Two late back to school offers I picked up this week in Tesco:
A Black n’ Red polynote A7 and a Pilot V Pen.
I mentioned the A7 notepad in a previous blog post. What happened since then? They dropped the ‘polynote’ part from the name and the price more than doubled! It usually sells for £2.50, so getting it for £1.25 (~$2.05; €1.60) is a good deal these days. Last time I only paid 60p – but the steep increase in stationery prices in the UK is nothing new…
Unfortunately I only bought one. I should have stocked up. Maybe I’ll be lucky and it will still be on offer next time I go to Tesco.
The other item: a Pilot V Pen for £1 (~$1.62; €1.28). You might be disappointed though if you hope to get a fountain pen with a ‘mirrored’ nib, as displayed on the packaging 8^P. The actual nib is labelled the normal way round.
Then… I got the Pelikan Wanderlust box (pictures to follow). It’s a box with Pelikan ink travelling the world. I was supposed to get mine in December, but the box seems to be travelling to some remote islands and I was told it was held up in customs [2]It’s too late now to join Wanderlust, but Justanotherpen started a similar project..
Danske blyanter
Then… I got the Denmark booster pack I won in Rad and Hungry‘s hunt. Nice!
Both E-Motion pens on a teNeues Explorer Journal Hay Harvest.
It took quite a while before I bought my first Faber-Castell fountain pen. Now, only a few weeks after, I had the opportunity to try another Faber-Castell fountain pen, as well as the mechanical pencil from the same line.
I have been recently contacted by Anna from The Pen Company who asked me whether I would like to review a pen from their shop. In the end James from The Pen Company was kind enough to not only to send one, but two pens I had picked: the Parquet Ivory fountain pen and the Parquet Ivory mechanical pencil from Faber-Castell’s E-Motion line. I was also able to try Faber-Castell’s wooden Castell 9000 style 4GB USB stick out. As part of a promotion you get one of these USB sticks with orders of all Faber-Castell pens while stocks last.
Both pens come with an ivory coloured “precious resin” barrel. The parquet pattern on the barrel has been produced using laser etching, a technique often used for keyboards. There is a tiny burr visible on the barrel if you look hard. This burr is slightly more pronounced on my fountain pen, but it is really small. Most people wouldn’t even notice it.
The laser-etched Parquet pattern and Faber-Castell logo on the pencil
The mechanical pencil
Lead width
The mechanical pencil accepts 1.4mm pencil leads and comes with B leads. Size-wise these are between Yard-O-Led leads and the leads used in leadholders. I assume that unlike leadholder leads, which are usually sharpened, the Faber-Castell leads are not supposed to be sharpened, as I haven’t seen a dedicated lead sharpener from Faber-Castell. My handwriting is very small, which means that even if I frequently rotate the pen the lines get too wide and I have to starting writing bigger letters – but the lead size might be just right for someone with a bigger handwriting.
Propelling the lead
The eraser under the cap
To propel the lead you have to turn the cap clockwise. Similarly you can get the lead back into the body of the pen, e.g. when putting the pen in a pencil case, by turning the cap anticlockwise. This is different to twist-based mechanisms where turning will unlock and advance the lead. The E-Motion‘s lead stays ‘locked’ all the time.
The eraser
There is also an eraser under the cap. As expected for the big size of the pen’s body this eraser is bigger than what you usually find in mechanical pencils.
Replacement leads
The lead storage under the grip
When you unscrew the cap you can find a storage area on the side of the body that should be able to hold six to eight replacement leads. Unfortunately I couldn’t try out how many exactly will fit as I didn’t have enough leads of this size.
Conclusion
A very nice pencil. The spring-type clip is very nice. There is a big eraser for emergencies and the pen can hold several spare leads despite the big diameter of the leads. If normal pencils are to thin or light for you this might be a great alternative, as long as you don’t mind the width of the lead.
The fountain pen
The fountain pen comes with a big and heavy screw cap, that has a nice spring-type clip, like the one found on the pencil. The nib is stainless steel, available in F, M and B. I chose the F nib as it fits best with my handwriting. The pen accepts standard cartridges and comes with a converter.
The laser-etched Parquet pattern on the fountain pen. There is no etched logo. The logo is embossed on the cap.
The nib and its performance on paper
The bleed through of the E-Motion compared to that of a Lamy Safari, here on Silvine paper.
The nib is nice and smooth and writes well on all types of paper. I found that the writing experience is above average on really poor paper. When it comes to average paper performance is good, but not as good as some other fountain pens. I used the E-Motion with Diamine’s Sapphire ink, a very well behaved ink. On average quality paper, in this case a Yokrshire-made exercise book from Silvine, there is no feathering at all – but there is some bleed through: it’s much less than the bleed though you get with a wet Noodler’s Konrad, a bit more than with a Pelikan M215 EF and more than with a Lamy Safari F, which doesn’t produce any bleed through at all. The bleed through issue be easily fixed by using different paper or by trying to make the nib drier [1]Instructions how to do this can be found on the Internet..
