First Impressions
The matte black sleeve looks stylish and when you slide it off you are greeted by a very shiny perspex(?) box in black and clear. A very nice design. The lid tilts back and the pen is sat in a cut-out in its plastic bag with a label advising the make, model and nib size. Take out the pen then pull out the thick plastic tray underneath then pull out the felted plastic box to find the cartridge protector.
Appearance
It’s certainly a strange looking pen. The push button protrudes a long way out of the pen, but it needs that length to operate the nib unit. The green is almost a British racing green and fits in well with the gold furniture.
Design/Size/Weight
I have not owned a pen with a design like this before, but the fact that the nib comes out of the end with the clip makes it “unique” to me. I expect that this will get people looking at the pen. A real oddity! I take a lot of notes throughout the day in my job so it is frustrating constantly uncapping and re-capping my pen, or being caught out when the nib dries out. As simple as a ballpoint the action on this pen will withdraw the nib into an airtight area. It’s go to be a step up from a normal pen. It’s a medium sized pen, the barrel is thicker than a Pelikan 200, thinner than a Densho and about the same thickness as the thickest part of a Lamy 2000. With the nib in the pen is 140mm (5.5in) long and with the nib out is the same length. The weight is 32 grammes, so what I would describe as a medium weight pen. Compare it to a Pelikan 200 at 15 grammes, a Danitrio Densho at 29 grammes or a Rotring 600 at 41 grammes.
Nib
I chose the broad option. The nib unit is quite narrow, but the blob of tipping on the end is huge. It writes very smoothly, only slightly under the standard of a Sailor so I was quite impressed.
Filling System
A same but different slant on things. You have to unscrew the two parts of the body and then withdraw the the ink holding/nib unit. Mine came with an aerometric style filling system. Actually it is a press bar converter which can be pulled off the end of the nib unit. and replaced with a standard Pilot twist type converter or you could use a cartridge. The pen is reputed to hold little ink, but I would be surprised if there was much difference between this and my Parker 61. You can buy whole nib units online in the UK, but they are not cheap. The only drawback is that the nib has to go a long way into a bottle of ink to fill the pen, so make sure that you buy thoughtfully designed ink bottles or a stack of cartridges.
Cost and Value
These list at £99 (US$200) in the UK. One UK online seller knocks £20 (US$40) off the price. Too rich for my taste so I picked up two at really good prices. They provide good value at what I paid and if I had have been able to buy an italic nib at standard I would have been happy to buy one at the UK reduced price.
Conclusion
It’s a nice solid pen and at the price that I got it rather a bargain. The pens strange appearance can be overlooked for the convenience of its ballpoint type press button action. It writes well on my legal pads, but it does not like my Rhodia pads at all. Perhaps the grease from my skin comes off on the pad and stops the ink writing on the page. I have tried both Noodlers Black and Lamy Blue with little success. I can best explain it by saying that it writes like a flex nib that is being pressed hard on so that you get two separate lines on the down strokes when there is not enough ink arriving at the nib. Not all of the time, but often enough to be annoying. In situations like this I usually fill them up with Caran d’Ache black as that is my fastest flowing ink.
Enjoy.