Since I haven't yet gotten around to scanning more meeting notes I'm posting this pen review a wee bit prematurely (because I haven't gotten around to taking pictures of it yet). Enjoy the review and I'll update with photos when I've taken them (and will most likely delete this paragraph).

My never ending quest for the perfect pen has led me mainly to pens of Asian decent, as I believe I've mentioned before. And I've found some pretty good ones on offer, but with problems that prevent me from declaring them perfect. Mostly because they don't allow cartridges and since I do most of my heavy writing while traveling and carrying an ink bottle is both inconvenient and not allowed (on planes) I was forced to look elsewhere.

Recently I've set my sights on Pilot, trying a few different models, the FP-50R (reviewed here), the Knight (not yet reviewed), and most recently, the Pilot Prera.

The Prera is a relatively inexpensive pen not yet widely available in the US (I got mine from JPens.com for $36). It is available in a variety of colors and has a clean, functional compact design.

It comes equipped with a fine nib, which translates as extra fine in comparison to most Western nibs. It writes smooth fine line unlike the similar nib on the FP-50R. It takes proprietary Pilot cartridges (see earlier rant), and a Pilot converter. I originally filled it with Mont Blanc's English Racing Green (still one of my favorite colors) and now have it filled with a blue Pilot cartridge (which I do not care for at all, way too washed out).

The pen body is made from plastic so it's a pretty light weight pen. With the cap unposted it's a hair bit on the short side for my taste, so I generally post when I'm using it.

Over all I'm pretty happy with this pen, it works perfectly with a Molsekine as there is no bleed through on the thin paper.

Labels: fountain_pens

It's been awhile since I've done a fountain pen review so I figured I'd better get back on the wagon as I've got a back load of some great (and a not so great) pens to review. I'll start out with my most recent acquisition an Extra Fine Chili Red Cross ATX Bahia.

I purchased this pen on clearance from Swisher Pens because I had read some positive reviews online. Overall I'm very pleased with this pen, but I do have a few minor complaints. So let's break it down.

Design:
I tend to like modern pens with clean styling and this one fits the bill. I also tend to go for steel or black pens so with this one I decided to go a little crazy and add a little color to my pen case. In this case I went for the Chili Red which is a maroon-ish color with a bit of a sparkly finish with matte metal on the clip and grip sections. When I first got the pen the cap was so tight that it really took a lot of effort to remove, but it has loosened a bit with wear so now it's not a problem. Overall a nicely designed pen.



Nib:
The ATX comes with a steel nib that ranges from XF to B. I went with XF, and here in lies my first complaint: it ain't no XF. It's really more like a fat Fine nib. Apart from size (which I'm getting used to), I really have no issue. It's a super smooth and wet writer that glides across the paper. I really enjoy sketching with this pen so it might end up being used more for that than for writing. As a matter of fact, the robots below were done with this pen.



Fill:
This pen is a cartridge/convertor filler and a convertor is included in the box so do not order an extra one like I did. And this is my other complaint, and one I've made before: PROPRIETARY CARTRIDGES (yargh!). This is very annoying. But I won't get into that again.



So overall I'm pleased with this pen, but I guess if I'm looking for a true XF nib I will have to restrict myself to the Asian pen companies, at least they know what XF should mean. However if your handwriting is bigger that mine than I would definitely recommend this pen. It's a pleasure to write with.

Labels: fountain_pens, reviews

I think I've expressed before my love for Kinokuniya, the Japanese bookstore/stationary store attached to Uwajimaya in downtown Seattle. Well they also have stores in New York and San Francisco, and also in Palo Alto near where we were staying when we were in San Francisco in April (although that one is called Mai Do).

I found this pen at Mai Do. I don't know if it has a name but the Pilot site has it listed as the FP-50R, so that's what I'll go with.

The first thing I noticed about this pen is that it looks like a cross between the Lamy Safari and the Rotring Art Pen. Very slick, I thought.





The second thing I noticed was damn did this thing have an extra, extra fine nib. And for $8, I was convinced.



So for style points it's a winner, but how would it write?

Well, as it turns out, that extra fine nib might be a bit too fine as it's a bit scratchy to write with and the ink flow is fairly dry. So it's probably not a pen I would take on a trip to journal with, but it works well for writing in my every day catch all moleskine as there is no bleed through at all.

This pen takes the proprietary Pilot cartridges and I have to say this annoys me a little. Not just with this pen, but any pen that has special cartridges, I mean, why not just use the international standard. I mostly use cartridges and I resent being confined to the colors offered by the pen manufacturer, which are often limited to the standard red, blue, black, and, if you're lucky, blue-black.



