Sailor makes some bomb fountain pens. Especially in the $100-$200 range. I prefer the aesthetic of the Pro Gear series rather than the rounded cap ends. You get the lovely flat cap with the iconic Sailor logo stamped on it.

My favorite pen so far is my Yukitsubaki Pro Gear Slim. It’s on the smaller side of pens but when posted its length is perfect. The pen itself is not too light but not too heavy. I use the original cartridge that came with the pen and refill it with a blunt-tipped syringe when I run out. The nib featured on it is a 14kt single-toned gold nib in MF (Medium-Fine). The feeling when you write with this pen for the first time is astounding. It’s like writing with a smooth pencil. You get some feedback but with the MF nib it’s a little smooth. It’s the perfect blend of feedback and smoothness, something that other nib sizes can’t offer. This MF is still on the finer side of nibs compared to other non-Japanese pens. I always wondered why people said Sailor nibs were amazing, after hucking $125 on this pen, I regretted not going to Sailor before. Sailor was the last of the Big 3 of Japan that I got.

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This pen was one of the few pens that I received and it wrote out the box perfectly, no modifications with the nib or feed required. Perfection right out the box. And with the Yukitsubaki color scheme, Yukitsubaki meaning ‘Snow Camellia’ in English, is one of the four pens from the Four Seasons Series featured by Sailor. I chose it because of the nice red flecks along with the white background. It’s really cool to see some of these flecks in the background and some others in the foreground. It’s like the red flecks were sprinkled into the white liquid resin as it was cooling down.

I’ve inked this pen up with Sailor’s Yuki Akari (Keeping with the Yuki, or snow theme here). It’s a fantastic light blue that is underappreciated in the fountain pen community. The Yuki Akari ink has a strong scent that comes from the nib and well, it’s not for everyone but the smell will always remind me of the pen and how awesome it is. It gets me pumped up to put the nib to the paper!

I give this pen an A+ rating. Amazing writing experience out the box for $125. This pen is one of the ones when I grab from my pen pouch, I know for certain it will write when it hits that paper. Bombin’ Japanese pen. I’ve only had it for less than a year and soon it will reach S-Tier legendary status.

About a year ago, I purchased this pen from Amazon Warehouse Deals. Well my first attempt to order a Platinum 3776 Century with a 14kt UEF (Ultra Extra Fine) nib resulted in me receiving a Coarse nib, which is the complete polar opposite of an Ultra Extra Fine. Glorious. On the second attempt, I received this. Not in the sharpest or cleanest condition as shown in the gold trim on the cap now resembling rusted gold, if that was even possible. The gold plate obviously rusted off by the time I received it. Pulling apart the nib from the pen I get the year the nib was manufactured. 2014. This pen was made in 2014, and I purchased it in 2018. Yeezus, it’s not in the best shape aesthetically but it’s a pretty damn good fountain pen for $60, the price I paid for it. It usually retails for like $100+ if you buy it from American retailers, though the gray market price is too good to beat. I would’ve gotten a new one for a few extra bucks if I could go back in time. Oh well.

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The pen has a round cap, and somewhat resembles a Mont Blanc pen. For a long time, I loved the pen despite one major flaw it had. I loved how fine it wrote and the feeling of the nib touching the paper. It’s toothy and off putting to some, but to me, it’s pleasant and makes the pleasant sound of a hard nib scribbling on paper.

The major flaw it had (it’s solved now), was that the nib would just suddenly run dry. It was the feed’s fault because pressing hard on the nib to spread the tines resulted in nothing. The feed lacked flow. It’d be writing super well and then start to get drier and drier until nothing. This was hella annoying. I made this pen my Noodler’s Heart of Darkness pen, essentially my every-day black ink pen carry. And I suspected it was the ink that was drying out this pen. My suspicions were ‘write’ (a pun) as I switched out to Diamine Shimmering Seas one day just to see if there would be shimmer, spoiler alert, none at all. But I noticed that the nib no longer ran dry randomly. Even when I left the nib out for three minutes. Amazing! So it was the ink after all. After this discovery, I made another pen my daily black ink pen, but I still enjoy the heck out of this pen.

Platinum’s nibs, 14kt gold would make you believe it’d be soft but nope, this nib is rock hard like a steel nib. If you apply some pressure it will spread, but barely, and it’s not meant to anyway. A sturdy stiff nib allows the user to write quickly, Platinum’s goal was to create a workhorse pen and this is pretty much it. If you’re looking for a soft Platinum nib then look at the SF (Soft Fine) nib. It has much more springiness to it than this one. The Ultra Extra Fine nib on this particular pen is a Platinum exclusive feature. Only Platinum makes these nibs in mass production and allows customers to choose it out the gate without having it shipped to some nib specialist first. The number 3776 comes from the height of Mt. Fuji in meters and I guess the nib design is supposed to resemble Mt. Fuji as well. And well, since I love this pen so much, it’s my fountain pen nickname!

Let’s talk about the converter. This pen doesn’t come with one. Frustrating I know. A $60 pen without a converter. Ballocks. That’s definitely one con. The converter itself does its job though for $6. Platinum was the first pen company in Japan, to have created a cartridge-converter, I believe. This converter is compatible with my Kuretake Brush Pen No. 40 and the Kuretake Brush Pen’s cartridges fit in my Platinum 3776. Quite interesting feature of this converter, not completely locked into the Platinum ecosystem like the other pen manufacturers.

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It ain’t interesting to look at and doesn’t stand out in my collection, but after the ink swap fixing my random drying issues, it’s an amazinger pen! Unfortunately I fixed this issue a month ago and physiologically still need to adjust to the recent fix. Nonetheless, I give this pen an A. Excellent nib and excellent price (for $60). Maybe in another year it’ll be an S-tier.