Are Sailor pens overpriced?

[arcfide]

So, I'm a bit fascinated by something I've seen around a lot, which claims that Sailor pens are somewhat overpriced for what they are. Often Platinum is held up as a more affordable option for equivalent pen. Obviously, with a luxury market like this, just about everything in the valuation has to be subjective. However, I got to wondering whether this was true. After all, I couldn't resist a pricey KOP Special Edition because the color just reached out and stole my wallet. 

 

But I got to wondering whether there really is very much substance to the claim that Sailor is jacking up prices. I had to go just by the market I am in, which is the U.S. market, so I'm not considering any of the grey market stuff. At least comparing standard inks and the basic pigmented inks from each brand, if anything, Platinum was more expensive or just even with Sailor, and on the whole, I'd say it mostly evened out. Sailor's basic ink line seemed significantly less expensive than the basic colors from Platinum, but the pigmented inks from Sailor were a little more expensive, but not by much. 

 

I hypothesized that maybe there was something in the construction or design that could easily account for the differences in relative costs between equivalent pens when compared side by side. So, I took a look at the price of the standard #3776 Century and the 1911L from Sailor. The 1911L is a similar size and filling system and the standard models are both similar in look. They also have something of a similarly sized nib. They are both "plastic" pens that are C/C filling systems. There are some minor differences in the overall construction, with some people thinking that the #3776 doesn't feel as luxurious as the Sailor. There are some differences in the way that the threading and seal between section and body are done between the two models, but nothing too extravagant. 

 

However, when I looked at the prices on Goulet and Jetpens for these two products and compared them, I found that they were very closely aligned to their prices based entirely on gold content. In fact, when I added the 1911S to the mix as well, which has a 14kt gold nib in the same way that the #3776 does (possibly with a little less, IDK), the prices lined up. Based on current gold prices that I checked out and rough proportions, almost the entire difference in the pricing of the two pens on the standard U.S. market can be explained by one having a 14kt nib and the other having a 21kt nib assuming relatively close nib mass. 

 

I know that in some other markets these pens might be priced differently, but at least in the standard U.S. market, there doesn't seem to be a strong argument that the standard offerings from these two makers (or Pilot, for that matter, when I compared them) aren't entirely explained by material costs and slight differences in labor efficiencies. It doesn't feel to me like an artificial change in pricing structure relative to the competition makes sense based on the evidence and it seems to me that there are other, more simple, and more rational explanations for the price differences between these makers for their standard models than that one or another of them is artificially hiking up their prices far outside of the market norms established by other equivalent pens. 

 

If someone has some other information, please do share, this was just a quick back of the envelope calculation and research, so I could be very wrong here. I also did not explore the nature of the special editions, because I don't really think those follow the same rules. 

 

 

[stan]

All anecdotal. Why not weigh nibs and see how many grams and how much they are really worth with 21K nibs being worth about 50% more than 14K. Pull a nib from a clunker and weigh it. Guess all pens with similarly sized nibs will be the same (there will be differences - slight differences). Weigh it. Value it. Add 50%. Voila.

 

Now throw in production costs, overhead and profit, and subjective value of design. Mark-up will vary by make and model.

Let's see for sure.

[Ronderick]

Well, I think "overpriced" is quite subjective and it really depends on whoever you talk to.

 

However, one thing for sure is that Sailor has taken more frequent action in marking up prices over the past few years. Aside from the official announcement on raising prices on fountain pens, you got the more subtle moves such as the naginata nib overhaul, the shikiiori ink repackaging into 20 ml bottles, and the new 3 cartridge + box line. 

 

Despite all these attempts increasing revenue, Sailor's remains in the red for 2020 earnings. Don't know how that's gonna sit with their number 1 shareholder PLUS (who, according to a Nikkei news article from June 2020 , controls like 57.7% shares of company under some convertible bond arrangement which pumps desperate-needed cash for Sailor).

 

With no bright prospect in the near future, I won't be surprised if another price hike comes along the way soon... or whatever other plans PLUS have in mind.

[Mr.Rene]

The last years ALL fountain pens are overpriced products..unfortunately...🤷‍♂️

[sgphototn]

All pen makers charge as much as the market will bear. Whether you think the value is worth it to you makes no difference to the market at large.

