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What Japanese pens do you own in 2021 & onward?


PolishSoldier

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I just ordered another two Japanese pens, to top up the five or six dozen I have (not counting my wife's): a Sailor Profit Standard in ivory with gold trim and Music nib, and my fifth Sailor Promenade pen, being the Shining Blue model (of which I already have one) with Fine nib.

 

Chances are I'll order yet another Japanese pen in the next few hours; I've been in discussion about it with the retailer.

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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I posted a review earlier this week on my latest acquisition: a Sailor King of Pen in Briar Wood. What a treasure. What a joy to write with. With yet another Sailor, and another Hakase, and another Nakaya on order, my preference for Japanese pens is clear.

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I have three Pilots and three Sailors, but this will change, as the Sailors are really not my thing. I will probably keep the KOP, but the other two just have that "pencil" feedback that I dislike. The Pilots, however, are a lot of fun. I think I spent too many decades writing with European pens to appreciate the Sailor nibs.
 
Pilot Custom Heritage 92, transparent blue, M-nib
Pilot Metal Falcon, M Falcon nib, sapphire blue
Pilot Custom Heritage 912, black, FA nib
 
Sailor Pro Gear KOP, B nib
Sailor Pro Gear Classic Realo, M nib, maroon body.
Sailor 1911 Full-Size Demonstrator Silver, broad 21K nib. 
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At this point, most of my pens are Japanese:

Nakaya, Pilot, two Danitrios, one Sailor.

 

My favorite nib is the Pilot PO, one of which is installed in a Chinese Moonman C2. I'd have preferred to put it in a Nakaya Piccolo, but...so far, not possible.

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etherX in To Miasto

Fleekair <--French accent.

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And that does not include my missed and lost Dorsal Fin 2 Ishimi green which I left on a public park bench 😞

Edited by MoBe
too fast
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Just a sliver under 24 hours after posting about my impossible dream pen...

 

239945708_IMG_20210907_123533408_HDR2.thumb.jpg.1736c0ef45c975e78e72b7ec3d492eb7.jpg

 

The conceit that I had tried to fit the Pilot #15 PO nib proved to be wrong. Or, to be more accurate, I had tried to fit the Pilot nib with the Nakaya feed, which was ridiculously, glaringly obviously not a fit. I had not tried fitting the Pilot nib and feed into the Nakaya's nib section.

 

I think I can say truthfully that I did hear a chorus of angels, or that was just some dizziness from the realization that ... my Nakaya Piccolo has a Pilot PO nib in it!

 

I'm utterly... powerful now. I mean, I'm scanning my problems for solutions that I've overlooked because they seem too obvious. Maybe I'll re-caulk the bathtub today. (Hahaha, no, I won't, but I might go and buy the caulk today!)

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etherX in To Miasto

Fleekair <--French accent.

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3 hours ago, MoBe said:

And that does not include my missed and lost Dorsal Fin 2 Ishimi green which I left on a public park bench 😞

 

I feel your pain. I skipped over your post in my excitement over finally having my formerly-grail pen (cos strictly speaking, right?, "grail" means unattainable--and I attained this Samuel L. Jacksoning dream!).

 

The Piccolo pictured above actually replaced (about two years after the fact) the lost "Kurouac" (kuro-tamenuri Piccolo) that fell, along with its case, from the lanyard I wore somewhere in Wrocław, probably while I was riding my bike, running many errands. At the time, I was stoic and Kerouackian ("#19. Accept loss forever.") and declared that I would not replace the lost Piccolo.

 

Then I changed my mind. It took almost two years, though.

 

Anyway, I feel your pain.

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etherX in To Miasto

Fleekair <--French accent.

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If I have to include all

 

Namiki Urushi vermillion #20 and #50 

Hakase Tortoiseshell 

hakase red sandalwood - on order 

hakase snakewood - on order 

Pilot custom urushi black and blue 

Tohma #55 Kumataka aka tamenuri- old model with no branding 

shosaikan myth pen - modelled on #50 Namiki 

Namiki emperor goldfish 

Namiki emperor shijin 

pilot custom 823 smoke and blue 

Sailor KOP LE Shirodame 

 

Would probably sell the sailor if I can find someone who would want it within the next 1-2 months. 

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BB546ABF-181D-47DD-B84C-7622DCFFB953.jpeg

ED99F605-DE52-41C7-8240-A78415D3BCCB.jpeg

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Wow Mew, that is a high-level collection! #teamjealous

 

No Nakayas though? Any specific reason?

 

The Sailor is gorgeous but do you have two of them? I mean, the picture shows two lacquered boxes?

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@Linger - I had one, sold it. A piccolo long in kuro-tamenuri. Issue with Nakaya is that they aren’t willing to adjust and allow customisation. 
Just spoke to them last week. Asked about the possibility of Ao Tamenuri without the ascending dragon that is on their website. Declined. 
Ao Tamenuri on decapod normal or twist. Declined. 
Finally I asked for Ao-Tamenuri with Ascending dragon on the new 17mm cigar. Declined again. They don’t want to make anything that is even a slight variation of the item in their catalog. Since they use “For your hands only”, I would expect to be able to give some input apart from just the nib width. Hakase allows me to do that, so I buy pens from him. 

 

Regarding the sailor, the other box had Midoridame. I didn’t like that, so sold it. A little bored of Shirodame as well but if there are no buyers at the price I want, I will just start using it. Anyway sailor KOP nibs are softer now. 

