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Twsbi Mini White With Rose Gold Discontinued?


OakIris

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I see nothing about this on the TWSBI website or Facebook page, and did a search here and found nothing about it, but according to Goulet Pens' 10/1/2014 email Communique, the Mini in white with rose gold has been discontinued. The Facebook page for Straits Pen, however, states the following:

 

We have notice that in some communications channels by certain online retailer are saying that the TWSBI Diamond Mini White Rose Gold is discontinued. This is false, we have checked with TWSBI on the official word on the matter. It seems that it is not so much as discontinued as Out of Stock. Due to the production cycle that TWSBI has, they are not so sure when is the next run. We do have stock on the Diamond Mini White Rose Gold if anyone is interested. Attach is quotation from TWSBI

"ref no. E141002/s14

Hi Sunny,

The Diamond mini white with rose gold now only leave few pcs for F & B nibs, it will have new batch, but we do not know when will be ready.

The Diamond 540 & Micarta after sold out current inventory, will not produce anymore.

Best regards,
Rebecca Shih"

 

Goulet Pens no longer even has the pen listed on their site - must have sold out of whatever stock they still had - but TWSBI still shows them in stock on theirs. So, does anyone know whether or not the Mini in white and RG is actually discontinued or if instead TWSBI is just waiting for another production run so they can send them out to their distributors?

 

I would like one of these pens; I do hope that they are just out of stock and not permanently out of production. :(

 

Holly

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I see nothing about this on the TWSBI website or Facebook page, and did a search here and found nothing about it, but according to Goulet Pens' 10/1/2014 email Communique, the Mini in white with rose gold has been discontinued. The Facebook page for Straits Pen, however, states the following:

 

Goulet Pens no longer even has the pen listed on their site - must have sold out of whatever stock they still had - but TWSBI still shows them in stock on theirs. So, does anyone know whether or not the Mini in white and RG is actually discontinued or if instead TWSBI is just waiting for another production run so they can send them out to their distributors?

 

I would like one of these pens; I do hope that they are just out of stock and not permanently out of production. :(

 

Holly

 

According to Goulet Pens, they were told by TWSBI that it's discontinued.

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Anderson Pens still have these in stock - no stub nibs, but EF, F , M & B are available.

 

Goulet Pens could have misunderstood the info they were getting; TWSBI could have changed their minds - or the information above could be wrong. I'd you want to know, you could try contacting twsbiinc@gmail.com...

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Pendleton still sells them on his site, too, and even Amazon shows them in stock, so hopefully there is still plenty of stock out there; I guess I will just have to hope they are still available when I have the $$ to buy one.

 

I haven't read about any problems with the white Mini or with the rose gold plating on the pen (some owners of the 580 Rose Gold pens had problems with the plating corroding) so it seems odd that TWSBI would put the pen in production in August and then discontinue the model after less than two months of sales. I was hoping someone here would have some info as it appears that our online retailers are getting conflicting information from TWSBI.

 

Holly

Edited by OakIris
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I was told they were discontinued, by someone other than Goulet, because it was too hard to get the white perfect and they ended up having to trash a lot of the production. I bought two extras based on that, because I noticed they aren't on Amazon anymore and they are my favorites.

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The Anderson's came to our pen show here in Colorado this weekend; Lisa confirmed that the pen was discontinued, too, though she didn't know the reason. They brought some to the show but I was concentrating on vintage pens and had a very limited budget so did not buy one from them. I hope I do not live to regret that decision! By the way, Elle_, this pen seems to be still available on Amazon's site ; sold by TWSBI, and all nib sizes are still available today anyway.

 

Some of the folks I spoke with at the pen show surmised that TWSBI decided to discontinue the model because the sales of the white Mini weren't enough to justify continued production and that perhaps the sales were low because people weren't willing to pay the $20 premium for the rose gold plating. (Personally, I don't care about the addition of the RG plating - I just like the looks of the white section and cap.) If the model has indeed been discontinued, as seems to be the consensus, I wonder if TWSBI will ever tell us why...

 

Holly

 

 

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I was told it is because it was too hard to get the white perfect . . . They had a lot of batches that had to be tossed for production problems. The large black and rose gold is remaining.

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I was told it is because it was too hard to get the white perfect . . . They had a lot of batches that had to be tossed for production problems. The large black and rose gold is remaining.

Odd - I saw your last comment about that as well. I wonder what their problem with making white plastic might be? Though I don't normally seek out white pens, there seem to be plenty of them out there from other manufacturers......

 

Oh well, guess I should forget about the white Mini and start saving my pennies for something else - by the time I can save up $70 for the Mini, I expect the price will be a lot more than that as people cash in on the "no longer in production" opportunities.

 

Holly

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I can't say why TWSBI have discontinued the RG + White (or even whether they have) but here is some speculation based on what little I know about injection moulding of plastics (I am a mechanical engineer who has had two items made from injection moulding for work purposes).

 

  1. White is a very easy colour to contaminate with other colours. If the machine is not perfectly clean, a little colourant will contaminate a huge quantity of production. I have seen, with a changeover from white to dark, white streaks in a 2kg container lid 20 lids after the colour was changed. That was 40kg of production. If making pens, then that would be 4000 pens wasted at 10g per pen. And we were using a dark colour which covers up light colours very well, so you may well be scrapping 8-10000 pen parts just to clean the machine through.
  2. White is the hardest colour to colour match. Each batch of coloured plastic is different from every other. So you need to add dyes during production to get it to the exact colour you want. If you have a red that's too light, you can add more red dye to darken it. If it's too dark, you can add some lighter colour. The problem with white, though, is if you receive an off white batch. You can't take out the cream that you've got, you have to add more white dye. But as the colour is already very close to the white being added, you need to add a lot of dye to make a difference. You can't add more than 1% or so of dye otherwise the plastic properties are changed (always for the worse, it's sod's law!), so you can't add enough to change the colour. That causes the 500kg minimum order batch to be scrapped & you have to buy another & hope... At up to $20000 per ton, you can't do this often!
  3. If you start with clear plastic & add your own white dye, will it mix enough before getting into the mould? Otherwise it could look a bit streaky... With dark colours this can pass un-noticed, but with white it wouldn't. This, I accept, is also a problem with transparent colours, and TWSBI have got it sorted there, though they may be buying ready coloured granules, as the pen colours available are also the same colours as you can get in other forms of PC (eg twin wall roofing & that sort of thing).

