Custom Shaw Pen – Gilbert Fountain Pen w/ Steel Nib

Fun fact: this pen is one of the few I currently have with black ink in it

Picture it: my very first pen show. No idea what I’m even looking for. Lot of cool pens. One of the pen makers asks me if there’s any particular kind of pen I’m looking for, and it hits me: dark purple fountain pen. At the time, I had yet to see any in existence. And it just so happens that this particular pensmith is Alan Shaw. He had done some work recently with dark purple, and he offered to send me a sample.

Pictures fail to do it justice. And that’s why I kept pushing back this review, continually seeking justice…and continually failing.

This is not just purple, my friends, but sparkle-infused depths-of-deep-space-hydrogen-clouds purple. If fountain pens were magic wands, then this would be grade-A wizarding material. Thus I ordered my first custom-made fountain pen.

Seriously. Pictures fail to do it justice. We’ll just have to hang out sometime and maybe you can see it in person.

The finished product did not disappoint. It’s big, heavy, and beautiful. I ordered the Gilbert model with steel nib, which has rare earth magnets in the cap, making the cap easy and secure to close and post. Though, in my experience, posting the cap creates a serious Dolly Parton effect—top heavy, unwieldy, singing country music and spawning theme parks.

Am I writing or falling over? I can’t even tell.

Let’s take a picture moment to appreciate the material of this body. It’s smooth, it’s enchanting—

Like a Disney prince. In fact, this might actually be made out of compressed Disney princes.

It takes standard international cartridges / converter. It’s a decent nib, the kind I’ve seen before on other custom-made body kit-nib pens.

Standard functional steel nib

Mine’s a little on the dry side, very nice for drawing, but I’ll probably work the nib (when I get a little better at that) to be more juicy. Will keep you posted on that.

IS THIS A FAIRYTALE??

The pen is an absolute delight, and Alan was very easy to work with. The pen came in a nice box, with a converter and a bunch of cartridges. First custom fountain pen is a definite success.

Perfect purple pen

Here’s Alan Shaw’s website, and here’s the product detail for the Gilbert model. Thanks Alan!

One more picture. Just because we can.

Chelpark Terminator

Best pen name? Or absolutely best pen name?

Think of India. What are you picturing? If you’re picturing food, saris, or stereotypes, SHAME ON YOU. You should be picturing fountain pens. And not the kind that are so uselessly, ludicrously expensive (five figure price tag, anyone?) that no mortal would dare write anything with it, short of the One Perfect Novel. No, we’re talking about sensible pens, the people’s pens, that strike that perfect balance between affordable and reliable.

Affordable and Reliable are also the names of two towing companies, fun fact.

I tend to shy away from eyedropper pens—I’m the paranoid type. I like to have as many safety mechanisms as possible between me and a potential ink spill. This is living on the edge for me, as far as pens go.

A writing delight, or a tick-ink time bomb? Only time will tell.

I’ve given this pen no particularly special treatment—it’s been hobnobbing with all my plebeian pens, bouncing around various pockets, pencil cases, and bags. It seems fine so far. This is a school pen, after all, so it’s probably built with an eye toward withstanding a fair amount of abuse. The cap closes with a nice snap, posts securely, pops open when needed, and does a good job keeping the pen from drying out.

Most importantly, it’s colorful

The only major issue in design is the conspicuous lack of an ink window. The only clue you have that you’re running out of ink is when the ink starts leaking out in big blobby drops when you write (a feature of eyedropper pens, apparently—when the ink gets low enough, the heat of your hand holding the pen makes the air expand inside the pen, forcing out drops of ink). An ink window would be great, provided it’s flush with the body of the pen (I’m not a fan of windows that are recessed or that jut out).

No time for frills. We’re being sensible here.

What the “C” signifies, I’m not quite sure (chitinous? charming? cantankerous? cool?), but it writes like a fine nib. Smooth, this pen is not. I’m hardly in danger of putting too many loopies in my cursive. But I wouldn’t call it scratchy either. Scratchy means unpleasant to write with. This nib makes you think, it imposes a deliberate consideration as you write with such a hard and hardy nib. This is tactile to the max. It’s perfect for a school pen, especially one made in a tradition devoted to good handwriting. You don’t want your schoolwork to be rushed. Take your time, think about what you’re doing, that’s what this pen is for. And the fine nib is suitable for all kinds of paper, from Clairefontaine to cheap printer paper, from Mead to the typically fountain-pen-unfriendly Moleskine.

Works on Moleskine paper? THIS TRULY IS AN EXOTIC PRODUCT FROM A MYSTICAL LAND.

