Review: Sailor Cross Concord Specialty Nib Fountain Pen

The Sailor Cross Concord belongs to the Naginata-Togi or Specialty Nib series of fountain pens made by the Sailor pen company.

I actually have a few of these Specialty Nibs fountain pens that I bought many years ago, namely the Sailor Cross Music Emperor, Sailor Cross Emperor and Sailor Fude De Mannen.

Sailor actually stopped production for the Specialty Nib pens in 2015 and only resumed production in 2018. Only limited quantity of these pens are made each year and the price has increased quite significantly, adding almost US $100 to $150 to the original prices which were already quite expensive to begin with.

This is the new packaging box which is a slide-out box.

I bought this pen at Fook Hing, a fountain pen retail shop in Singapore. Another place where you can probably find the pen is Aesthetic Bay (Singapore).

I paid S$880 (~US $646) including tax for the pen. That's expensive no doubt. The Sailor Cross Emperor I bought in 2015 on eBay was US $515. The non-Emperor version without the extra tab is cheaper so the price increase for the 2018 designs are at least US $150. I should have bought the Sailor Concord back then but the design didn't really excite me back then. I decided to buy this now to add to my collection. I can't say "complete" my collection because there are still the Sailor King Eagle and Sailor King Cobra nibs which are no longer being made.

I don't see myself as a collector. I just like the nibs because they are special and no other companies make nibs like these.

These are the items included:

• Sailor ink convertor
• Two ink cartridges
• Booklet featuring other Specialty Nib pens
• Cleaning cloth
• Booklet on fountain pen usage and care>

This is the typical topedo-shaped body with a high gloss finish and gold-coloured finishing. This is the typical Sailor fountain pen design found even on the less expensive pens.

The end cap has the words "SAILOR JAPAN 1911 SPECIAL NIB" embossed gold against black. That end cap is slightly thicker compared to the cap.

When you look at the cap from the front where the clip is, the words SAILOR is right in the centre.

I read the pen can be dismantled but I'm definitely not going to try that on such an expensive pen. The fitting is very tight.

This is a comfortable pen to hold.

Together with the cap on, the pen is 14.8cm in length.

With the cap posted, it's 15.5cm.

This nib was made with another smaller nib fused on the top. The nib is made with 21K gold. The engraved design is nice and simple

You can actually see two layers of nib if you look really close.

The horizontal slit goes to the front to cross the vertical slit. This is called a Cross Concord because of the crossed slit. There's a version of this pen without the cross slit called the Naginata Concord.

Those are the fins on the feed section.

Design of the nib is probably inspired by the beaks of birds of prey.

The screw-on section is smaller than the sections from pens made before 2016.

This means you won't be able to interchange this section (left) to use on other Sailor fountain pens. One thing I like about the older pens is you can just swap around the section. So if you want a black section with colour cap and body, you have that option.

When you hold the pen normally, you'll get a thin line, and when you turn it to the other side, you'll get a significantly thicker line.

The thin line is just slightly thicker compared to extremely fine EF nibs, such as the ones you can find on the Pilot Penmanship or some desk pens.

It's a bit scratchy but that's not surprising for such a pointed nib like this.

The broad side is smoother to write and draw with. There's a nice tactile feel of the nib on paper regardless of which nib side you write with.

Ink flow is good, but if you draw with the broad side fast, you can produce tapered lines.

Main selling point of this pen is you can produce either thin or thick lines. It's like having two nibs in a pen.

For artistic purposes, you can draw with thin, thick or thin and thick lines. The thickness of lines actually have meaning in a drawing.

You can use thick lines to draw foreground elements and thick lines for background elements to create visual separation.

You can also choose to use thick lines for outlines or to draw lines where there's a change in plane or form, and use thinner lines for details or less important lines.

It will take some practice to get used to drawing with thin and thick lines. You can take a look at architectural hand drawn ink drawings or even ink character drawings to see how other artists draw with thin and thick lines.

The Sailor Cross Concord is a versatile pen.

Is it worth the money?

That is a difficult question to answer because people buy expensive or luxury pens for different reasons. All I can say is, if for some reason the pen needs to be sold in the future, you'll probably not make a loss. This nib has a special design not made by other companies, and the nib is made in such small quantities that even if you feel like buying it, you can't just buy it instantly because it's difficult to find one in stock. Your best chance of buying a pen like this is to reserve it at a fountain pen shop.

This pen gets a 5 out of 5 stars easily for the design, craftsmanship and quality.