It's hard to believe that it's been more than two years since I published my original review of the Pilot Metropolitan. The pen regularly makes the short list of recommended starter pens and is one of the few fountain pens that you'll find in non-specialty stores. I thought that it would be fun to revisit the Metropolitan, and what better way to do it than with the Animal Print edition?
The Metropolitan doesn't feel like an inexpensive pen. Its metal body provides a nice heft, and the cigar-shaped sleek design really is stunning to look at. The clip has some give but still grips material firmly, so you won't have to worry about the pen sliding around or coming loose in a bag or pocket.
Compared to pens like the Lamy Safari or Pilot Kakuno, the Metropolitan has an understated design that will fit right into an office environment. In my original review, I mentioned that the pen was a bit boring on the surface, and the Animal Print edition, although a step up in flare, still holds true to this. Compared to my black Metropolitan though, the Gold Lizard is a nice change of pace. I actually didn't realize that the pen was gold until looking at the product details. It seems to be a gold/silver blend, of which I'm a huge fan. If you're looking for a more colorful version of the Metropolitan, there's also the Retro Pop edition.
Nope, the pens aren't different sizes. It's just the photo perspective.
The Metropolitan has my favorite clip cap of all the entry level pens that I've encountered. The cap seems almost magnetic when it clicks into place, and I would feel comfortable carrying the pen loose in my pocket, with no fear of leaks. It also posts nicely, with just a little bit of friction to lock the cap into place.
The Pilot Metropolitan's grip is made of smooth plastic and tapers towards the nib of the pen. Personally, I prefer the shaped grip of the Lamy Safari, or Lamy Vista, which reduces my hand fatigue during longer writing sessions, but the Metropolitan's thin grip still works nicely.
The nib is one of the Pilot Metropolitan's best features. Sometimes inexpensive fountain pen nibs can be scratchy or suffer from skips or hard starts, but this isn't the case with the Metropolitan. The ink flows steadily for long periods of time, and the nib is very smooth for its price point.
For $15 or so, the Pilot Metropolitan offers a fantastic experience for those looking for a starter fountain pen, and the Animal Print edition adds a creative touch to the pen's classic design. It comes with everything you need to get started, including both an ink cartridge and a converter for bottled inks. The squeeze converter is less efficient than twist converters that come with pens like the Lamy Safari, but it still gets the job done.
Will the Animal Print edition change your mind about the Pilot Metropolitan? Probably not, but it's still a damn fine pen for the price.
This pen was provided at no cost by For My Desk, for the purposes of this review. If you're interest in the Pilot Metropolitan Animal Print Fountain Pen, check it out on their site!
Interested in fountain pens but not sure where to start? There are plenty of pens that can be had for less than $20, but what about those ultra-affordable sub-$5 pens. The Zebra V-301 Fountain Pen is one such pen. How does it hold up against the likes of its low-price counterparts? Read on to find out.
Those who use Zebra V-301 Series pens and pencils will be right at home with the fountain pen version. Aesthetically, the pen shares a similar design style, including black plastic grip. The ridges on the grip make the Zebra V-301 comfortable to hold for longer writing sessions, although the matte plastic is less appealing to the eye than the smooth plastic grips on pens like the Pilot Metropolitan. Still, it's a worthy tradeoff for sweaty fingers and cramped hands. For those looking to try an ultra-affordable fountain pen in the office, it's hard to recommend the Platinum Preppy, which looks as if it belongs in a high schooler's backpack, rather than a briefcase. The Zebra V-301, on the other hand, has a professional look that would fit right in, in an office environment.
Two critical pieces of a fountain pen cap design are the way that the cap fits securely on the pen body and how the cap posts for writing. Overall, the Zebra V-301 posts nicely, with a solid click, but its capping experience leaves something to be desired. It does cap securely, so there's no need to fear a dry nib or ink-stained pants, but I found the Zebra V-301 occasionally difficult to cap. This seemed to get better with time, perhaps as the cap and plastic grip became worn in.
One of the most interesting features of the Zebra V-301 is its hooded nib. One of the downsides of some ultra-affordable pens, such as the Platinum Preppy, is their flexible nibs, which can be easily damaged by heavy-handed fountain pen novices. The Zebra V-301, on the other hand, has a plastic hood that reinforces the back of the steel nib. The nib itself is hard-as-nails and offers very little flex. This might be a turnoff to some but offers great protection from accidental damage.
