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Everyone knows the Pilot capless/vanishing point. But there actually seem to be quite a few fountain pen models that are capless or that have retractable nibs. Depending on the design, they can be very useful, and I find the concept of a disappearing nib aesthetically appealing (though the prices are often eye-watering). The aim of this post is therefore to start a reference list of modern capless/retractable models. Here is a first draft (many debts to FPN posts). I am by no means an expert on this class of pen: please correct and/or add, as appropriate. EDIT: Following initial comments, I have completely changed the way I present the data, in the interest of providing a more useful tool (and have added some additional comment). The rest of this post has therefore been completely re-written. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the table to render as a table, so it's actually a screen-shot I do like eyedroppers for their simplicity and ink capacity. But for the most part, safety pens are something of a footnote in this list. This is for two reasons. First, for a capless/retractable, I'm most interested in mess-free ease-of-use. It's my understanding that traditional safety pens are essentially open eyedroppers - creating a risk of covering yourself with ink if you absent-mindedly upend the pen before extending the nib (see David Nishimura's useful article on safety pens). Second, if the cork seal is damaged, then your bag/shirt gets an ink bath. It seems likely that the seal on a 1920 safety pen will need replacing before it can be used, and whilst I'd love to develop my abilities further over time, I don't have the skill right now to restore a safety pen. For these reasons, I am most interested in more modern pens, which typically means pens that aren't eyedroppers (though of course there are always exceptions, such as the Aurora Nobile). I am also not including one-off or extremely rare pens (e.g., these wonderful pens, which Dillo points to in the 3rd comment, below), on the grounds that such pens do not represent recognisable models. That all said, I'm by no means an expert in this area - in fact, I'm still fairly new to the subject overall - and in my ignorance I might miss something or mislabel a pen. If that happens, please just reproduce and correct the table. And as Venemo says, pictures would be nice.
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