Wancher Dream Pen, True Urushi, Aka Tamenuri, with an Urushi Ume, Japanese Plum, pen pillow

Taizo Okagaki supplied me with my first Platinum fountain pen via his shop, Engeika, which was founded in 1984. Taizo is a man who seemingly never sleeps; when I e-mailed him questions about the pen he answered within minutes, regardless of time.

Later, Taizo created Wancher, the company that he is now in charge of. When they started a Kickstarter campaign to create the Wancher Dream Pen, the monetary goal was fulfilled in 30 minutes and they brought in more than 300,000 US Dollars by the end of the campaign.

Taizo Okagaki, from this page.

Their Kickstarter page should be a template for all who ever strive to create a Kickstarter, Patreon, or similar type of campaign; they answered everything, from technical specifications, how the pens different from each other, to when everything was going down.

Naturally, not everything goes to plan. When the original nib supplier—Jowo—sort of dried up, Wancher had made a backup plan, namely to make their own nib. And so, the pens kept on coming.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9R6Xj_I9Zg

Also, weather conditions were not optimal for Wancher's pens. The artisans who carefully applied thousands of layers of lacquer to every pen knew that weather conditions must be optimal if the pens were to reach their optimal state.

Here's a video that displays artisans applying lacquer:

It's an interesting pen. I chose the fine nib while it arrived a bit scratchy, that quickly wore off. A more odd thing is that the pen arrived with the ink feed a bit askew:

Wancher answered in twelve hours after I'd asked about the feed; the fix is simple: it was a matter of twisting it. No more to it.

Another weird thing was that the two parts of the apex of the nib started to come together so much that one pushed the other a bit askew. Again, this was not a real issue: I merely pushed a slight and thin piece of writing paper between the nib parts and tweaked them from each other. Problem solved.

The lacquer work that is performed on my pen is art; while the mechanics that are employed when one screws the top to connect with the barrel almost seems lazer cut to fit perfectly, the lacquer is by artisan hand. I can't get enough of how light hits the pen to display its depths. The almost opaque, wine-red colour meets the red at the edges to create a beautiful and almost patinated effect, reminiscent of—but not—what guitar connoisseurs call a relic. I've yet to scratch it, by the way.

The Dream Pen goes together nicely with a Wancher Pen Pillow. People can also choose to have their pen delivered with a so-called roll stopper, which is a thing that is embedded in the top of the cap to prevent the pen from rolling if it is lying somewhere else than on a pen pillow. I don't think I'd like it as it'd undoubtedly disturb holding the pen.

The nib is nice. Wancher allows one to choose between 14 or 18 karats of gold, as mentioned, made by themselves. My F nib is a bit on the sharp side. For example, while a Pelikan or a Platinum 3776 with XF or F nib glide across a glossy page, the Wancher Dream Pen does not, but rather bears the pencil-lead like quality of a Lamy 2000.

To hold the pen is a special thing. It is cigar-like, rounded with quite the girth. It's not one of my favourite pens to spend more than 30 minutes in a row with, but its weight—surprisingly light—somewhat makes up for the barrel's circumference.

The feeder is excellent and the nib hasn't even once stocked up with ink. The flow of ink travels simply and just adequately for my preference.

One weird thing is the Wancher pen cases: they don't quite fit the Dream Pen. The black one: you see how part of the leather sticks out at the bottom-right-hand side? That's because the Dream Pen has been there, stretching the leather. The bigger case? It fits the Dream Pen but can't really take the length of it without an inside covering leather flap being a bit bent over the pen; that's not the case with other pens I've used, e.g. a big-ish Pelikan Souverän M800.

I think the Dream Pen will hold for a long, long time, and will stay beautiful to look at for all that time.