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It took until May to buy the first fountain pen of 2024. A week or so later I bought another. The first purchase had been considered for some time while the second was an impulse.
Now, at the end of July, I bought a fountain pen and another one tagged along. It would be easy to say it jumped in my cart at the last minute. We’ll talk about whether that’s true.
The pen I had my eye on is the Pilot Legance 89S.
Pilot Legance 89S
It’s a smaller pen. Almost the same length as the Pilot Prera but with more barrel taper and a little smaller grip diameter. The Legance 89S body style with different materials was also sold at the Stargazer, if memory serves. I think the Stargazer is now discontinued in the USA. I never tried the Stargazer but it held a spot on my interest list for several years.
The 89S’s main calling cards are the marbled resin and gold nib. The resin is lovely and the nib is excellent. It’s not that I expected otherwise but you’re never sure until it’s in your hand. I can best describe the writing as precise with a bit of forgiveness. Not as delicate as the E95S fine nib I had, but a less robust line than the Capless fine provides. The ink flow is excellent and you can coax slightly more line width with a small amount of pressure. I prefer to use it posted, same as the Prera, and the cap doesn’t affect the balance in my hand.
And the other pen that caught my eye at the last second?
Sheaffer 440
This is a Sheaffer 440. It’s not the Sheaffer I’ve been thinking about and looking for over several months (that would be a white dot lever filling Balance) so why did I get it? I like how it looks and I like how the Sheaffer diamond inlaid nibs write. It has the same long, neutral section design as a Targa or a Parker 45, which I have always loved using. Mostly, though, it was to scratch an itch for short money on a model I’d never tried.
The 440 writes well. Ink flow is good if maybe a touch dry. I’ll have to see what another ink does compared to Sheaffer Purple. Unlike the 89S, I find it better to use the 440 unposted. The metal cap’s weight moves the balance a bit too far back. It’s usable posted but the body is long enough to fit my hand well without posting, so it all works out.
The 400 is slightly longer than the Legance.
Sheaffer's short inlaid nib and Pilot's #3 gold nib. The amount of tipping shows the difference between a Western fine versus one from Japan.
Second to last sentence should say "might be" but my brain omitted it for unknown reasons. 'Twas not to be. ;-)
So, in a year with less fountain pen buying overall I seem to be binging a bit when the mood strikes. The Opera and Decimo were separate but closely spaced transactions in May. The 89S and 440 were bought at the same time and place. Did I hedge a little on the 89S? If it wasn’t what I hoped for, was the 440 an affordable consolation prize? Was there a sneaky influence of “since I’m here getting one, may as well get two” at play?
All these ideas, and several others, have some place in the pen buying calculus. However, I don’t know that I am any closer to identifying and understanding their relative influence and relationships than during last year’s all-out spree.
Acquiring pens so frequently didn’t make sense when scrutinized and it devalued the pens involved. Being slower and more selective with what I buy this year feels better. However, both times I made what I consider a deliberate, thought-out purchase there was another right alongside it. Those tag along buys didn’t have any developmental period. The heart said “I want,” and the brain said “Okay, sure.” Perhaps my track is buying one leads to two and I’m simply doing it less often than last year because I didn’t like where it led me when it was happening all the time.
I highly recommend you read RB’s article about pens and our motivations for them at A Gathering of Curiosities. I recognized a lot of what they said in my own feelings and the piece helped me clarify some crisscrossing thoughts on the subject. The last paragraph offers an excellent perspective.
“It’s ok not to have an immediate clarity about what our collecting impulses mean. This is a hard takeaway, perhaps the hardest of them all, because I love analysis and do often have clarity; but now I’m letting this whole thing percolate now as I enjoy Gathering friends old and new, and let myself breathe.” - RB Lemberg