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I find the Sailor KoP in urushi very, very fantastic. I also think they are rather expensive. Especially compared to other brands that use urushi.

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On 9/7/2021 at 12:47 PM, ethernautrix said:

 

I feel your pain. I skipped over your post in my excitement over finally having my formerly-grail pen (cos strictly speaking, right?, "grail" means unattainable--and I attained this Samuel L. Jacksoning dream!).

 

The Piccolo pictured above actually replaced (about two years after the fact) the lost "Kurouac" (kuro-tamenuri Piccolo) that fell, along with its case, from the lanyard I wore somewhere in Wrocław, probably while I was riding my bike, running many errands. At the time, I was stoic and Kerouackian ("#19. Accept loss forever.") and declared that I would not replace the lost Piccolo.

 

Then I changed my mind. It took almost two years, though.

 

Anyway, I feel your pain.

Thank you for your understanding. It was as tragic as it comes:

 

My parents wanted to give me a 50years birthday present and I went for my First Nakaya. My mother passed away 4 days before. Then my father passed away and then I placed my bag on a park bench! Got the bag back but without the pen. Now some person with no feelings for pens has it somewhere not having a clue.

 

All I have left is this picture. Maybe we should have a threat about memories of lost pens!!! Sure there are many stories out there 🙂

20190809081707.jpg

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12 hours ago, MoBe said:

It was as tragic as it comes

 

Uhhh. I'm so sorry for your loss. My best friend's mother died four weeks ago. He was able to fly from Denmark to the U.S. to be with her during her last couple of days. His parents had been married for nearly 60 years... and then his father died not two-and-a-half weeks later. It's just... too much. It's too much. I'm so sorry for your loss.

 

 

12 hours ago, MoBe said:

Now some person with no feelings for pens has it somewhere not having a clue.

 

When I lost a pair of Montblanc La Bohemes (fp & bp, not matching) all fairly new in a new case -- fell out of my pocket in the five-minute walk to the subway in New York -- I managed my mixed feelings (self-upbraiding for carelessness mostly, but who thinks a double-pen case will fall out of one's pocket without one's noticing?) by imagining that a person who was having a bad day or a bad month really needed to have a happy experience at that moment. I mean, as long as speculation was the only option. So, I hope that whoever has your pen cherishes it.

 

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etherX in To Miasto

Fleekair <--French accent.

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Four more just arrived this morning by post to top up my several dozens of Japanese pen:

  • a Sailor Promenade in Shining Blue (our second one in that colourway, so my wife can have one of those while I keep the other for my exclusive use) with a ‘medium-sized’ 14K gold Fine nib
  • a Sailor Profit Standard in Ivory with a ‘medium-sized’ 14K gold Music nib — but the nib will most likely be swapped out with some other Sailor pen I have here
  • two Pilot Pluminix with steel F nibs, intended to be nib donors for some other pens such as my as-yet-unused Pilot Prera (because the Pilot MR sucks when it comes to cap seal effectiveness, and have that annoying step-down from barrel to gripping section, so my six are effectively banished)

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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45 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

  • a Sailor Promenade in Shining Blue (our second one in that colourway, so my wife can have one of those while I keep the other for my exclusive use) with a ‘medium-sized’ 14K gold Fine nib

 

His and Hers...excellent.  😉

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4 hours ago, mallymal1 said:

His and Hers...excellent.  😉

 

We have plenty of examples of ‘double-ups’ — exact same model and colour, but possibly fitted with different nibs — not counting all the pens of the same models but in different colours for her and me, e.g.

  • Pilot Capless raden ‘galaxy’
  • Pilot Elite 95S in deep red
  • Platinum #3776 Century ‘Black Diamond’ (although mine's still new in its retail packaging, and has been sitting in a drawer since it arrived over a year ago)
  • Platinum #3776 Century Bourgogne with gold trim (although strictly speaking they aren't the same model, with the older one being a PNB-10000 with inscriptions on the cap ring in sunk relief, and the newer one being a PNB-13000 with inscriptions on the cap ring in shallow relief)
Spoiler
  • Pelikan M200 Petrol-Marbled
  • Pelikan M200 Green-Marbled
  • Faber-Castell Essentio Aluminium in blue
  • Faber-Castell Essentio Carbon
  • Lamy cp1 in titanium oxide finish
  • HongDian 517D (I think…)
  • HongDian 1850 ‘Black Forest’
  • Delike Alpha in brass
  • Jinhao 51A with Phantom Amber (幻影琥珀) aka ‘coffee’ cracked-ice acrylic barrel

 

A subset of the Sailor pens in my fleet (not counting my wife's) in 2021 is listed here:

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/362655-mixing-and-matching-sailor-14k-gold-nibs-to-pens/

 

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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A few more Pilots...a Maki-e Hou Ou, Unknown, a 3A, two Super 200's, black leather, green leather, a Tank, and an E300.

Japanese Collection Tray 2 Pilot.JPG

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More Pilots...

 

1337444864_JapaneseCollectionTray3Pilot.JPG.f0375d094bbc559287c5976e2b26e3fb.JPG

 

Two Preras, two CH 92's, black stripe Custom, Custom 74, Custom 742, Custom 823, and two Capless.

 

1991389954_JapaneseCollectionTray4Pilot.JPG.d990a8aeaa790e5f3ec69650d41b1d1e.JPG

 

Two Elites, an Elite 95s, Elite, Legno 89s, Stella 90s, M90, MYU 701, Murex.

 

 

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