Customer Reviews

I bought this for testing fountain pen ink samples. There's a knack to learning how to angle and rotate this pen and load it with ink, but if you're having trouble with ink flow, or with getting more than a sentence out of it, it might not be the fault of the pen or how you're using it--it might be the ink. I'm finding that some inks just will not work at all with this type of pen. Not surprisingly, since it's a J. Herbin pen, the J. Herbin Perle Noire ink writes smoothly and for a full paragraph from a single thorough dip. So far, Diamine Poppy Red ink flows well with it too (but not Registrar's Blue-Black, which won't even start). The Noodler's inks vary: Widowmaker was not completely hopeless, some of the others would give me a few words, but the V-Mail inks would not play with this pen at all. The Noodler's inks left particles in this pens' spiralling grooves.

Other than that, it's slender and a little short, but has a solid, comfortable weight. Mine is more pale orange than deep amber, but it's such an attractive pen, I don't mind. With the right ink, it's inspiring to write with something this lovely. Makes me feel classy, ya'know?

Just got this pen a few days ago. It's comfortable to write with when testing ink samples, and I like the weight of it (being all glass it's similar in heft to an all-metal pen). It does seem to have issues with Noodler's inks, but works perfectly well with the Peikan and Sheaffer inks that I've tried.

It's a fine pen and I'm very happy with it as an inexpensive way of testing inks.

Mine came chipped (JetPens offered to take it back, but I thought I'd try first to rehabilitate it.) Follow the simple directions on the side of the box to rub the tip over sandpaper & it works!
At first I over-thought it & carefully gave it a rounded tip with fine emery paper under a magnifier: it wrote very broad but spottily. The I formed it into a sharp conical tip & it didn't write at all.
It seems that the pen relies on a relatively blunt tip in the manner of mechanical pencil lead, wherein you write with the edge of the base of a cylinder shape, turning it just slightly as necessary to maintain flow down from the grooves. Rubbing it briefly tip-down on fine sandpaper -- with a natural motion -- achieves just enough convexity to function well.

This is a little beauty! Easy to clean and perfect for testing out different inks. It would take some practice to get a good flow going to write with this pen solely but it cannot be beat for testing ink.

Love it and the customer service from Jetpens.

This type of pens works amazing for ink testing, is not 100% accurate how it will look on your fountain pen but gives you a general idea of the color

It took me the longest time to figure out how to even use this pen. After reading over some of the other reviews, I noticed why- it was the tip! I took a little sandpaper to it and it fixed it right up! If you order this, have some fine-grain sandpaper handy just in case.

I got this recently and was disappointed with the tip. I got a larger version of the dip pen and thought the flow was much better. I will get some sandpaper and see if I can improve the tip.

I was at first slightly disappointed in the pen, because I found it was just pouring ink onto the page right after dipping, but then wore down into a thinner and thinner line as I wrote. But once I changed paper, it immediately behaved much better. This pen is only good for a limited set of applications, but if you have an excuse to try it out, you won't regret it. I LOVE this pen, and the Periwinkle Blue J. Herbin ink is even better looking in real life than in any of the photos.

This pen is a lot of fun to write with and very easy to clean. It can actually write a fair bit between dips, and it will never rust like a steel nib pen.

bought this pen a while ago because i use fountain ink dip pens on occasion and wanted to see if this worked as well as advertised. and it does! its point tip isn't very versatile in that you can only write in a .6mm (estimate) nib. the ink flow is beautifully even and lasts a bit longer than a metal tip. great pen to have for fun, and from time to time i do use it in my work. also, great as a watercolor scraping tool, however using it as this will damage your tip.

These glass pens look like the most unlikely contraption ever devised. "How could THAT possibly work?" You think to yourself.

The fascinating part is that they DO.

In addition to looking absolutely awesome, these pens write beautifully. The tips aren't as glassy smooth as you might expect (pun partially intended) but that might be a good thing -- The slightly scratchy feel of the glass pen is sort of like that of a mechanical pencil. If the tips WERE 100% polished the pen would probably be prone to skitter right off the edge of the page and onto the floor.

These pens seem to prefer light, thin ink. I tried some Sanford branded black "calligraphy ink" and it functioned flawlessly. Conversely, I tried some Windsor & Newton silver ink that I thought would look really cool, but it didn't flow well enough off to write and seemed to dry up on the glass nib within a handful of seconds.

These pens are somewhat sensitive to the angle at which you hold them, and will write darker, wetter lines for longer if you keep the pen pointed straight up and down as opposed to at an angle. Still, I was surprised to find that these glass pens hold more ink and write for longer than traditional metal-nibbed dip pens like Speedball and so forth.

Paper matters a lot, too. The pens seem to dig into thin, porous paper too much, bleeding all over the place and shedding their ink much too quickly. On finer toothed, heavier paper you can write very fine, clean lines.

I don't think I'll be using either of my glass pens for any of the bulk of my day-to-day writing (I still haven't been able to motivate myself to carry an inkwell everywhere) but they are neater than heck, and if you're looking for something unique and different these just might turn your crank. They're not the easiest thing in the world to use (even compared to other dip pens), but man are they cool.