 

There are many pens that I choose not to buy as their value to me is not worth the price; some pens at half price would not appeal to me.

 

Complaining about prices does not change the market. 

 

I eat at Five Guys Burgers. Their prices are higher than McDonalds. I feel the food quality is better at Five Guys, plus there's no kids running around like chimpanzees in heat.

 

Complaining about the price at Five Guys would be a waste of my time.

[A Smug Dill]

54 minutes ago, Mr.Rene said:

The last years ALL fountain pens are overpriced products..unfortunately...

 

Products that are overpriced simply won't sell well enough to meet the manufacturers', distributors' and/or retailers' sales expectations and targets. That is surely a more on-point assessment criteria than whether the individual customer begrudges the asking price of a product and imagines it could be offered more cheaply to be ‘competitive’ against comparable products in the market.

[Uncial]

Some personal observations which may or may not be relevant:

 

The plastic used on much of Sailor's standard line 'feels' a bit cheap which might be why some feel they are paying a premium for something that isn't really 'feeling' that premium in comparison to others. 

 

Sailor tend to flood the market with special and limited editions to the extent that people feel a little tired by this and at worst, a bit peeved when something they like is suddenly unavailable in a short time. When these SE's and LE's come up for sale a short time later they can sometimes (although not always) command a considerably higher price. 

 

The price difference between buying in Japan and buying anywhere else can sometimes be quite significant.

 

One of the hugely attractive aspects of Sailor was, at least at one time, their nib line up. I think this was removed and limited for a season, only to be brought back in a 'slow leak' fashion and with - what appears to me at least to be - an extremely high mark up in price that elevates it to the level of major purchase consideration.

[arcfide]

12 hours ago, stan said:

All anecdotal. Why not weigh nibs and see how many grams and how much they are really worth with 21K nibs being worth about 50% more than 14K. Pull a nib from a clunker and weigh it. Guess all pens with similarly sized nibs will be the same (there will be differences - slight differences). Weigh it. Value it. Add 50%. Voila.

 

Now throw in production costs, overhead and profit, and subjective value of design. Mark-up will vary by make and model.

Let's see for sure.

 

Feel free to weigh your collection of Sailor, Platinum and PIlot nibs. This was a curiosity for me, and so I wanted to present the hypothesis and initial supporting evidence, but I don't think I'm likely to pull the nibs on any of my pens and do an apples to apples gram for gram comparison, in part because I don't, as a practice, have a tendency to replicate pens that I have in one brand in another, so none of the nibs are really equivalent to one another in that sense, at least not to a sufficient and varied degree that I could survey the field. 

[arcfide]

 

10 hours ago, Uncial said:

The plastic used on much of Sailor's standard line 'feels' a bit cheap which might be why some feel they are paying a premium for something that isn't really 'feeling' that premium in comparison to others. 

 

Curious. Cheap compared to what? Among my various pens made of plastic that are more expensive, I couldn't call out Sailor as being particularly different in feel than any of the others, such as MB, Pilot, Platinum, or Visconti. In a back to back comparison, if I were to be exposed with only a limited vision to the same color Sailor, Platinum, Pilot, Visconti, and MB pen bodies and nothing else in sight, all the same size, I suspect I'd be hard pressed to reliably tell them apart, provided that I couldn't disassemble or otherwise examine the separate parts by sound or visual inspection. 

 

I do find this curious. I know there are some people that simply feel plastic pens aren't worth their asking price, but that's plastic in general. In the grand scheme of things, I'd find it *very* difficult to substantiate even subjective opinions about the different level of quality in the plastics of any of the makers I have on hand. I genuinely think that such opinions wouldn't hold up to a blind test of the plastic themselves. 

 

Now, it's true that the weight of the various pens and their girth changes the feel of the pens. I know that some people have a tendency to associate light weight and thinness with cheapness, so one could argue that a pen feels "cheap" because it is small and thin/light and might exhibit a less "dense" sound when tapped. But I suspect that is largely up to many other things than just the plastics, and while it could be subjectively assessed and relevant, doesn't translate into "cheap materials" only just a "cheap impression" on the basis of feeling that light and thin/delicate pens feel cheap. 

 

I wonder if this is just some people being imprecise about the subjective source of their feelings regarding a pen? 

