New Pilot Vanishing Point pen color - Capless Decimo now sold in the US

[holgalee]

This is just amazing! Thanks, Carmen, for the very informative posting. Wonder if the moderators can make this a sticky, since there are so many VP users? Or start this as a separate thread?

 

Does anyone know what the letters and numbers at the bottom mean? The A494, A105, etc?

[TheHOINK]

Alohagain, HolgaLee...

 

Like with the Pilot Myu, these stamps indicate the factory and the date they have been produced.

H for example stands for Hiratsuka, where most Myus have been made, and some of my nibs, too, as far as I can recall it.

 

The first digit is the month (maybe the first two), the last two are always the year.

 

So, from your examples, A494 means it was done in Factory located in A and in April 1994

Or in A and in January of 2005.

My first nib was done in 1107, which should indicate November of 2007.

And so forth....

 

Cordialement

TheHOINK

[holgalee]

Hello TheHOINK! How are you and the Snorkel? Hope it's serving you well.

 

It's thrilling to know the birthdates of those nibs, thank you! So my faceted vanishing point may well be younger than I thought, unless the nib has been swapped before by the seller.

 

One thing that puzzles me is why there is a need for so many different types of nibs: gold, rodium plated, alloy etc. Any ideas?

[TheHOINK]

Alohagain...

 

Sure, it does ^_^ And when unscrewing and opening it, it really looks like the advertisement stated... the most complicated fountain pen ever built....

 

Concerning the nib... There are only three reasons for me.... Price, Status, Colour.

 

Status-related guessing: nibs that are golden, fit the golden trim a lot better. And in peoples minds, gold is always "more worthy" in looks and aesthetics, than silver.

So a golden nib is a good statement for a quality pen. And some people even prefer golden nibs on silver pens.

The rhodium trim version fits the "colour" aspect in my guessing, too. Golden colour sets a status, but since the biggest part of standard VP-Colours have a silver / rhodium / chrome trim, the silver plated nibs fit more different VPs in colour now, as he does with the Décimos and Fermos, who have exclusively rhodium trim.

And the price-aspect... well, when buying a nib from Japan, you can not order the special alloy nibs alone, only together with a pen.

But a normal Capless / VP is about 140 Dollars, a Capless / VP with special alloy nib is about 100 Dolars. So it IS a really big price difference. And therefore it gives people the possibility to buy a quality pen at an affordable price, widening the possible customers group.

 

But hey... just guessing.

 

Cordialement

TheHOINK