Customer Reviews

Love this pen. Writes smooth and is very fine

This pen is great. I love a very fine line in my writing and this pen has it. The purple ink is very beautiful and the pen writes extremely smoothly. I am left handed and the pen fits my hand perfectly.

I simply love this pen! I have very small handwriting and have searched for years for such a fine nib. I settled for pigma pens and gel pens, and used other fountain pens upside down, but longed for a fountain pen's expressive ink flow. Finally found it- love at first stroke! The clear body pens write better than the black body pens for some odd reason. And The CON-50 converter is ok, but I found the nib too fine for the CON-20 to be able to draw in enough ink. In the end, because I use it daily, I stick to the proprietary ink cartridges and save my other thicker tipped nib pens to indulge in ink variety.

Only minor flaws to note: the screw top, which disrupts quick jotting of ideas or pictures. And if you drop the pen, the ink drops will show inside the clear cap. But these are minor things in a pen I enjoy using very much.

Very nice pen. I use this pen every day I have many vintage pens but I grab this one. I love the ergonomic design of the barrel. And with a little pressure the nib does give a little flex. Over all the pen is good for everyday writing and the nib is so fine that I can even do some of my crosshatching work with it. Very nice pen worth 9 dollars

This pen has its faults. Yet I keep coming back to it, because it's a cool and comfortable design.

The point is scratchy. One should expect a superfine nib to be scratchy, and this one is very, very fine. But my next finest pen, a Sailor HighAce Neo, is worlds smoother. It's also prone to skipping and slow starting when using a less-than-sturdy writing support, like a folder. I assume that's mainly due to the fineness as well, and it's flawless on a desk surface.

I get a lot of nib creep, to the point of having a few tiny ink spots in the cap. This isn't a real problem, but it's also not present on many other pens.

In any case, the shape is really as awesome as it seems it might be. The three-sided grip part is smooth and comfy (for a lefty, no less) and it's just an interesting pen. I'll be interested in how the black body compares, but IMHO this pen is worth the price.

Agree with the other reviewers to allow this pen a breaking-in period. At first I hated it; it was scratchy with stingy and uneven ink flow. But after a few days of writing, deliberately applying writing pressure to flex the nib, and writing on scratch paper (maybe the rough tooth of the paper helped) it really smoothed out and opened up. It's now my favorite pen. It writes with a very consistent and fine line, it weighs next to nothing, and the triangular grip is very comfortable.

This pen is pretty scratchy and I've been using mine for at least half a year now. Also converted into an eyedropper and tried Quink and a Waterman ink and both weren't as good as the stock cartridge. It does produce a nice fine line and I like the grip and design. All in all though, I prefer my Platinum Preppy.

This is a fantastic pen for sketching and drawing. The ergonomics of it and the smooth flow of ink make it my favorite pen. It's replaced the place of my old rotring sketch EF, which use to be my default pen. I'm going to get the next knib up to see if I like it more for writing correspondence.

This pen was leaky and really crappy...I was excited to get it, but it was horribly made. I\'ve had better luck with the disposables or the Peppy (or is it Preppy?) pens. Not worth your $

This is one of my favorites. I've noted the same difference bewteen this and Penmanship with the black body: the two feel different, and the writing is scratchier. this should not make any difference, of course, since it's just the nib, but my experience jibes witheveryone else's.

I love this pen, and I love how others envy it ;). I think I'm going to convert one of my Penmanships, though a $20 kit for a $7 pen is a bit hard to stomach.

Excellent pen for the money! I find the "ergo grip" a little slippery in the clear plastic, at least compared to the similar grip on the matte black Lamy Safari (haven't compared it to the opaque Penmanship.) I like the slightly scratchy nature of this Extra Fine nib: it has more of a fountain pen feel than the wider Lamy Extra-Fine, meaning that it provides enough resistance that you can vary line width & darkness to a certain degree by varying pressure & speed in order to get a degree of a quill or calligraphy look. Otherwise, it writes a super-thin line, similar to a rollerball 0.3/0.25, at least when using Noodlers' Ink in a Pilot Con-50 converter.

