Sailor King of Pen Brier Wood Green - by Panos Theodoropoulos

SAILOR KING OF PEN – BRIER WOOD GREEN

It was Wednesday night when I saw her on the Internet. The two or three sites only had it on order. Thursday morning was searched through Zafpens. There was one available. The Gods conspired, and you don't say no to the King. You don't hesitate, you leave out small things. I immediately said yes without hesitation - squinting at my cash register. And suddenly Tuesday night the elegant wooden box with the KING OF PEN 1911 insignia dominated my desk.

Opening the box, one immediately notices the oversized cigar-shaped pen resting in the fabric interior, along with a Sailor ink cartridge, as well as the necessary papers. The whole package adds up to a great writing tool. This particular version is based on the shape of the classic 1911. But there is a difference in the construction material of the stem, compared to the basic black lacquer version. Brier wood is made from a section above the roots of an evergreen plant called Erica Arborea, which flourishes mainly in Mediterranean countries and is distinguished by its beautiful texture and intense color. The choice of the material has to do with the high resistance due to its dense structure that ensures resistance up to 370 ⁰C. Pipes are also made from this material, like those of the sailors with the beards and the digs on the face. Sailor with the? All of her. The pen is produced in only three colors: green, brown and dark red. From what I could gather the pen has been in production since 2009 and is the least known of the classic ebonite and urushi versions. The lacquer coating is flawless and leaves a luxurious shine. Like the rest of the KOP, the pen from a construction point of view is... PERFECT! 10/10

In this case the green attracted me more. The green waters mix with the black very subtly. From a distance and with little lighting, it might even pass as pitch black. Maybe I'm obsessed with green colored pens. In psychology, green characterizes calmness and an inner deep reflection. In the school, moreover, the boards prevailed to be green in color... so that the students' eye would travel. By analogy, before I started writing I wandered visually, a bit on the torpedo stem of the pen. In terms of weight, the pen weighs 40.2 grams. and is not classified in the heavy implementations. For comparison, the equivalent one made of ebonite weighs 34 grams, a difference that you hardly understand.

I unscrew the cap, which at its base wears the large 24K gold ring with the insignia SAILOR THE KING OF PEN. (some may find this too loud, but has anyone seen a king in humble clothes? ). The exposed 21kt gold nib is excellent as is the entire build, two-tone medium (Factory option is for medium and broad only). The base of the nib is made of acrylic resin and is not long in length, thus strictly limiting where the pen is held. The length of the base ends right where the cap ends, covering it completely when the pen is capped.

And on the main topic: How does he write? Hmm... Maybe an academic question for the insiders. Excellent like all King of Pen I guess. It glides on paper but with a distinctive feedback (as much as you can tell but it's there on paper) that only Sailor has, as a remnant of a culture that deals in "discrete precision" (forgive me Western European Pelikan fans, Leonardo, Visconti, Delta etc). Precision in writing characterizes this pen. The flow is as it should be, no less and no more. The words "austere, effortless and precise writing" accurately convey the answer to the dominant question. For fans of flex pens: the nib is not flex, it has some subtle gradation in line thickness. Personally, I'm not one of those people who write by doing "sumo" with the nib, which I don't recommend for one of the objectively best nibs on the market. Also, the words hard start, skipping are not included in the Japanese dictionary.

Negatively ? Yes there are: Some argue that such a pen (of size and price) should have an eye dropper or in the worst case a piston filler. The pen is criticized by the public, limited capacity converter or the use of Sailor ampoule. And for me personally, it was for some time an inhibiting factor for its acquisition. Someone even successfully commented, "....Ferrari with a very small tank". But all that dissipates as soon as you hold it in your hands and write. On the other hand, I don't think it is a pen that one will carry with them every day to e.g. signs invoices in batches or writes the shopping list.

I left the price for last. Yes, it is expensive in relation to both internal and external competition. But we are talking about the Sailor King.

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