DANI INTERNATIONAL CORP. was founded in 1974, a privately-held independent
corporation. And DANITRIO is my division of designing and manufacturing fine
writing instruments with Urushi as well as Maki-e works done by veteran artists
in Japan since 2000. I have more than 250 designs of the art in my collection and
the quantity is still growing.

Maki-e has survived for more than 1,400 years until today and Japanese still enjoy an exclusive possession of this art in the world not only because it needs a lot of hard work and time consuming, also because the Maki-e-shi (Maki-e artists) need very strong culture background.

Unlike oil or water color paintings, Maki-e has so many different but unique things involved for the art, using more than ten different qualities of natural Urushi, more than ten different brushes by its different materials and usage, more than 20 different sizes of gold or platinum powder sprinkling, several different techniques of Raden (Shell inlay), etc. These complicated process of works make people feel hard to approach and the number of Maki-e-shi are on the sharp decrease. But this is just the present situation in genuine Urushi and Maki-e circle.

Hon in Japanese means genuine or real, and I would like to call this genuine Urushi Hon Urushi to distinguish it from all manmade Urushi. There was only Hon Urushi used by Maki-e-shi and Urushi people until 1948, but when the first manmade “Urushi” was produced, despite the fact that none of any manmade “Urushi” has such unique characters, sticky, endurable and hard as rock, as Hon Urushi, the markets accepted this cheap manmade “Urushi” instantly due to its low cost and hundred times easier to use and handle it. While Japanese pay around $400-600.00 per pound of Japanese Hon Urushi and 100-150.00/lb for imported from China or Vietnam, those many different kinds of manmade “Urushi” cost only a few dollars a pound, and they can save more than 95% of time on production. And that’s why we won’t be surprised to see those cheap manmade mass products of “Urushi” or “Maki-e” wares are loaded in the Japanese markets. Today those objects made of Hon Urushi still keep around 30% by value in the markets, but it is beyond comparison to see that Hon Urushi made only shares 0.1%, and available only at a few Hon Urushi specialty stores in a big city in Japan vs. manmade we can see everywhere at super markets, gift shops and most of the department stores.

We once made a collection call “Screen Temaki Series”, screen and hand sprinkling by screen specialist, not a Maki-e shi, but we decided to concentrate on genuine things only in 2007. And we have an agreement with all of our Maki-e-shi that they must use only Hon Urushi with authentic techniques on pens for us, neither manmade “Urushi” nor screen nor so-called “modern techniques” is allowed so that we can keep our collections worthy for the art lovers as well as serious art collectors. We are all work very hard trying to make the best quality collection of Maki-e on pens for our Maki-e lovers and collectors, and we really enjoy our working for the art.

We started our Maki-e collection with Grand Trio collection, Mikado and Genkai Collection and at the same time we have lower-end Takumi and Densho Collection, and we are very glad to see them all well accepted by our customers. And then, our latest collection, Yokozuna, the most unique Maki-e collection will make its debut in January and will be exhibited at L. A. Pen Show in February through our dealer.

Bernard Lyn

Dani International Corp.
danitrio@gmail.com