1st of all, one must remember you\'re paying not much for this pen. This being said it is the thinnest nib I have ever encountered. Though plastic, it\'s a hard plastic with a solid construction. The ink has yet to chunk up - but I\'ve always used Pelikan ink in all my pens. I\'ve experienced no leaks (yet) like others and it\'s hung out in my purse being relatively abused and flopped around. It is so thin I did notice that it is a bit scratchy on most pieces of paper - but considering it\'s finer than my gel ink Pilot RT which is at .38MM, I can\'t complain. The ergonomic grip is the basic triangle grip on many other pens - you can check out if you like it. I\'m left handed and I find it very comfortable. Overall, for the price you can\'t beat what you\'re getting.

I recently got the black Penmanship, and I liked it so much that I decided to get a clear one as well. While the transparent body with its internally molded facets is quite attractive, overall, I don't like this version of the Penmanship as well as the black.

First, the cap and body do not thread onto the grip as well-- this is something to do with the plastic. The parts are "draggy" and squeak when they are threaded together. I found this so annoying, I finally wiped a little silicone grease on the threads.

Second, the nib on this pen writes dryer (the black ink looks gray) and is more scratchy. This is a very fine nib, which I like, but the "writing feel" of this pen is distinctly different from the black version.

And finally, one reviewer mentioned a leak where the nib unit joins the grip-- I can see ink right on the verge of seeping out here on my pen. Of course, I can't say whether the black pen has this same problem, because the plastic isn't transparent. No ink has actually seeped out yet, but I've only been using the pen for a day.

I love this pen, with its extra fine nib, especially on very smooth, high quality paper. Unfortunately, mine has developed a persistent leak where the nib is inserted into the body. I'll order another, but I'm a little disappointed in the quality. Then again, I've crammed this pen into an over-stuffed bag and taken it on several flights, and it may not have been designed for that kind of abuse.

I like this pen for very fine writing. It will scratch Moleskinne paper is definitely better suited to nicer, smoother papers. If you favor small, precise writing, it is a nice pen with the right paper.

I'm a bit disappointed with it, the ergo grip is great but the fineness of the nib causes it to skip almost every time I write.

the best pen ever made......
ive just recived my 8th pen and i love it just as much as the 7 others, i find ways to use them every day, just fo feel them glide across the paper.
it is the smoothest pen i have ever used and combined with noodlers inks it is in a word sublime....
love it love it love it.

I like how fine this pen is and the way it feels when I hold it. The cap is a screw-cap but it lacks a clip. My major problem was the re-usable pilot cartridge converter works poorly with this pen. I will end up trying to refill the cartridge it already came with and reinserting it with the open side facing up to prevent spilling.

Scratchy and dry! I suppose I got a bad one, based on the other good reviews here. I have both nice (Namiki vanishing point) and cheap (Sailor ink-bar) fountain pens, which are wonderful, but this Pilot Penmanship is the worst pen I have ever used. If I took a straight pin and dipped it in ink, it would still produce a more useful line than this pen.

bought and compared to the platinum preppy - sturdy and attractive body, the nib appears more flexible (pro) but feels more scratchy (con). i like that it is a dry writer with a fine and sturdy line - no feathering or smearing. However, i dislike that you have to tediously screw the cap on instead of just popping it back on when finished - so, if you are switching between pens you are more likely to leave it uncapped, and so its more likely to dry out and skip (ive had to dip the pen in water to get it going again). A good pen but not as dazzling as the preppies.

After reading all the great reviews I thought I would buy this as an all-purpose pen. It's really pretty (except for when ink splats on the cap) and the nib looks so elegant. It writes SO fine and seems to variate on its own (like insta caligraphy!) but sometimes the line is too thin, meaning I can barely see it and gets scratchy! It takes a long time to reboot after being stored. When you first start writing it skips and stops and makes super thin lines mixed with much thicker lines. After a while, it gets back to normal and has a really delicate variation of lines and writes really cleanly, turning into the perfect pen I've been hearing about. It is prone to splattering ink when handled too roughly so take care! Overall a nice fountain pen for the price!

Thought I would try this one just for fun though wasn't expecting much for the price.
What a wonderful surprise to find that it writes well. Thin, thin line and very trustworthy.
Doesn't skip. It's fun to write with and I find myself using it more and more. Very glad I bought it!

Of all the fountain pens I own, this is my favorite.

very nice pen. it is extra fine nib, but you will get used to it soon. it makes me keep writing!!!

Just received the pen and love it so far. It is light. It is good looking. And it writes very well. The nib is extra fine. Hope pilot will release fine nib version soon.