The logo should be face-up, which is a small design flaw.
The writing experience with the Zebra V-301 was surprisingly pleasant for a pen at its price point. The nib does run on the dry/scratchy side, and some online reviews did mention skips and clogs, but I used the pen as my daily driver for a week and didn't experience any major issues. Like the hood on the Lamy 2000, the hood on the Zebra 301 can obsure the view of the nib, making it more difficult to tell when the pen is at the appropriate writing angle. My guess is that this is somewhat responsible for the reviews that mention skips. I did notice a few skips after using the pen for extended periods, but I experience the same issues when using more expensive starter pens, like the Lamy Vista.
It's impossible to ignore price when considering the quality of a fountain pen. The Zebra V-301 is far from perfect, but for an average price of $3, it performs substantially well, even when compared to the Platinum Preppy. The reinforced nib makes it an excellent choice for fountain pen beginners, and the generous double ink refill will ensure that you'll have plenty of ink to put it through its paces.
This pen was provided at no cost by For My Desk, for the purposes of this review. If you're interest in the Zebra V-301 Fountain Pen, check it out on their site!
When I think of U.S. campus bookstores, I imagine overly-priced flimsy spiral notebooks, cheaply made coffee mugs, and sports apparel. This isn't a place to go to find the best writing instruments or paper. Japanese campus stores are vastly different. I visited Kyoto Sangyo University, for a conference in 2015, and was amazed by the campus store. There were rows upon rows of notebooks, as well as a wide range of pens and pen cases. While this was drool-worthy in itself, it was the pen at the bottom of a glass display case that caught my attention. I had never seen a Pilot Vanishing Point in person before, but there it sat, shining in the florescent store lights. $200 seemed like an outrageous price at the time, but the experience cemented the Vanishing Point in the back of my mind.
Fast forward a year and my pen hobby has teetered towards obsession. I worked my way up to the Vanishing Point over time and finally decided to pick up a Desert Orange Vanishing Point from Amazon. It's difficult to gage the orange color from pictures, but it's a subtle orange with shades of brown. Since this color is a part of the Metallic series, it has small flecks in the pen body which shimmer in the light. Overall, I wish that the orange was more vibrant, but it's still my favorite color out of the bunch.
The Pilot Vanishing Point's metal body gives it a nice heft. Although the smooth lacquered body would be slippery to grip on its own, the matte black tip provides a subtly-textured surface that grips well. The Vanishing Point is capless and uses a nock mechanism (the clicky thing) to reveal the tip, similar to a standard capless ballpoint. The pen clip is attached to the pen body at the grip area and has two small finger indentations, which allow for fingers to slide into place and grip the pen comfortably. The clip was my biggest concern, but I've been pleasantly surprised by how comfortable the pen is to hold. I am right-handed, so lefties should definitely try the pen themselves or refer to a lefty review before purchasing.
There are only a few capless fountain pens in the wild for a reason; they're hard to design. Pens like the early versions of the Lamy Dialog have received negative reviews, due to dried out nibs, but the Vanishing Point seems to have gotten this right. Depressing the nock pushes the nib through a small metal door, which moves out of the way and exposes the nib. Clicking the nock again recesses the nib and closes the metal door, keeping air out of the pen chamber. Side note, the nock's click is extremely satisfying.
The nib for the Desert Orange Vanishing Point is a sleek black color, but the nib color varies by body color style. Although the pen comes with a gold nib, there's little flex, since the nib itself has to be slender enough to retract into the pen. Nib units can be easily swapped between Vanishing Points, much like a traditional ink refill in a capless ballpoint pen. I chose the medium nib, since Japanese nibs run finer than their European counterparts, and the medium nib is on par with a western fine nib. The writing experience is smooth, although the nib has more of a marker feel on paper, compared to my Lamy 2000, which feels like writing on glass.
Speaking of the Lamy 2000, I'm sure that some readers of this review will want to know whether they should choose a Lamy 2000 or a Vanishing Point, since both are similar price points and popular choices when leveling up your pen game. The short answer to this question is that you should choose the pen that has the best features for you. The Vanishing Point's capless design makes it easy to grab and use one-handed, and you can store it in a pocket or bag without fear of losing the cap. The Vanishing Point uses a cartridge or converter, so it holds much less ink than the Lamy 2000, and the clip grip may be a turnoff for some users. The grip itself is a touch wider than that of the Lamy 2000. The base model of the Lamy 2000 comes in one color, while the Vanishing Point come in a wide range of colors. All of these factors are worth considering, but there is no objective answer to which pen is better. Both the Pilot Vanishing Point and Lamy 2000 are excellent pens for the price.