I don’t know how hardy this pen will prove to be, how crack-resistant the resin will end up being over time, but for now, this is a great little workhorse pen that I’ll be keeping in inked-up rotation.

For those of you used to a JetPens timeframe of delivery, getting this pen will be a culture shock (unless you live much closer to India than I do), because the source of this pen is a guy in India. It takes a few weeks. But it’s worth it!

You can get the Chelpark Terminator from Fountain Pen Revolution as part of a 3 for $15 deal, or get it by itself for $8.

Pilot Vanishing Point Yellow Body Broad Nib Fountain Pen

For some reason, my scanner and Photoshop colluded in a conspiracy to make this ink look much more bright blue than it looks in reality. I was powerless to stop their scheme.

It ain’t easy being left-handed.

I resisted the Pilot Vanishing Point for quite some time. Every time I’d pop in the local pen store, I’d always scribble with the Vanishing Point kept on display, and every time I’d leave without one. Didn’t like the look. Didn’t like the clip. But here we are. I blame the particular shade of warm yellow, because as soon as I held it and saw it up close, I had to have it (once payday rolled around). Here’s a tip for whoever’s in charge of these things at Pilot: the fight would have been over months earlier if I’d been pitted against a turquoise Vanishing Point. Special edition color perhaps? Think about it.

CLICK (that sound you hear is a thousand ballpoint click pens weeping in the presence of their god)

I don’t know what to say about the general aesthetic design of the pen. It gives me feelings; I just can’t quite understand what they are. It’s simple. I like simple. I like this pen, but at the same time there’s some nagging thing; I wish I could say more but something about this design doesn’t visually balance perfectly, and I can’t put my finger on what I’m even going on about. Let’s just focus on the yellow: this is a warm and wonderful yellow. Nice weight, though not as heavy as the Lamy Dialog 3 (that will, I promise, be a review for another day). Feels solid and well built.

INK SHALL NOT PASS

What’s the big deal about this pen? It’s retractable. “So is this,” comes the inevitable reply from your average non-fountain-pen-person, as they whip out some cringeworthy retractable offering. “YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND,” you are legally required to shout, as you knock their plastic abomination from their hands into the depths of a conveniently-located nearby furnace, “THIS IS A FOUNTAIN PEN AND IT IS RETRACTABLE.” It makes a big difference, being able to click (and it is a mighty click), write something, click, and throw the pen back down without having to worry about it drying out, while still being able to use a fountain pen. This means I can use a fountain pen at work, where emergency situations require that, if you’re jotting something down, you have to jot it down NOW and keep moving. You don’t have time to unscrew caps, to make sure they’ve been put back on properly and whatnot. “Why don’t you just NOT use a fountain pen in those kinds of situations?” you may wonder. Look, buster, if we followed that kind of thinking, we’d still be living in trees, eating termites off sticks, and covered in hair.

THE FACE OF AN EVOLUTIONARY WINNER

If you’re right-handed, I’m pretty confident you’ll have no problems whatsoever with the writing of the Vanishing Point. You are free to skip ahead to the next picture. If you’re left-handed, like me, it would greatly behoove you to extensively test this pen out in a store before you buy it. I’ve been trying just about every writing angle and grip combination I can conceive of, but short of learning to write mirrored right-to-left across the page, à la Leonardo da Vinci, I am unable to figure out how to get an ideal and consistent performance out of this pen (as is abundantly obvious in the writing sample above). Of course, as I’m typing this up I’m also scribbling phrases with the pen, and it’s being unusually well behaved right now. I don’t know if there’s some kind of breaking-in phase that I’m having to endure here or what. I’ll have to return to this pen in a later update, perhaps in a few months, and see where things stand. Hoping it’s a phase, and that I won’t have to shell out extra buckos to get the nib ground.

Normally I am a fan of miniatures, but the line of absurdity has to be drawn somewhere

Clips and nibs do not belong on the same end of the pen together. They belong on opposite ends, the way Thoth intended. But then on pens like this and the Lamy Dialog 3, you’d have the nibs pointed down in pockets, just tempting fate to leak onto shirts and all over pockets. So onto the nib end it goes. The clip gets uncomfortably in the way of my natural grip. But my natural grip is wrong, HARRUMPH, and the clip is just ever-so-perfectly situated for the heavenly-ordained ideal tripod pliers grip.

Fun fact: this nib will sometimes squeak on the paper when writing, like a little metal mousey

The nib really doesn’t seem to go along with the rest of the pen, but given that I didn’t buy this pen for the beauty pageant factor, I’ll let it slide. It does its job.

