The classic Pilot 78G...perfection on the cheap.

[Blackhorse]

There are cheap pens and then there are great pens that are cheap. The Pilot 78G is IMHO the latter.

Look for SRE Brown’s uTube Review.

Four colors...red, black, green & teal. Four nib choices...fine & medium (both tipped) and broad and double broad (both un-tipped stubs). Very, very light in the hand. Not large and they post well. They apparently convert to eye dropper easily and as such they have a whopping 4 ml capacity.

There has been some confusion re the tip options. The “broad” nib Pilot uses for the 78G is obviously a stub. They’ve been doing that for many years. They do a tipped fine and medium and a stub as the broad and then the double broad. It is what it is...a great bargain for a stub. Almost all nibs require some tweaking to be optimal. These, of course, are no exception. As mentioned, this pen can tolerate conversion to an eye dropper and there are several vids out there on doing it with this specific model by S. Brown and others. Re this review...it’s an OK job. Not superior. Doing a writing sample for several minutes while being totally out of focus is extremely lame. I’ve been using these pens for years and like them for what they are...a very solid and usable cheap pen. A recent search shows both USA (Peyton Street Pens) and Asian vendors selling these for between $15 and $20. Some are “new...old stock” like the double broad green and teal items at Peyton Street. When filled with a water proof ink like Noodler’s Heart of Darkness the double broad makes an excellent choice for addressing letters and holiday cards.

These are supplied with the Pilot Con 20 converter (the one with the rubber squeeze bladder) and also take Pilot standard cartridges. I’ve even seen pics of these using the long cartridge. I think it also takes the Con 40 converter.

There is also a new clear demonstrator version of the 78G. Not THAT would make a cool eye dropper conversion!

Here’s a few pics.  Nib options first...

 

[D.L.Ruth]

Really like the way that demonstrator looks

 

[Blackhorse]

Yeah, that’s new production Chinese (?) and I have no idea re any differences to the old never been used 78G’s. Most of the time the Chinese stuff is OK...even very good. Note the different converter & I bet the nib is different to.

PLUS: lots of eBay ads for all these 78G’s say something like “18K nib” which is obviously total krapola.

 

[eggman]

Nice looking pens. I have a couple lamy safaris that I use occasionally. I really like them but being left handed I usually drag the side of my hand through the ink and smear it. I just may have to pick one of these up and try it out. I dont know much about ink. I just usually pick some up at the local office supply store.

 

[Blackhorse]

There was just a question re left handed users. Was that you? Lots of tips for instant drying ink and other left handed info was posted.

 

[eggman]

Nope it wasn’t me. But I’m going to check out his review in a few minutes. There’s nothing like the feel of a good pen in your hand

 

[History Prof 1861]

The left handed question was me looking for a Christmas gift for someone who has an interest and is a lefty.

My scrawl can’t be fixed I’m afraid

 

[eggman]

I was looking at the pilot 78g’s online. I guess they are out of production now and few are left in retailers stock. Some nice looking pens. I did break out the Lamy Safari’s and practiced with them some. They sure do take a little getting used to again.

 

[Blackhorse]

Order of three 78G in B (stub) nib arrived yesterday.  Got a red, a green and a black. All in perfect new condition.  Even better (in a way) was that the pens arrived in 10 days shipped via EMS from Hong Kong.  Ten days is a good ship time from Asia.

The above vendo is “cumber9090” on eBay.

Compare that to my experience with Peyton Street Pens where I ordered a 78G with BB (wide stub) in teal and one in green. The teal one came fast (the vendor is in California) and was fine. The green one arrived and would NOT unscrew...except with EXTREME difficulty.  I contacted the vendor right away and they got back to me fast.  They said they really wanted to inspect the pen. They said they literally open each pen to make sure is has the needed converter in place.  I’ve never had any Pilot pen of any kind have any problem. So I’m guessing if someone opened the pen, when they screwed it back together they did so with the threads mis-aligned and they froze things up pretty much. So I had to pay for return shipping to them.  Without any further contact I got a second emailed delivery notice that a pen had been shipped my way. I assume it’s a replacement pen. We’ll see.

 

[Blackhorse]

Yup. The owner agreed it was probably done by them when they inspected the pen. He cheerfully refunded my shipping cost.

Good people to do business with.

 

[eggman]

I’ll have to check them out. I just purchased a pilot metropolitan with a fine nib from Goulet pens. That is one awesome writing pen. I think I like it better than my lamy. And it’s cheaper too.

 

[Blackhorse]

I’ll have to check them out. I just purchased a pilot metropolitan with a fine nib from Goulet pens. That is one awesome  writing pen. I think I like it better than my lamy. And it’s cheaper too.

If you ever want to get into some extremely nice but cheap Chinese pens I could list some suggestions...like under $10.

Like the Jinhao 51A...a gorgeous clone to the famous Parker 51. It comes in a regular or a hooded nib version.

https://youtu.be/CF8dCqL8qg0

https://youtu.be/eotX9N49-mI

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[Carlos]

The most important difference between the inexpensive pens of yesteryear and those of today. Is that the likelihood of you getting ink all over yourself with an older pen was very good. It seems with these modern production pens. Nearly all of them hold their ink well. They are not frequently burping up ink. Or leaking at the body. Or the section. Or somehow magically filling the cap and then dumping it all over when you remove that cap. Or leaking out the breather hole found in some caps.

Nibs have not changed much. Almost always a steel nib. Or a plated steel. Which is quite serviceable. It also helps to have a little bit of the pen safe 100% silicone lube to put on threads and O'rings. Just the tiniest little bit is usually all that is needed. Any decent pen supply should have it. On some of the old pens, all the silicone lube in the world would not seal them up.

It also helps to know about pen flushing. Everyone develops their own routine. But it is a good subject to read about on the fountain pen forums.