Pilot Custom Heritage 92

A Heritage worth having

As my pen collection took off last year I had a harder time sticking with a consistent set of pens in my bag – I imagine it must be the same for a Billionaire with a garage full of exotic cars… what to drive today? One of the exceptions was this Pilot Custom Heritage 92, which is both a beauty to look at and a workhorse of a pen. I think it spends most weeks in the bag as I love the broad nib, the ink capacity and staring mindlessly into the ink reservoir when I should be working.

The 92 has a lot of the same strengths of the Custom 74 but takes the demonstrator idea and steps up to a piston filler body where the 74 uses a convertor. The two things to note here are ink capacity (1.2ml in a CON-70 vs. 1.5ml in the piston) and the improved visual appeal of the piston approach – it’s much more interesting when the ink is sloshing around up against the body of the pen. The color combo here of blue body and grey end caps is really nice and matches well with the silver accents on the pen (it also comes in a clear body and an orange body with the same dark gray accents).

The 92 uses Pilot’s #5 nib size in 14k gold with Rhodium plating to match the accents and clip. The nib has some flex and provides  some line variation with just a little extra pressure. Writing is effortless as the feed keeps the nib nice and wet but never over feeding it and causing pooling issues. Compared to the Prera I just reviewed this nib has plenty of detail – with fantastic scroll work surrounding the “Pilot – 14k 585 – <B>” engraving. No issues with hard starts or skipping – when you go, it goes.

The single-seal piston is operated via the grey cap at the end of the barrel – just pop it in your favorite ink, a few twists and you are good to go. Cleaning is a bit tougher but the nib and feed pop out easily – you’ll just need to rinse a bit more than normal as the section and barrel do not come apart.

The screw cap features a flat clip compared to the ball clip on the 74 – and matches the flatter surfaces of the 92. The cap band is engraved with “Pilot Japan – Custom Heritage 92” and adds to the clean design of the pen by not getting too wide. The inner cap is a transparent gray so you can still see the nib when it’s closed (which was a small gripe I had with the Prera where it’s white and hides the nib). When it comes to posting you can go either way – the cap is light enough that it does not throw off the balance if left off, but the pen is long enough to write with unposted – I tent to post it anyway as I like the added length.

So I would absolutely suggest this as a purchase if you are looking for a solid pen with good looks and a 14k nib with one exception – If you like to change ink out a lot and cleaning is a common task you may want to look at the Custom 74 which has most of the same features but cleans easier with the convertor setup.