We see these words on a daily basis, on most of the things that we own. The tea mug that I'm drinking from is made in China. The chair that I'm sitting in is made in China. My laptop, iPad and iPhone are made in China. There are only a few places in my life that have been completely free from anything made in China, and one of them has been my pen case. I can't help but feel that Made in China is a dirty phrase in the pen world, especially considering things like the recent Esterbrook controversy, where the revamped American pen company tried to obscure the fact that its revamped pens would be made in China. Despite the negative associations with Chinese pens to poor quality, there's a name that keeps popping up in my news feed and has even made it to mainstream pen sites like Goulet Pens, and that's Jinhao. I set out to test just how well Jinhao held up to its western competitors and wanted to see just how much bang I could get for my buck.
I set a few parameters for my Jinhao pen search:
The total cost of the pen, including shipping, should be less than $5.
The pen should be larger. I've always wanted to try a larger pen, but I prefer smaller pens for everyday writing. There's no way that I would spend a large amount on a large pen, but I was willing to spend $5.
The pen must be orange. There's no rational reason for this, except that I like orange.
My search led to the Jinhao 159, a large fountain pen with a bright orange enamel. I managed to find one on Amazon for a grand total of, I kid you not, $3.28 including shipping. I chose a medium nib, since the fine-nib version was nearly three times the price. The order came with a month ship time and little guarantee that it would ever arrive. I've been burned by ordering items directly from China in the past, so I had no expectation of ever seeing my bright orange Chinese friend. I was shocked when the pen arrived in less than two weeks, all for the low-low price of $3.28. The Pen Economics blog has an excellent article on how this low pricing might be possible, but I figured that its pricing was just reflective of the pen's crappy quality.
I removed my Jinhao 159 from its cheap shipping envelope and was greeted by a bright orange pen that actually appeared to be well made. The pen's metal body had a surprising heft. The pen has shiny chrome accents that recess nicely into the pen body, and the clip, although not quite my taste aesthetically, is very sturdy. The Jinhao has the appearance of a $50-$100 pen from a distance and mostly holds up to closer scrutiny. There is a small manufacturing defect in the enamel, where the clip meets the pen cap, and the pen has a plastic cap insert that cheapens the look, but these require close inspection to notice.
The Jinhao 159's grip is a standard smooth black plastic grip. It's a fatter grip than I'm used to, but I'm surprised by just how much I enjoy it. Like most smooth plastic grips, the Jinhao's grip becomes very slippery during long writing sessions; however, I'll leave my novel writing to pens like the Lamy 2000.
The cap of the Jinhao 159 has a threaded fit and caps very securely. The pen can be posted, but the cap wobbles too much for it to be comfortable, and ratcheting down the cap will likely damage the enamel. Since the 159 is a large pen, it nestles comfortably in the webbing between my thumb and index finger without the cap.
The Jinhao 159 comes with a standard piston converter, which holds a hilariously small amount of ink, compared to the pen's size. The pen's size can also make it difficult to fill with smaller ink bottles or ink samples, and the grip of the pen is too large to fit in the 30ml bottles of Diamine that I typically use. Fortunately, it's pretty easy to pop the converter out, fill it with an ink bottle, and then pop it back into the pen. This certainly isn't ideal, so make sure you have some larger bottles of ink on hand for easy filling.
I've read some terrible things about the nib quality of Jinhao pens, so I had zero expectations for the nib's performance. I was pleasantly surprised when the medium nib slid smoothly across the page. The nib is hard as nails, but that's to be expected from a steel nib. The Jinhao medium reminds me of a TWSBI fine, which leaves a slightly thicker line than a western fine. There may be manufacturing differences in nib quality, but the one that I received functioned perfectly. After writing an entire article and playing around with the Jinhao 159 for several days, I'm pleasantly surprised by just how will it performs for under $4. Those looking for a better nib quality should turn to a standard replacement #6 nib, which you can find on sites like Goulet Pens.
