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Overwhelming Lightness: Sailor Professional Gear 21K Gold Detailed Review - Sailor Fountain Pen Vol. 1

2026年3月19日 09:58

Musings

Sailor recently announced a significant price increase.
When I bought this pen, it was around 25,000 yen. Two years have passed since then, and while it has now exceeded 70,000 yen, I will talk about its value now.
Although this is written by a middle school student, I hope it will be helpful for your purchase.
Come to think of it, the Professional Gear Slim 21 fountain pen was released on March 14th. This one is 66,000 yen. I assume this is the successor to the standard-sized Pro Gear before the price hike, but in this blog, I will discuss the standard-sized Professional Gear.

About the body

Please refer to other people's blogs for size, weight, and so on.
However, I will post a comparison image with the Pro Gear Slim Mini (Rencontre). It is about two sizes larger. In terms of size, the Professional Gear Slim 21 fountain pen sits between these two.

The left side is the Rencontre, the right side is the Pro Gear; 6mm grid paper.

Writing feel

It is difficult to state definitively because it changes depending on the ink, paper, and the writer's perception, but if I were to speak from my subjective point of view, I think it belongs to the smooth category.
Because the ink flow is as good as European pens (though this may vary by individual unit), it slides quite a bit depending on the paper.
At this time, I used paper called OK Fools, and on this paper, the smoothness was such that I could control it quite well.

The intention to get better by showing off my poor handwriting.

What is the value of 21K?

I like soft nibs, and I even customize Chinese fountain pens to be flexible (I might write about that if there is a response), but this pen has a slightly different direction from that category.
To be specific, it does flex a little, but only to the extent that you wouldn't notice it unless you applied pressure.
In other words, softness is not the main value of this nib. For those who want a nib that flexes, I recommend gold nibs from manufacturers like Scribo.
Returning to the topic, even if it flexes, the slit hardly opens.
It changes a little with fine nibs like EF, but with this M nib, there is almost no change in line width. This is as mentioned on the official website.
Also, this is my personal impression, but I feel the line width is thicker than Sailor's 14K.
Therefore, I recommend F or MF for gifts.

The value of this 21K nib, in my opinion, is the sense of exclusivity that it is currently manufactured by only one company in the world, and the satisfaction derived from its high gold content.
Well, the reason other manufacturers don't touch it is because there are points that make it difficult to handle as a commercial product (such as the effort required to change the gold composition).
That satisfaction is worth paying tens of thousands of yen for.
Of course, there is a unique sense of flex that other nibs don't have, but you would damage the nib if you constantly applied that much pressure.
The bi-color finish is also magnificent, and it is no exaggeration to say that the beauty and coolness of the nib are on par with Montblanc.

Perfection as a pen

In the previous chapter, I talked about the nib, but in this chapter, I would like to mention the high level of overall perfection, including the barrel.
My hand is about 20.5 cm with my thumb and pinky spread, so it's not that big. It's about the same as an adult woman's, isn't it?
I use it without posting the cap, but thanks to the thick barrel, it fits in my hand without me having to try to grip it; it's such a wonderful design.
The center of gravity is in the middle of the pen, which you don't notice unless you are conscious of it.
It hardly changes even if you post the cap.
If you don't post it, it feels light; if you do post it, there is a pleasure in how the letters seem to come out on their own due to the weight of the pen.
By the way, the reason I don't post the cap is because I don't want to scratch the barrel. I basically don't post other pens either. The only ones I do are the Kaweco Sport and the Sailor Rencontre.

This is what it looks like without posting.

If I were to mention the drawbacks

The fixing method for the tail cap, etc., is only press-fitting and adhesive, so it can come off.
But I stuck it back on with Cemedine, so it's not a problem.

Also, although it's unavoidable, I'm afraid of it getting scratched.

Afterword

While this pen has reached a price point of 77,000 yen, making it not exactly easy to pick up on a whim, you can still buy it for under 40,000 yen on Amazon, so it is a pen you should buy without missing this opportunity. It is suitable for purposes such as spending money on romance or giving it as a gift to someone.

It arrives in a presentation box like this.

SO BUY IT RIGHT NOW~!
If asked whether I would buy another one, the answer is "no." Because I have no money... (I wonder if money will fall from the sky~)
I will conclude this trivial writing here.
Goodbye for now☆
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I have attached the photos taken below.