Grail Fountain Pens: Our Top 11 Categories Worth Chasing

Introduction

In fountain pens, a “grail pen” means something that is difficult to obtain. That difficulty can come from scarcity, a limited edition long since sold out, small-batch production, or simply a price that requires patience and saving. Price is subjective, and part of what makes this hobby appealing is that it welcomes collectors at every budget.

This list has been refreshed after five years, and the top spots are grouped mainly by category or brand rather than individual models, with one exception. It was originally a top 10, but expanding it to a top 11 made the cut easier. Prices for high-end pens vary enormously, so each entry here is best researched individually; a couple of discontinued models may take extra digging.

Honorable Mentions

Three pens narrowly missed the main list, but each deserves a closer look.

Conid Bulkfiller King Size

Conid stopped producing pens for a few years and, to the delight of the community, recently resumed production. The Bulkfiller King Size stands out for outstanding build quality and precision manufacturing. It feels substantial in the hand without becoming burdensome, uses a bulk filling system with a very large ink capacity, and pairs beautifully with a large gold number 8 nib that writes wet and juicy.

Pen 18111 Night Sky Sakura

Made by Yoshi Nakai in Brooklyn, New York, this pen inlays resin into resin. Each flower and the golden moon are laser etched into the barrel as cavities, then filled with a pearlescent powder and resin mixture, so the inlays are just as strong and durable as the rest of the pen and cannot chip or wear off like paint. A cast bronze roll stop shaped like a cherry blossom branch wraps around the cap, and the flowers look striking against the deep blue acrylic. It proved so appealing that a second example in pink joined the collection.

Danitrio Genkai

This pen previously appeared on the grail list five years ago and returns as an honorable mention. Its full name is the Danitrio Tame-nuri Ro-Shu On Genkai, where tame-nuri is the urushi technique, ro-shu is the type of urushi, and Genkai is the model. It is a beast of a pen, the largest in the collection, with a very wet nib and one of the favorite nib stampings in the entire lineup.

Classic Pens LB5

The LB5 holds legendary status in the pen world. Two versions are in the collection: Tenyu, Japanese for raindrops, in a deep space blue, and Koseki, meaning metal ore, in Diamond Brown. The Tenyu features rhodium-plated trim while the Koseki uses gold-plated trim. These were made in conjunction with Sailor and use a large amount of Sailor hardware, including a Sailor King of Pen nib, in a body slightly larger than that pen.

What makes the LB5 so special is the material: a diffusion-bonded acrylic whose layers are bonded at a molecular level, costing around ten times more than standard acrylic. Spare rods from the original production have been offered for over $11,000 as a single pen blank. Each of the seven colors was a limited edition of only 50 units, long since sold out. A listing once asked around $12,000 on the secondary market, though a fairer value is likely closer to $5,000 to $6,000. It is one of the few pens in the hobby that has actually increased in value.

Namiki

Namiki is the luxury division of Pilot, and it produces some of the finest urushi and maki-e pens available. The Emperor is the giant of the family: despite its enormous number 50 size nib, it is surprisingly easy to write with and stays inked at all times. Its smaller brother, the Urushi Royale, uses a metal body where the Emperor uses ebonite, with a slightly smaller but still outstanding nib.

Namiki’s maki-e work is equally compelling, with two pens from the Nippon Art series worth noting. The Mount Fuji and Waves recalls the famous great wave painting, while the Golden Pheasant model adds a burst of color to the lineup. Anything from Namiki is worthy of grail status.

Omas

Coming in randomly at number nine is just about anything from the Italian brand Omas, specifically the original incarnation of the company before its recent revival. The Ogiva Cocktail Blue Angel features sleek lines and ridged resin. The My Lord Arco was a first Arco celluloid pen and a long-standing grail. The turquoise 360 model, acquired at the annual auction at the triangle pen show, offers a unique triangular shape and translucent resin that reveals the pen’s inner workings.

Omas nibs are outstanding, and the company was one of the few that manufactured its nibs in house.

Eggshell Pens

Eggshell treatments, when done well, look genuinely beautiful and unique. This particular pen comes from Mr Cyprus, based in Taiwan. The application here is especially appealing: a denser portion of shell on the cap that gradually falls away as the barrel progresses, rather than a uniform covering across the whole pen. Quail and duck eggs are commonly used, and duck eggs were used for this pen. Robin eggs would look gorgeous, but robins are a protected species in the US, making their use illegal.

The gold nib pairs with raden flakes on the section, and the natural discoloration of the shells is a welcome reminder that this is a real, once-living material. Another eggshell pen incorporating raden is on the way from a manufacturer in India at a very reasonable price.

Visconti

Visconti has a wide variety of models that qualify as grail pens. The Blue Ripple was the subject of years of patient searching before one appeared at an acceptable price: white ice-toned resin beneath a dark blue silver overlay representing the ripples of water after a drop falls in. It writes fantastically on an 18K gold dual-tone nib.

Other standouts include the Millionaire, a pen made from thin marble that is not overly heavy and carries possibly the favorite Visconti nib in the collection; the Divina, both in the Desert Springs resin and the traditional model with sterling silver twisting bands; the Wall Street in stacked celluloid that changes appearance with the viewing angle; and the Opera Crystal Dark Midnight, whose transparent resin contrasts with stark black hardware and uses Visconti’s vacuum-style power filling system with a large barrel.

