What is your latest pen acquisition?

[KBeezie]

Grabbed this cheap from an antique mall, seemed to be in really good condition. Got the sac out which appears to be an original branded sac, fully pliable, not gummy, not petrified, like-new feeling. No leaks when twisting and squeezing it up to get most of the blue-black out of the section/sac, including running a q-tip up and down the front. The nib unit is currently in the ultrasonic getting the red of the dried ink out of the feed channel.

Unless someone out there is just stamping #16 new sacs with Esterbrook to catalog them...

[FredRydr]

I don't know what it is about Esterbrooks, but their sacs could have had a lifetime warranty on them.

[Farmboy]

I don't know what it is about Esterbrooks, but their sacs could have had a lifetime warranty on them.

Mr REsterbrook was a maniacal genius. He ranks just below Wile E Coyote.

[Jon Szanto]

[Radonactionservices]

Is this a Pro Gear or a KOP? Whichever it is, it is beautiful. Congratulations!

This is my Pro Gear. It is a Fire. IMG_1934.jpg


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[Jon Szanto]

Is this a Pro Gear or a KOP? Whichever it is, it is beautiful. Congratulations!

It's a KOP. At the LA show I spent a fair amount of time testing a Pilot Custom Urushi, which also sports a large nib and body. That said, I've always like my Pro Gears a LOT, and this was almost impulsive: I saw it come up at a very, very good price and decided to go. Beautiful writing experience, certainly worthwhile.

Your Fire is exciting!

[Radonactionservices]

I love the Fire, even though it isn’t a KOP. The 21K nib is amazing, and the build quality is impeccable. It also works well with Sailor Seiboku ink.

I think they make the Fire in a KOP size.

Is the nib as large as a 149? How is the writing experience?

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[Empty_of_Clouds]

Is this a Pro Gear or a KOP? Whichever it is, it is beautiful. Congratulations!

It's a KOP. At the LA show I spent a fair amount of time testing a Pilot Custom Urushi, which also sports a large nib and body. That said, I've always like my Pro Gears a LOT, and this was almost impulsive: I saw it come up at a very, very good price and decided to go. Beautiful writing experience, certainly worthwhile.

Your Fire is exciting!

And what would you call a 'very good price'? Is this for a new pen or used? Asking because I only have new prices to go on.

[Jon Szanto]

I love the Fire, even though it isn’t a KOP. The 21K nib is amazing, and the build quality is impeccable. It also works well with Sailor Seiboku ink.

Is the nib as large as a 149? How is the writing experience?

I don't own a 149 but there is some similarity. I can offer up two comparisons in images (sorry, they're big, snagged 'em from online listings), the Pilot Custom Urushi (a big #30 nib!) is the common denominator:




The Pilot and 149 are the first two in the second photo. Above that, you can see the Pilot and Sailor KOP next to each other. The Pilot is a tiny bit longer and may be a bit wider at the base; this would be appropriate because that pen body is Huge - I didn't realize how big until I held it in LA. That said, the Sailor nib has very wide shoulders and proportionally long tines. Even though it is the same 21k allor as my other standard PG pens, the length of the nib gives it a surprising (maybe shocking) amount of softness. As is so offen the case, it isn't flex, but the pen truly responsds to a very light touch (something I always have to work on) and just a hint of pressure will open up the tines a bit. Not calligraphic but adding character. As the pen came to me, it was the same Sailor smooth-pencil feel, but slightly wetter and extremely... lovely to use.

Unless and until I try one again, this may have put me off the Pilot as a flagship writer (though I love the vermillion model) because it is such a frickin' big pen. This one fits my hand better in length and the section is on-point with my sweet spot: 13mm tapering down to 12.2mm just before the nib. Sooo comfortable in my hand geometry. Unless i rob a bank I'd definitely have to never see the Fire KOP, though there are a number of bespoke versions that appeal to me. In the past I've considered this a pen (a plain black flagship) for sending to an urushi artist.

Last but not least: the comedy show of a puny converter is still there, the craziest part of the pen. I'm going to make my own ink tank to hold a bit more, but the metal sleeve of the section extends back a lot further than on standard PGs, so we'll see. I'll post a separate thread when I do that project. (sorry for being so verbose!)