Why did I turn the nib unit around? It's a flippin' mystery

Once unscrewed, the nib unit slides right out. Very simple. Takes Pilot cartridges (for which it has that silver cover pictured….for inexplicable design reasons….given that no one sees it) or converter (comes with both, in a fancy leatherette jewelry-like box). Given that I find Pilot cartridges to be some of the easiest to refill, and that it comes with a cartridge and a converter, I’m not too bothered by the brand-specific cartridge requirement. This isn’t exactly an entry level pen. We’re beyond cartridge wars at this point. It doesn’t take a standard international cartridge? I don’t care.

This review, and all you need to know about the Pilot Vanishing Point, can be summed up in four words: WORKING RETRACTABLE FOUNTAIN PEN. That’s it. Everything else is minor details and quibbles. It’s not perfect, but it remains the only click retractable fountain pen. I’m not going to sit down and draft out  a copy of the Constitution with it, but for quick-jot notes, it’s by and far the best.

Pilot Vanishing Point Fountain Pens (including my wonderful yellow) at Goldspot Pens

Parker Reflex Fountain Pen

With Noodler's Gruene Cactus Eel ink. Your job is now to imagine a creature that is one part cactus, and one part eel.

I found this pen in a dusty plastic bin, in a claustrophobic little stationery shop (probably on the Avenue of the Americas) that looked like it had given up on ever being clean or orderly sometime in the mid-nineties. Sorry, guy, but that’s what your store is like. Get it together.

The pen itself contained an emptied ink cartridge, and a nib absolutely lost in the mire of long-ago dried up ink, a thick crust I’d say probably dates to around the year 2000. But I was not deterred, and seven dollars and MUCH cleaning later, I present to you the Parker Reflex:

Rescued from life in a dusty plastic bin, this pen was found without any packaging to protect it

I didn’t even know what kind of pen it was beyond “Parker” and the fact that it was quite possibly made in the U.K. (both clues are printed on the cap) until I found this review by Jim Mamoulides.

Arrow fins, or alien eyes? You decide.

It’s a basic school pen, one of my favorite categories of fountain pen due to affordability and the fact that such pens are an attempt at renormalizing fountain pen use.  Love the plastic—it’s got that sparkle and marbling typically found only in the paint jobs of bumper cars at the county fair.

If you find the store I'm talking about and find this pen, check inside to make sure there's a cartridge. Pretty sure half of them didn't even have cartridges. SORRY GUY WHO OWNS THE STORE, JUST TELLIN' IT LIKE IT IS

The plastic is sturdy, and the cap stays on securely without being difficult to pull off. And check out that grip!

It's like a tire or a place mat, but for your fingers. On a pen.

How many other fountain pens do you know with a rubber grip? I haven’t been paying attention and am too tired to recall, but I’m going to wager not too dang many!

On to the main event

Writes wonderfully. I can easily imagine taking notes or writing up an essay with this pen. I think this might be a fine nib—can’t exactly be sure though; what I can see of the nib is completely unadorned.

Practical without being unappealing. Beauty through function and all that.

Technically, you can live without this pen. But it would be a shame not to pick one up, especially if you’ve got the opportunity. It’s a great, sturdy little workhorse pen that’s nicely made and well behaved.

Rescue your very own!

A very lazy search by yours truly seems to indicate Amazon as probably being the best place to pick one up online, but you can probably get a better deal if you dig one up in a store. Let me know if you know of any other good online retailers for the Parker Reflex and I’ll link them here!

BIC Disposable Fountain Pen

Ubiquitous BIC ballpoints crowded out fountain pens from the market in the first place. Everything has come full circle, as the fountain pen prophecies foretold.

Rumors of the fabled existence of a new brand of disposable fountain pen first reached my nosy ears over a month ago. After several disappointing trips, I finally located said mythical product on the Staples shelves of my hometown.

Why buy one color when you can get AAALLL THREEEEE

Bic—known for its disposable lighters, razors, cell phones, and ballpoint pens—has entered the disposable fountain pen game.

The holes are for: a)target practice. b)aesthetics stringing several pens together festively, interspersed with berries and popcorn d)all of the above simultaneously

I like the look of the clip, but otherwise am not impressed by the design. It tries too hard. But I think it’s a requirement for all disposable fountain pens (except for the Sailor Ink Bar) to be ugly, so that you’re not tempted to keep and refill the pen. Which, I guess, makes pretty good business sense.