When freshly uncapped I never had any problems with skipping, unlike my experience with some other, more expensive fountain pens, like the Cross Century II. The cap-off time time of the E-Motion is however shorter than some other fountain pens. Left uncapped it tends to dry and start to skip when starting to write again after two minutes non-use, which might be a problem when taking notes in a meeting or in some other situations (classroom, writing comments, …) [2]This is obviously dependent on temperature, humidity, etc. – but as a comparison: in the same conditions a Lamy Safari can be left uncapped for 5 minutes or longer without any skipping when … Continue reading.
Conclusion
A very nice fountain pen. It is heavier than many other fountain pens and the grip section doesn’t provide as much grip as some other fountain pens. I think it’s a great fountain pen for constant writing. If you want a pen more suitable for meetings or other situations where you only write occasionally the short cap-off time means that a Faber-Castell’s Basic or Ambition fountain pen might be more suitable as it’s easier to cap and uncap these pens. If you want a pen with a more “substantial” feeling to it the E-Motion might just be the right pen.
Both E-Motion pens on a teNeues Explorer Journal Hay Harvest.
Giveaway
I was very happy that Anna and James from The Pen Company sent me these pens, but it’s time for the two pens to find a new home. For a chance to win the the mechanical pencil or the fountain pen please leave a comment at this blog post, telling me which type of pen you normally prefer (pencil, mechanical pencil, fountain pen, roller ball, ballpoint pen or whatever it may be). It would be nice if you explain why you prefer that type of pen, but that’s not necessary to be eligible to win. If your favourite type of pen is not the one you want to win, e.g. you might prefer pencils, but you’d like to try a fountain pen for a change, please state that in the comment, too.
I am happy to ship to any country as long as Royal Mail is delivering to that country. The UK’s National Stationery Week runs from 22 – 28 April, so the closing date for the giveaway will be 28 April 23:59:59 BST. To determine the winner I will go to random.org and will get a random number. The corresponding comment will win the pen of choice (either pencil or fountain pen) unless it’s a comment from me or it’s obviously spam (think ‘cheap Rolex’ ads) …in which case I will get a new random numbers until there is a winner. I will then get another random number to determine the winner of the other pen. Similar rules: the corresponding comment will win if the pen left is their pen of choice – unless it’s a comment from me, a comment from the first winner or it’s obviously spam. I will draw new random numbers until there is a winner. As long as you write meaningful comments, e.g. as part of a ‘discussion’, you can leave more than one comment and the comments will not be counted as spam.
If you want to win an even better pen: as part of The Pen Company’s Spring Poetry Competition you can even win a Graf von Faber-Castell Guilloche Fountain Pen in a choice of colours.
I’d like to thank Anna and James from The Pen Company for giving me a chance to try these pens out.
This is obviously dependent on temperature, humidity, etc. – but as a comparison: in the same conditions a Lamy Safari can be left uncapped for 5 minutes or longer without any skipping when starting to write again.
I know that Bleistift is a pencil blog, so I usually try to keep fountain pen blog posts to a minimum, but today I can’t resist.
In December 2011 I bought a Noodler’s Ahab fountain pen [1]The Ivory Darkness version. Mine ended up being extra dark. and I didn’t use it a lot. Why? Because I was disappointed.
Why was I disappointed? That was actually down to my unrealistic expectations and wasn’t Noodler’s fault at all. When I read that it’s supposed to come with a flexible nib I expected some wonderpen that would be the fountain pen equivalent of my Brause 361 nib, i.e. I thought even relatively few pressure would make it possible to create a lot of nib variation. That wasn’t the case. The nib wasn’t much more flexible than M200 steel nibs from Pelikan in F or my Lamy 2000 M nib. My initial impression of the Ahab’s nib was probably also made worse by the fact that I often write on poor quality paper [2]Simply because many of the documents I get are printed on that kind of paper. and because I used an ink that tends to be absorbed into the paper instead of staying on the paper to form a crisp line once dry.
Left to right: M215 Orthogons, Konrad Galapagos Tortoise, M215 Lozenges, M215 Blue Barrel and Stripes
Enter the Konrad. The text from the leaflet that comes with the Konrad reminds me very much of the Citroën C5 adverts[3]“Not a single component of the Konrad pen is German made. Yet, its design is extremely German…”. I bought it because I like the look of it – no wonder: I like the look of Pelikan pens. I prefer the look of the round cap Pelikans to the crown cap Pelikans – and the Konrad has the round cap look I like. Unfortunately, the celluloid derivative used for the Konrad [4]In my case the Galapagos Tortoise. doesn’t look as good as the one on my Ahab, probably because it’s more translucent. This is however completely subjective and someone else will prefer the material used for the Konrad [5]I don’t and am thinking about getting the Ebonite Konrad once it’s available again. The Goulet Pen Company will have it back in stock again soon, but I’m undecided whether I should … Continue reading.