[inkstainedruth]

I waffled over the prices of the three Sailor pens I have (the Pro Gear Slim [Sapporo?] Purple Cosmos, and the 1911S Wicked Witch and Loch Ness Monster pens).  The rod stock on the Purple Cosmos was really pretty, but I wasn't sure it justified the price over other colors.  I got lucky and saved money but getting it at Cult Pens (so I didn't have to pay the US distributor markup price and it qualified for free shipping from the UK) when the new LE color was announced and Cult Pens still had them in stock with most of the nib choices available).

For the two 1911S pens, I couldn't go that route -- they were both North American exclusives, so the price was the same at every US retailer.  I kept waffling over which color I liked better, but when I got my second round stimulus check, I could afford to buy one of each -- otherwise I'd still be waffling....

Sailor has a much wider range of nibs than many other brands (Japanese or otherwise).  But when push comes to shove, I really like the 18K nibs on my two Pilot Decimos and the "soft fine" nib on the Pilot Falcon better (although I'm really liking the MF nib on the Loch Ness pen (and even the two Pilot Metropolitans -- one with a medium nib and the other with a stub) are quite good); the "music" nib on the Wicked Witch, which I haven't actually used too much yet) is really wet; the zoom nib on the Purple Cosmos (which I chose mostly for curiosity's sake) is interesting but I think a bit on the dry side, and is maybe a little too feedback-y for my taste.  I also think that the Sailor converters are a little better than the Con-40 converters on the Decimos (which I have a lot of trouble getting to fill anything remotely like completely).

As for Platinum?  The only one I have is a Plaisir -- which is a low end pen; I don't much care for it.  The cap band is sort of cheesy looking, and the pen writes very dry (which I didn't realize at first because I was still fairly new to fountain pens).  Worst of all, though, I got one of the older style ones with the "color matched" nibs, and after a year or so of use and switching out inks the coating started to flake off!  I've liked the colors of some of the 3776 pens (Chartres is especially pretty) -- but I've found that I don't really like the look of translucent pens in general (especially when they cost WAY more than I paid for my Noodler's resin Konrads and way WAY more tor the Noodler's FPCs...).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Uncial]

10 hours ago, arcfide said:

 

 

Curious. Cheap compared to what? Among my various pens made of plastic that are more expensive, I couldn't call out Sailor as being particularly different in feel than any of the others, such as MB, Pilot, Platinum, or Visconti. In a back to back comparison, if I were to be exposed with only a limited vision to the same color Sailor, Platinum, Pilot, Visconti, and MB pen bodies and nothing else in sight, all the same size, I suspect I'd be hard pressed to reliably tell them apart, provided that I couldn't disassemble or otherwise examine the separate parts by sound or visual inspection. 

 

I do find this curious. I know there are some people that simply feel plastic pens aren't worth their asking price, but that's plastic in general. In the grand scheme of things, I'd find it *very* difficult to substantiate even subjective opinions about the different level of quality in the plastics of any of the makers I have on hand. I genuinely think that such opinions wouldn't hold up to a blind test of the plastic themselves. 

 

Now, it's true that the weight of the various pens and their girth changes the feel of the pens. I know that some people have a tendency to associate light weight and thinness with cheapness, so one could argue that a pen feels "cheap" because it is small and thin/light and might exhibit a less "dense" sound when tapped. But I suspect that is largely up to many other things than just the plastics, and while it could be subjectively assessed and relevant, doesn't translate into "cheap materials" only just a "cheap impression" on the basis of feeling that light and thin/delicate pens feel cheap. 

 

I wonder if this is just some people being imprecise about the subjective source of their feelings regarding a pen? 

 

Here is a thread discussing some aspects of the plastic used for Sailor pens : 

