Pilot Vanishing Point Collection Fountain Pens Reviews

Enjoy writing with this pen.

Enjoy writing with this pen.

What a fantastic pen! It looks so cool and writes so smooth!

Very happy with this. It writes great. Smooth and rich flow. The blue with gold trim very good looking. I thought I might have a problem writing with the
Clip but no issue at all. Great price on a
Gold nib.

Such an excellent pen! Quality you can feel.

I ordered a Vanishing Point in Blue Carbonesque with F nib (I guess I would prefer M nib more, F is a bit too fine for me). The customised engraving is gorgeous.

Nib was a bit scratchy out of box. Flushed several times and switched inks and it got better. Pen Chalet customer service (via email) is amazing.

I'm a big Pilot fan, and the Vanishing Point has only reinforced my appreciation for them. Mine is the Blue/Rhodium model with a medium nib. The quality is what I expect from Pilot - the pen feels very solid in the hand, and the 18k gold nib is...well, I've never used a nib quite like this one. This is a wet medium that, to my eye, leans a bit more toward the Western than the Japanese width. The astonishing thing about it is its absurd smoothness. Write with minimal pressure and a wet ink, and this thing will float across the page. Feedback is extremely minimal. (In fact, my nib is so smooth it "sings.") Combine the glassy-smooth nib with the VP's famous nib-retracting mechanism, and what you get is an absolute note-taking machine.

Beyond the practical, there's the aesthetic. The blue is more navy than I expected, but it's still sharp and classy, especially with the silver trim and rhodium-plated nib. The body is solid brass, and this is a fairly heavy pen, but if you're using it mostly for occasional notes, that shouldn't cause any strain. The clip looks good, works well, and gives me no problems while writing.

As to value, this is a premium pen whose premium price actually makes some degree of sense. It's a practical, serious, professional pen that's easy to use and has an excellent nib to boot.

(In all fairness, one small downside to it is the difficulty of filling it with a CON-40. I recommend using Pilot cartridges or refilling those same cartridges if you want more than a small fill. I'm fine with frequent fills and color changes, though, so the CON-40 works fine for me.)

A great mid-level fountain pen. Gold nib is smooth with a little bit of bounce, no flex. Great mechanisms for a fountain pen with the convenience of a ballpoint. Vanishing point/cap less for someone that likes a larger diameter pen. For people with smaller hands try the Pilot Decimo. Same functionality with a smaller diameter barrel. The carbonesque finish is my favorite of the affordable ones. Very collectible.

VPs are always great additions to a collection. The gold nib is soft enough to provide a smooth writing experience but stiff enough to not bend under the pressure. They keep up with my speed-notes and the different colors make it easy to keep notes organized.

I read online reviews that said the stub nib was scratchy, so I called Pen Chalet ahead of time to ask if this was the case. They told me that it was like a hot knife through butter, so I went ahead and purchased the Vanishing Point with the stub nib. When I received it I tried it a few times by just dipping the nib in the ink, as they advised; and I thought it was a pretty far cry from a hot knife through butter, but that it would be okay. But as you know it's often hard to get a real feel for a nib without writing with it for a good while. After a few weeks, the scratchy feel of the nib, though slight, is bothering me more and more. I suppose I will have to purchase a loop, some brass shims, some micromesh, etc., etc., to get the nib to feel truly smooth. This annoys the hell out of me because I think it is a reasonable expectation for a premium pen to perform well right out of the box, the way my other fountain pens do. Also, for a premium pen I expected the finish and design to be a little finer. When you look at where the colored barrel meets the metal at either end of the pen, they are not flush. They do not connect smoothly; there is a bump from the metal to the colored barrel because the latter is abruply fatter or bigger in diameter. I am sticking with it because I don't see alternatives in a retractable fountain pen that appeal to me.