is a very sleek and minimalistic. The pen is made of black plastic with gold trims. Near the section, it says "SAILOR". It has a black finial surrounded by a gold ring on top. The clip is very stiff, but one can use with some care. The pen is very light and the balance feels good on this pen. It has a fairly long section and comfortable to write with for long times. One caveat is that since the plastic is very glossy, it picks up oils stains if one has sweaty hands. NIB The nib is a M nib. The somiko comes with a gold plated steel nib. Suprisingly, the Sailor M nib lays a line a touch wider than my Pilot Tank NOS M pen. There is a hint of feedback with the nib and it has a small sweet spot. I have to work on the nib as the horizontal strokes encounter more resistance than the vertical strokes. I got a standard Sailor converter (comparable to a CON 50 converter) which hold s upto 1-1.2 ml of ink. Since, it is a gold plated nib, the nib has some springiness to it and you can coax some line variation out of it, but I would'nt recommend it. The pen cannot be converted to an ED as it has metal threads in the section joining the barrel. Picture (left to right : Pilot metroploitan M, Sailor young Somiko M, Pilot Celemo 14K M) CONCLUSION This is a no nonsense pen which can be used for everyday carry. Since , it holds a good capacity of ink it can be used for long writing sessions. I bought this pen for INR 3000(~USD 48) which I think is an excellent value for money considering that it comes out with a converter. I would recommend this pen to a beginner.

Im thinking about purchasing some wancher inks as they look pretty interesting. I love mixing inks for when i paint and i want to know if they are fountain pen friendly, and/or good for mixing with other inks.