TL;DR: I fished from my pen drawer a pocket pen. Turns out it’s a PILOT Elite model E95S, in Burgundy red, with an enormous 14k-gold nib, EF-tipped, stamped with “P921”. I bought it last year and never got to try it out properly. Today’s the day!
History: The PILOT Elite line started in the 1960s as a prestige line, different from the SUPERs that dominated the Japanese fountain pen market in the 1950s.
Long Elites were the new prestige class, but somewhere along the line, starting with the SAILOR Mini (early 1960s) and followed closely by PLATINUM, a new class of pens appeared and became immediately popular: pocket pens, also labeled as long-short for their feature of being long when uncapped (15-16 cm, typically) but short when capped (10-12 cm).
PILOT followed with its own pocket pen, the Pilot Elite S (first in 1964?), where “S” is for “Short”. Through the 1960s and the 1970s, PILOT released numerous short and long Elites, in various materials for both body and nib, with various filling systems, and with various finishes [CE].
Then… Nothing, through the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. Until 2013, or year 95 since the start of the Pilot Corporation (or PILOT) in 1918, when PILOT reintroduced the Elite line, for now, only including pocket pens. So here we are, with the new PILOT Elite, model E95S.
Experience: great feel in hand, nib took some using to. (Figure 1) The pen, when capped, is long, with sufficient girth and weight for my liking.
Inked with PILOT Iroshizuku Take-Sumi, a black ink, the pen feels quite dry, so the nib took some time getting used to. But, once comfortable with it – I did not tune the nib -, I started to appreciate its stroke variation, which includes both width and how wet the stroke can be.
The resulting drawing indicates I ended up liking the nib (and the pen) very much!
Dimensions: (Figures 2a and 2b) The E95S is a tiny pen when capped, but turns into a long pen when posted.
The nib: (Figures 3a-3d) The nib is unusually large, and for a pocket pen it is outright enormous (see Figure 3a). The structure is inlaid but easily removable.
The nib consists of a large body that ends with moderately long, narrow tines (see Figures 3b and 3c). Consequently, the nib is semi-flexy, allowing for good line variation in the range EF to M, the latter with moderate pressure.
Perhaps because of its shape and rather small feed (see Figure 3d), the nib is quite dry, but with some imbalance: The strokes I get are moderately dry on two cardinal directions (left- and rightward, dry on the third (upward), and moderately wet on the fourth (downward). This is, to me, unusual and requires a special kind of control when writing or drawing, to get the desired stroke width and (also unusual) wetness.
The pen shows high-quality design and manufacturing. (Figures 4a and 4b) The pen looks great overall, and the materials, color palette, and details are excellent.
The cap offers a case in point: anodized aluminum with gold-plated clip and various accents. The clip includes the traditional PILOT engraving (see Figure 4a), and the cap further includes the Elite logo, and a narrow and a large band stylized as for the vintage Pilot Elite pocket pens.
To conclude: Excellent pocket pen, this PILOT Elite E95S! The bees knees. The cat chase (see Figure 5).
Enjoy the day!
References
- Bruno Taut, Elite, Cronicas Estilográficas. Online: https://estilofilos.blogspot.com/2013/07/elite.html. Abbrev. aas [CE].
