Hey all. I wanted to know what pens do you guys have that are discontinued? I am really curious to know!
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I will start. So got these a few weeks ago. I wanted to know if anyone else had these and what are their thoughts? So these are know as the Pilot Hi techPoint. They have a twist mechanism and these came with their original refills. I believe the the one that’s striped has the refill working, but skips. I have heard its possible to use certain modern refills but you have to add a spacer so that the pen functions correctly.
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I’m a big fan of the Hi-Tecpoint. Is this what you won? Good price.
https://jp.mercari.com/item/m26406061721
I wrote about this PILOT pen line here:
You might be able to restore proper writing. Soak the tip in boiling hot water and let it sit in the water (as it cools in a glass) for about an hour. I did that and was able to restore writing on two refills I thought were totally dried out.
In that link I mention a few refills that definitely work.
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Haha yeah. I got both of them. I see about what to do with the refills.
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The original refills are really nice. I think they’re a little more refined than the disposable V5 and V7 Precise models made by PILOT. But unfortunately, they’re discontinued… and so using them means you’ll eventually have none.
I revived one about 2 months ago… wrote with it a bit, and then left it sitting in a notebook holder. I just tried it. Wrote immediately and without skipping. The trap door has a great seal to it. PILOT did the job right on this one, which is why it’s so sad they’re discontinued. Anyway, I’m going to use up this refill… just to enjoy it, but also to carry out an experiment, to see how long it lasts. When it dries up again, I’ll try to revive it once more to see if there was anything left. Meanwhile, I’ve got 3 sealed refills sitting there… now in a vacuum sealed bag… for some future time. When you buy these in original box, sometimes you get lucky with a spare refill tucked underneath the red velvet covered plastic that holds the pen in place.
The BRFN is a great ballpoint refill. I do enjoy using it in the Hi-Tecpoint. The LAMY M22 is good as well. But I’m really curious to try the Monteverde that someone on Reddit said works in the Hi-Tecpoint.
While the front end of the refill shape is crucial to fitting, in both the diameter of the tip and the length of the stepped sections, the barrel diameter is also critical. In my quest to find workable refills, I’d ordered a few that looked like they’d work, but the actual diameter was off by 0.1 mm. Just a little too wide. With plastic bodied refills, there should be a way of shearing off that 0.1 mm on the diameter, just enough for the refills to fit. But I suspect a lathe would be necessary to do it right.
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Three of my favorites – strictly speaking, only the Aurora Hastil is discontinued. The twist-deploy telescoping tip probably inspired the Lamy Unic, Platinum Z and maybe even the Dyson Biro.
• Aurora Hastil, 1970 by Zanuso & Sapper
• Aurora Thesi, 1974 by Marco Zanuso
• Lamy Dialog 1, 2003 by Richard Sapper
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Are you sure the LAMY Dialog 1 isn’t discontinued? I’ve not seen it for sale on their sites (EU, USA) for a very long time.
Also, are you ranking these in order of high to lesser favorites?
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Just arranging them chronologically according to the available literature… The dialog 1, I still see available stock in some Lamy stores here in Singapore. I think it’s also cool that the the dialog could be thought of as a reply from Sapper to his colleague Zanuso, after the pair parted ways in the late 70s/early 80s.
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Wow. There’s multiple LAMY brand stores in Singapore? In New York (Manhattan) there’s a flagship store located in SOHO. I’ve never gotten around to visiting it, but I’ll have to keep in mind the address, in case I’m ever in the neighborhood.
What’s the going price for a brand new LAMY Dialog 1 in your Singapore stores?
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Yeah, don’t just throw away those refills that look dry up. A more effective way is to separate the refill as shown in the picture, and then add a little water (or maybe appropriate ink?) with a syringe. After waiting for 1 or 2 days, you will find that it becomes fully usable again. Also you can combine the method mentioned above.
(From my experience, the probability that the hi-tec you buy contains a original refill, or that the refill become usable again are both actually pretty high)
(Excess ink may leak out from the end of the refill, so don’t put it back in the pen while you wait. Try shaking the refill a little bit or wiping the end of it before putting back)
Of course, with a few simple operation, you can use oil-based ballpoint refills. But unless you just like to use it as a ballpoint pen refill jacket for daily writing, I don’t think it’s necessary. Consider a pen which main feature is to prevent the water-based ink in those rollerball refills from evaporating, now load with an oil-based refill which never drys out, isn’t this weird?
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Interesting.
In my case, I soaked the front end in very hot water, after an alcohol soak. Ink flow was restored. My guess is that a small portion of the ink inside the tip solidified, plugging up and preserving the rest. Once dissolved… ink flowed once more.
I had no idea one could remove the top portion of the refill. Did you use pliers? If the ballpoint tip is super resilient, perhaps it could keep going with topping off the ink a few times. I wonder if using a Precise V5 (or V7) refill as a source could work.
I didn’t check the price but it was ‘more than I expected’ – around SGD 450. I got mine for a fraction of that through Cult Pens UK.
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Interesting. Well, if those LAMY Dialog 1 pens are still at reasonable prices, pick up a few more. I wrote to the LAMY Flagship store in SOHO and they wrote back.
“Unfortunately the Dialog 1 and Dialog 2 are not available anymore. You would need to look at a secondary market to obtain one.”
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