Those were just some random thoughts as to why TWSBI may have stopped production of the white for production reasons. It's possible (probable even) I have missed the reasons completely, but it seems logical that those reasons may be giving them problems, and added to other factors I could only guess at may be enough to get them to say 'Enough is Enough'.

 

Regards,

 

Richard.

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According to information received from TWSBI this morning, the Diamond mini white and gold is temporarily (not permanently) unavailable. If it is a production issue, no doubt this will be resolved and the model will become available again.

 

Richard: thanks for your insight into plastic moulding. I used to work a lot with plastic components and although it's many years ago now I am still familiar with some of the problems. All our stuff was produced in dark colours though and generally colours didn't change or the parts were painted. I reckon the only way to produce the same part in, say, both black and white is to have separate tools for each and as you well know this is not cheap. This is probably what the big volume manufacturers do, eg Lamy Safari, Parker Jotter etc.

 

Martin

The Writing Desk

Fountain Pen Specialists since 2000

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  • 2 weeks later...

As the person quoted in the original post, I have actually asked Rebecca over the phone and confirm in writing after a certain online retailer made that post. Currently Taiwan is out of stock of the Diamond Mini White Rose Gold. At the moment, indications seem that they are producing the Eco in their production line. While some of us have inventory on the items, not all places will have. The demand of the Mini White Rose Gold is very strong, in fact it is flying off the shelves during the launch period. I think the best way to understand the situation is that all the website/Amazon/eBay and US retailers are serviced from LA. While everyone else is from Taipei. Both places have different levels of stock for various items. What is out of stock in LA may not be out of stock in Taipei. In fact, for those who want TWSBI Micarta 805 or 803, Taipei still have stock on all models. Not so good luck from LA.

 

Regards.

 

Mr. Sunny Koh

Studio Head

Personae Studios

 

and Nib Worker of

 

Straits Pen L.L.P.

www.straitspen.com

From The Sunny Island of Singapore

 

Straits Pen Distributors and Dealers of Craft Rinkul, JB Perfect Pen Flush, Ohto Japan, Parker, Pelikan, Pilot Pen, Private Reserve Inks, Schrade Tactical Pens, Smith & Wesson Pens, Noodler's Ink LLC Pens, TWSBI Inc and Waterman in Singapore

Disclosure: I do nib work for others and am affiliated with those which do. I also sell and represent certain brands of pens.

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Thank you, Richard, for explaining some of the known problems with manufacturing white plastic - I had no idea!

 

And thank you, Studiohead\Sunny for the reassurance that it is not lack of sales that would lead TWSBI to discontinue the Mini White/Rose gold model; I remain hopeful that they will produce the pen again and get more stock of it out to their distributors. :)

 

Holly

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  • 4 months later...

After reading these comments, I searched the Internet for a rose gold mini. The few I found were only in B nib. Then I found one at a brick and mortar store. I purchased an M, but they also had a F and an EF. I don't know if you are still interested. They sold for $70.00.

Pam

Edited by Penandcoffeefan
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After reading these comments, I searched the Internet for a rose gold mini. The few I found were only in B nib. Then I found one at a brick and mortar store. I purchased an M, but they also had a F and an EF. I don't know if you are still interested. They sold for $70.00.

Pam

 

I'm not the original poster, but also have been looking for the White mini RG in F nib.

Do you mind sharing the info of the store?

 

Michelle

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Those were just some random thoughts as to why TWSBI may have stopped production of the white for production reasons. It's possible (probable even) I have missed the reasons completely, but it seems logical that those reasons may be giving them problems, and added to other factors I could only guess at may be enough to get them to say 'Enough is Enough'.

 

Regards,

 

Richard.

 

Thank you very much Richard for this very insightful post. #3 is problem I am suspecting.

 

Remember also, that it is not actually TWSBI making the pens. Superb marketing aside, TWSBI is just a very tiny subsidary (vanity project?) of TaShin Precision. Given their propensity for tinkering with designs and chucking entire multi-hundred-kilogram batches like with the Vac Mini acrylic test run, I don't think profits are TaShin's primary motive with TWSBI. At least currently.

Semper Faciens, Semper Discens

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I'm not the original poster, but also have been looking for the White mini RG in F nib.

Do you mind sharing the info of the store?

 

Michelle

 

You can always try buying it straight from TWSBI off their online store:

 

http://www.twsbi.com/collections/fountain-pens/products/twsbi-diamond-mini-white-rosegold-fountain-pen

Semper Faciens, Semper Discens

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The only nib available on the TWSBI website was B. I wanted a M or F. I decided on M and love it.

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  • 1 month later...

Wow so it seems that Fine TWSBI Mini Rose Gold is not for sale anymore...

If you see one, please do let me know.

Many thanks!

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Wow so it seems that Fine TWSBI Mini Rose Gold is not for sale anymore...

If you see one, please do let me know.

Many thanks!

Although it increases the cost of the pen, with TWSBIs you can buy a replacement section with the nib in every size from EF to 1.5mm. Goulet has them for for the Diamond Mini at $20 and shipping.

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