I have just won it on eBay - I hope that it is as gorgeous as it looks in the picture! I have never seen/used/heard of these pens before so I had a look on this forum earlier to see if they were rated and they seem to have a great write up (no pun intended!) so I thought that I would rely on your good words and buy it!

I'm excited now, want it to arrive already!

I'll try and attach a pic but I haven't been successful before so if any Admin could please sort it out for me if it doesn't work....

Click to view attachment

Bluetiger --

I have this same pen and like the color very much -- it's relatively hard to come by now.

The Phileas is a very nice pen -- particularly for the price -- and you should be very happy with it for years to come!! It's a wonderful writer, and has a classic look and feel. Enjoy your nice acquistion !!

HP

Have you seen the red marbled one? That is gorgeous too!

Just thought you might all like to know that if the reason on my divorce papers are anything to do with the purchasing of fountain pens then I am holding you all to blame!! I was quite happy with my cheap Parker pens until I found this site!!!

I got the red marbled one in the post today and I'm really happy. There's no doubt that it is the new number one of all my pens.

Regards
Hans-Peter

Is it advisable to use the ink from the same manufacturer? I really love purple ink and the Waterman one is lovely but their colours are quite limited in comparison with other manufacturers.

Just out of interest, how heavy is this pen?

Congratulations! I really like the Waterman Phileas. I've never seen one in that color combo, though. Great catch!

The Phileas is light to medium for its size, I would say, and no you don't have to stick to Waterman ink -- any fountain-pen-friendly ink should be just fine in it.

Nice pens with good nibs! Congratulations

1. Ink.

Meh. It doesn't really matter WHAT ink you use. Provided it's fountain pen ink, you can use it with safety.

2. Weight.

Speaking as a Phileas owner, I can say that it's a light and comfortable pen. (And the nib is amazingly tough!!)

Wow, congratulations.

If i had known that the Phileas came in Black/gray marble, I would have purchased that instead. I have the black/GT one with the M nib.

I don't have much experience with FPs yet, but for what it is, I think it's a great pen, writes very smoothly, and feels good in my hand. Not scratchy at all, and it's always ready to write (except for when i leave it uncapped in class , although after some coaxing or a quick dip in quink it's good to go again. ).

One question for you. I always see on writeups of this pen that it's available in M and F nibs, yet I have NEVER seen one with an F nib offered for sale anywhere. Does yours have an M or F nib?

The only complaint i have about mine is that the line is a bit too broad and wet for my tastes, i'm used to writing with .5mm lead size tiny writing, so a lot of my notes are a scribbly mess. Takes some getting used to.

I have three Waterman Phileas (red marble with red ink, green marble with green ink and a black one with Noodler's Saguaro Wine in it). The are my favorites of my modern pens and I use them all the time. I've left one or the other untouched for weeks at a time and yet they seem to start up with no fuss at all. It's a great writing pen. Congrats on a fine purchase.

I have a 2 mediums and a fine nib.

Bluetiger, I am certain that pen collecting will make you both a better wife and mother!!!

I, too, have three Waterman Phileas. One is blue marble, one is the classic black and the third is the special edition Harley Davidson model. The first two have fines nibs and the Harley version has a medium nib. I use Waterman cartridges in the Harley one because it goes to work with me. It's much easier to carry cartridges around. The other two get Private Reserve inks. They don't seem to mind.

Congrats on your choice of pens. I have some Waterman Graduate pens coming from auctions I won by Lewertowski on eBay. I'm looking forward to adding them to my "stable".

At present, I'm a two Phileas (M) and two Kultur (F) man. They're fine pens. My black Phileas writes wonderfully well. My newer (but probably very old stock) Green one writes decently but acts like I should have flushed it in a weak ammonia solution to get the manufacturing oils out. My Kulturs were evil pens until I gave them the weak ammonia flush or otherwise ran enough ink through them. Once you get them broken in, they're terrific.

Hi all,

Congratulations, Bluetiger. I'd say that the Waterman Phileas is just about the ideal first fountain pen.  Maybe I've even said that very thing on one of the other threads.

Inks? Any fountain pen ink will do. Do not, under any circumstances, use India ink in it. India ink is *not* fountain pen ink. It's for calligraphers and suchlike folks who use dip pens.

That said, there are a couple of fountain pen inks I avoid: One of the greens (Waterman's maybe?) has a funny smell. So I tend to use Private Reserve's Sherwood Green, when I want green writing. And I'm not the only one who has had a bottle of Pelikan black ink go moldy. So I use other blacks instead. Check out the threads on Ink to get a wider range of ideas.

Cheers,
Mark

PS: Is it just my browser, or is this text wrapping strangely?  Hmmm.

Your mate will just need to "go with the flow."

Best strategy is to co-opt him - get him hooked too.

There's a pen out there for every one - you just need to make the match.

The Phileas is a very moderate way to start. You are not in trouble yet.

A few Aurora or MB limited editions - well, yeah, things could get serious in the marriage department.

Thanks for all your responses!

In answer to your question, it has got a M nib - according to the description. I don't like fine nibs on anything, even ballpoints and pencils so hopefully this one will be perfect!

There are a lot of these pens advertised on ebay at the moment, all brand new, in various colours and nib sizes on a Buy-It-Now for £14.99 plus £3.00 p&p coming from France. I never thought of it before but do pens get ripped off like designer clothes?? Considering this pen doesn't seem to be in manufacture any more, there were a lot of brand new ones out there...mine is brand new too - so I might need to flush it first? I wouldn't have a clue where to go and get ammonia solution from - or how to correctly flush a pen out - I have always just rinsed under the tap! (should I be crawling away in embarrassment now? )

I have already started looking at the MB ones....does that mean I'm further down this slippery slope than I thought?

There's no way that hubby will get hooked on FP - he hates writing at the best of times, can't even get him to do a shopping list! Anyway, that's fine by me, my pens are MY pens so that settles that!!

I've never seen that color. What a great looking pen!

There are pens that are counterfeited -- it's more of a problem with Mont Blancs and Parker Sonnets -- you can read about it on those forums, but be very careful buying either of them on eBay. I've never seen posts about Phileases (Philei?) being fake -- there's not enough profit margin to make it worthwhile, I guess.

A lot of the Watermans coming from France are either current production or New Old Stock. I don't believe the gray marble is made now, but there are still many sitting in warehouses or stockrooms -- and that's where they come to market from. Phileases in general are still in production, I believe, but I could be wrong.

You can just mix a very little ammonia with water to flush the pen if it needs it -- but you might just try using water first. I use a plastic baby syringe to force water through the nib (insert the syringe at the end where the cartridge goes). But it may not need a flush -- give it a try and see how it works. You'll soon be coming up with all sorts of ways to poke and prod pens into improved performance !!!!

Enjoy -- you've got an excellent first pen !! Have you decided upon your next pen yet? HP

Montblanc is notorious for being faked online. I don't see that happening with the Waterman Phileas. (Plural is surely 'Phileai'?)

Tiger, to correctly flush the pen, you need to pull the pen apart. Hold it by the section (black grip-area) and let cold tapwater run over it, and through the feed and through the nib. Dry it. Put in the converter (if the pen came with one) and fill and empty the converter (attached to the pen) several times, with cold water. Once this has been done several times (Use your own judgement here), dry it and fill with ink. Done!

Waterman has a Purple ink - nice color and good flow.