Towering majestically over the fruited plains of North America....wait does fruit grow in plains? I thought it grew in groves, or patches...

The hard plastic grip is not particularly comfortable. At all. I’m writing this review by hand prior to typing it up, and it’s starting to wear on me. Maybe it’s the hard ridge where the cap snaps on that’s being such a pain in the thumb. The Pilot Varsity, for all my complaints against it, barely has a ridge where its cap snaps on, making it a little easier to write with.

But for writing, it’s pretty good! I was pleasantly surprised—the ink doesn’t fuzz or feather out on most paper (unlike the Varsity), and it dries pretty quickly. The blue is my top pick—it’s almost a Lamy blue (the red is more of a pink, and the black feels off to me, but I’m all about this blue). None of the nibs were scratchy; they just have that nice tactile feel when writing. AND the ink doesn’t smell weird.

One more picture, because you've all been so good. You deserve it

My main concern with this pen is that eventually, I fear the cap will crack. It’s got a very strong hold when you snap the cap on…and the plastic feels like it might be the crack-prone kind….the only reason I’m so worried is because the cap on my Platinum Preppy cracked, wouldn’t stay on, and the pen dried out. Maybe the BIC plastic is thicker, perhaps not as brittle.

The grip is also a concern…it isn’t so much a problem if I’m mindful of how I’m holding the pen and make sure my thumb is above that ridge…but I probably won’t sit down and scribble out a novel with this pen. But it’s nice. It’s decent. And more importantly, it’s another option that’s bringing fountain pens to a mainstream audience. I don’t want to dream too big, but this is exciting! Think, we might have a re-normalization of the fountain pen! At the very least, I hope BIC will roll out more colors. Turquoise, please. Turquoise makes everything better.

Pilot Petit 1+2+3 Mini Pens

I see great promise in these pens!

Another exciting sample package of complimentary goodies arrived in my mailbox recently from Jetpens! :D (this little face is obviously shorthand for “one thousand thanks unto JetPens”) I would never have guessed a few years ago how exciting a white Jiffylite bubble envelope could be.

The Pilot Petit is back, and true to cliche it's better than ever

I was pretty bummed when I saw that the old Pilot Petit1 was being discontinued. It wasn’t the best fountain pen; at the time I found the nib to be a bit too wet of a writer for my tastes, but I really liked the principle of the thing. Luckily, I already owned about six Pilot Petit1 pens, and a whole bevy of ink cartridges to go with them.

So naturally I needed more Pilot Petits when it burst back onto the scene. I always wondered what the “1″ in the name was about; seems like Pilot was planning this product expansion all along (or at least, they can pretend that’s what went down).  You’ve got the Pilot Petit1, a fountain pen just like the original; the Pilot Petit2, a sign pen/marker pen (for very small signs, I presume); and the Pilot Petit3, a fude/brush pen.

Note the clear underbelly on the fountain pen; a thoughtful touch that lets you see just as easily as you would with the brush and marker pen exactly what color you have loaded.

We’ll stick to numerical order, for sanity’s sake, and start with the Pilot Petit1.

Hey there old friend!

I don’t know if this is just a variation in quality control or what, but the new Pilot Petit1 seems to actually be a fine nib this time, which is great considering that’s what it’s branded as. Maybe it’s just the one I got, I don’t know, but if the new Pilot Petit1 models really are true fine nibs, that’s great news for the future of these pens when drawing (and writing on multiple types of paper; finer nibs tend to fuzz and bleed less).

Why stop at one round of drawings when I can continue directly overboard with two?

I can’t really see a difference in the nibs, but I felt like the new Pilot Petit1 was better. If anyone knows why this might be, please let me know. Otherwise I assume it’s just wizardry and penmagic.

To the left, an old Pilot Petit1 color-coded to the nines, lest you forget what color originally came in the pen. To the right, the new Pilot Petit1, colored only by the ink within.

The entire body of the new Pilot Petit1 is the same translucent color (mine is purple), including the clip and the cap, in contrast to the old Pilot Petit1 which had a clear cap instead. Another minor difference is that the body of the new Pilot Petits have four very small bumps around the end of the pen, so the cap clips on when you post it instead of just being pushed onto the end until it goes no further.

The sign pen has a clear cap and a translucent clip and body, making it easy to see the marker tip's color

I don’t really do much work with signs or markers. And this marker tip is really a bit too small to be making actual signs. I did test it on some small, glossy, sign-like paper:

The theme was "Why am I trying to get away with NOT having obscene amounts of writing/drawing samples?"

