A bit of a different review this time! This review is of a pen that is many hundreds of dollars or even over a thousand dollars less than some pens I’ve reviewed. This pen is cheaper than any of my inks! The Pilot V-Pen/Varsity is a single-use (by design) fountain pen that retails for less than US$4. How does it stack up? A friend generously gave me this pen as a gift! Thanks!
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Pen Review: Pilot Custom Heritage 91 (SMF - Black and Silver trim)
The Pilot Custom Heritage 91 is the middle of Pilot’s mid-range range of pens (and they have a pretty huge range) sitting between the Custom 74 and the Custom Heritage 92. Pilot somewhat recently revamped the colours of this line of pens with new colours. It’s a pen that should be one of the staple gold-nibbed mid-range cartridge converter pens but you don’t see it stocked as often as the 74 or 92!
Thanks to Bookbinders Design for sending this pen for review (and the other colour options for photos). I’ll be giving this pen away for Australians in the Fountain Pens Australia facebook group.
Read MoreMy Pen Collection 2019
Within the theme of my ink collection, this is my pen collection. Over a year and a half ago I wrote about my pen collection and while a lot has changed, the collection has only grown by around 10 (in this post and the previous I have not counted cheap $5 Chinese pens but I am ignoring the Noodler’s Creepers this time). Unlike with my ink collection, where if I buy an ink it doesn’t leave the collection, I don’t have have that rule with pens. If there’s a pen I’m not using that much or don’t love (and it’s worth my time selling it) then I will periodically trim these pens from my collection. Inks are rarely over $100 and selling them second hand isn’t really worth the hassle for me (and I don’t want to sell them for other reasons) but when you have a $200+ pen that is just sitting there it’s worth the effort freeing up funds for other pens I might want. Because of that while my Ink collection just keeps growing, my pen collection is quite fluid. I don’t regret buying pens and selling them, I appreciate the experience of owning them. With inks as well I like having them for comparisons! I remember Brad Dowdy on the Pen Addict podcast once mentioning (and I am paraphrasing) that the monetary loss from selling a pen (compared to what you paid) can be compared to the costs associated with renting a pen (I have no idea which episode).. This is something I have taken to heart.
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