Pilot Custom 74 Clear Demonstrator

Being a Pilot Namiki fan I thought I'd review The Pilot Custom 74 from my collection, an interesting fountain pen. The Custom 74 has a clear demonstrator barrel and the nib is solid 14K gold with rhodium plating. The tassie (the cup shaped bezel at the end of the barrel), grip and cap are in a contrasting smoke grey resin. The appointments--the clip and trim--are plated in rhodium. The pen can be filled using a converter or ink cartridges, in this case I'm using the onverter and have filled the pen, which has a fine nib, with Noodler's Old Dutch Colony Sepia exclusive to th4e Fountain Pen Hospital.

Here's why I find it interesting. Various write-ups mention it's flexible nib, which puts me in mind of the Falcon and Falcon II. But my Custom 74 doesn't flex, it's as hard as a nail. Not only that, it feels scratchy when I write, like a tooth diggining into the paper. I don't know if I've got the bummer of the batch or what, but I'm definitely going to have the nib tamed down. Perhaps into a fine cursive italic, as I've gotten to like my Rotring 900 CI quite alot.

Other things of note: it's a lightweight pen, medium-sized, and the smokey grey cap is still clear enough to see ink drops from the nib. I haven't noticed any ink creep on the nib, and other than the scratchiness the Custom 74 writes wonderfully well. The piston converter can be a royal pain but with time and practice you get used to it.

I'm not sure this is a great pen, but it's definitely a good one to add to your collection. Especially if you love clear demonstrators, as I do.

Namiki Custom 823 Clear Demonstrator

Just as Passion at The Pen Archives could marry JetPens, I have an enduring love for Namiki fountain pens.

I had read about Namiki years ago in a fantastic book by Florence Scovell Shinn, a well-known illustrator from the turn of the 19th century through the 1920s, and an equally well-known New Thought practitioner through her death in 1940. (New Thought would be roughly analogous to what we now call New Age, with a lot of focus on prosperity and abundance practices) Mrs. Shinn wrote in one of her books that she bought a Namiki fountain pen, probably in the 1920s, and every year on the anniversary of her purchase she would receive a letter from the company asking after the pen. Such dedication impressed her, and me as well, and so I had to have a Namiki. But which one?

I first saw the Namiki Custom 823 Clear Demonstrator at the 2009 NYC Pen Show while browsing Swisher Pens. According to Chuck Swisher and several other Namiki retailers, only 100 of the pen sets (the Custom 823 Clear Demonstrator with the Iroshizuku ink in Kon-Peki) had been shipped to the US. I saw several at the Pen Show, but took a better look a few weeks later at the Art Brown International Pen Shop Fair where I fell in love with the Clear Demonstrator and the Amber Demonstrator. But at that time I wanted a fine nib, and the Amber only had a medium nib. So I chose the Custom 823 Clear Demonstrator, in it's elegant sateen-linked box and complimentary bottle of Iroshizuku Kon-Peki ink.

It's a complicated pen, which I didn't realize at the time I bought it. The sales rep neglected to mention that the tail plug needs to be unscrewed in order to send ink through to the feed. Several times I ran out of ink and couldn't figure out why, until one of the StyloForum folk helped me out. Filling the converter is also an interesting experience, combining my natural clumsiness with my aversion to putting the nib and feed all the way into the bottle of ink. With the Namiki Custom 823, the nib and feed turn quite easily and can be (gently) pulled out of the section, leaving the barrel with the converter open and able to put the ink in using an eyedropper and gloves. For me, inking up this way is much easier although the first two times I didn't wear gloves, and that Iroshizuku ink is unforgiving in its pigmentation and tenacity on the skin--doesn't wash off, it wears off after several days.

This fountain pen can hold a lot of ink, and given that it's a clear barrel and cap the ink you choose really becomes a part of the whole visual experience. I'm wondering what the pen would look like with Diamine Pumpkin or Noodler's Widowmaker in the converter, how that much bright orange or red would look in the pen. The 14k fine nib is a joy to write with, it just glides over the paper without the scratchiness or tooth that I've had with one or two other pens. There are a few irritants, perhaps the only one that's noticeable is that there is some ink creep on the nib which leaves small drops inside the cap (the cap actually has a black lining down most of the length so ink drops don't show, but some ink does get into the clear area and is easiy seen).

Also, I've noticed when cleaning out the ink that the barrel does retain a slight blue color; as I was immediately adding more Kon-Peki, I didn't see whether this was a permanent coloring of the clear barrel or just a temporary situation. But I will say that the Namiki Custom 823 Clear Demonstrator is worth every penny, and is now my special "go to" fountain pen. Besides the 823 Clear and Amber pens, Namiki will be introducing an 823 Smokey color sometime early next year, and I'm looking forward to seeing that one.

Namiki Black Celluloid Fountain Pen

This is my black Namiki celluloid fountain pen with the beautiful rose-pink and blue shimmer. I think I fell in love with the colors first, although I was definitely looking to buy a Namiki pen when I browsed the Swisher Pens booth at the 2009 NYC Pen Show. I definitely love this pen, and it was not as expensive as I thought it would be, although it was not in the Lamy Safari category either (Chuck Swisher gave a very good price on this, btw). The gold clip and ring are beautiful highlights against the black, and it's a very lightweight pen that moves smoothly over paper. As I'm partial to fine nibs, that's what this one is sporting.

What makes this really interesting is the converter, the CON-70, a vacuumatic filling system that sucks in the ink one pump at a time. And that's where I have my one problem, as I'm not a big fan of this system (yet, I suppose). I don't like sticking the nib and feed into a bottle of ink as it is, as I have a tendency to move the pen, which moves the bottle, which in one memorable case led to a nearly new bottle of J. Herbin Poussiere de Lune all over my kitchen floor. I also don't like filling this way because ink gets all over the inside of the nib, and then comes gushing out when I'm writing. What I have started to do is to remove the nib and feed, take an eyedropper full of ink and put some in the converter, then pump--the ink drops down into the converter. Three or so times will fill the converter, and I'm not pumping away worried I'll damage the nib or spill the bottle.

I love writing with this pen as well, and haven't had any problems such as skipping or "dry writing" where the ink won't flow when you put nib to paper. The fine point has just the right width of line,; I have noticed that when I begin writing, the line is much wider and more ink is flowing, then when I'm a paragraph in I get a drier, finer line--as if I need to write a bit to get the pen in the mood for writing just the way I want.

The pen is about 5 1/4 inches capped, 4 1/2 inches uncapped, and about 5 3/4 inches posted. While it's slender, that's relative--it's chunkier than my Pelikan M205, but not as wide as my rOtring Surf pens. And I have noticed ink settling on the nib, seeming to come out of the tines. That may be my fault for taking the nib and feed off to fill it and not replacing them correctly, or the pen itself allows it and is just a wet pen in more ways than one. A minor point, over all, as I wouldn't trade this pen for anything--unless it was for another Namiki!

Coming Attractions

Will review this soon, but a preview of something I purchased at the Art Brown International Pen Fair last Wednesday, the Pilot Namiki 823 Clear Demonstrator with Iroshizuku ink in Kon-Peki. Many thanks to Chthulhu at StyloForum for helping me understand the ink flow.