Maruzen
| Maruzen |
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| Brand photos |
The Maruzen was established in Yokohama, Japan, in 1869 with the initial name of Maruya and was involved in importing books and dictionaries from Europe. The following year, founder Hayashi Yuteki opened a store in the city of Tokyo and in 1878 changed the firm's name to the better known "Maruzen Co. Ltd." (according to Japanese corporate law, "Maruzen Kabushiki Kaisha" and generally abbreviated to "Maruzen K.K.").
In the early 1900s it entered the fountain pen market by importing pens as a Japanese retailer of Onoto and Waterman's; in the late 1910s, Maruzen decided to also start a production of pens under its own brand name, using the brand names "Albion" and "Orion", made of black chased hard rubber with eyedropper filler.
In 1919 Maruzen launched what would be the longest-running fountain pen line in its history, the "Athena The Pen" (which later became simply Athena). The very first Athena produced were black chased hard rubber pens with either eyedropper filler or security eyedropper (safety pen type) and later were also produced twist filler and lever filler fountain pens. From the mid-1930s are the Athena Renaissance, made of smooth ebonite usually coated with a layer of urushi lacquer, made with twist filler or eyedropper filler. The 1937 is the year when Maruzen took over the factory in which their branded pens had been made until then and thus began their own production.
At the end of the war, a new factory was built near Tokyo (the previous one had been destroyed by the war events), and fountain pens in the Athena line underwent a new restyling in the 1950s: alongside the classic ebonite and lacquer urushi' fountain pens, there were those made of colored celluloid or transparent plastic, and the caps began to be made of gold or nickel-plated metal.
Fountain pen production seemed to stop in the early 1960s, probably due to the introduction of ballpoint pens, but in recent years Maruzen has come out with customized and/or limited edition fountain pens (with its own brand name added), produced from time to time by well-known companies such as Pilot, Sailor and Platinum, and also with European houses such as Pelikan. It continued the sale of Athena Ink brand inks, some of which were made, for example, by Sailor. Today Maruzen is a large book and stationery material chain, spread throughout Japan with about fifty outlets.