I had never heard of the VP before I ventured on to FPN. On arrival here, I had enjoyed using FPs, and had a modest collection of 3, recently expanded to 4 with the purchase of a Sonnet at a Paradise Pen where I went to get ink for my old FPs.

The rest, as they say, is water under the bridge. I read about various pens, shopped around, and finally plonked down money for a few: the Phileas, Hemisphere, M200, Parker 45. I even bought a Parker "51". I spoke at length about my initial teething problems, with many of the pens having to visit their service centers.

All the pens work great now-- they write beautifully, all of them. I love the nice wet line the "51" lays down, and the smoothness of the M200, or the elegance of the Harmonie or M605. But one thing rankled: my on-the-go style at work was less than suited for many, if not most of the pens. Constant uncapping & capping, ink drying out as I assembled info for a note, having to put some papers down in my off hand to cap or uncap the pen... it was less than ideal and was slowing me down.

Emboldened by the denizens of FPN, I drove over to Pam Braun's and spent a Saturday morning browsing her store. I picked through her stock of VPs, and determined that the clip was perfect for my grip. I went through all the colors, settling on the Blue Carbonesque, and loved the line that the medium put down. And then I took the plunge.

That was a week ago. It has been nothing but smooth sailing since then. I absolutely *adore* the VP. It is at the same time elegant, functional and a supremely good writer. From the ultra-smooth nib, with its wet-but-not-too-wet line to the quick-use one-handed operation, it has displaced all other pens and is my mainstay.

Thank you, FPN, for helping me find pen nirvana!

My Blue Carbonesque is on the way now - I can hardly wait to use it!!!!!

Speaking of the "Blue Carbonesque" finish, which is also what I have, what exactly is carbonesque about Carbonesque? Last time I saw any, carbon was either black or, after the application of heat and pressure over longish stretches of time, colorless.

Yep, I agree with John. Carbon fibre consists of fibres woven together in a checkered pattern, which you can see under the glossy finish.

The carbonesque finish on these pens are trying to imitate that, while being a bit less subtle. Duke has a range of carbon fibre pens that might look closer to what real carbon fibre materials look like.

I had never heard of the VP until I started reading this forum, either. After soliciting opinions and reading many, many posts about the VP, I, too have just purchased one. Also from Pam. Mine is the black/gold with a broad nib.

Got it, loaded it up with Levenger Fireball and I'm in heaven!

Thanks to all.

hi,

i really enjoyed chatting with you last night. we should do it again!!

I was first introduced to VP's by my doc and one of his PA's - they both used them. The PA had several and one that held particular sentimental value for him had been dropped on the nib end. He knew I restored fp's so he asked me to see what I could do. I shipped it to the service center and they fixed him up in fine style. I decided I needed a VP, so when my daughter graduated from graduate school, I picked up a LE Mandarin from The Pen Place in Kansas City - I figured her finishing school was a good reason for me to have a new pen; am I right?
This pen stays inked a good bit of the time. Very handy.

The VP is a fabulous pen -- glad to see you've adopted one!

And after a while, though you'll still enjoy your Carbonesque, you won't be able to stop yourself from considering other variations... like earlier VP's, the gorgeous Raden, or some of the newer models (Decimo, Fermo). Enjoy the ride.

Eh, whatever the finish is trying to be, it looks nice. I've got my eye on the slate grey as well. What, precisely, is the Decimo? I found pictures online, and it looks exactly like the VP. The Fermo, from what I can tell, is a VP that twists instead of clicking. But all I could see different about the Decimo was the color range and the price.

Congrats on your new VP! I use VP at work a lot, too

Carbonesque is called "Kasuri" in Japan. It's a type of traditional fabric with patterns created by threads partially left un-dyed(?) or in different colors. It does kind of look like it. To me the blue one looks most like kasuri kimono.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasuri

I would love to like the VP. Have only dip tested it in stores, but that clip position bothers me. Can't get past the clip.

Taki, that looks like it. I think they should call it kasuri rather than carbonesque if that's what it is. Here's a pic a I had next to a regular finish:

this place is a wealth of information.

I come to bury the Vanishing Point, not to praise it...

Own up now, wouldn't you all be better off with a nice retractable gel pen? (Runs for cover)

HDoug,

Wow! Your black Carbonesque looks like the black kasuri That kasuri is from Kurume in northern Kyushu.

I have been after a VP for a while and just received mine in a trade - a black old style. Itcame with three other pens and I could not try it yet - very busy day - but the design is as nice as expected and I loved the mechanism and the tiny nib.
If it really is everything people say, I am sure it will be my EDC pen from now on.

i cant wait until i can get a VP. im hoping ill come across one of those sexy all black models....