This is a great inexpensive glass dipping pen. I like to test various inks out without putting them into my fountain pens (plus, it's easier than having to clean the pen between every ink), and the J. Herbin glass one is great at doing that, and has a F-M size point.
It is glass, so be careful with it. It's not exactly heavy, but not too light either. The blue swirl is a nice design. I'm not sure if it was worth the price tag, but it's nice having an ink-testing pen at the ready, considering how easy it is to clean.

The pen is thin, but heavy in a pleasing way. The tip is hit or miss: Either you'll get one that writes, or you will get one that is scratchy and fussy. I received one of the latter. My pen will only write when the tip is rotated to a certain spot on the tip. However, when it does write, it works very well. Moreover, if you're looking for an easy and convenient way to test out new fountain pen inks, this is a great tool.

I have used dip pens made in Germany before and loved them although I found them a bit too thick. I was excited to try a finer point dip pen and ordered this but have not found it to be very user friendly. It does not seem to be designed to hold enough ink to write fluently and has to be dipped too frequently to allow for continuity.

While the pen is definitely beautiful, the one I received was scratchy to write with and I haven't been able to find the Goldilocks writing angle between barely laying down any ink and laying a thick line that takes an hour to dry. I put the pen under powerful magnification I could see several burrs on the tip that hadn't been ground down when the pen was finished. I took some 800 grit wet dry and smoothed it out, which helped with the scratchiness, but did nothing for the thin line/insanely thick line problem.

Now that I've voided the warranty I'll keep experimenting to see if there's anything I can do to smooth things out. I know there must be some good writin' in there somewhere; I bought the pen because of all the good reviews.

These pens are absolutely beautiful, and write well. However, I find that I must rotate the pen every few words in order to keep the amount of ink coming off the tip consistent. If you don't rotate it, you'll run out, turn it slightly, and get inconsistent density. Other than that gripe, this is a gorgeous pen that is a pleasure to write with.

I love this "pen" so much! It is perfect! I love the scratchy feeling when you write. I would highly recommend it! Five stars!

writes very nicely. defiantly worth the $15. can write a long time between dipping(about a paragraph.) buy this pen if you enjoy the occasional dip pen. after using this pen, I'm pretty much done with steel nibs.

I just bought this pen and am already excited! I just got it in the mail today and it's even prettier in person than on the site. This pen is a gift for my brother because he likes to draw and do calligraphy but I wanna test it out myself. I think I'll resist and leave it til Christmas when we can all play with it! This is an amazing product and can't wait to see it in use. I just know he'll love it! Thanks JetPens!

I just bought this pen and am waiting for it to come in the mail. It usually takes about 1-2 days to get to me and I've ordered many times from jetpens. I read an article saying you can refill platinum preppy fountain pens with regular bottled inks by just adding an o-ring to the threads of the barrel. I am currently in love with the j. herbin and pilot iroshizuku bottled inks and am waiting on my glass pens and the platinum preppy pens to test them out. I am definitely looking forward to receiving these pens in the mail. I only wish bottled inks were cheaper... $22.50 for a bottle of iroshizuku is really taxing my wallet. overall, great buy though!

The coolest pen I have used in a long time. These are easy to use and if you like to write with a pen and inkwell, you will enjoy this. I love writing instruments and this is one of my favorites.

I just bought this pen and am waiting for it to come in the mail. It usually takes about 1-2 days to get to me and I've ordered many times from jetpens. I read an article saying you can refill platinum preppy fountain pens with regular bottled inks by just adding an o-ring to the threads of the barrel. I am currently in love with the j. herbin and pilot iroshizuku bottled inks and am waiting on my glass pens and the platinum preppy pens to test them out. I am definitely looking forward to receiving these pens in the mail. I only wish bottled inks were cheaper... $22.50 for a bottle of iroshizuku is really taxing my wallet. overall, great buy though!

I just bought this pen and am waiting for it to come in the mail. It usually takes about 1-2 days to get to me and I've ordered many times from jetpens. I read an article saying you can refill platinum preppy fountain pens with regular bottled inks by just adding an o-ring to the threads of the barrel. I am currently in love with the j. herbin and pilot iroshizuku bottled inks and am waiting on my glass pens and the platinum preppy pens to test them out. I am definitely looking forward to receiving these pens in the mail. I only wish bottled inks were cheaper... $22.50 for a bottle of iroshizuku is really taxing my wallet. overall, great buy though!

I just bought this pen and am waiting for it to come in the mail. It usually takes about 1-2 days to get to me and I've ordered many times from jetpens. I read an article saying you can refill platinum preppy fountain pens with regular bottled inks by just adding an o-ring to the threads of the barrel. I am currently in love with the j. herbin and pilot iroshizuku bottled inks and am waiting on my glass pens and the platinum preppy pens to test them out. I am definitely looking forward to receiving these pens in the mail. I only wish bottled inks were cheaper... $22.50 for a bottle of iroshizuku is really taxing my wallet. overall, great buy though!