I recently bought a Picasso pen from isellpens.com. It is a blue pen with silver filigree, and cost be 24 bucks. It's a beautiful pen, with a stainless steel clip and comes in a nice box. isellpens.com says that the nip is gold, but upon inspection, I can find no hints that the nib is gold, making me think that it's either stainless steel, or iridium. The pen is made in china, but the nib is stamped France. It's a nice light to medium weight pen with a fine to medium nib. When I first started writing with this pen, I was a little disappointed, the lines were a little halted, and it didn't like when I stopped writing. I was using the pen for taking notes in class, and if I put the pen down for a ten seconds or more, the lines would become halted again. It got to the point where I couldn't use it to take notes for lectures, so I had to switch to a different pen. As I've been writing with it more, it is working better, though it is still a pretty dry pen and I ended up having to switch inks on it to get it to work better. It still has problems starting up in the morning after I haven't used it, but once it gets going it's not bad. All in all, for 24 bucks I'd say it's a good buy, mostly for the looks.

(Photo courtesy of isellpens.com as my camera is not working)Click to view attachment

Thanks for the review.
Quick question for you (actually two):
-- is this what you would call a heavy pen?
-- does the cap stay securely on the end of the barrel when you post it? (if you post it, that is)


Now about the hard-starting problem....As you say, trying a different ink can sometimes cure this not-uncommon problem. Have you tried rinsing the nib-section unit with some mildly soapy water? There may be some oil left over from the manufacturing process that is impeding the flow of ink to the feed. Also, sometimes switching from a convertor to a cartridge can help, if the ink is sticking to the sides of the convertor (so-called "Sticky Convertor Syndrome")....

In any case, it sounds like a pretty good deal for the price!

I would consider this pen to be a light to mid weight, and it has a very nice balance. The cap stays on very well both when posted and when simply capped. The ink flow issue that I mentioned has cleared up now that I am using it to take notes more in class, I guess it just needed a little more breaking in time than the other pens I have.

Good to hear....and thanks for the reponse (the pen looked heavier--to me--than it really is, I guess).

Thank you very much for this review. I've been looking at these pens for a while now (love the novelty of the pens and the packaging) and was curious as to how they performed. Naturally, the items I want are either Sold Out (I detest those words) or on backorder. Ah, well. I guess I'll have to try to improve my timing.

What is the size of this pen, length and barrel diameter? Or could you compare the size to some other pens?