And what would you call a 'very good price'? Is this for a new pen or used? Asking because I only have new prices to go on.

This was not a pen I was currently/actively seeking, but when I saw the listing come up, I thought it seemed relatively low. This standard black/gold is commonly offered, discounted from retail, around the $740 mark; some of the special edition colors, which can retial for well over $1k, are in the $800+ range. This pen was listed as inked once and a pen that was part of a downsizing move (i.e. personal collection). Seller didn't have a lot of traffic but 100% satisfaction and the photos looked very clean. All elements were in place, and the BIN price was $470. Upon receipt, I can say that the pen presents as new.

I'm not a catch-and-release type of person but I was confident that the pen was in good order (and I was protected by eBay and PayPal if there was a functional issue) and if I just didn't bond with it, I could easily sell it at that price in minutes. As such, I decided to purchase it and I'm very happy with the pen.

[Empty_of_Clouds]

Thanks for the price info. For some reason I was under the impression that this was purchased at the LA show after trying the Pilot urushi thing. Didn't read carefully enough.

[Jon Szanto]

Thanks for the price info. For some reason I was under the impression that this was purchased at the LA show after trying the Pilot urushi thing. Didn't read carefully enough.

The Pilot was pretty funny: they had a table and two representatives, but had no pens for sale, only pens to try out. I never figured it out, but the reps were very kind and I got to try a number of items.

[Empty_of_Clouds]

Just had a look on ebay at the KOP and note that there are a number of them for sale at around USD$540, brand new. That's about USD$200 less than what nibs.com sells them for, a significant saving. One of my concerns for this model is that the aforementioned seller describes the length uncapped as 3.9 inches, which is under 10cm! It's not clear if that includes the nib (because a depressingly large number of websites seem incapable of putting accurate, meaningful or well-explained data on their pages). To put that into perspective, the barrel w/out nib of a Pilot 912 is 114 mm. When the pen is posted the total length including nib is 156mm. The KOP posted length is 162mm. The KOP kind of has an odd ratio between posted and unposted. W

While you can see how easily I am influenced by a nice report (as you have given), and feel the urge, I am very wary of the measurements as put out in various places. The converter is a non-issue for me. I tend to use cartridges in my Pilot pens as it is.

[Jon Szanto]

While you can see how easily I am influenced by a nice report (as you have given), and feel the urge, I am very wary of the measurements as put out in various places.

Right. But with someone like me, or lots of people around, just ask for a measurement from this pen. Then you'll have a confirmed bit of data and if something seems off in an ad, just ask them to verify.

The converter is a non-issue for me. I tend to use cartridges in my Pilot pens as it is.

Oh, same here. What I am going to try is to make an ink tank like I have in a couple of other pens, I could simply refill carts, but the fact is that the inner barrel is a lot wider, and I have plexiglass tubes that, because of the wider diameter, can hold more ink. Ahem... however, the inner architecture of the section may thwart me or make is a negligible improvement. It's mostly just for fun.

[Empty_of_Clouds]

Hybrid perhaps? Half cartridge, half plexiglass. Just a thought.

[Jon Szanto]

One of my concerns for this model is that the aforementioned seller describes the length uncapped as 3.9 inches, which is under 10cm!

That is completely erroneous: the body of the pen, from end of barrel to tip of (exposed) nib is 4-15/16 inches, or 12.5cm.

[KBeezie]

This arrived today, was a lot smaller than I expected (but I didn't bother to inquire about the price code). It's the Ladies size of the 195 price point (4.5" long with 0.4" barrel) with the #4 12K nib. The other Clipper I already have is an oversized ("Large" 395/500) one with a #7 12K nib.

I've bought for this seller before, and consistently come to expect that the sac will need to be replaced and pen cleaned despite being advertised as ready to write (they fill and all, but the sacs tend to be in the gummy stage with small amount of brown talc like remnant that has a strong almost minty chemical scent around the sac, and usually needs a good flush with the left over ink).

