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Fingers Were Meant to be Inky

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Dikawen 821 Fountain Pen Review

Dikawen 821 Fountain Pen, Uncapped

Next up in my “Inexpensive Chinese Fountain Pens” series, I present to you…

The Dikawen 821 Fountain Pen

Price: $9.50
Nib: Medium/Broad
Filling System: Screw-Type Piston Converter & Standard International Cartridges

About the Pen:

It’s no secret that I love Chinese fountain pens. They’re typically inexpensive and they offer some really fantastic designs. Sure, some of them flat-out suck, but I enjoy the adventure of trying them out and finding the gems amid the duds.

I was drawn to to the Dikawen 821 by two things:

  • I just loved the juxtaposition of the dark, marbled wine-colored barrel against the milky-white color of the cap. I’ve seen plenty of silver-capped and gold-capped fountain pens, but I’ve never noticed a white-capped one before. I thought it looked classy in the pictures.
  • The second thing this pen had going for it was that it was made by Dikawen. I recently reviewed the Dikawen 839, and absolutely loved it. If the 821 were to look as good as it did in pictures AND write as well as the 839, buying one was a no-brainer.

… Read More

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Baoer 100 Fountain Pen Review

Baoer 100 Fountain Pen - Capped

As I go tiptoeing through the Chinese fountain pen tulips, I have discovered a true gem…

Baoer 100 Fountain Pen

Price: $4.00
Nib: Fine / Extra Fine
Filling System: Screw-Type Piston Converter & Standard International Cartridges

About the Pen:

I’ll admit, I had some pretty low hopes for this pen. I found it on eBay for just under $4 (including shipping from China). I was lured in by the crazy shape of the nib housing. It’s a hooded nib labeled as a cayman (and another vendor called it a “shark mouth”) design. And it does resemble a mouth…probably closer to a shark than a cayman, but whatever.

In the picture, the pen looked a little ugly, but the section’s “mouth” shape looked cool, so I bought one. It took like 47 weeks to get here (that’s an exaggeration), and the first thing I thought was that the pen looked a whole lot nicer in person than I had expected. It’s a fairly small pen, but very classy and understated looking. I immediately loved the way it looked.

But the biggest surprise was the way it wrote…. Read More

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Monteverde Invincia Deluxe Review (A Frankenpen Special)

Monteverde Invincia Fountain Pen with a Goulet EF NIb

This is a Frankenpen special review for a modified…

Monteverde Invincia Deluxe Fountain Pen

Price: $80.00 + $15 for the nib
Nib: Goulet EF
Filling System: Screw-Type Piston Converter & Standard International Cartridges

About the Pen:

The Invincia was one of the first pens I purchased, and until recently, was the most expensive pen in my collection. When it arrived, I was pretty much blown away by the way it looks. It’s a beautiful pen. All the hardware has a shiny black finish, and the stub nib was black to match. Classy! I couldn’t wait to try it out.

Unfortunately, the pen didn’t write nearly as well as it looked. I think it was a matter of the feed not being able to keep up with the ink demands of the stub nib. It just kept drying up, requiring me to prime the feed (i.e., forcing ink into the feed using the converter)…. Read More

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Baoer 388 Fountain Pen Review

Baoer 388 Fountain Pen Uncapped

Look up in the sky! It’s a Parker Sonnet! No, it’s an homage! No, it’s a blatant Chinese knockoff called the…

Baoer 388 Fountain Pen

Price: $5.50
Nib: Medium
Filling System: Screw-Type Piston Converter / International Standard Cartridge

About the Pen:

Somewhere between homage and counterfeit lies “blatant knockoff.” I don’t own a Parker Sonnet, and even I can’t deny the uncanny resemblance between the Baoer 388 and the iconic Sonnet: from the shape of the section, to the rounded off barrrel, to the simple gold cap band, and all the way to the looks-like-they-stole-it-from-Parker arrow-shaped clip. Blatant. Knockoff.

How does the Baoer 388 compare to the Parker Sonnet as a writer? I have no idea. And that’s not the point of this review. Now that we have the “evil twin” business out of the way, I’m going to review this pen for what it is: an inexpensive, but usable Chinese fountain pen…. Read More

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Dikawen 839 Fountain Pen Review

Dikawen 839 Fountain Pen Uncapped

My quest for the perfect “Inexpensive Chinese Fountain Pen” brings me to a brand I’ve never touched before…

Dikawen 839 Fountain Pen

Price: $9.50
Nib: Fine/Extra Fine
Filling System: Screw-Type Piston Converter & International Standard Cartridges

About the Pen:

I’ve done a fair amount of cruising around eBay looking for cool Chinese fountain pens. Why? Well for starters, many Chinese pens have interesting and unique designs that are different from more mainstream brands. And the fact that they’re typically dirt cheap doesn’t hurt.

When perusing the world of Chinese fountain pens, you’ll probably notice a huge number of brands available. Some are different brands owned by the same companies (like Jinhao & Baoer). Others appear to be different “translations” of the same brand name (like Wingsung & Yongsheng). I could probably rattle off another 20 Chinese manufacturers (I won’t) whose names are fairly well known.

But there are a handful of brands that seem to fly under the radar. One pen manufacturer that came up every so often was Dikawen, but I couldn’t find any chatter around the Innernets to tell me if they’re any good or not. I found a cool-looking swirly brown and gold Dikawen 839 for under $10, and decided to pull the trigger, despite the lack of information.