What I’m starting to see is the potential for these three pens to work together in an artistic capacity. Use the Petit1 for doing fine, detailed work, as well as sketching out guidelines and such, then use the Petit2 for coloring in larger areas, making thicker lines, etc. And then use the Petit3 for fun and profit.

Pilot Petit pens 2 & 3 seen here in the wild, sizing one another up before battle(/mating; the rituals of pens are unclear)

Finally, the Fude/brush pen. This is the only compact brush pen I have, certainly the only one I know of, and undoubtedly the only one clocking in at anything less than prohibitively expensive. Coupled with the ability to choose between various ink colors/refill/change ink colors without having to buy a new pen, I think the Pilot Petit3 stands out as a very fun intro option to brush pens. Line variation was great, and the only complaint I have is that I find the solid colored clip to be a little gauche. Maybe do a clear clip instead? It just doesn’t match the rest of the set, or even the rest of its own body.

Pilot may come out with some crappy products, but they make up for it with hits like these.

Pilot’s done a good job improving upon the Pilot Petit. Care was taken with the details—like adding tiny bumps so the cap would click securely when posting, or making the underside of the fountain pen nib out of clear plastic so you could easily see the ink color—and it’s paid off. My hope is that they’ll come out with more ink colors (at least all the ink colors they had with the original Pilot Petit1; several of my favorites are missing), more body colors (currently the only body colors available are in the theme of girlsplosion springtime pastel bonanza), and perhaps even more models (like, say, a Pilot Petit4 rollerball? Petit5 highlighter??).

Thanks again to Brad and JetPens for these samples!

 
Pilot Petit1 Mini Fountain Pen – Clear Violet Body at JetPens
Pilot Petit2 Mini Marker Pen – Clear Violet Body at JetPens
Pilot Petit3 Mini Brush Pen – Clear Violet Body at JetPens
Pilot Petit Pen Refill Cartridge – Clear Blue – Set of 3 at JetPens

Mini Review: Pelikan Pelikano Green Right-Handed Fine Point Fountain Pen

This is what happens when my right hand does the writing.

I snuck this in to a recent order from Goldspot pens, my justifications being “I want to try the fine nib” and “now I’ll have a fountain pen for all my right-handed friends to try! Maybe they won’t hold this one completely wrong. Maybe they won’t get ink all over themselves when they use this one.” The actual reason, of course, was “AW YEAH I WANT ANOTHER FOUNTAIN PEN!” You know how it goes.

The design is STILL APPEALING TO THE MAX.

I’m not going to rehash a review I’ve already done; we’ll just update on what’s relevant to the pen being right-handed, and the nib being fine.

THIS LOOKS SUSPICIOUSLY FAMILIAR

I didn’t have any problems using the pen to write with my right or my left hand; all was smooth in the Pendom, and sweet spots of writing were found in abundance. The nib is a nice, European-style fine. It’s a good width and it’s easy to handle. You can see in the close up that the right-handed nib differs from the left-handed nib, but it’s not to such a degree that opposite-handed writing is impeded by use of the pen. It just seems like you really feel the sweet spot when you’re writing with the nib that matches the hand you’re using to write; otherwise, the pen writes smooth but there’s that little extra oomph that isn’t there.

Turquoise: probably the best color, or definitely the best color?

Also, this Pelikan turquoise (giant ink cartridge) is utterly wonderful. The color makes me happy. This picture doesn’t do it justice. I’ll try to add a more justice-worthy picture later. The color is fun and rich, much like a playboy billionaire. And the turquoise looks good coming out of this bright green pen. I think that’s where the playboy billionaire metaphor falls apart.

Anyway, this is a great fountain pen in the under $20 range, and would make a great gift, provided I’ve already got that same pen for myself. I swear, the NEXT order I’ll get one for my friends.
Pelikan Pelikano Green Right-Handed Fine Point Fountain Pen at Goldspot Pens
Pelikan Turquoise Giant Fountain Pen Cartridge Refill at Goldspot Pens

Pilot Plumix Fountain Pen – Medium Flat Italic Nib – Black Body with Blue Ink

The sketches were a bit uninspired. They were...despired. Perspired. Not even spired.

I can’t leave a big-box SuperStore without checking their pen section, and a recent prowl of Target’s pen aisle did not leave me disappointed. For the first time, physically before me in a store where arguably normal people shop, an affordable fountain pen!

