Pilot Custom 845 Vermillion (!) 18Kt Fine.

[MalcLee]

Thank you for the excellent review and photos - which made me long for my BB that had just been despatched by Hagiwara-san. According to him, he is still waiting (now 2.5 years) for Pilot to get to his Custom 845 FA/ WA orders and he is quite reluctant to add more clients to the already long waitlist for specialty nib orders. Reminds me of Rolex ADs, but according to TPSQ; he's just not getting any stock from Pilot as a result of the 100th anniversary pen output. But anyhow - I am really looking forward to this pen. I highly recommend TPSQ.

[Penryn87]

Greetings all. I have added some additional photos here. https://imgur.com/a/EUJc95h

[Harry44]

Nice review!

[half_inked_one]

Just received mine from TPSQ, with B nib. What a fantastic pen! For some reason I thought it will be something unwieldy big, but it is just a notch bigger than the Parker Duofold Centennial, and it fits into Franklin-Christoph 2 Pen Case.

The Vermillon colour is fabulous.

Thank you Penryn87 for a heads-up, I used to check availability of Vermillon 845 and it was always with status "reservation stopped".

[Penryn87]

Where was this status displayed? I don't recall seeing that anywhere.

[half_inked_one]

TPSQ website, in "goods" section - there used to be a list with pen model/type + nib type and availability (e.g. "waiting list closed for this year"). Now it seems to be changed and without this list.

[MightyEighth]

TPSQ website, in "goods" section - there used to be a list with pen model/type + nib type and availability (e.g. "waiting list closed for this year"). Now it seems to be changed and without this list.

 

I read somewhere that Pilot has some policy now regarding advertising of pens they don’t market outside Japan, so the website is now more vague and you need to make direct contact with an inquiry.

[nibtip]

The 845 M vermillion that i acquired about 2 weeks ago has maybe become my favorite pen. (slowly shaved down to 15).

I have a question: Is the urushi lacquer coating more scratch resistant than the common plastic "resin" counterpart?

And what about robustness?

I think 400$ including import taxes and shipping is seconde to none.

Edited December 15, 2019 by nibtip

[Penryn87]

From my understanding urushi is super hard. This makes it more prone to chips than scratches. So don’t drop it I suppose. I also haven’t seen anyone complaining of either, perhaps helped by the ebonite backing? So far, I would worry a lot more about damage to MY PRECIOUS resin 146 than my urushi 845.

[MalcLee]

According to a post that I've read somewhere by Martin Pauli, the hardness of Urushi on the Mohs scale is 6 - as hard as stones. Don't throw it under a truck to prove the point but I would not overly baby the pen either given the robustness of the lacquer. My relatively new 149 is already scratched up - so much for precious resin, MB !
I find the 845 surprisingly very light capped and uncapped relative to the 149. The BB nib lays down a nice fat juicy line and was perfect out of the box.

 

 

*Edited for grammatical error from iPhone use*

Edited December 16, 2019 by MalcLee

[nibtip]

Thanks to Penryn87 and Malclee for yours answers. I am usually careful without being maniac with my pens. Mini scratches don't bother me. Without them is even better.

[half_inked_one]

A note for future buyers - I have filled the 845 with Franklin-Christoph Urushi Red and after few pages the nib dried out. Apparently the surface tension stopped flow from converter to the feed; surprising for me, as for me this ink is rather wet and well flowing, in other pens. Small drop of water with detergent to the converter and flow is instantly perfect, did not even require push on the converter to saturate feed - wrote immediately.

[Ravi Gautam]

I recently tried this pen in a pen show. It will be my next purchase.

[WLSpec]

Nice review! Beautiful color.

[James-B]

Is this where you ordered it 

 

https://www.japanshop-quill.com/

 

I had a bad experieice with a other seller that took my payment and then said they can't send the pen until April ,3 months from when I placed my order. Will this company ship immedialty ? Thanks,