The current fountain pen market can be driven to a large degree by hype, with new or “limited edition” pens selling quickly, only to have sales peter out as the novelty wears off and users figure out that maybe those “next big thing” pens aren’t the best for actual daily use. I’ve been as guilty of this as anyone, as some of what I consider to be the best fountain pens in my collection have unfortunately fallen by the wayside. Today I’ll take a look at three pens that have been around for a while, but don’t necessarily get a lot of attention on pen blogs and websites and social media. That’s unfortunate because all three are exceptional, well-balanced writing instruments that are generally reliable “out of the box” and available at most pen retailers. I’m talking about the Pilot Custom 74, the Pilot Custom Heritage 92, and, yes, the Lamy 2000.

You can read my full write-up on the Pilot Custom 74 here.

Pilot Custom 74. At the top of my list of pens that deserve more attention is the Pilot Custom 74. We did end up selling a handful of these pens in Baltimore, and these colorful demonstrators are what I consider to be one of the better bargains on the market. For $176, which is rapidly becoming the price point for many steel-nib pens, you get a sweet 14k Pilot rhodium-plated nib, paired with Pilot’s high-capacity pump converter, the CON-70. You can also use Pilot’s cartridges if you prefer the convenience, and they hold a ton of ink and last forever. The rhodium trim on this pen nicely complements the jewel-like acrylics. I own the blue version, and Violet, Orange, Smoke, and Clear versions are also available, along with two limited editions arriving in the coming months. Stay tuned!

I’ve previously written a full review of the Custom Heritage, but the orange acrylic version has become somewhat more difficult to find, even online.

Pilot Custom Heritage 92. Sitting at a slightly higher price point than the Custom 74 is the Custom Heritage 92, which runs $220 and pairs the same 14k nib from the Custom 74 with an integrated piston filler. One of the main reasons that I love Pilot pens is the mix of quality and price - with the exception of the Lamy 2000 (discussed below), it’s rare that you will find a quality piston-filling fountain pen with a gold nib for under $300. The main drawback to the Custom Heritage is the fact that it’s only available in a single color. At one point Pilot made this pen for the Japanese market in orange, blue, and smoke as well, with the different colors being readily available online, but those appear to be phased out and are not as readily available as they once were. I recently saw someone trying to sell the orange version for close to $1,000, which is silly.

Most people won’t notice that the Lamy 2000 fountain pen isn’t a ballpoint or a rollerball.

Lamy 2000. And finally, we get to an old standby that rarely sits uninked and out of my rotation for long. Talk about a pen that’s not “sexy” in the traditional sense: the minimalist, somewhat brutal, fiberglass design of this pen hasn’t changed at all since the 1960s, and it certainly isn’t going to win you any “likes” (or generate much blog traffic, for that matter), but if I were to open a pen store, you can bet that I’d stock these in all available nib sizes and try to push them on everyone who walked through the door looking for a durable, bottle-filling daily writer. Especially for an office professional, the Lamy 2000 gives you an understated, reliable pen with a large ink capacity that can get you through long meetings, hearings, depositions, or whatever your need may be. It’s first on my list of “workhorse pens.”

So what prompted this post? At last week’s Baltimore Pen Show, a handful of people came by the Vanness Pens table and described to me what they were looking for. In a few instances, the Pilots would have made a perfect match but didn’t get any consideration at all. I sensed a real hesitation to give these pens a chance, whether because they were slightly more expensive than steel-nib options that customers ended up purchasing, or simply because some people hadn’t heard of these pens before or hadn’t seen them online. Don’t get me wrong - if a pen doesn’t speak to you, then don’t spend your money on it. But one of my resolutions for this year was to shift the focus of the blog from merely following market trends back to highlighting those products that I love and believe will serve readers well over the long term. Sometimes the best option isn’t the newer, shinier release - it’s the old standard that’s been around for many years, for good reason, and you owe it to yourself as a user and enthusiast to give these pens a chance.

Six “Workhorse Pens”, from left: Pilot Custom 74, Pilot Custom Heritage 92, Lamy 2000, Montblanc 146 Ultra Black, Lamy Safari, and Faber-Castell e-Motion Pure Black.

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I'm really mad at Pilot (or maybe I should be mad at the U.S. Distributor, Pilot U.S.A.). Why? Because Pilot makes a pen that is nice-looking, and an exceptional writer, but is only available in the U.S. in one color with an MSRP set twice as high as in Japan. I'd go so far as to say that this pen could be a flagship offering for Pilot here in the States, yet it gets little love or attention, probably because of the price.