Baby, for $6.37 you can take me home any day of the week (provided you have that aforementioned $6.37 plus local tax rate)

The somewhat garishly designed packaging enthusiastically proclaims in sunshine-daycare yellow, “Real Fountain Pen!” …Unlike all those fake fountain pens you’ve had to contend with, Pilot delivers a finely-crafted stick of plastic veracity and unparalleled integrity. Thank goodness Pilot’s on top of these things. And that they’re telling you about it–I would have surely mistaken this for another one of those confoundingly meddlesome fake fountain pens if it weren’t for this astute packaging.

The pen cap is a squid-head. There, now you can't unsee it.

The body of the Plumix is lightweight plastic, but seems well thought-out.

This is not to say that the design of the Squid leaves it completely clean of ink

The cap unscrews from the body (snap-on caps, especially if snapped on with the pen pointing down, encourage the ink to come out, leaving beads of ink on the nib and in the cap. Very wasteful) but posts on the end just by pushing the cap on.

The barrel unscrews from the grip and nib section, and the nib itself is easy to remove so that you can align the grip and nib to be conducive to your hand’s writing posture, a fact I did not figure out until after I’d dropped the pen from my pocket, knocking the nib loose, necessitating my fiddling with the nib.

Deliciously smooth writing on some fantastic Clairefontaine paper, done mostly when the nib was knocked loose. Still wrote!

Having never really removed a nib from a pen before, I found it a surprisingly simple task (“AUGH! UAAGH! THE METAL PART FELL OFF! OH CRAP LET’S JUST WASH EVERYTHING OFF AND HOPE IT’LL ALL GO BACK TOGETHER”), and my original problem with the angle of the nib relative to the positioning of the grip became a moot point–I could angle the nib however I wanted!

Since there isn’t much weight to the body, it’s hard to comment on the balance of the pen, but nothing feels off about the way the pen sits in the hand. Above the grip, the barrel has a slight bulge outward that fits perfectly into the web over the thenar space (thanks, The Internet; I was just going to call it “that fleshy web crook space, you know, the one between your thumb and forefinger, whatsitcalled, you know”) and then tapers off into a slender end. The barrel has these strange parabola-shaped grooves, the purpose of which I cannot discern beyond being merely decorative, and the cap has two modest little anti-roll protrusions that effectively render the cap a convenient squid-shape.

These are all small, simple touches that make a pen unique, and I appreciate them. This is what I feel so many common American pens are lacking–an appreciation of pennovation.

My first comment when I unscrewed the cap: "Where are the little balls on the end??" I did not realize the nib was italic; neither did the packaging.

Before we move on to the nib, the grip needs a little more appreciation. Note how the the bottom of the grip arches up to rest comfortably atop your finger. Carefully discern the subtly cut out concave panel–there are two of these, one for the thumb to grip, the other for the gripping finger of your choice (I rest the pen atop my ring finger, and grip with thumb and middle). The grip is entirely smooth and entirely hard plastic, but it’s comfortable. It’s a carefully designed molding of plastic where I was expecting something bare-minimum. My apologies, Pilot. The grip you designed here is an unexpected delight.

I know we've had some problems with cheap Pilot Medium fountain pen nibs before, but this, this one is different. This one has the power of SUPER QUALITY JAPAN.

The nib, I’m happy to report, is not like other cheap Pilot fountain pen nibs. Granted, I don’t really have any other Pilot italic nibs for comparison (or any italic nibs for comparison), but this one seems to put out a decent but not excessive amount of ink, and it writes so smoothly (especially on Rhodia and Clairefontaine paper) that I can’t stop writing in cursive with this pen. The mere act of cursive writing is so fun! I just keep writing nonsense even when I have nothing of substance to write. And my handwriting asymptotically approaches being pretty!

At the end of the day, this is a fun and cheap (AND REAL!!!) fountain pen that you can (provided your Target has them in stock) get with instant gratification, ripping open the package the moment your transaction is complete, and it makes writing fun. Isn’t that what a pen should really be for?

 

A pen should also be for use as a weapon in an emergency situation or a dramatic scene in a television drama.

You can’t order them online from Target, but they do have a link to find it at a Target store: Pilot Plumix Refillable Fountain Pen – Blue at Target

 

And, because I love JetPens, they get a link too:Pilot Plumix Fountain Pen – Medium Flat Italic Nib – Black Body at JetPens

Rotring Art Pen – Extra Fine (EF) Sketching Nib

Rumor has it that it is scientifically impossible to not enjoy drawing with this pen.

I’m not really an artist, but I like pretending to be one and buying supplies I don’t need in a bid to guilt myself into making more art (because, jeez, come on, I’ve spent all this money on these THINGS. Gotta use them). And that is why I picked this up for around $18 at Jerry’s Artarama.

