For those of you who haven’t heard the term before, a “grail pen” is a pen that you want to have but for some reason or another cannot - due to pricing or availability.
For me, the Pilot Capless has been a grail pen as I held off buying one until a special occasion arrived. For this one that occasion would be taking the next step in my career. Why the Pilot Capless? A long time ago I saw one with a matt black finish and simply fell in love with it. I also like the whole idea of using a fountain pen like a clicker and not having to screw around with cap all the time whenever I want to write something down. The Capless isn’t cheap, either, costing around € 230 depending on the vendor.
That special occasion arrived at the end of September and so I finally ordered one with an F-nib from Akkerman in The Hague. Sadly, there were some delays as they were unexpectedly also out of of stock but my Capless finally arrived on October 22.
Since then I’ve used it daily with my favorite black ink (Platinum Carbon Black) and tested it on the following paper types:
- Leuchtturm 120g
- MD Paper
- Leuchtturm classic paper
- Roterfaden paper
On all of these combination performs perfectly. No to minimal show-through (and obviously no bleed-through), very minimal to no feathering, and just a really smooth writing experience.
Since it’s a classic cartridge/converter pen, the ink reservoir isn’t as large as say the one of the TWSBI 580 or a Lamy 2K but this hasn’t been an issue for me so far.
The pen feels solid but not heavy and the clicker is even more satisfying than the Mark One for me.
I simply love this pen 😍
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