Mixing-and-matching Sailor 14K gold nibs to pens

[A Smug Dill]

I've been pondering this for the past hour, now that the last of my Sailor pens on order (from before my self-imposed year-long moratorium) have arrived.

 

Assuming that the ‘medium-sized’ 14K gold nibs are all interchangeable — and they sorta are, but not exactly in the way one may be accustomed to with Pelikan, HongDian, or Edison Pen Co. pens — between these pens, how best to reassign some of the nibs? As is,

 

With gold trim and yellow-gold nibs

• (Pro Gear Slim) Shikiori Manyo — Extra Fine nib
• Promenade (GT) in black — Extra Fine nib
• Promenade ’Shining Blue’ — Fine nib
• Promenade ‘Shining Red’ — Fine nib
• Pro Gear Slim Mini in Stellar Blue — Medium-Fine nib
• Pro Gear Slim Mini in Taupe — Medium-Fine nib
• Koshu-Inden Sayagata — Medium-Fine nib
• Koshu-Inden Kozakura — Medium-Fine nib
• Kabazaiku — Medium nib
• Profit Standard (aka 1911 Standard) in ivory — Music nib
• (Profit Standard) Proske demonstrator — Zoom nib

 

With silver trim and rhodium-plated nibs

• Pro Gear Slim ‘Midnight Sky’ — Zoom nib
• Pro Gear Slim ‘Ocean’ — Fine nib
• Promenade (ST) in black — Fine nib

 

(Shockingly, I don't have any Sailor ‘medium-sized’ 21K gold nibs. I do have a few ‘large-sized’ 21K gold nibs for the full-sized Profit 21 and Professional Gear pens.)

 

In my experience, the cap seal effectiveness of the Profit Standard and Pro Gear Slim models is excellent, but just OK for the Koshu-Inden and Kabazaiku models. The Promenade is fitted with a spring-loaded inner cap (à la Platinum's Slip&Seal mechanism), and so its cap seal effectiveness should be best of all.

 

Out of curiosity, how would you (re)assign the nibs?

[mizgeorge]

I'd probably just go by width. The fatter the pen, the wider the nib - not just for the aesthetics, but as an aide memoire to what's in there. 

 

Apart from the Zoom nibs, which have no place in any pen IMO unless they've been reground into something usable!

[A Smug Dill]

4 minutes ago, mizgeorge said:

Apart from the Zoom nibs, which have no place in any pen IMO unless they've been reground into something usable!

 

Haha… I probably won't grab a Zoom-nibbed pen on instinct (or when I have a choice of pens on hand) for everyday applications of writing, but I think they can be quite fun and useful for drawing. I'd probably swap the Zoom nib over from the Pro Gear Slim ‘Midnight Sky’ into the Promenade ST in black; the Promenade pens are primarily my drawing and artwork pens, and stored in a leather 5-pen carry case apart from the others.

[halffriedchicken]

Do the colors of pen bodies or nib widths affect how you would use the pen, either draw or write? Do you prefer to use different languages for specific types of writing? Do you intend to use certain inks with certain pen bodies, and will the nib characteristic influence how you use that ink?

 

If I were to rearrange the pens and nibs, I would choose the color of the body to match the purpose I would want to use the pen, to either draw or write. Generally, I use thinner nibs for drawing and thicker nibs for writing. Darker colored pen bodies feel better suited for more formal writing while brighter colors would inspire me to write personal notes or draw. I only write in English so that wouldn’t matter but I know you can write Chinese so I assume that would benefit from thinner nibs. 

 

I would put the F, XF, and Zoom nibs in a brighter colored body. The MF or M nibs I would put in more understated designs for work. The Music nib I would put in the black Promenade for a classic looking pen to sign things, or for practicing calligraphy. 

 

 

[A Smug Dill]

18 minutes ago, halffriedchicken said:

Do the colors of pen bodies or nib widths affect how you would use the pen, either draw or write?

 

Yes. With the four Promenade colourways (plain black with gold trim, plain black with silver trim, glittery Shining Red, and glittery Shining Blue), black with gold trim is the one I like least and care least about scratching or otherwise tarnishing the pen body, so it's going to be the one pull out of the pen case to use (and leave lying around unprotected on a table, drawing pad, or even outdoors surface) most often. It's almost a given, then, that I will fill the pen with Platinum Carbon Black for drawing outlines and fine lines in black, and so it'll have the finest nib. The Shining Red would be what I'd pick up for emphasis, highlighting (but I don't mean juxtaposing a 4mm-wide fluorescent strip of colour on a word or a line of writing) or mark-up (e.g. by underlining text), so it'll most likely be filled with a vivid but lighter colour that is best served by a broader nib. The Shining Blue will have a solid and possibly sheeny permanent blue — most likely either Platinum Blue-Black, which was the ink I had in mind when I decided to buy one of these in spite of the now-inflated prices of the Sailor Promenade, or Sailor Seiboku — and so it'll serve as a writing pen for its main function, in which case it should have a Fine nib as that is the Sailor nib width I most enjoy writing with normally. The fifth pen in my Sailor five-pen case is a full-sized Sailor Profit with a Naginata Concord nib, and that'll either have a black ink or ‘vintage’ looking sepia ink for calligraphic writing or brush-like drawing in ‘artwork’. That leaves the Promenade in black with silver trim filling any gaps in the capabilities of the five-pen ‘set’, and so the ink colour will probably in the range of blue between sky and sea (or some other large body of water as a geographic feature), to be used with a versatile nib that is capable of easily filling large areas of a drawing. Hence, in the way I think about deployment:

1. Promenade in black with gold trim: EF nib, dispensing Platinum Carbon Black ink
2. Promenade in black with silver trim: Zoom nib, dispensing an ink such as Sailor Shikiori Souten, or Pilot Iroshizuku Ama-iro or Kon-peki
3. Promenade in Shining Red: MF, M or Music nib, dispensing a red or orange ink
4. Promenade in Shining Blue: F nib, dispensing Platinum Blue-Black or Sailor Seiboku
5. Profit21 with Naginata Concord nib: dispensing an ink such as Herbin Cacao du Brésil, Kobe INK Story #52 Shioya Vintage Sepia, or Pelikan Edelstein Smoky Quartz

The two Pro Gear Slim Mini are pocket pens (although I do enjoy writing with them at home, just pulling them out of the 78-pen storage case where they usually live), and aren't likely to be used as artwork pens, so they should be fitted with F or MF nibs for everyday sort of writing applications. The Stellar Blue will probably end up with Sailor Souboku or Lamy Benitoite, both muted blue-black (or blue-grey) inks with good permanence on the page, so the choice of nib needs to suit the ink flow characteristics of whichever is selected.

 

…

 

That's kinda how my thinking goes. Unnecessarily complex, perhaps.

 

That is why I'm curious as to how others would do it, given that selection of pens and nibs.