I’ve tried lots of pens over the years. The ones I can remember:
- Conid Bulkfiller Regular
- Cross Aventura
- Jinhao 159, X450, (also whatever the Safari clone is, 777 I think?)
- Lamy 2000, 2000 Amber, Safari
- Montblanc 145, 146, 149, 320, 1912, Slimline
- Nakaya Decapod, Neo-Standard
- Parker IM
- Pelikan M200, M600, M800
- Platinum 3776, Preppy
- TWSBI 580, Eco, Vac 700
- Visconti Homo Sapiens Bronze Age, Dark Age
- Waterman Phileas Blue
I’m not much of a collector, so I have cycled through and gotten rid of almost all of these. I only have around ~10 now, just the ones that I really like, or are sentimental, or are just super unique. One brand that’s escaped me is Sailor. I’ve read about the 21K nibs and how people fawn over them. I know there are die-hard Sailor supporters and it seems to mostly revolve around this nib. But, $300+ for a proprietary cartridge/converter that isn’t made from unique materials seems like a lot.
So, if I was going to “try” Sailor, as a manufacturer, where does it make sense to start to see if I get it or not? Do people prefer the Realo (piston filled) variants? From what I can tell here and on /r/fountainpens people are mostly content with the C/C versions. So is it just the unique colors? Or is it just the 21K nib and nothing else matters?
Well, mark one for Amazon JP, the pen got here super quick. It’s gorgeous. Mark one against Sailor though, they include a single proprietary cartridge and no converter in the box with a $200+ pen?!
Ah, yeah. They do that. Bad form.