THE FIRST FOUNTAIN PEN MAKER IN KOREA - APIS
아피스의 역사
Until now, I've posted several Apis pens and introduced briefly about the company Apis.
Even though I don't have much knowledge about Apis, I'd like to talk about the company.
Apis has a significant meaning in the Korean stationery industry as it was the first fountain pen maker in Korea.
Apis was founded in Busan in 1956, and the origin of the name is a honey bee in Greek.
Even though the company no longer produces any pens for now, it was an in-house nib maker.
As many other new companies, Apis started from mimicking styles of other famous brands like Montblanc, Sheaffer, and Parker.
The early pens of Apis therefore had a highly similar style to those pens, while Apis started to make its own designs as time goes on.
The company met its golden age in 1990s, but it didn't last long.
Just like Micro went into bankrupt when Korea suffered the IMF crisis in the late 1990s, Apis lost most of it power at the same age.
Even though the pens made in 1990s show very high qualities, it became hard to find Apis's pens in 21th century.
It's a shame that Korea doesn't possess any pen makers with impressive qualities for now.
Korea's modern pen makers focus on producing cheap pens and don't have much competitiveness even inside the Korean market.
Apis and Micro once expanded their product lines into expensive and luxurious pens, but I don't think there are no such Korean stationery company in these days.
Apis had some rule in making model numbers.
SH for mechanical pencil (abbreviation of Sharp Pencil, which means mechanical pencil in Japanese way), B for ballpoint pens, and F for fountain pens.
Apis also added G for gold color models, while used S for silver color models.
The trade mark of Apis was a bell shaped letter 'A', but it changed into a triangular shaped 'A' in 90s.
Two trade marks are on the above figures.
Even though the word Apis came from the Greek word meaning a honey bee, there was no honey bee symbol.
Along with the symbol, another clue to estimate the age of the pen is KS mark (Korean Standard).
Although it's not clear when Apis started to imprint KS mark on their pens, pens without KS marks tend to be older in general.
As an in-house nib maker, Apis made various kinds of nibs - usual nibs with diverse sizes, semi hooded nibs, double sided nibs, angled nibs, and even 14K/18K gold nibs!
Apis also made its own converters.
Needless to say, Apis was one of the best stationery company in South Korea.
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