Champion

Para Ningyo-chan, forofa.

Yesterday I paid a visit to a number of fountain pen shops in Tokyo. In one of them –a big one— I saw this nib I am very fond of. The display window had this Nakaya Piccolo with a beautiful soft-elastic M nib. These nibs are mostly made to order and, therefore, Nakaya craftsmen attending events do not have them for you to buy them on the spot.

Elastic nib by Nakaya. Picture taken from the Nakaya website.

I asked the clerk if I could try it:
–Sure, no problem--, and there I went.
“Nice pen”, I thought when writing the first letters. But soon afterward I realized it was not all that flexible. “Is it the pen or me?”

So, I asked if I could try the Pilot Custom 742 with the size-10 falcon nib. Oh! That was totally different. That was really flexible—at least, for a modern pen. What a difference with the elastic Nakaya nib!

Pilot's Falcon nibs in sizes 10 and 15.

I also tried the bigger size-15 falcon nib in the Custom 743. Nice as well, but not so flexible as the size-10, just as Leigh Reyes reported on her blog. And that poses some interesting questions indeed.

So, what should I choose, the wonderful looks of an urushi pen or a wonderful nib in a boring pen? The price of those stunning looks is almost three times that of the sweet nib!

The champion nib.

This time, I went for the champion nib.

(Pilot R Lever Filler 1956 – Pelikan Brilliant Brown)

Bruno Taut
(Inagi, July 12, 2010)
[labels: Pilot, Platinum, plumín]

Post data: Not everything was as nice and beautiful as I described here. There were a number of problems with this nib. They are described on the chronicles entitled Verdict (September 7, 2010), and Inadequate (September 21, 2010).