Holds pens, ammunition, government secrets...

First off, it comes in this fancy-pants shiny case (which was about 35% of why I bought this pen) that’s just the right amount of minimalist classy, and is (presumably) protective yet lightweight.

Does not completely seal out attacks from lukewarm-hot mint chocolate. Look closely on the lid, and you will see the shadow of what was once delicious.

Opening the case, you find 5 ink cartridges and this neato-looking writing contraption. The body of this pen is in the style of such artist’s tools as paintbrushes or crowquill pens, which is to say, baffling to everyone else. You have opened the lid on some strange and exotic creature just waiting to mark all over your pages.

Now, I started out with five cartridges–only three are pictured. One of these has been co-opted in the improvement of a very inky A.G. Spalding mini fountain pen (but that’s another review); the other was in this pen for a week until my Rotring converter arrived (for the sake of brevity, we’ll do a short review of that later) and now sits beneath a mess of pseudo-sealing tape in a full upright position. They are alright, as far as cartridges go, but they are maddeningly smudgy even far after having dried, and I knew this pen deserved better. Note:

What you're noting is how switching to Noodler's Bulletproof Black on the left side DIDN'T ACTUALLY STOP MY SMUDGING WHOOPS.

I think the smudging problems with the Noodler’s Bulletproof black were mostly due to the ink not being fully dry as I was drawing. But the cartridge ink was getting noticeably smudged through contact with other paper long after that ink was dry. Both inks are a nice, rich black, but I would still recommend a Rotring fountain pen converter if you want to use this pen. The bottle ink just does better.

Just take a gander at this sexy and dangerous looking doodad. This is the only time you'll see that cap attached to that pen

Overall, the pen is made of a nice matte-finish plastic with a sturdy clip and clear, easy-to-identify labeling on the end of the cap so you know which nib pen this is. It seems like such a fancy metal box might have some kind of fancy metal pen inside, but I’m okay with the plastic–it feels durable but not weighty; sometimes I like a pen to have a low profile feel in my hand, and that’s what this pen has.

Where did the cap go? SOMEWHERE YOU'LL NEVER FIND IT AHAHA I AM YOUR PEN AND I WANT NOTHING TO DO WITH MY CAP. I flip it so hard that you can't even post it on me. What are you gonna do about it? YEAH LOSE THE CAP THAT'S WHAT YOU'LL DO.

So, as the maniacally abusive pen points out, there’s nowhere to securely post the cap when you want to write. You can put the cap on the narrow end, where it will rattle around until you lose all semblance of rational thought, or you can put it carefully on the table and hope you don’t knock it off, because putting the cap in the fancy silver box and shutting it in there would make too much sense. But seriously, adding an extra, smaller ring inside the cap so that it could post snugly on the narrow end of the pen…would that be so hard? I know the Tachikawa comic pen holders have this feature for their cheap plastic caps…you’d think a nice pen would be able to do them one better. Someone, at some point, had to consciously decide that what users of the Rotring Art Pen would do, when they wanted to write, was to take off the cap and store it in their cheek pouches until it was time to cap the pen again, and that offering a snug way to keep the cap on the other end of the pen just wasn’t a good idea.

Get up close. Look at all that ink I've gotten everywhere. What a hot mess.

I think this pen is more or less true to its advertised word; here is a fountain pen with a fine nib (I will reserve judgment on how extra this fineness might be) that is fun to sketch with. It was a little paper-temperamental in terms of writing quality, but for sketching the differences were negligible. And it was smooth, without being overly inky or wet, which is my biggest problem with some fountain pens.

I tried to follow the JetPens directions regarding refilling a piston-converted fountain pen, but I couldn’t get the ink to draw up through the nib or the entire submerged tip.  I just took the converter out and filled that up when I needed ink.

I love the quality of the line this pen puts out. It has subtle personality. I love the look of this pen–one of understated difference, elegant simplicity. This is a pen for the regular rotation of implements of artistry. My only problem is the cap-posting issue, which I can certainly get over.

Beautiful art pen / writes haikus and rolls away / due to friggin cap

If you’re near a Jerry’s Artarama, I suggest trying to get the Rotring Art Pen through them (because they are an amazing store / wonderland of fabulously priced art supplies). If you are not near a Jerry’s Artarama, try scouring the internet. I don’t know the best place to recommend, unfortunately, since I got my pen in an actual store. :/
Rotring Art Pen at Jerry’s Artarama

Rotring Fountain Pen Converter at JetPens

Pilot Varsity Disposable Fountain Pen in Black, Blue, and Purple

This has got to be my poorest excuse for doodles yet. What is that thing up on the left there? That is just terrible nonsense.

