Thanks for the response. Any particular retailer you would recommend buying from? Is buying from Amazon JP fairly straightforward from the States or do you need a VPN or something? I'm not at all opposed to buying abroad, I've bought several of my more expensive pens from La Couronne du Comte (R.I.P.) and Appelboom since they used to include VAT in their MSRPs and remove it if you shipped to the States (and often with free, very fast shipping thanks to DHL! Just had to wait weeks or months for stock sometimes). Sadly this doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

I'm used to all manner of gold and titanium nibs so not too worried about man-handling the nib.

No I don't have either Visconti anymore. I initially got the Bronze Age in EF, second-hand, and unfortunately the vacuum piston got snagged while cleaning one time and totalled the nib. I bought a BB unit to replace it, and that wrote TERRIBLY. I had bought the Dark Age brand new in the meantime (with an F nib) that also wrote terribly. I sent that one for work, but by the time it came back I realized I hated so many things about the pens (the capping mechanism can become mushy for seemingly no reason, with no way to ever clean it out or recover it, you never know how much ink you have, filling is an absolute pain unless you pay extra for the special inkwell, and if you use it you soak ink in to the section which will slowly leech out on to your fingers indefinitely, no matter how much you clean it, thanks to the weird way the porous material interacts with temperature and moisture) that I traded them both. The Dark Age at least wrote well by that point, but I had to sell the other as known needing work. Yes you should unfortunately budget to send a Visconti to a nibmeister if you decide to buy one (and probably buy a tipping size large to make sure it arrives with enough material to work with - Italian sizing is incredibly unreliable). The QC really bothered me but the more new pens I bought the more I realized essentially all of them have terrible QC out of the box.

Both Nakayas I've had ran dry after a page or two unless the feed is under pressure. I have had to send half my (new) Montblancs to have nibs replaced, reground, or flow issues solved. The brands I've had the best luck with (bought at least two and had no issues) are Lamy, Pelikan, and TWSBI.

The only pens I still have are:

• Conid (currently being modified to take a vintage 1970s 146 nib)
• Both Lamy 2000s (one B, one F)
• Montblanc 145 (M), 146P (BB, modified), 1960s 149 (EF, flexy, unknown if modified, undisputed king of fountain pens for me), Heritage 1912 (B CI, modified), Slimline (XXF, modified)
• Nakaya Decapod (EF, flexy, has issues, don't care enough to fix, but gorgeous)
• Pelikan M200 (F), M800 (M)
• TWSBI 580 (EF)
• Waterman Phileas Blue (M CI, modified but didn't need it, just to add character - my first fountain pen and one of my last gifts from my late mother)

Hmm. I have definitely read about this distinct "Sailor feedback", and heard that it resembles a mechanical pencil in feel. It's difficult for me to conceptualize but I know some swear by it. I tend to prefer very wet, very broad nibs, but the problem is if it doesn't write on junky work journal paper, then realistically I just never use it. The Music nibs are very enticing but I think if I want to have any hope of actually using it on the daily I'd have to go with an F or MF. I also know Japanese grinds tend to run pretty fine, so the Sailor F may be quite scratchy to my taste.

Since the 21K is what Sailor is known for, I don't think I will bother if not for a 21K nib. It sounds like the pricing in the USA is indeed unreasonable and this has been well documented for a while - the prices I see buying from e.g. Japan make much more sense for a mid-range production C/C pen with gold nib.