Ink and Pen Notes: Sailor 1911 Sterling Silver and ViscontiBordeaux
There was a time when I had a handful of Sailor 1911 fountain pens with various nibs. They all got sold off, leaving me with this lone Sailor 1911 Sterling Silver fountain pen. I bought this pen in 2004 and it started it’s life as a medium nib. In 2013 I had the nib ground to a stub by Richard Binder at the DC Pen Show. It was rarely used except when it was new or newly stubbed yet I kept this 1911 because it was shiny and had a less exotic (for me) Sailor nib than the others. The resin (plastic) 1911’s are too light for my tastes but the Sterling Silver had a nice weight.
I did have to polish up the pen before inking it up. I picked Visconti Bordeaux for the pen and filled it on March 28th. Visconti Bordeaux is an ink I like, but haven’t used very much. I was interested in seeing how it did with a stub nib.
Being a Japanese nib it’s a rather thin medium and about the widest nib I’d use for everyday writing. The combination worked well together, no skipping or hard starts. I did use the pen a lot, but it went dry faster than I expected so I suspect there was some evaporation, but no leaks or ink splattered in the cap.
I don’t have any complaints about the combination of the Sailor 1911 Sterling Silver and Visconti Bordeaux ink. The ink just doesn’t pull me in and its no Montblanc Bordeaux. Like the ink, I’ve no complaints about the pen but it doesn’t call to me when I’m looking for a pen to ink up. Both will get some future use but neither will be frequent visitors to my rotation.