Although the Jinhao 159 won't make it into my daily rotation, I may keep it in my office, or somewhere where I may need a pen but don't want to risk losing a more expensive one. The Jinhao 159 is certainly worth the $3.00-$5.00 Amazon price tag, and it's even a great value for $10-$15, if you go through official channels like Goulet Pens. It's a great starter pen for those who want to try a cheap fountain pen before moving on to a more expensive model.
Kickstarter can be a scary place. In a world full of Scribble Pens and fancy coolers, it's hard to want to plop down $100 or more for a product that may never be. That's why I waited nearly three weeks before backing the Tactile Turn Gist fountain pen. Fast forward more than six months, and I'm happily handwriting this article with one of the best pens in my arsenal, wondering why I had ever given it a second guess.
The pull-sleeve packing for the Gist is pretty slick.
The Tactile Turn Gist is a rugged fountain pen that holds its own against other $100 pens on the market. It's the first foray into fountain pens for Tactile Turn owner Will Hodges, and it's an impressive entry into the market. While its looks are professional enough to carry into a business meeting, its sturdy design makes it an excellent contender for an everyday carry pen.
The Gist comes in hundreds if not thousands of configurations. I chose the makrolon polycarbonate body with copper grip and finial and paired it with a titanium Bock nib. I should note that I'm just covering the Gist in this review and will go into more detail on the titanium nib next week. Makrolon is the same material that's used for the barrel of the Lamy 2000. It's lightweight but durable and will last for decades. The Gist's entire body is ridged, so that it's incredible easy to grip and manipulate in hand. The ridges give the pen a soft matte finish, which is nearly impossible to capture in a photograph. The pen does develop a sheen after significant use, but it doesn't get nearly as shiny as the Lamy 2000.
The copper finial on the Gist provides a teaser of what's under the hood. As the copper develops a patina over time, the finial begins to look like an old penny, a look that's enhanced by the Tactile Turn logo. The finial is machined with the rest of the polycarbonate cap, which results in a flawlessly smooth transition between copper and polycarbonate. The finial holds the clip in place, which sits in a notched slot in the polycarbonate. While the clip is incredibly sturdy, it is easily my least favorite part about the pen. Its look simply doesn't match the rest of the pen design. Fortunately, Kickstarter backers had the option to order a pen without a clip, so hopefully Tactile Turn has extended the same option to new customers.
The Tactile Turn Gist uses Acme threads to securely cap the pen. These threads are much larger than traditional cap threads and provide a secure seal, while requiring minimal twisting to uncap, less than three full turns to be exact. Perhaps there's a reason why more fountain pens don't use this type of threading, but these threads offer a dramatically better uncapping experience than threads on any of my other pens. Uncapping the pen reveals the beautiful copper grip, which is also ridged to prevent slippage. I can't overstate just how much I prefer the ridged grip to traditional smooth grips. The ridges allow for comfort during long writing sessions and prevent slippage caused by sweaty hands. The pen also posts, although it's plenty long enough to use unposted, which I prefer. The copper does leave a faint smell of pennies on my hands. At first, I avoided choosing copper for this very reason, but the smell is so faint that it's hardly noticeable, unless you jam your fingers up your nose, which I certainly don't recommend. The copper grip develops a patina over time, just like the finial.
The Gist includes a converter, which compares to a traditional international converter but is somewhat shorter. Simply unscrew the bottom section of the barrel to access the converter. The barrel, nib, and grip are all threaded, to ensure that the pen fits tightly together and does creak or wobble. Converter capacity is adequate for steel nibs, but I burn through converter fills with the titanium nib. The flex in the nib causes it to use much more ink than the tough-as-nails steel nib. Those who are accustomed to using piston fillers may certainly miss the added capacity.
Here's a closeup of the Acme cap threads and the pen's ridged surface.
As an everyday carry pen, the Tactile Turn Gist fountain pen is sturdy, grippy, and delivers on everything that it promises. This is the pen that I would take onto the machine shop floor, if I had a machine shop that is. There's something special about the copper and the way that it shows its age. It reminds me of all of the writing, scribbling, and sketching that I've done with it. Unlike traditional steel or titanium, the copper holds the history of its owner. Sure, it's easily possible to return the copper to its original glory, but perfection isn't why people purchase copper pens. The Tactile Turn Gist is a testament to Will Hodge's manufacturing prowess. It's not just an excellent Kickstarter fountain pen, it's an excellent fountain pen period.
