PILOT Fontain Pen Custom 74, SF-Nib, Black Body (FKK-1000R-B-SF)

The first pen I ordered came in two days but it was a dud skipping and blotching and driving me crazy. I sent it back and Amazon gave me a quick refund. I have other pilot fountain pens and I have faith in the brand so I ordered another one. This second pen is fantastic! It took several weeks to ship from Japan but it was worth the wait. I bought a Con-70 ink converter for it, this is one of the few pens you can use this larger converter in and is part of the reason I bought the pen, it holds twice as much ink as the Con-50 that most Pilot pens use so the ink lasts a very long time between refills. Of course the best and most important part of the pen is the nib and my 14 carrot gold extra fine nib writes wonderfully. It writes in all directions, never skips or blotches and starts right away even if it is not used for days, which is not very often. Extra fine can be a little scratchy but the sweet fine line is worth it. The pen is light and solid. The cap screws on and posts well. The clip works good and seems strong. And because this is a Japanese import pen it is much less expensive than the USA model. I did have to buy the converter separately. You can flex the nib to get a thicker line but it is fairly stiff which is great for everyday use. I'll be using this pen for many years to come!

This has to be my favorite fountain pen in my collection. I got the SF nib but I think if I were to get this pen again I'd go with the regular fine nib. If you're getting this pen you'll also need to pick up a converter and some ink. I am using the CON-70 and I love it, but you could also go with the CON-50 if you wanted to. All of the inks I've tried in this pen have worked perfectly. Noodler's black, an ink that many people have problems with, flows great and doesn't creep on the nib. The soft nib gives just the right amount of flex to give line variation and I haven't encountered any railroading or skipping. The construction of the body is beautiful and well done, the clip has not worn out even after months of clipping to my thick jean pocket. I personally do not use my pens posted and even with my large hands the pen has a great feel. Even if you post your pens the cap and pen are light enough to use posted without fatigue. The pen is sleek, not too gaudy, and very professional looking and feeling.For its price point this pen is probably the best you can get. It has an amazing build quality, reliability, as well as a gold nib. If you haven't used a 14kt nib yet I'd suggest this pen wholeheartedly, its Brian Goulet's everyday carry!

It's smooth to write. The nib is a bit wet.

I bought this pen blindly based on reviews. That was a bad idea...It writes like a nail, causing me to question what people would consider smooth. The pen isn't tuned well at all. Skips constantly. Simply an unpleasant writing experience. The pilot metropolitan writes better than this pen with the same size nib, and the metropolitan is terrible as well. I couldn't give this pen away. Want a smooth writing pen that is well tuned out of the box? Get a Faber Castell Loom. Half the price, and performs better in all aspects many orders of magnitude better than this overpriced nail. You'll thank me later.

I purchased this pen (BB-nib) about three months ago, it took 5 full weeks to arrive from Japan! The purchase was terrible, zero stars, however the fountain pen is excellent after about six weeks use. When it arrived, it was surprisingly scratchy with more feed back than I prefer. But it did draw consistently with broad lines. After the first two to three weeks of use the scratchiness was greatly reduced while the lines remain consistent. It is presently very smooth. I draw with my pens, I do not use them to write letters or memos or checks. Consistent lines are important. I prefer to draw with just 2 pens. One with a broad line and the other with a fine line. The BB nib on this pen draws consistent lines that are between 0.80 mm and 0.85 mm in width. Line width can/will vary from paper to paper.The Pilot Custom 74 has a size #5, "gold" nib. No, I do not believe that the nib or this pen's trim is solid "gold". But, nevertheless it draws good lines. The overall quality of the pen is very good and it looks good. The cap unscrews in a bit more than one full turn (a pain in the butt - my Pelikan's cap unscrews in 1/2 turn). It's best feature is it's consistent BROAD line. The PC 74 is a "medium" size pen.

There's really not much to say about this pen, other than it's wonderful. It's well-constructed, with very classical styling, and soft-fine nib is an absolute joy to write with...provided you have decent paper. Regular Moleskine paper will not, as most fountain pen users know, end well for you. The heavier Moleskine Professional notebooks do somewhat better with bleed through, but the feathering with Iroshizuku is ugly. Lately, I've been using 90gsm Clairefontaine journals, which are fantastic, and have a TWSBI notebook that seems quite nice as well.I have the solid black, Japanese model, which I prefer to the US versions, and is nearly identical in size, shape, style and weight to the Platinum #3776 Century (also in SF) that I've been using for a few days. Really, the only way to tell them apart is that the Pilot is slightly longer and slimmer, and has the distinctive ball on the clip. The nib on the Pilot is also, for now, noticeably smoother and somewhat wetter with the same writing pressure than the Platinum. There does tend to be some nib creep on the C74, but it does add a bit of character when writing. And the pen does have quite a bit of character, as the amount of feel and line variation is wonderful.

Le stilografiche giapponesi, non hanno eguali. Pennino in oro fantastico, scrive che è una delizia.

Depuis que je l'ai, j'ai vraiment abandonné mes autres stylos !J'adore la qualité d'écriture. Certains diront que la pointe "gratte" un peu sur le papier, mais moi j'aime bien écrire fin et cela dépends de l'inclinaison de la plume sur le papier.En tout cas si un jour j'arrive à le casser (ce que je doute), je rachète exactement le même !

Pilot custom 74 extra fine - Perfetta, pilot non ti delude, non è molto scorrevole su carta a4 da fotocopia, ma lascia un tratto che fa ricordare un pennello da pittura artistica, anche von pennino extra fine. Bella

La penna non è male, ma per il costo che ha, mi sarei aspettato un fusto della penna in un materiale meno scadente, al tatto sembra una penna da 2 euro. Se non fosse per il pennino in oro che scrive bene, non ci sarebbe differenza con penne cinesi dal costo di pochi centesimi

Una buena pluma para el precio a la que se puede conseguir. El plumín va muy suave y es agradable en la escritura, como prácticamente todos los productos de Pilot. El tamaño es bueno y el diseño mas que conocido y clásico. Y le cabe el con-70 que es el mejor de los convertidores de Pilot.Yo recibí una Custom 74 14k, en este caso con el plumín M y la verdad es que la escritura con ella es estupenda, además del aspecto y el peso que a mi particularmente me encantan. Es una pluma extraordinaria para largas sesiones de escritura, ligera y muy confiable.Los únicos Contras serian:No viene con un ConvertidorEl tiempo de espera