"red Ripple" Sailor King Of Pens, What Have I Bought

[lawrenceg]

dear all,

 

I have just bought a Sailor King of Pens in what looks like a red ripple finish similar to the old Watermans.

 

It has come boxed with papers showing how to use the converter and what i assume is a guarantee (japanese writing on a gold/ silver flecked paper).

The ink bottle is "Sailor jentle ink" 50ml in black.

The box itself is dark brown wood with the insert having a gold satin material.

 

It is not new, i have looked on various vendors websites and it does not appear to be a current model though it appears to be the correct size

 

The nib is marked 1911 21k 875 sailor japan and is the two tone Yellow/ white.

 

Any idea how old it is, is it correct.

 

I will add some photographs when my son lets me get near another computer.

 

I wish you and your families a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

May your pen collection prosper in 2014

Edited December 20, 2013 by lawrenceg

[Ghost Plane]

Sounds like the discontinued red ebonite. Gorgeous pen if it's what I think it is. Can't remember when they stopped, but love KOP

What nib did you get? Think M was standard.

[lawrenceg]

Hi,

 

Thanks for the reply, the magic word is "ebonite".

 

I have found the pen on the http://www.nibs.com/SailorKingofPensMarbleEbonite.htm

Website and feel much happier and comfortable with my purchase

 

I have it with the medium nib which is quite fine by european standards. It is very nice to write with.

 

Now to get it cleaned up and shiny.

 

Thank you for your help

[Toll]

I agree with Ghost Plane. Great find. How did you come upon it?

[raging.dragon]

I once tried a black ebonite KoP and it was a really nice pen.

[lawrenceg]

I bought it on ebay this week, and it arrived yesterday (a Christmas present to myself).

 

Its a pen that i woild not normally buy but they were/ are meant to be amazing pens (one of the classics which is highly rated).

 

I filled it with ink to use it.

It has the meduim sized nib which appears to be very fine, even relative to my other japanese pens.

 

If i use some of the few sheets tomoe river paper (cannot be bought in the united kingdom) it writes beautifully with no bleed throught.

If i use my day to day leuchtturm 1917 notebook it is very scratchy and i get masses of bleed through. The bleed through spoils the experience and i am trying to write with it gently to limit the scratchiness.

Reminder for the new year, buy tomoe river paper and damn the postage cost from the US or Japan

 

What paper do you use to write on that writes well with limited bleed through?

[Ghost Plane]

Clairefontaine & Rhodia are available your side. Lousy paper will make even the finest pen perform poorly.

[lawrenceg]

And i thought the leuchtturm 1917 note book paper was one of the better ones!

[Ghost Plane]

Nope. They're improving, but only needle nibbers are happy with anything under the 100gsm Masters. Paperblanks are so bad I only get use from 1 side of the page. Rhodia, Clairefontaine & Tamoe are my gold standards for OBB & 1.3 stubs

[raging.dragon]

If the nib feels smooth on the Tamoe River paper, then the nib is OK. As you note, the Sailor M is rather fine, so it may be catching in the fibres of the Leuchtturm paper. The bright side is that any half decent and reasonably smooth paper should work fine with this nib, for example many heavier (24lb or 90gsm and up) laser printer papers work well with fountain pens (but avoid ink jet papers!) and are far less expensive than specialty papers. I don't know whether or not they're available in the UK, but HP 24 lb, 28 lb and 32 lb Laserjet papers are quite nice and can hold up to my 1.3 stubs.

 

Still, Tamoe River and Rhodia/Clairfontaine are my favourite papers too. Ink takes a long time to dry on them, but even with finer nibs they really bring out an ink's shading and sheen (if any).

[WOBentley]

In response to the original question..."What Have I Bought?"....I am really, really, really hoping the answer is my Christmas present!

That is beautiful!

[lawrenceg]

i tried the sailor and a few other pens on the black n red paper, called optik paper, wow considering i though it was/ is cheap and cheerful paper it was amazing to write with and the bleed through was negligible.

 

The paper did struggle with the 2.4 & 3.8mm pilot parallel pens, but that is no surprise.

 

I think i may have found the paper to use, and i can buy it quite easily, but.......

[raging.dragon]

I recall many threads about the goodness of Black & Red paper from a year or two ago. It's not readily available here, so I haven't tried it myself.