With Sailor's choice of plastic there seems to be a better scope and ability to play with the saturation of colour. I'm not a chemist so might be entirely wrong and you can do this with any plastic, but Sailor seems to do it more than any other main pen manufacturer I know so I'll assume it's a plastic thing. I very much like that lack of saturation which delivers a kind of opacity that's interesting. It's used very effectively on the 'Earth' range and quite a few others. Some dislike it though and feel that it makes the plastic look cheap. Sometimes - but mercifully not very often - Sailor plastics arrive with imperfections. I liked the Stormy Sea USA exclusive and the finish looked good to me, but I've seen pictures of others with what do appear to be quite poor imperfections, almost as if the plastic and dyes haven't been properly mixed. This happens with other pens too of course, it's not a peculiarly Sailor issue. If I compare Sailor's use of PMMA with other types of PMMA (such as certain acrylics) sometimes it personally feels a little less substantial somehow and it's not a thickness issue - at least not according to weight. In comparison to MB or Pelikan I personally find a significant difference which translates to me as quality - it has quite a different feel (maybe more highly polished?), weight and sound. Of course that is highly subjective and it may be that the type of PMMA used by Sailor is really expensive to make and they hardly make a dime on every pen they make, but it doesn't change how it feels for me.

[Olya]

I can't find the thread right now, but there was a discussion before on Sailor's "imperfection" of the barrel and those are deliberate. The body has a mixy swirl, whereas the finials, cap and grip are "perfectly" distributed without swirls.

That is a deliberate effect and something from the Japanese philosophy of finding beauty in imprefections or some such.

 

On that thread there were pictures if I remember right. Will try to find it again.

[Olya]

Found two threads!!

 

The other

 

It's always the metalic versions that have "swirls" or are "streaky".

Sadly the pics are gone, but I didn't check all the links.

 

 

[MuddyWaters]

I don't think it only has to do with nib gold content, whose prices are actually negligible in the scope of things. Like others alluded to, pens are "overpriced" compared to the raw cost of their material, and there is a substantial multiplier used in arriving at a final price involving nib content, nib size, body size, material quality and so on. 

 

It is quite evident that a bigger pen gets one-two hundred dollars more expensive. Why? Because you can't do with a smaller pen and they know that. It's like looking for apartments, you know the one with a nice window and location will be double the price. It has little to do with material. 

 

Versus the other two major brands, the 3776 has a cheaper feel than the plastic of even the custom 74, but the nib is bigger. Is it better? Not necessarily, that is really subjective. 

 

The sailor 1911L is made of nicer plastic than the 3776 I presume, but it retains the larger nib which the custom 74 does not have. It also seems like the polishing on the sailor nibs might take more work. One hundred dollars more? Sure why not. If I wasn't going to settle with the 3776 body and 3776 sharp nib, then I would have to go for a 1911L for it's different characteristics. 

 

With that said, I have been eyeing a pro gear and a custom 912. I have held off buying them because to me they feel too expensive. In the end, they're just plastic and I have other pens with nibs that write. 

 

 

 

 

 

[enuhski]

I don't have that many Sailor pens but I personally don't think Sailor pens are overpriced. My first pen purchase was a Preppy and I've tried a few Platinum pens since I started out and find Sailor nibs to be more to my liking. I also like the aesthetics of Sailor pens including the nib. I'm not a fan of Platinum or Pilot though I started out with these pens and at the time, Sailor was a hard sell for me until my husband got me to order the Shikiori Yukitsubaki which wrote so beautifully out of the box.

 

Subjectively speaking, I find Sailor pens to be worth the asking price even with the increasing prices. This is based on my experiences with the gold nibs ones that i have - just the Pro Gear Slim, Pro Gear and 1911S. The 1911S is quite expensive compared to the PGS but my lone 1911S (the witch) is such a pleasure to write with (after I had it tuned), and it feels so nice in the hand that I am tempted to get another North American exclusive like the key lime or stormy grey. If you look at the price of the Pro Gear slim though, you'll find it much cheaper but no less a pleasure to write with, and sporting a 14k gold nib. Of course the Pro Gear is weightier in the hand and nicer to write with than the PGS but for me, one can't really go wrong with the gold nibbed sailors.

 

p.s. For the life of me I don't know why the Sailor Pro Gear imperial black is selling for almost 500 USD on Goulet when it is usually priced elsewhere at around $300+.

 

 

 

Edited February 7, 2021 by enuhski

[Uncial]

Wabi-sabi is so often quoted as an excuse for poor quality control or poor workmanship or for broken stuff or ugly stuff and that isn't what it means at all. To best understand what it is you need a concrete example, so I'll take pottery which is something I'm familiar with in regards to wabi-sabi. In Japanese pottery much that looks random is very, very specifically intentional and takes an extraordinarily long time to get there. Out of a wood firing it would not be at all unusual for a Japanese potter to throw two thirds of the firing into the skip because they're looking for something very, very specific. That said, you might get a fault in the firing (a rogue bit of copper from something, salts leaking out of some other material on a neighbouring pot or organic material accidentally sucked in through the flu) which results in a more pleasing aesthetic or a flash of beauty, which while not intended originally, still works remarkably well and produces a more beautiful pot - and beauty is the key. This is wabi-sabi. If it's ugly or not remarkable it goes in the skip.

