Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/11/23/this-pilot-capless-fountain-pen-appears-to-be-a-cheaper-version-of-the-legendary-vanishing-point.html
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Interesting!
So far the price has always kept me from buying a Vanishing Point, this just might push me over the edge…
(I’ve kinda got buying expensive fountain pens out of my system when I got a stainless steel Montblanc Meisterstück 20 years ago or so. It’s great, I like writing with it, but I always keep it at home for fear of losing it. Which kinda defies the purpose of a portable writing implement. The same goes for sunglasses.)
Converters are good. And for pens with reservoirs, portable inkwells. That’s usually some sort of tube with a piston/pump mechanism like in the fountain pen at one end and a thread at the other end. The thread has to be the same as in the pen’s cap to make this work.
However, using “unauthorized” ink may clog up the pen faster than the original ink, shorter cleaning cycles usually deal with this.
For some inks, watering them down just a little bit is needed.
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I have a handful of Vanishing Points that I cycle through – my favorite is a carbon-fiber version from 15 years or so ago. Jason, I hope you’ll follow up with a review, I’m curious to know how comfortable the nib is. Even with the 18k gold nib the thing is so tiny that it barely flexes, and I’ve found that the nibs are marked roughly one flex low, so a medium VP nib writes like a fine, fine like extra fine, and so on, also due to the stifffnes.
I use Quink and a few Aurora inks in mine with no trouble.
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Capless is what the Vanishing Point is called in Japan. The FCN-1MR is a stainless nib version with silver trim, Japan list price 10000 yen (~$100 USD). This is almost certainly a grey-market pen, and will not qualify for a Pilot US warranty.
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Can’t use fountain pens - I’m left handed and pushing a sharp tip across paper doesn’t work well unless you goal is to shred the sheet of paper. Fountain pens are the reason you see Southpaws approaching and in the senior citizen age groups bending their wrist down as a reflexive action to avoid smearing not-yet-dried ink with the heel of their palms as they write.
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Not even left handed fountain pens?
I’ve had my eye on exactly this Capless pen for a few years now, never quite working up the nerve to buy one. Which bums me out, because when I added it to my wish list two years ago, it was ~$70.
I don’t think they were available when I was in the early grades of elementary school. I was so happy when we were finally allowed to use ball point pens beginning in Grade 4 or 5.
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