Pen Talk: Sailor Pro Gear, Limited Edition 2023 Tequila Cocktail in Cyclamen

Another post about pens! I'm trying to vary so this doesn't just become a pen blog - which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I want this to be a general hobby blog. I know I can get used to what I perceive as an expectation and tell myself I "have" to do certain topics, and I want to avoid that by getting a variety of topics out as much as I can. But! I can't help that one of the hobbies I'm most into right now is fountain pens, and I have a gym blog I've been sitting on for a few weeks and only just finally queued up to post, so I also want to make sure I'm posting on a somewhat regular basis. 

Last week, I received a new pen in the mail. It's a Sailor Pro Gear, and it's one of the cocktail themed limited edition pens from 2023: the Cyclamen colorway, which is a salmony red cap, a sunny yellow body, and juicy orange finials. 

The pen in being opened, still partially in its packaging.

The capped pen on a blue notebook background.

My Pen's Details:

• Colorway: Cyclamen
  
• Default Nib: Gold 21k M, Proprietary 
• Clip: Yes
• Postable: Yes
• Fill Method: Converter
• Shimmer Ink: Untested

I don't drink, so I asked Dane what a "cyclamen" was. He didn't know either so we tried looking around online, but looking up "cyclamen drink" or "cocktail" on google images only gives pictures of flowers, which is where the word comes from, and... this fountain pen, haha. I did manage to find a small handful of youtube videos, so here's one. It's basically a tequila made with orange and lemon juice, and gets the dark orange color from adding grenadine syrup.

This was the first Sailor pen color that made me want a Sailor at all. But when I first saw it back in 2023, the cost was far more than I wanted to spend on any single pen - I still haven't spent quite that much, but I can't remember the exact price it was at the time, either. I instantly fell in love with this color combo and started asking my friend about Sailors. She'd warned me that they have a noticable feedback that some folks don't like, which is a fair warning for the price point the Pro Gears are at. So I left it alone for a while but kept browsing Reddit's trading page for some time to see if someone would list one they no longer wanted, but never really saw anything before I quit reddit. I ended up finally settling for a Sailor Pro Gear Slim in another color (which I'll probably make a post on later?) since the colorway alone isn't a good enough reason to invest so much money. But I ended up liking that one a lot, so I got another Pro Gear Slim. A month or two ago, EndlessPens started stocking the whole 2023 cocktail collection as a set you could buy together, and maybe two weeks ago they started splitting them and selling pens individually. Endless tends to have pretty good deals, especially if you've already been suckered into spending money with them before ;) So the discounts on the pen I'd wanted the whole time became super reasonable, and after milling on it for a while, I decided to get it. 

A close-up of the 21k gold nib.

A big difference between this pen and the other two I already had was, this one is a 21 karet gold nib. The other two are gold as well, but only 14k. You can tell the difference and the feedback people talk about with Sailors is definitely less affronting on the 21k. (I will say I think I'm a feedback-enjoying person so I do like my 14ks, but this one does still feel better.) A lot of people say the feedback feels like writing with a pencil, but to me it feels closer to a high-end marker. Maybe it's because all my Sailors have medium nibs and not fine, but "pencil" isn't quite right to me.

The Pro Gear is bigger than the Pro Gear Slims (obviously) and I think I prefer it - I thought I would be a small pen person mostly since my hands are pretty small, but some of my big pens are a lot of fun. This isn't a big pen, but being bigger seems to put it in a better spot for me. I'm still deciding on that though, since overall I'm still working on changing my grip with my pens. I tend to grip too hard and my hand will cramp, so things are subject to change, I suppose. 

I decided to test with Sailor Manyo Yamabuki, since it's a bright, sunny, shading orange that leans yellow when it's applied lightly. It's also a high favorite ink for me and one I've used probably the most, so it's great for testing with new pens. I think I was pretty "meh" on this ink in my other sailors, but in this one, it's working out well.

I wrote out some of the lyrics to "Sober" by Plush.

Overall I'm very excited about this pen. It might be my closest to a "grail" pen that I've had, though I've never really called it that. The cheery color, the fit, and the writing feel are all pleasant for me and I'm excited to test this with more inks once this orange runs out. Not sure which will be next but half the fun is picking the next ink anyway. 

I'm never really sure how to end these blog posts. Maybe my next fountain pen post should be about ink? I could show how I handle my swatches, that might be fun. I don't know! But I'm having fun with this little blog so far and that's good beans to me.