[Olya]

Perhaps so, but it's impossible to not be intentional when it's only ever the barrel that's "affected". Points to intentional, perhaps they have taken inspiration from Pelikan's swirls and do it to a much smaller scale..

 

 

On the original question... Yes, I think Sailors are overpriced. Generally, the Japanese (i.e. domestic) prices for the big 3 are about the same, but abroad (and even through some Japanese sellers) Sailors are priced higher (these days! prices have gone up in about the past year, before then as well (e.g. smaller ink pots), but the past year (or two) has been the most noticeable).

 

I have found Platinums to be usually the most expensive. I have observed and noted years ago that Platinum converters, cartridges and rhodium plated pens are the most expensive of the Japanese big 3. Sailor has taken a leaf out of Platinum's book and now sells their converters at different prices, depending on trim (gold or silver).

 

Pilot seems to be by far the most economic towards customers and they have recently taken my n°1 spot as pen company, so I hope they stay reasonable...

 

Now, all that said, I find gold nibbed fountain pens to be ridiculously overpriced, esp. Western brands. Japanese remain affordable. I have taken a brief look at olden prices of Parker gold nibbed pens and adjusted to inflation they were comparable to Japanese prices today. Meanwhile, a gold nibbed Parker today or Pelikan (or any other Western maker) costs quite a lot more in the "gold nib entry level" category (not to mention beyond that). It's ridiculous.

[Newton Pens]

The only comparison I would make between Sailor and Platinum would be based on their nib units.  You can unscrew a Sailor nib unit from the section, but cannot with Platinum.  So based on that alone I would say Sailor is better.  They're both great pens though.

[A Smug Dill]

12 hours ago, MuddyWaters said:

With that said, I have been eyeing a pro gear and a custom 912. I have held off buying them because to me they feel too expensive. In the end, they're just plastic and I have other pens with nibs that write. 

 

That makes me think of the folly (to which I'm sometimes susceptible personally) of going out for a nice dinner, and upon seeing the prices on the menu, insisting on getting a dish with seafood instead of chicken because it is one of those restaurants that “won't get out of bed” for less than $35 for a main course, and there's only a $3 difference between those two. Hey, the main raw ingredient is undoubtedly more costly in the seafood dish, and other restaurants (cf. other markets) have shown me that the asking prices for seafood dishes can be markedly higher than that with a basic meat such as chicken.

 

Compared with Chinese pens “with nibs that write”, most models of every Japanese and European, let alone North American, brand (with the exception of Lamy, off the top of my head) are too expensive as simple, functional writing instruments.

 

On 2/6/2021 at 7:49 PM, arcfide said:

I had to go just by the market I am in, which is the U.S. market, so I'm not considering any of the grey market stuff.

 

I've been keeping my eye out (on Amazon Australia) for certain pens sold and shipped by Amazon US. The 14K gold-nibbed Sailor Shikiori Manyo (essentially Professional Gear Slim) pens in different colours have often dropped below A$150 and stayed at that price point for a few days or weeks at a time, whereas I don't think I've seen steel-nibbed Pelikan M20x models sold and shipped by Amazon US for nearly as cheaply, and I tend to think the Sailor PGS and Pelikan M20x as being highly comparable models from (not exclusively) representative Japanese and European brands in the market, which are imports from the Australian, Canadian, UK and US perspectives alike.

[inkstainedruth]

On 2/7/2021 at 4:18 PM, Newton Pens said:

The only comparison I would make between Sailor and Platinum would be based on their nib units.  You can unscrew a Sailor nib unit from the section, but cannot with Platinum.  

Does that mean I could swap the nibs on the two 1911S pens?  That would be cool -- because when they came I found I liked the look of the Wicked Witch pen better than that of the Loch Ness Monster -- but like the MF nib on the Loch Ness way better than the super-wet music nib on the Wicked Witch pen.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth