The Ultimate Pen Showdown - Part 6 (Monami Zenith 7, Uni Exceed 1930, Tombow Airpress)

I received a few interesting pens recently, including a batch of Uni Ball (Uni Mitsubishi) pens which seem to be from 20+ years ago, the new Monami Zenith 7 which is a pen I have not seen reviewed anywhere yet, and a Tombow Airpress which I couldn't resist trying after seeing it in a shop on discount. Let's get to the reviews.

Monami Zenith 7 - I was excited to see that Monami released a new pen, because in my earliest set of reviews the Monami FX4000 refill in 0.7mm ranked very high (the 1.0mm wasn't as good), and I was also very impressed with the refill in the Kokyuo ME which has a Korean-made gel refill (not sure if it's made by Monami, but there's a decent chance). The Zenith 7 looked quite striking, and for 5000 Won (about 3.50 USD at the moment) I had to give it a try.

The design is one of the highlights, and I'd say it's somewhat based on the Ballograf Epoca with its retro look, faceted top part of the body and rounded grip section. The faceted part is even more interesting, because it's not straight, but rather it tapers in and out again. It has a strong, metallic type of click, similar to a Parker, and the button doesn't rattle (though the tip does a little bit). It writes nice and smooth like a hybrid ink, though it skips more than a Jetstream / Vicuna, just like the FX4000. The refill is a Monami FX700, which is a Parker G2 style refill, but it's branded with the Zenith 7 name and logo.

The pen body has a somewhat cheap plastic feel as you might expect from a pen at this price point, a bit like a Jotter. But when I put a metal FX4000 refill in it, it felt a bit more substantial. Overall, this pen is a very interesting proposition and I think it will compete well with the Jotter. For those who like the Epoca design, you can get something similar looking except with a G2 refill. I think this pen has a future in this segment.

 

Vintage Uniball - As a big fan of Uni pens, I was searching endlessly to see whether Uni ever made a fountain pen. I ultimately did find a couple examples of this. One was as part of a pen set, which I only ever saw once online on a Japanese auction site (maybe from the 80s), and the others were just from the "Exceed" series. The Exceed fountain pens were actually made by Sailor, I'm not sure when exactly, and were ultra slim, (weighty) metal pens with very small nibs, and they also made a ballpoint version. As part of the Exceed series, there were some lesser-known pens known as the 1930 pens. The 1930s came only in pencil, rollerball, and click ballpoints as far as I know. I wanted to to try the click pen (difficult to find), but ended up getting this batch of 3 Uni pens which only included the 1930 rollerball:

Here you can see (left-to-right), the Exceed 1930, Exceed rollerball (the one that also came in a fountain pen), and an unknown Uni. 

These are all very well built and feel very solid. The Uni Exceed 1930 looks a lot like there should be a fountain pen version (reminds me of a Pilot Custom), and the regular exceed feels like a nice chunk of solid metal. The rollerballs both came with a Uni UBR-300 refill, which is more or less the European rollerball size. Interestingly, the third pen came with a Uni "Jumbo-8" refill, which is the same size as the proprietary Pilot BRFN refills. Was Uni cooperating extensively with Sailor and Pilot in the past? I'm not sure but it looks like they might have been.

Tombow Airpress - This wasn't a pen that was of much interest to me, but Tombow always makes quality products. I was at the Kinokuniya in Phnom Penh recently, which had a totally different selection than the ones at home in Bangkok, including their last Airpress on sale (they also had the Zebra Wetnie among other interesting offerings), so I had to try it.

The Airpress functions well and writes well as a Tombow normally would. The body with sort of piston pressurizes the refill so that you can write on any surface. It also gives it a very satisfying "click" when you hear the air moving through the pen. It's certainly not a beautiful pen, and it feels quite plastic-ey, but it seems to work well and with a precise feel.