Latest Update: Just correcting a typo.
Thanks to our bosses-to-be at Cult Pens, we are in a rather lucky position - being able to revew both the Pilot Capless (Vanishing Point to Americans), and the new Pilot Capless Decimo, which has just been released in the UK. Cult Pens have the first official stocks in the UK, and one of the first batch is right here to be reviewed.
We’re talking about two pens here - the Pilot Capless, and the Pilot Capless Decimo. I’ll just refer to them as Capless and Decimo to keep things shorter, but the Decimo is also a Capless. Because they’re both quite similar, I’ll cover them together for the most part, but where they differ, I’ll try my best to describe how.
What Are They?
Retractable fountain pens. With other fountain pens, you have a cap, which you either pull off or unscrew. Some people put the cap on the end of the barrel when writing (called posting it), others keep it in their other hand, or pop it down somewhere (Sam posts, I don’t). If you’re using a pen on and off for a while, removing and replacing the cap can start to get annoying, and if you don’t post it, it’s easy to forget what you’ve done with it, or end up with it knocked on the floor.
The Capless pens get around that by using a retracting mechanism, like a ballpoint. Because the nib has to be kept away from the air, though, there is also a little sprung ‘door’ that opens as you push the button, allowing the nib to side out.
I never saw removing a cap as being a problem, but when I stood leaning on the wall to sign for a package one day, with the cap of my Sheaffer Saratoga Snorkel in my hand, I found afterwards that I’d leaned on the cap, and made a set of gouges into the plastic. It was about then that I started to see the point of the Capless pens.
Continue reading about Pilot Capless and Capless Decimo Review (AKA Vanishing Point)
Regular readers will probably have noticed that many of our pen reviews mention and link to Cult Pens. At first, we just happened to buy some pens there, and linked to them because we liked the pens and the shop. Soon, they started giving us a little discount on our purchases in return for the linking, then they started sending us a few freebies to try out (always disclosed in the review). Well, the relationship is about to change a bit more.
Things aren’t fully settled yet - there’s an office move that’s trying to happen alongside it all - but all being well, as of the end of December, we’ll be working at Cult Pens.