So would I recommend this pen? Well, perhaps for the person looking for the type of fine point that you really can't find on American and European pens, but otherwise, try something with a little bit larger nib. Like maybe the Pilot Pettit1, which is a very fine writer for the money. I really will have to do a review of that one sometime soon.

Labels: fountain_pens, reviews

I like Lamy pens. They may not be the flashiest pens on the market, but I like their designs. So far I have three Lamy writing instruments: a Red Safari fountain pen, and a Black Scribble mechanical pencil. There are a couple of more Lamy fountain pens on my wish list, however, and some day they will be mine.

I began checking Ebay for Lamys and saw this pen listed for $5 and decided it would be mine.



I tried to do a little research on the 99 but was unable to find any useful information. There were some other 99s for sale on ebay for a lot more, but they didn't look like this one. This one is marked 99b on the body, so maybe it's a different iteration in the 99 line. But I figured, what the hell, it's only $5 ($11 with shipping).

So two things about this pen:

1. Even though it's marked F on the body, it's more like a fat medium.

and

2. It's a hell of a writer. Smooth and skip free.

This pen is a piston loader with a large reservoir. It is loaded by unscrewing the back end, which reveals the piston, and dipping the nib into the ink.



Stylistically it's a pretty basic pen with a couple of unexpected surprises. First, the nib is partially hooded, and second there are little round porthole-like windows on the grip that show the ink level.







So I'm pretty happy with this pen. It's in great condition (some light tarnish on the nib and a small scratch on the cap) and writes beautifully. For $5 it was a great bargain.

Like I said, I was unable to find out anything about this pen, so if anybody has any information they can share, I would very much appreciate it.

Labels: fountain_pens, reviews

We'd been traveling around Eastern Europe for two and a half weeks and were on the last day of our tip. Well, the last four hours, really, because that was how much time we had to spend in Frankfurt before heading home to Seattle. In Salzburg we went into a store that had lots of lovely pens, but as that was the beginning of our trip, I decided not to buy and to wait and see what else we came across. Nothing, as it turned out. Well less than nothing as I actually managed to leave a beloved Levenger pen behind in a hostel in Budapest (a pen they no longer sell, and is therefore impossible to replace).

Any way, we were in Frankfurt and suddenly it began to pour rain. We ducked into a tunnel that led under a cross street and when we emerged it just so happened to be directly next to a Faber Castell shop. Nice.

We ducked in and I was in heaven. Granted I couldn't afford most of the really nice pens, but I could afford this one.



I liked the styling and I liked how it wrote and so I made it mine.



This pen takes international cartridges and does not come with a converter. I bought one with a fine nib, and while I would have liked an extra fine, I'm quite pleased with how smoothly the pen writes.



My one complaint is that ink has a tendency to bead up on the nib when it's capped and so I'm always having to wipe it off.



This is minor complaint in what is in all other ways a very fine pen.

Labels: fountain_pens, reviews

This is Part 4 in a series of fountain pen reviews. Be sure to read Parts 1, 2, and 3.

Not long ago I discovered a Web site called Jet Pens. They are an importer of all manner of cool Japanese pens and pencils that can't readily be found in the states. I was drawn in by a number of their offerings and after a few weeks of visiting and drooling I finally broke down and ordered a few things: two compact fountain pens and some colored pencil lead.

This is one of those pens:



The Ohto Tasche, a very stylish compact, cleverly designed little pen. It measures a mere 3 3/4" when closed but a nice 5 3/4" with the cap posted.



It achieves this because the cap is nearly as long as the body of the pen.



The Tasche comes in four different colors and is also available as a pencil and ball point. I opted for the silver body because I thought it looked a bit classier. The pen is only offered in one nib size which I would rate somewhere between a fine and a medium and takes only small international cartridges.



When I first tried out the pen I found the ink flow to be spotty. It was slow to start and skipped quite a bit, but after I swapped out the included cartridge for one of my own the problem was solved. Now it writes smoothly and rarely skips, but because of it's compact size it can cause my hand to cramp up a bit during extended writing. But as I don't do a lot of that it's not a huge concern.

For $20 it's not a bad pen, and because of it's handy compact size, it's one I carry around in my pocket a lot.

Labels: fountain_pens, reviews

I mentioned last time that I purchased a second Hero pen when I got the 160. This is a review of that pen. Click on the images for a larger version.



The Hero 370 cost a whole $4, and believe me, it was worth every penny. It's a small, simply designed pen constructed of a light weight metal (aluminum, I'm guessing). The cap is of the snap variety and has a garish advertisement for the company covering most of it. It has a steel extra fine nib.





It uses an aerometric filler, but also takes cartridges. I've tried it both ways with pretty much the same results.