In terms of nib flex the Konrad and Ahab are great, I just have to accept that I need more pressure to make it flex compared to my dip pen nibs. On the maximum flex end of the scale they don’t really produce a wider line than a Pelikan M200 steel nib in F [6]There is quite some variation though when it comes to Pelikan’s steel nibs in F, depending on when they were produced., but they can produce a slightly thinner line on the minimum flex end of the scale. If you now think a Pelikan steel nib in EF will produce similar results you might be disappointed. On good paper (steel) EF nibs produce a finer line than F nibs, but on poor quality paper the difference can be hardly noticeable. The EF nibs do however tend to be very hard and there’s hardly any line variation, i.e. they are much less flexible than the F nibs.
M205 De Atramentis Schwarzriesling ink, Konrad Pelikan Blue ink, Ahab Noodler’s Baystate Blue ink — Please excuse the shape of the letters, I usually don’t try to vary pressure on purpose when writing
Pricewise the Konrad is amazing. I paid about £23 including shipping (~$35; €27), bought on eBay. That’s about half of what I paid for my last Pelikan M215, about £56 including shipping (~$87; €66), bought from Amazon Germany. There are similar offers for different versions of the M215 on Amazon UK, but just to spell it out, one reason why the Pelikan pens are cheap on Amazon is because they don’t come in the Pelikan gift box, they come in a cardboard box, similar to the one the Konrad came in. The body of the Konrad does not seem to be as carefully handled as the Pelikan, mine came with some scratches on the body, but nothing too obvious or bad. The Pelikan has some advantages, too. It comes with a metal sleeve on the body, the body and cap have a higher quality feel to them and ink flow is more controlled and there less spilling of ink when transporting the pen – but hey, the Konrad is only half as expensive, plus it can take all sorts of nibs.
I don’t and am thinking about getting the Ebonite Konrad once it’s available again. The Goulet Pen Company will have it back in stock again soon, but I’m undecided whether I should order because I might have to pay Customs Duty, Excise Duty and import VAT.
East… West… Everywhere had twoblog posts about beginner fountain pens in December. Some of the fountain pens in these blog posts are really affordable and I didn’t expect to find a cheaper fountain pen …but when I recently ordered something from CultPens I was surprised to find an even cheaper fountain pen [1]at least in the UK – prices in other countries might vary: The Berol Handwriting Cartridge Pen (New Look version).
...even got a free OHTO Smile Paperclip with the order
Berol, a British company that is now a subsidiary of Newell Rubbermaid, has its origins in pencil making. In 1856 Daniel Berolzheimer went from Franconia, where Staedtler and Faber-Castell are from, to the USA and founded the Eagle Pencil Company. I don’t want to bore you with details, but in the end Newell Rubbermaid took over. Many readers of pencil blogs will also know that the Berolzheimer family is still part of today’s pencil industry as they own CalCedar. Some will also remember how they managed to upset parts of the pencil community last year, but there is no direct link to Berol or Newell Rubbermaid.
That's the 'wrong' Berolzheim. There are two of them...
What you pay and what you get
I paid £2.45 (~ $4; €3). There is only one nib width available. The pen is made in China. I don’t really find it very good looking, but better looking fountain pens, like the Pelikan Pelikano junior (< £10) or the Kaweco Sport (< £20) are several times more expensive than the Berol Handwriting Cartridge Pen. The Berol comes with a rubber ring and a rubberised grip area to make holding the pen more comfortable. It is very light, some might find it too light, but fairly comfortable to hold.
The grip area (bottom)
Writing
The nib is not very wet, not very dry either. It’s certainly drier than most Pelikan nibs, but they tend to be on the wet side anyway. Ink will dry fast and you won’t see a lot of shading. With it writing fairly dry ink cartridges should last a long time, but light inks might appear too light on the paper. I didn’t have a problem with nib not ‘starting’, even after the pen hasn’t been used for several weeks. Unfortunately I only had the pen on my desk, so I am not sure whether ink will spill if the pen is knocked around in a pencil case.
The nib is very rigid, which is normal for cheap pens. If you try to vary the line width this is not the pen for you.
The nib
Conclusion
This pen offers excellent value for money. For me it’s not really a beauty, but that’s subjective – you might like the looks. If you want a cheap fountain pen that does the job this pen might just be right for you.
Price: December 2012
Exchange rates: January 2013
The paper in the pictures is from the RAH STMT X Iceland kit.
