Pilot Custom 74 – Music Nib

This happens to be my latest addition or you may call addiction to Pilot Pens. After buying and using PILOT CAPLESS I realised that I need more Pilot Pens and lot of fellow fountain pen users and friends recommended me to buy Custom 74 and here I must thank Dhruv for connecting me with Bunkidou Shop. Dealing with Bunkidou was an amazing experience and his service was excellent. I actually bought two PILOT pens from him, CUSTOM 74 and CUSTOM HERITAGE 92. And the EMS service was so amazing that the pens reached to India from Japan within 5 days. I will be doing reviews of both, however this review is about PILOT CUSTOM 74 WITH MUSIC NIB.

DESIGN & BUILT: 4/5

The pen is regular sized classic cigar shape pen. The pen comes in various colours like Black, Burgundy, Dark Green and Dark Blue with gold trims. There are demonstrator versions also available with chrome trims also, but the music nib is only available in Black colour in Japan.

Pilot Custom 74 – Beauty Shot

Pilot Custom 74 – Uncapped and Capped – Classical Cigar Shape Pen

The classical cigar shaped pen is thickest at the cap centre-band and cap tapers down to rounded finial at top. The finial is visually separated by gold colour band. The clip is stiff and sturdy and has a ball end.

Pilot Custom – Cap View – The clip is stiff and sturdy and has ball shaped end

Pilot Custom 74 – Cap View

Pilot Custom 74 – Cap Inner View

The cap has dual centre band, with slim one at top and broad one below where branding is done and reads “PILOT – MADE IN JAPAN *CUSTOM 74*” . The clip also displays the the brand name PILOT engraved.

Pilot Custom 74 – Centreband

Pilot Custom 74 – Close up showing clip & centreband branding and beautiful nib

The pen is extremely well detailed out. There is a gold colour band at the bottom of barrel separating it from the bottom finial and also there is gold colour band at the bottom of grip section (as you can see from above image) separating it from barrel.

Pilot Custom 74 – Rounded Finials separated via gold trim bands

The material used is plastic resin which is of same quality as Pilot 78G, thus nothing premium in that regards.The material is very well polished and finished. The quality control is superb and amazing and that is where Pilot excels.

The pen uncaps in 1 – 3/4 turns and the grip section is slight concave albeit just a little bit.

Below are the few images showing the comparative with other pens:

Pilot Custom 74 vs Jinhao X-750 vs Lamy Safari

Pilot Custom 74 vs Jinhao X-750 vs Lamy Safari – Capped

Pilot Custom 74 vs Jinhao X-750 vs Lamy Safari – Uncapped and Posted

I actually wanted to buy demo version but music nib was not available available in any other colour, so I had to settle for this. But this black colour has grown over me because of its classical, understated and professional look.

BALANCE : 5/5

The pen is made of resin and is light weight and superbly well balanced whether you write with cap posted at the back or not. yes the cap posts securely at the back. The pen is of regular length comparable to that of Lamy Safari as shown in comparison above. The pen is slim and the grip is perfect.

Pilot Custom 74 – Writing Unposted

Pilot Custom 74 – Writing Posted

Few specifications are as follows:

Length (Capped) : 141 mm

Length (Uncapped) : 125 mm

Length (Posted) : 158 mm

Dia (Section) : 9.7 mm

Dia (Barrel) : 11.5 mm

Dia (Cap) : 14.5 mm

Weight (Capped) : 20 g

Weight (Uncapped) : 12 g

Pen is very ergonomic. I absolutely love this pen because of the grip and balance.

NIB & INK FILLING MECHANISM: 4.5/5

Now comes the best part for which the pen was bought irrespective of the colour and by the way this colour has really grown on me. It looks so decent and professional. Well the pen comes in various nib widths, EF, F, SF, SFM, M, SM, FM, B, BB, MS, & C but the I am here using Music (MS) nib which has 3 tines. The friction fit nib is #5, 14 K Gold nib and writes amazingly soft and wet. I would say it writes fairly wet on higher medium side. The nib offers amazing and precise line variation . Its actually a kind of very wet stub and thus it helps in shading a lot. Even this black ink shades a little bit. It suits my script writing very well.

Pilot Custom – 14k #5 Gold nib – Beautiful Nib

Writing cursive with the nib gives you a feedback but by no means it is scratchy. Feed is made of plastic. When first I inked this pen it used to get dry but after flushing the pen its a loveliest wet stubby pen I have. Ink just dries at 25 sec mark.

Pilot Custom – Nib Unit View – Top

Pilot Custom 74 – Nib Unit View – Side

Pilot Custom – Nib Unit View – Bottom

The pen actually came only with black ink cartridge so had to purchase the converter separately. It actually takes all the Pilot proprietary converters , CON 20, CON 50, CON 70 and also Pilot cartridges. I like CON 50 because its easy to fill and clean and also I like its small ink capacity because I like changing inks.

Pilot Custom – Ink filling via Pilot cartridge or converter

The pen can not be used as eyedropper because of metal tenon underneath the grip section which accepts the cartridge or converter.

Pilot Custom – Metal tenon

I have enjoyed writing every single letter with this pen. Below are the images of my handwritten review containing ink drying times and writing samples:

Pilot Custom 74 – Handwritten Review – Page 1

Pilot Custom 74 – Handwritten Review – Page 2

Pilot Custom 74 – Handwritten Review – Page 3

Pilot Custom 74 – Handwritten Review – Page 4

CONCLUSION: 13.5/15

The pen is no nonsense , classic looking pen. And at 82 USD shipped via EMS from Japanto India in 5 days, its terrific value for money. Cant beat that. Lot of retailer are selling it at 160 USD. So buying via Rakuten really helped. I recommend this to all the fountain pen users who like using stub nibs. Must buy.

What I Like:

Classic Design Superb Finish & very well detailed Ergonomic Size & Wonderful Balance Beautiful 14K wet Nib Better than many higher priced pens Complete Value for money

What I don’t Like:

Material quality is same as Pilot 78G Proprietary Converter and Cartridges.