You can read the respective reviews of the Pilot Custom 823 and the Wingsung 699 as linked.

The Wingsung 699 is clearly a pen that will draw parallels to the Pilot Custom 823, but at a more affordable price point. The latter of which was one of my prized possessions in my collection, but the 699 has slowly culled off two out of three of my 823s in my collection, rendering me unable to justify owning three when this single pen does everything I want. The aim of this comparison post is to highlight the similarities and differences of the two pens in certain categories and to eventually arrive at an overall conclusion – which will be my subjective conclusion, as to which one of these pens is the better one.

Price

I want to talk about price first, because this is the biggest difference; everything else (bar the nib material) is pretty much very similar, and more on this later. The price is wildly different. While there is no official price for the Pilot Custom 823 in the UK, I have found that the market price is £210 ±5% plus shipping also. Iguana Pens has it for £255 and at time of writing $288, the US price, is c. £246 (this is during the time of coronavirus and recent decisions by the Treasury has affected Sterling, so a more accurate price is lower than this). The Wingsung is more straight forward: the price is c. £18 with shipping, which is less than 10% the price of the Pilot – the opportunity cost for the Pilot is about 11 and a half Wingsung 699s (this is to say, you can purchase one Pilot or 11.5 Wingsungs). This is a huge discrepancy for, in my opinion, little return.

Nib & Writing

The difference in price is in part due to the fact that the Pilot 823 has a gold nib, while the Wingsung 699 has a steel nib. Gold is more expensive than steel, this is well known – especially in the pen community when gold and steel are the main two materials that a nib is made of, prompting us to discuss this often. However – these are 14k nibs, with a gold content of about 58%. Nibs weigh around 0.5g (thanks to Google), so knowing the price of gold is £1243.14 (22.03.2020) we can work out that the gold in the nib is worth about £12.70. Of course – the nib has been worked into a specific shape, moulded, all that stuff so there will be additional costs….. But ~£180 worth? I don’t know. At least, it isn’t worth £180 to me.

The Pilot nibs are available in F, M, B and one or two specialty Pilot nibs that I don’t really bother with myself – which will have their own costs in addition. The 699, from what I can tell, are available in either EF or F nibs – which reflect the more Western nib grade selection than the typically finer F or M nibs found in Japanese nibs. I would also argue that the Pilot nibs will likely be more uniform. To counter this argument, I’d suggest that either getting the Wingsung nib ground or practicing grinding the nib yourself (as a replacement won’t be expensive or hard to find) are two fantastic options. While the Pilot fine is an amazing width (and it really is, it’s what is making me keep hold of this pen), I often like finer nibs than this and I grind my pens to needlepoint grade points, this is a perfect pen to try this with. Or I’ll just throw a Mabie Todd nib on it – still cheaper than the Pilot.

Design

There’s not much to talk about here. They are both very similar, the two things I’d make note of is that the 699 looks and feels sleeker than the 823. Finally, the clip is different: again, sleeker.

The 699 has more colour options, too. A lovely blue (already a winner in my eyes), amber, clear, ‘grey’ and rhodium as well as gold options: the gold trim being a reason a friend of mine never actually bought the 823 in the end. So.. Yeah, how ’bout that?! You can also go for a “solid” colour section, or transparent. None of which you get on the 823.

One final nag – the 699 has a much nicer inner cap, I actually had to look to see if there was one in the cap, but the 823 sticks out like a sore thumb. Need I say more? No? Good, because I don’t really – they both look very similar besides the cap band. For unscrewing the back, they both screw the same amount.

Feel

Both feel very similar. The 699 has a longer section, but besides that they feel the same.

VFM

The 699 all the way. One thousand times over. I don’t flinch typing this or second guess myself. It is undeniable to me – buy the 823 if you want to say you have a gold nib and a Pilot. Other than that, I see no inherent benefit of the 823 over the 699, in fact I think it falls behind. Whoops.