I love mine. My wife was so facinated she tried it, liked, and asked for one for our aniversary. Then suggested I buy a second for my self.

Chiming in now that I've had some experience with it: I love my VP. The clip forces me to use a proper tripod grip, and thanks to Richard Binder's work the nib is smooth and beautiful. The one thing it lacks is ink capacity. I was happily taking notes today, congratulating myself on beginning to get the hang of the tripod grip, when... hey, what the heck? Why is it writing such a thin line? What did I do? Ohhhhh, yeah. Ink. Hey, does anyone have a pencil I could borrow?

So the downside is that you either have to remember to top up the ink supply regularly, or refill Namiki cartridges (proprietary design, drat them) with a syringe. A small price to pay for convenience, smooth writing, good ink flow, and a grip-improving tool all in one.

I have this forum to thank for introducing me to the Vanishing Point. I spend most of my week working as a cheesemaker, and the remainder of my time pursuing studies in molecular biology.

Both pursuits involve a lot of picking up and putting down of pens (along with not infrequent soakings of my bench and everything thereon), and the need for one-handed operation more or less confined me to the use of ballpoints until I saw this thread.

My immediate reaction was "Wow! Cool!" and I slapped down my hard-earned shekels there and then for a Blue Carbonesque Medium on eBay.

It's been a real lifesaver, not to mention a conversation piece.

As a follow-up: I have been experimenting with various inks in my VP (rather easy to do, seeing how quickly it goes through a converter) and I've settled on the PR Velvet Black. My VP is a bit happier with it than with the Noodler's Black, and the color comes out beautifully dark on the paper.

Cool - I like the name "Kasuri" much better than "Carbonesque". I feel a little silly admitting this, but I had intended on selling my black Carbonesque (I've got 6 VP pens now), yet now that it is a black "Kasuri" I feel more inclined to keep it.

On a related note, does anyone here have a mix of nib assemblies stamped Pilot and Namiki? Most of mine are Namiki, with the exception of my black Kasuri--it's a Pilot Medium. Well, that medium is more like a Broad and it's clearly larger than my Namiki Medium. I'm just wondering if the Namiki stamped nibs generally run smaller than Pilot stamped nibs, or... is it just a difference in production runs independent of the brand?

Incidentally, about the ink capacity, I hear that the long Pilot cartridges fit in the VP and offer a little more ink than the piston converter (I've been meaning to do a capacity test of the squeeze converter vs. the piston converter). So, you can use a cartridge instead and just refill it with a syringe. The nice thing about the cartridge is that you can check to see how much ink you have left rather easily--the squeeze converter is rather useless for that and the piston converter only offers a very narrow view.

Anyway, if you write with a Namiki Fine nib (which is really like an XF), the ink will last a lot longer!

My VP has "Pilot" on it, and is a medium that behaves like a medium, a little narrower than the Phileas and Lamy mediums, and a little broader than the Pelikan medium; about the same size as the Harmonie medium.

My 2 older VP's the Burgundy and the Black Stealth are M Pilot and M Namiki. Both write a Fine Line. The newer VP's the Japan issue Mustard Yellow and the Raden are also M Pilot and M Namiki, and they write a very wet Medium line.

Bob

Yep, it's for real. A little odd, it's in the ground floor of an apartment building, does not look like a business from the street when I used the Hertz Never Found GPS to guide me there. I tried to stop by back in January on a business trip, they were unfortunatley closed when I stopped by.

Joe

On the topic of praising the original topic of this post--and praising this board.. and I guess just praising things in general.. I asked a while ago about branching out in terms of nibs, and a very wise little birdie mentioned something about Richard Binder/genius/custom ground stubs that fit into Namiki VPs/making a .6mm one.. etc. and I had enough sense not to question that particular birdie..

That decision had literally rendered the factory nib entirely obsolete. In fact, I actually almost threw it away about a week ago, until I was like 'nooo.. nooo don't throw away the not-Richard Binder VP nib..'. I didn't end up throwing it away, but I still need to find a place to put it.. I'm not going to use it. Not since I have this one, and not since I know that I can get another one if I wind up not having this one..

Really.

I'm not even kidding--and I loved that pen to start out with. I probably sound like a billboard, but its entirely unintentional. I think almost throwing away the other one sort of backs up the 'very satisfied with purchase' part. I don't know how, but that nib just honestly managed to make that incredibly cool pen exponentially cooler.

Sort of an icing/cake thing I guess. Anyway, I'm certainly another warm body that can vouch for souping that pen up with a Binderized nib if that would ever be a decision looming in the horizon.