Finally, there is the classic Homo Sapiens, made from a mix of volcanic lava and resin. Over the years the material develops a unique personality, with some examples growing shinier, some more matte, some grayer, and some with more prominent pitting. This older sterling silver model features an extra set of bands on the barrel, long since sold out, and a detail worth seeing brought back.

Naya

Naya has ties to the Japanese brand Platinum. Artisans who retire from Platinum reportedly move to Naya and work under different production guidelines, essentially a semi-retirement where they produce what they want, when they want, without quantity requirements. The result is some of the most amazing urushi pens on the market, and purchases usually require joining a wait list; both examples here required several months of waiting.

Both pens carry the ake-tame-nuri finish. The Dorsal Fin 2 takes its name from the fins on both cap and barrel, while the original Dorsal Fin has a fin only on the cap. The fin is made of built-up urushi lacquer painstakingly sculpted over months, a claim confirmed when an x-ray of the pens showed the fins were indeed built-up lacquer rather than sculpted ebonite. The Decapod Twist pairs the same finish with what is essentially a Platinum gold nib. In hindsight, the Decapod Twist looks even better without its clip.

Montblanc Great Characters

Montblanc’s classic 146, flagship 149, and StarWalker lines are well known, but the grail-worthy picks come from the Great Characters and Writers series. Montblanc excels at weaving a theme into a pen and connecting it to the person who inspired the model, and the symbolism runs deep.

The Alfred Hitchcock edition is the example in hand. The grooved exterior hearkens to the opening credit sequence from Vertigo, the knife-shaped clip references Psycho, and the custom nib engraving carries Hitchcock’s famous self-drawn profile sketch. For film fans, this pen was originally deemed too expensive at retail, but a friend at an overseas retailer had one final unit at a price far below what others were asking, and the chance was too good to pass up.

Pilot Custom 845 and Custom Urushi

Two urushi pens from Pilot follow, and neither looks especially flashy at first glance. An outsider might see them as simple black pens. The Custom 845 has a resin base, the Custom Urushi is made from ebonite, and both wear exterior treatments of stark black urushi. Under a loupe, the faint brush strokes become visible and serve as a reminder that an artisan was involved in the making of each pen.

The nibs are the headline here. Both made a personal top five favorites list, with the 845 at number four and the Custom Urushi at number two. They are the kind of nibs that impress the very first time they touch paper, and both are glorious and worthy of grail status.

Arco Celluloid

At number three the entry is not a specific pen or company but a material: Arco celluloid. It appears on two pens here, the Omas My Lord shared earlier and the ASC Bologna Extra Arco. Celluloid is more durable than the hard rubber used on early fountain pens but less durable than many modern resins and plastics. It has a warm feel in the hand, though the material is somewhat unstable: it can discolor over time and is extremely flammable. New material of this quality is not currently being manufactured, so existing blanks are extremely valuable and coveted by pen makers.

Arco pens tend to carry very high price tags, so adding more may never happen, but the two in hand are adored. Even a small polished offcut of the material becomes a prized possession for anyone who loves this hobby.

Sailor King of Pen

Three Sailor King of Pen models are in the collection. The first is the Royal Tangerine, with a bright, vibrant orange resin and a nib that ranks among the favorites in the collection. The second is the King of Pen Pro Gear Sky, purchased at Fountain Pen Hospital in New York City after dragging feet on the purchase left nearly every store sold out; this was the last unit in the store with the preferred nib size, and it now ranks very high among personal favorites for its size and blue translucent resin.

The third is the King of Pen Ebonite, a very sleek pen currently in Japan receiving a makeover from bokumu, an artisan who embellishes pens with raden, urushi, or eggshell. Her current wait list is over a year, and the anticipation is part of the experience. In general, the King of Pen is one of the absolute favorite models.

Custom Pens by Independent Artisans

The final category is having a custom pen made by one of the many talented artisans creating fountain pens today. Makers such as Jonathan Brooks, Shawn Newton, Ryan Krusac, one-person shops like McKenzie Knives and Tameori Studios, and Shapui North all do amazing work, and each is willing to create nearly anything a customer wants.

There is a beautiful blue urushi creation from Tameori Studios that looks genuinely classy. Two torpedo models from McKenzie Knives showcase spectacular dimpling on a purple pen and wonderful mokume-gane on a slightly thicker model, with a roll stop featuring a mother-of-pearl ring that really pops. A scrimshaw model from Ryan Krusac demonstrates his high quality across multiple mediums. A Jonathan Brooks Charleston model in a material called Earth Magic was so loved it inspired the material on a first Leonardo project. And a Shapui North pen took a standard skulls design and personalized it with a custom logo on each skull, turning a standard model into something deeply personal.

Getting something custom made turns a pen from something special into a prized possession.

Conclusion

That is a look at roughly 40 pens across 11 categories, and the real takeaway is simple: a grail pen is a personal choice. What feels meaningful and special to one collector may not to another. The best advice is to find a pen that is not easily obtained, one worth saving toward, because when it finally arrives, the journey makes it mean that much more.