Liked seeing the feed design on this little one, had to knock the feed out as the nib was kind of loose fitting that it could shift to the left or right on a scribble, and pushing it in from the front wasn't practical. Normally I avoid trying to knock out the nib/feed on a visualated grip. Noticed they notched out one side of the feed at the start of the tail, likely to allow for the last bit of ink to still make it down the feed when the pen was nearly empty.

Not sure when they changed the clip to the more recognized chevron emblem, but my larger one seems older with a more generic shape and clip.

[Jon Szanto]

Karl, that's a handsome little thing. I'm not quite sure from the one photo - does it have the metal finial/tassie on the end of the barrel, as well? That would be a nice touch.

[Jon Szanto]

Grabbed this cheap from an antique mall...

BTW, the day after I purchased the big Sailor I saw an identical silver SJ with a 9314-M Relief nib, one of my favorite nibs. The pen was only $15 with free shipping, I couldn't lose! It didn't, however, come with one of those nice Esterbrook sacs.

[KBeezie]

Karl, that's a handsome little thing. I'm not quite sure from the one photo - does it have the metal finial/tassie on the end of the barrel, as well? That would be a nice touch.

Yep, both the cap top and end of the barrel (you can see it in the second picture capped). The small one is also the one with the mostly chalked imprint where as my oversized Wasp Clipper has no filling to the imprint.

Would been nice if my oversized one had the newer embellishments such as the clip style and tassies, but it has it's own charm being a little more plain. It's about as big as my oversizes Sheaffer Balance, but the nib isn't nearly as big as the nib on the Balance. I also noticed that just like some of the other Sheafer Balances I have, they're using a sort of collar to shrink the grip diameter to fit a smaller feed/nib into it. On my Sheaffer Junior Balance, actually had that come out with it holding the nib and feed once so was interesting to see that the grips could have taken larger nibs/feeds but that was their work around to shrinking them without machining a different grip all together. (you can see it as a slight step up in the uncapped comparison picture).

Grabbed this cheap from an antique mall...

BTW, the day after I purchased the big Sailor I saw an identical silver SJ with a 9314-M Relief nib, one of my favorite nibs. The pen was only $15 with free shipping, I couldn't lose! It didn't, however, come with one of those nice Esterbrook sacs.

Would have gotten it just for the nib alone, want to get an italic renew point, but usually finding them by themselves would cost more than $15.

By the way the nib that came on this full size J is actually in no need of tuning at all, flows very well, is probably one of the smoothest EFs found in the wild without any adjustments needed. Basically the pen is working with just a cleaning.

[KBeezie]

Stopped by the local antique mall to go thru their magazines since one of the booths refreshed with new content. Then just for kicks was going thru the bags of miscellaneous pencils and such, and there was one big box of just "office supplies" for $12, saw a gold eversharp slip cap, most likely for their C/A ballpoints which aren't really worth anything but figured if something that old was in the box maybe something else would be.



Lo and Behold, an Eversharp Skyline.



Went ahead and purchased the box, sat in the car and sorted out everything. I put all the miscellaneous stuff I didn't want back into the box which ended up being donated to the local Good Will as school/office supplies.



The stuff I found besides the skyline isn't much :

* Esterbrook J Cap (alas, no body was found within the box)
* Esterbrook 2556 nib unit (... oddly that in there, but no body)
* Eversharp Red Pencil lead in the original tube
* Some odd advertising pens that had their barrels looking like a #2 pencil
* Some accessory clips (and whatever they were attached to)
* Red Stapler (office space popped to mind)
* Something I thought was a W/E 5th Avenue at first, but was actually a Eberhard Faber felt pen that clearly ripped off the Wahl 5th Avenue cap (cap was branded Eberhard Faber, so not a mismatch), and seems to have imitated a waterman 100 year barrel.
* Spare caps that may come in hand in the future for various Wearevers etc. Their bodies were not found in the box



I suspect since the saran wrap was ripped open on the box, that people could have pocketed various other pens if there were more like the Skyline in there. Especially given all the caps but missing bodies.

Anywho, just restored the pen once I got home.