The pen that I am talking about, is of course, the Custom Heritage 92 demonstrator. The clear version is sold by U.S. retailers, including PenChalet. Pilot also makes three different colors of the demonstrator in the same transparent plastics as the Custom 74 line: Blue, Orange, and Smoke. Unfortunately, as of the time of writing, these versions are Japan-only, but are still easily accessible through Amazon and eBay.

General Build and Appearance

The Custom Heritage is a solid pen. Some colored plastic demonstrators feel cheap, but not this one. The barrel, cap, and especially the piston mechanism (discussed further below) all feel especially solid. It's a nice mid-sized pen: big enough to use comfortably posted or unposted, but not so huge that it weighs down the front of a shirt pocket or is otherwise inconvenient for daily carry.

As I mentioned, the color scheme on these demonstrators is substantially similar to the color scheme on the Custom 74 demonstrators available here in the US. One difference is that the end caps are transparent gray, which sets off nicely against the orange. I've always wanted a pen in Pilot's clear orange acrylic--now I just have to pick up a blue version as well, which has a sapphire-like quality and is also stunning.

The piston knob on the Custom Heritage is gray, which accents the orange nicely.

The Fine-Medium "FM" Nib

The Custom Heritage sports a 14K gold number 5 nib. Pilot's standard gold nibs are springy--they're not semi-flex nibs like the "FA" nibs and the nibs on a Pilot/Namiki Falcon, but you can squeeze out a touch of line variation. What's unique about the nib I have, though, is the width. Pilot makes a "FM" nib (or a Fine-Medium), which is the perfect width for me to use as a daily writer. On more absorbent paper, the FM nib leans more to the medium side; on Rhodia or Clairefontaine, the nib writes more like a Western fine. In terms of ink flow, the pen writes perfectly out of the box. It has just a hint of feedback.

You can definitely squeeze some line variation out of the Pilot FM nib--it's not a nail--but I wouldn't call it "flex" or even "semi-flex."

A Piston Filler that Fills Completely and Is Easy To Clean

I saved what I consider the best aspect of this pen for last. In my piece on pen cleaning that I published a while back, I lamented how piston fillers had fallen out of my good graces because they were more difficult to clean. Not so with this pen! The piston mechanism is smooth and extremely efficient, meaning that the pen will take a full fill of ink, and on the flip side, will take a full fill of water when you are trying to clean it. Many piston fillers will only fill the ink chamber 3/4 or 2/3 full, which not only fails to maximize the ink capacity of the pen but requires repeated flushing to clean it. I've been using this pen with red ink (among the most difficult colors to clean), and I've been able to flush this pen completely clean with only 3-4 cycles of the piston.

Flushing the Pilot Custom Heritage 92 when I received it for the first time. This pen is full of water. Notice that there is only one slightly visible air bubble in the upper left of the ink chamber.

The Pricing Conundrum

I'm not a huge fan of clear demonstrators, so I didn't have to decide between buying internationally through Amazon or supporting a U.S.-based retailer. It is, however, unfortunate that Pilot sets the MSRP on the Custom Heritage 92 at $275 in the U.S. (Retailer "street price" tends to be around $220.) That's too high for this pen, regardless of how nice it is, and I would think this makes it nearly impossible for U.S. retailers (at least those abiding by the distributors' rules) to compete on this pen. The Lamy 2000 typically sells at a price point between $120-140, and I'd pay that for the Custom Heritage in a heartbeat.

Takeaways

I love this pen, and it's jumped to the top of my queue since I received it a few weeks back. (I do a lot of copy editing, and there's something about writing with red ink in an orange demonstrator that I find incredibly satisfying.) Moreover, at the $110 price point, this pen is up there with the Lamy 2000 as an option for purchasing a first gold-nibbed pen, especially if you are looking for a piston filler. I purchased this pen off of Amazon, though they are also readily available on eBay as well, sometimes for under $100.

Some Extra Credit

A few other people have reviewed the Pilot Custom Heritage. Mike Dudek over at The Clicky Post reviewed the clear version with a medium nib, and Pete Denison has reviewed the blue version, also in a FM nib.

If you're interested in reading further on the reasons why pens are priced differently in various markets, I recommend to you this piece by Ian at Pens!Paper!Pencils! You can also check out PIlot's reply to Ian's piece, as well as this reaction by Dr. Deans at Pen Economics.