Imagine replacing all the pictures on this blog with me standing in front of you in a hip and dimly lit bar, tipsily waving a pen in your face, and you’ve got a pretty good idea of what my Thursday nights are like. This is, of course, an excellent opportunity for you, if you’re getting a pen waved demonstratively in your face, to make a suggestion for what kind of pen I should review next. Now, replace “Thursday” with “last Monday,” and you’ve got the full picture of how this review came to be. This time, I believe the suggestion started with “that really cylindrical pen” (which is only nearly all of them) and eventually meandered into “Pilot Varsity,” courtesy of one Devin T. Rooney (friend of Risden–remember Risden?); at least, I assume that was his name, because this was what he wrote down when I asked “What do you want me to call you on the internet?” So now you know who to blame thank.

I guess this is kind of collegiate-looking? Varsity teams wear pinstripes, yeah?

So I originally bought these in a Staples, an impulse as usual, just because they were fountain pens! at an affordable price?! in an actual, physical store?!?!?!!! This is apparently my biggest weakness. Right out of the package, the blue pen didn’t want to write (though it now works, months later). Black and purple did all right, and I was really enamored with the rich, purple ink.

There's a handy window where you can almost distinguish one dark ink color from another.

Speaking of the ink, there’s something strange smelling about this ink. Sort of…like a hospital? (My coworker says vinyl, perhaps PVC.) I can’t quite put my finger on what it is right now, because I’m scribbling on and sniffing a piece of paper in public. The black isn’t a perfect black, but the colored pens are very rich–I’d peg the blue as Wikipedia-defined ultramarine, and the purple as … well, there isn’t an easy match for the shade. So we’ll just say it’s lovely.

On my first draft of this post, I kinda failed completely to mention much about the writing and drawing performance of this pen, as I was just so …anti-impressed (or impressed, but in a bad way). The ink flows out more in the manner of water than ink; too much flow, too much ink on the page, too much bleedthrough and just ink everywhere, either getting absorbed clear through the page in my Behance journal, or sitting pooled on the line on Rhodia paper. I couldn’t find any medium suitable for this pen. Moleskine sketch paper came the closest, as it’s thick enough that its absorbent tendencies didn’t draw the ink all the way to the other side of the paper. You’ll notice I didn’t sketch much with this pen. When the pen is good, I’ll fill up the doodlespace because I just want to keep making lines, using the pen is that enjoyable. But with a pen like this, I go through the cursory sketches to test the pen and leave it at that. Things just feel sloppy, in terms of markmaking. I’m not even really excited to be writing about this pen! It’s so…BLAH.

As for the body of the pen, the plastic barrels show no signs of damage so far, and, like many of the cheap fountain pens I own, have no problem writing right away after months spent dormant.

Look familiar?

We’ve seen this nib before. It’s just the medium nib to the Pilot Petit1′s fine nib, which is to say, neither nib ever actually approaches medium and it’s really the gigantically awful nib to the Pilot Petit1′s medium.

The <M> is for MASSIVE

This pen has made me realize that I have a fine-nib bias in my pen preferences. This pen gives out ink like it’s free. Like it’s candy. Like it’s hotcakes? I think this is just a function of the medium nib, and all my problems with this pen–heavy ink flow, slow-drying time and/or bleedthrough (paper dependent), fuzzing and feathering–may be problems I have with medium nibs in general. There are some problems I can isolate specifically to this pen–terrible squeaking while writing on a Staples junior legal pad as well as fuzzing/feathering I don’t see from other pens/inks on the same paper.

In hindsight, I was too harsh on the Platinum Preppy (but the fact that its fine nib is equivalent to a Kaweco Medium nib still stands), another thing this Varsity has made me realize. If you want an entry level fountain pen (like, really cheap entry level), the only reason to get the Pilot Varsity, in my opinion, is if you just have to have it from a physical store and can’t wait the 2 or 3 days it takes for JetPens to ship better pens to you.

It is durable, yes. And a fairly smooth, consistent, easy-start writer. It WILL write. But will it write well? Will I ever find a kind of paper where I’m satisfied with the ink flow, appearance, drying time, amount of bleedthrough? Doubtful. Also, ink shouldn’t smell this weird. Sorry, Pilot Varsity! You are a pen for someone else.

But that doesn't mean I won't take your picture.

Pilot Varsity Disposable Fountain Pens at Staples

Pilot Varsity Disposable Fountain Pens at JetPens