743 in red with a FA nib.

[Kgbenson]

Did I read somewhere here that there is a company that can place such a nib in such a pen?  I believe this was in Japan.  If must one buy two pens, a black and red and switch nibs?

 

Keith

[A Smug Dill]

20 hours ago, Kgbenson said:

If must one buy two pens, a black and red and switch nibs?

 

If you meant, “Why must one buy…” a black pen to get a size-15 14K gold FA nib that is for Pilot's Custom product line, then the why is because the manufacturer decided it shall be so. And, no, the customer is not “always right” or in a position to demand to be accommodated on his/her terms; and gaijin customers, often with preferences that are only more prevalent in overseas markets, have even less leverage than the average Japanese domestic market customer to ‘persuade’ a Japanese company to make special allowances or exceptions just to keep them happy.

 

You cannot — in the present tense — just get an SM nib on a new #3776 Century fountain pen in a ‘regular’ colourway, either, even though Platinum does in fact produce nibs of that specification for some #3776 models. You can also forget about getting a Professional Gear Slim pen in the Shikiori colourways (e.g. Manyō and Meigetsu) factory-fitted with a nib that is neither MF nor EF, even though of course Sailor makes medium-sized 14K gold F, M, B, Zoom, and Music nibs for plenty of other Pro Gear Slim pens, which would fit a Shikiori Manyō or Professional Gear Slim Mini Ayur Blue equally perfectly in terms of physical specifications.

[XYZZY]

On 10/11/2022 at 9:50 AM, Kgbenson said:

Did I read somewhere here that there is a company that can place such a nib in such a pen?  I believe this was in Japan.  If must one buy two pens, a black and red and switch nibs?

 

Keith

 

TLDR:  Yes.

 

But you might have mis-read or mis-remembered the details.  It is very easy to pull the nib & feed from Pilot pens, and you can interchange them with any other Pilot pen that has the same size nib.  So for your example of buying a 743-FA (in black) to get the FA nib, you can then put that into any pen that takes a #15 Pilot nib:  another 743 (perhaps in red), or an 823, or a 745.  Your dealer might do it for you, but you can do it easily, or if you are nervous about that then take them to a local pen club meeting and have a friend do it.  If you are nervous about pulling nibs you might try first on a cheaper pen, for example a Pilot Kakuno.

 

There is a well-known company in Japan, Tokyo Pen Shop Quill https://www.japanshop-quill.com/  that is often pointed out as a source for an 823 with FA nib.  Rumor has it that the owner of this shop is friends with somebody high up in Pilot and is able to source Pilot 823 pens direct from the factory with FA nibs already installed, even though that is not a normal Pilot product.  Everybody else in the world has to do the former, as you described: buy a 743-FA then swap the nib into a different pen.  IIRC the shop had a recent policy change to only sell those special 823-FA pens in Japan, but I have never tried so have no direct experience.  The shop is well regarded, though, and if I was in the market for such a thing I would have no qualms about ordering from them.

 

In a general sense of whether a dealer in Japan will be more or less likely to do the nib swap for you (if you buy both pens), I have no idea of Japanese dealers would be more or less inclined to do that than a dealer in the US.  Will there be one?  Almost certainly.  Will there be many?  I have no idea.

 

As for buying two pens and swapping to get the pen you want, I have done exactly this.  Not with the #15 FA nib, but to get a SF nib into a Pilot Custom 91 with a Yama-budo colored body:  the SF nib only comes in a black pen.

 

ETA:  Swapping the nib would most likely void the warranty.  I can certainly see why a lot of retailers would not want to do this.