Sailor King Of Pen Ebonite With Naginata Togi Medium Fine Nib Vs. Pelikan M1000 With Extra Fine Nib

[Kiel]

Well my Sailor King of Pen arrived today and I thought I would share my thoughts and first impressions between that pen and my Pelikan M1000. First packaging, both pens come with nice packaging Pelikan comes with a rather large round plastic box and Sailor a more traditional square box. The Sailor edges out the Pelikan because it looks cleaner and won't take up as much storage space. Both pens look great, the nib on the Sailor looks looks a little more "custom". The Pelikan is a piston filled pen whereas the Sailor uses an ink converter, Pelikan wins out in this area.

 

 

Now to the nuts and bolts, writing. Both pens were filled with Montblanc permanent blue ink and I writing on Rhodia paper. Writing in the normal position surprisingly the Pelikan lays out a crisper, fine and darker line then the Sailor. When the ink drys the Sailor looks to be not as deep a blue and slightly broader. The Pelikan is definitely wetter that the Sailor which is my personal preference. I'm a little new at this but I believe I can write with the sailor upside down (plastic side of the nib facing up, please let me know if this is not proper). The sailor lays down a fine line that is unbelievable. Once again very light but very fine line, about one third the width of the Pelikan. The sailor is scratchy in this configuration but what a fine line. The nib on the Pelikan is more flexible and broader lines are possible with the Pelikan, sometime though I noticed the nib seems to flex when a little side pressure is applied.

 

 

 

The Pelikan lays down the same line regardless of the writing configuration, it isn't scratchy at all in any writing position. One small factor that I did notice was the Sailor needs to be posted pretty firmly or else the cap will not only come loose but it will fall off, no such problem with my Pelikan. Also the Pelikan only required a 3/4's a turn to remove the cap and the

Sailor requires 2-1/2 turns to accomplish the same. I much prefer the Pelikan in that regard.

 

Overall I prefer the Pelikan M1000 over the Sailor KOP for normal letter writing, if I want a pen that gives me some flexibility in my line widths the Sailor wins hands down.

 

As I use these pens more I may update this review.

 

Thanks,

 

Bill Kiel

 

 

Edited October 27, 2015 by Kiel

[Chrissy]

Nice review thanks.

 

Almost all FP's are designed to be used with the nib facing upwards. There are a few speciality nibs around that can be used either way up.

[Kiel]

Do you know if the

 

Sailor KOP Ebonite with the Naginata Toga nib is one that can be used with the nib facing downwards?

[Kiel]

Update after a day of using the Sailor KOP I must say I'm very disappointed. It's not as fine a line as the Pelikan and it's too dry for the line width. Instead of being dark and crisp like the Pelikan M1000 it's broad and subdued, almost like it's a little blurry. It would be a damn shame to have the nib reworked since I paid a lot more for the Naginata Toga nib, but as it is, I just don't like it. Any recommendations on a nib meister? I'm planning on attending the Los Angeles pen show in February. Also is that nib on the Sailor user removable?

 

Thanks,

 

Bill Kiel

[Kiel]

Update number two. I used some micro mesh on the nib in the upside down position to take out some of the scratchiness when writing upside down to get a fine line. I just touched it up a little bit and the scratchiness is about 80% less, it is very usable in this configuration. I don't want to push my luck without an expert but it's almost perfect now. Whew, it was scary playing with it given the cost. The nib still seems a little sharp between the split of the tines, but I don't feel comfortable working on those.

[Polanova]

The Naginata Togi MF is one of my top favorite nibs. Like all Naginata nibs they`re made for reverse writing as well.

I also have a Naginata Cross Point. That one was a bit scratchy on the reverse and I also smoothed it a bit with micro mesh like you did. The ink flow on my Naginata nibs is fan-tas-tic. If yours isn`t so great, you could use a thin brass or acetone sheet to widen the tines just a tiny bit. Caution is advised, of course

[EricTheRed]

I had a Sailor King of Pen M nib for a number of years, but it never really lived up to the admittedly high expectations I had of it. It wrote fine, very well actually, but really no better than my Sailor Pro Gear which cost hundreds of dollars less and the Pro Gear was a much more convenient size for me to carry around. I reluctantly sold the KOP at a pen show to finance the purchase of another big dollar (at least for me) fountain pen. For comparison purposes, I purchased a Pelikan M1000 F nib a number of years ago, and it actually does write noticeably better than all my other Pelikans. Consequently, I have kept it, and it proudly roosts to this day in the beak of a Pelikan statute on my desk, where it gets used on a daily basis. The morale of the story is, keep what you truly enjoy writing with and sell the rest in search of your Grail pens...

[simar]

I had a Sailor King of Pen M nib for a number of years, but it never really lived up to the admittedly high expectations I had of it. It wrote fine, very well actually, but really no better than my Sailor Pro Gear which cost hundreds of dollars less and the Pro Gear was a much more convenient size for me to carry around. I reluctantly sold the KOP at a pen show to finance the purchase of another big dollar (at least for me) fountain pen. For comparison purposes, I purchased a Pelikan M1000 F nib a number of years ago, and it actually does write noticeably better than all my other Pelikans. Consequently, I have kept it, and it proudly roosts to this day in the beak of a Pelikan statute on my desk, where it gets used on a daily basis. The morale of the story is, keep what you truly enjoy writing with and sell the rest in search of your Grail pens...

Your last sentence poses an interesting question about the philosophy of pen use/collecting . I have tended towards this philosophy , but still retain some pens just for their novelty and because they are icons ; but I don't really like the way they write that much . Interesting .

[Kiel]

Does anyone have any experience with the Sailor Cobra nib?

[Precise]

I bought a KOP recently. I like big pens and this seemed like the best. But it wrote unevenly. For example when writing a vertical stroke, like a "1" or an "I", the upper half of the stroke was always much lighter than the lower half. I wrote ten of these in rapid succession and they were identical, so it wasn't a starting problem.

 

I returned it for a full refund from the amazon seller in Japan. I urged the seller to return it to Sailor, writing, "I think Sailor would appreciate the opportunity to correct this pen and preserve their fine reputation". The good seller (Sanwa JP) even refunded the $26.50 I paid for return postage to Japan.

 

I think this was an isolated case. I have a Sailor 1911 which is first rate. I subsequently ordered a Sailor Realo through amazon. It's currently inbound.

Edited November 22, 2015 by Precise

[katanankes]

Does anyone have any experience with the Sailor Cobra nib?

 

A very late reply, but you can read here a review that I wrote:

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/285407-sailor-koshyu-kou-shu-shitsugei-series-hirame-with-cobra-nib/

[flipper_gv]

I bought a KOP recently. I like big pens and this seemed like the best. But it wrote unevenly. For example when writing a vertical stroke, like a "1" or an "I", the upper half of the stroke was always much lighter than the lower half. I wrote ten of these in rapid succession and they were identical, so it wasn't a starting problem.

 

I returned it for a full refund from the amazon seller in Japan. I urged the seller to return it to Sailor, writing, "I think Sailor would appreciate the opportunity to correct this pen and preserve their fine reputation". The good seller (Sanwa JP) even refunded the $26.50 I paid for return postage to Japan.

 

I think this was an isolated case. I have a Sailor 1911 which is first rate. I subsequently ordered a Sailor Realo through amazon. It's currently inbound.

 

That's normal on almost any fountain pens. Pooling is very common. You could ask to get a much drier flow to prevent that or just use a more viscous ink.