The pen itself elicits feelings of both delight and disappointment. Keep reading for the final verdict…. Read More

/ / Fountain Pens, Reviews / 25 Comments

Jinhao 159 Fountain Pen Review

A huge, orange Jinhao 159 fountain pen.

From deep within the “It’s not a knockoff, it’s an homage” files, I present the…

Jinhao 159 Fountain Pen

Price: $12.50
Nib: Medium
Filling System: Screw-Type Piston Converter (also takes Standard International cartridges)

About the Pen:

Do you remember the old Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons where they would give each episode a normal title followed by a silly alternative title (such as The Flat of the Land – or – A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moose)? I feel compelled to do that here. So in the spirit of everyone’s favorite Moose & Squirrel, here is “Review: Jinhao 159 Fountain Pen – or – I Got Me a Big-Ass Pumpkin Pen.”

I’ve got several Jinhao pens in my collection (that I’m slowly getting around to trying). The few that I’ve tried so far have been pretty unimpressive. Until recently, neither the 159 or the x750 were in my collection. Both of these models typically get great reviews, so when the fine folks at Goulet Pens were running a “Free x750 with Purchase of any Jinhao” sale, I couldn’t resist. The color options are pretty limited, but I’m a sucker for orange, so… Read More

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TWSBI Diamond 580AL Fountain Pen Review

TWSBI Diamond 580AL Fountain Pen in the packaging box

Straight from the “What the heck was I thinking?” files, I present to you the…

TWSBI Diamond 580AL Fountain Pen

Price: $60.00
Nib: Extra Fine
Filling System: Piston

About the Pen:

I was in high school when Guns N’ Roses exploded on the scene. For some reason still unknown to me, I decided that I didn’t like the song Welcome to the Jungle. If I turned on MTV and that video was on, I’d immediately turn it off in disgust. One day I turned on the radio and there was this amazing song playing. I thought, “Wow! This song is great! I wonder who it is?” It turned out to be GNR’s Welcome to the Jungle. I was shocked. I didn’t understand how I could have possibly hated such an awesome song. I decided later that it must have been Axl Rose’s obvious jerkiness that turned me off. But before I digress too far, let’s bring this back around to the fountain pen review I’m supposed to be writing.

I did basically the same thing with TWSBI pens. Somehow, I got it in my head that I didn’t like the way they looked, that they were the ugly troglodytes of the pen world. Then one day, I happened across a random picture of this beautiful demonstrator fountain pen with vibrant orange parts inside. I thought, “Wow! This pen is awesome! I wonder what it is?” It turned out to be a TWSBI Diamond 580AL. I was shocked. I didn’t understand how I could have possibly thought these gorgeous pens were so gruesome. I decided later that Axl Rose must have had something to do with it. Jerk.

So after I got over my shock, I started hitting the pen sites to find out if all TWSBI pens looked this good or if it was just an anomaly. Keep reading to find out if I realized the error of my ways…. Read More

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Wing Sung 3203 Fountain Pen Review

Wing Sung 3203 Fountain Pen

Those of you following my reviews may know that I am on a quest for the perfect “cheap” Chinese fountain pen. Well folks, that day may have very well come. If you want the quick version, I basically can’t find anything I don’t like about this pen. If you want some details, then please allow me to introduce you to the…

Wing Sung 3203 Fountain Pen

Price: $7.00
Nib: Fine/Extra Fine
Filling System: Screw-Type Piston Converter

About the Pen:

Wing Sung is one of China’s oldest and most well known pen companies. At some point, it was acquired by the Shanghai Hero Pen Company and Wing Sung was adopted into the Hero brand of pens (the largest and most well known Chinese pen manufacturer). After finding out about the world of inexpensive Chinese fountain pens, I’ve tried several different brands, including Duke, Yiren, Jinhao, Baoer, Crocodile, and Kaigelu. I had seen many Wing Sung pens available, but none of them really jumped out at me until I saw the 3203 out on eBay. Modern looking and classy, the 3203 has a very understated and refined look. It sports a beautiful gunmetal/titanium finish that I just couldn’t resist. I snatched it up for the princely sum of $7.00 (including shipping from China to the US!), and quite frankly, it might just be the steal of my eBay Fountain Pen Rampage.

Keep reading for the rundown…. Read More

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Conklin Duragraph Fountain Pen Review

Conklin Duragraph Fountain Pen, Amber, In Box

I took a break from my quest to find the perfect inexpensive Chinese fountain pen to play with something a little higher up the food chain…

Conklin Duragraph

Price: $44.00
Nib: 1.1 mm Italic Stub
Filling System: Screw-Type Piston Converter

About the Pen:

I’ve had my eye on the Duragraph for a long time. I stumbled upon it while perusing the GouletPens site and it immediately caught my eye. To put it simply, the pen is just gorgeous. There were three color models available, all of which looked really nice. The one thing keeping me from making the purchase was that Conklin is run by the same people behind the Monteverde brand. I have a beautiful Monteverde Invincia that just refuses to write.

Knowing the two brands are related, I was hesitant to pull the trigger, fearing that the Duragraph would suffer from the same ink flow problems (both pens have 1.1 mm italic stub nibs). I read a pile of customer reviews on the Duragraph, and no one reported any difficulty in that area.

Soooooooooooo, I finally gave in and ordered one. And boy, am I glad I did.

Conklin Duragraph 1.1mm Italic Stub Nib
… Read More