The craftsmanship on this pen is shoddy all around. The cap, when on rotates freely, although there doesn't appear be any danger of it falling off. It's the same minor complaint I had with the 160, only in this case much more pronounced. It posts securely, but I mostly leave the cap off when I write, so that's not a huge concern for me. The nib also is of questionable quality. While the size is just about right, the ink flow is poor and often skips, and it is scratchy to write with. Also, the feed part of the nib doesn't sit flush against the body:



I don't know if this is specific to my pen, or if they are all like that but it doesn't inspire confidence. I pulled the nib apart and tried to fix the problem, but no luck. Plus, because of the thinness of the pen, it hurts my hand to write with for any length of time.

I wasn't expecting much from this $4 pen, and my expectations were met. Needless to say that this pen is headed for an early retirement.

Today I ordered another Hero pen, this time the 100 which is a knock off of the classic Parker 51. It has received rave reviews on various pen forums so I was curious to test it out. Once again I ordered it through ISellPens.com. I'll post a review after I've had a chance to play with it a bit.

I think next time I'll stick with some more of the inexpensive pens in my collection and review the Ohto Tasche that I bought from Jet Pens.

Labels: fountain_pens, reviews

Recently, while browsing the forums at the Jet Pens Web site I came across mention of a pen from a Chinese company called Hero. The posters had high praise for the extra fine tip and the fluidity with which it wrote. I was intrigued. One of the things I struggle with when purchasing pens is finding the right combination of style and fine point. With most American and European pen companies your lucky if they go down to a fine point, and extra fine seems to be a concept with which they have yet to come to terms. There are of course exceptions, but it seems to be true for the most part.

Enter the Asian pens. The Japanese seem to share my love of both the fine point and the funky design, and I have purchased more than a few pens from Kinokuniya, the Japanese bookstore attached to the Uwajimaya downtown. Those will turn up in future posts.

Today though, I'm reviewing the Hero 160 that I purchased from this Web site for $15. So not the cheapest pen I own, but far from the most expensive.



Style wise, it's a pretty simple pen, I was drawn to the frilly design on the cap and I liked the semi-hooded nib.







One reservation I had was that it was an aerometric filler and did not take cartridges. I've never used anything but cartridges before, so I didn't know what I would think.



This turned out to be no big deal. You simply dip the nib into the ink, press on the metal bar, wait to the count of 5 and repeat 4 or 5 more times.

It seems to be a fairly well made pen and it writes extremely well. Smooth flowing lines right off the bat and hasn't skipped on me yet. The nib is called a fine, but really is an extra fine when compared to other pens. Which suits me just fine.

My one complaint is that the cap is a bit loose. Not loose like it's going to fall off in your pocket, because it seems fairly secure in that regard, but loose like it rotates around easily when it is on. Not a big deal, but there it is.

That's all for now, next time I'll review the other Hero pen I purchased when I got this one: the Hero 370, which cost a whopping $4.

Update: I recently discovered that Lamy cartridges will fit in this pen. This is very exciting, as when I travel, I can't be carrying around bottles of ink for refilling.

Labels: fountain_pens, reviews

I am a collector of things. I don't know why this should be, but it is a deeply ingrained part of my personality that I can not shake.

Among the things I collect are Books, Comic Books, Movies, Interesting Packaging and Pens.

Mostly, fountain pens, although I have been known to pick up the occasional roller ball and pencil. I love them. The funny thing is, I really don't do all that much writing. Probably the most concentrated burst of writing for me comes when I am traveling and keeping a daily journal. But still, this hasn't prevented me from acquiring pens at an alarming rate. Actually, I do quite a bit of sketching with them, and I think that's probably where this whole thing started. I'm constantly in search of a better instrument.

Now I don't tend to go in for super expensive pens, I think the most I've ever spent on a pen was $70 (a Rotring 600 series extra fine fountain pen that I bought from Levenger).

This was the first nice pen I bought and it served me well for years until something came loose in the cap and I put is a way for a while (I just last week sent it off to Rotring for repairs, we'll see how that goes). As an aside, I recently bought another Rotring from Pen City when they had a sale clearing out all the discontinued Rotring products. This time with a fine nib. I tend to like an extra fine nib as my writing is pretty small. Unfortunately, most pens stop at fine.

So as I was saying, I don't spend a lot for each pen, most of them were under $40, what I most look for is a cool design. I have a pretty good collection going so I'm going to do a series of posts on each pen with photo's, writing samples and a quick review. I'll start off next week with a couple of my most recent purchases from a Chinese company called Hero that I only learned about a few weeks ago.

Labels: fountain_pens, reviews