The Office Depot in a somewhat trendy shopping center carries a selection of upscale writing instruments including fountain pens.

I decided to take a chance on the $40 Foray Fountain pen.

Note: This pen costs more than a Waterman Phileas.

The packaging is spartan, but at the same time is designed to look minimalistic and "slick".



As you can see, the pen itself is quite attractive in a sleek, clean lined way.

The pen it self had a nice heft. It appears to be made of solid anodized aluminum. Not as heavy as brass, but not easily dentable, either.

I unscrewed the cap to discover:



What The Frell?! Was it some sort of semi-hooded nib? Nope, it screwed out to reveal that it was an IPG, with no marking about nib width. It looked like a medium when compared to my Lamy and Pelikan. It takes international short cartridges and comes with one.



It really looks pretty ... and the section is a nice width.

But, the pen is a way overpriced roadapple. For all of the "oooohhhh, shiny" of the design, a closer look at the nib and section tell the tale.

Note the off center alignment of the feed.



And if that wasn't bad enough:


The width of the gap was wide enough for me to wedge a straightened paper clip (medium guage wire) in there.

Which means as I attempted to write, the inner mechanisms were flopping back and forth against the outer metal sleeve.

(Also, note the word "attempted" in the previous statement.)

The pen did not write. Just scraped a few furrows in the paper and even deposited trace amounts of ink in a few of them. And this was with me squeezing the cartridge, giving it a shake, etc.

But the capper?

You cannot screw the cap back on the pen with the nib fully exposed!

You have to disassemble the pen and get the nib back down to "semi-hooded" to screw the cap back on!



So: Avoid. Avoid. Avoid.

Unless you want to give a $40 (plus tax) gag gift to an FP loving friend of yours.

Because, seriously, the craftsmanship of the most important parts of the pen? It made a Pilot Petit/Varsity look like a masterpiece.

---

And I've had my laugh and will be taking the pen back tomorrow and getting a refund.

But, I'll keep the $5 off of Select Purchases over $25 coupon that I got for buying this Dren in the first place. There's some paper I want to try.

I'm glad that the people who designed and built this aren't working on World Peace.

Oh, wait, that might be a bad assumption...

Wow, that's pretty brain damaged. Sometimes I'm embarrassed to be lumped in with engineers that come up with nonsense like this. On the other hand, I can hope that no engineers were involved in the creation of this pen.

Sorry about your bad experience and thank you for the warning.
I probably wouldnt buy this anyways but after reading this I wouldnt take it even for free.

Quite likely, unless they were NSW Road and Traffic Authority engineers. These guys tilt our country roads the wrong way when you go around a bend.

Wow, that grip section looks really uncomfortable and ugly. I guess this is what happens when non FP people design FPs...

Man. What junk. It makes a minimalist Parker Frontier look kinda wonderful, doesn't it?

So many worldwide products today are made to simply "be sold," not to "be used."

Yeesh! OMG thank you for taking this bullet for the rest of us and warning us! ^_^;;;

Whenever I go to that spinner rack at my Office Depot I drool at the Pilot Knight (I have enough Kulturs to take care of my Phileas craving---for now!), but they only have it in silver, and more expensive than Pendemonium et al.

Stuff like this makes FPs look bad and the ignorant straight back to the bics.

Thank you. I was just looking at this very pen today and wondering how it would write.

Looked interesting, but not all that glitters is gold...

Foray is Office Depot's new name for its "store brand" products. They have pens, paper, folios, and more with the Foray brand. My advice is to avoid all of them and stick with name brand products. The Foray products are clearly inferior.

Great review, thanks!

kadymae wrote:

"And I've had my laugh and will be taking the pen back tomorrow and getting a refund."

I had to laugh out loud myself at the absurdity of this design and your excellent presentation of it. Thank you for the review. You saved me some time and money and I appreciate it.

I wish I'd seen your review before buying one of those a couple years ago. I hated it and it eventually went in the recycle bin.

Careful about painting them with such a broad brush. I picked up some Foray rollerball refills and they are superior to the original Yafa and Rotring ones. The package says they are Swiss made. I suspect they source their "generics" from lots of places and some of them are ok.

I almost picked up one of these on my last trip to the Office Depot, but, as they didn't have a fine nib, I passed. It sounds like I made a good choice.

thanks for the review,
French

Thanks for the review. Every time I go into ODepO, those things semi-tempt me, but. No more, now that you've confirmed my suspicions that they are indeed Frelling Pieces of Dren.

I hate that your pen was clearly defective. I have the black version of the same pen and after I tightened the nib back into the mount it has been a fantastic writer. The finish doesn’t hold up all that well at the mounts, but after 4 months of use it still writes very smooth and never skips. My primary pen is a M200 Pelikan but I keep the Foray loaded with red for work use.

Would I buy it again for 40.00? NO. Not when a Cross Century II or Waterman Phileas can be had for the same price or a little more. But it is a nice heavy, good looking pen. It might be a value if the price were around 20.00 IMO. It also takes long cartridges I have a long waterman in it now.

Thank you for the review. I at one time was thinking about this pen. I didn't like it because of that "bumpy" section.

I had the misfortune of buying one of these as my first FP. For better or for worse, I soon had to buy more, BETTER FP's.

I must say, though, I didn't really mind this pen all that much. It was sort of a dry writer for me but it was glass-smooth - as smooth as any great pen I now own, including Pelikans, Sailors, and DaniTrio. I didn't like the ink, but Waterman cartridges soon fixed that. I must say that these pens are not a total loss, at least sometimes - but I'm kicking myself that I could have gotten a Phileas for $5 cheaper. Between the Foray and the Phileas, the Phileas wins every time.

Summer Greer

I have one of these pens and i dont unscrew the nib before writing. why would you have to? The section is kind of uncomfortable but i really dotn mind this pen. I wouldnt buy it again but it still is an ok pen.

I have one of these and I agree, it isn't bad. Unless you compare it to other $40 pens. I got mine with a $25 loyalty coupon so it was well worth the $15.

I'm not sure I understand this review - it sounds like the reviewer didn't like the semi-hooded design, so she unscrewed the nib most of the way, and then wondered why it was loose, and why it wouldn't write, and why the cap wouldn't screw on...

I agree it's a very silly-looking pen, but if you leave the nib and section assembled as it was intended, there is no annoying gap or motion of the nib, the cap screws in, and it writes.

I was tempted to try out the Foray Fountain Pen at my local Office Depot, since my Lamy Vista is still being serviced on the other side of the continent . However, I've had lackluster experiences with their ballpoints and rollerballs. (I seem to have better luck with TUL, the OfficeMax house brand.)

Wow...$40...can't you get a Pilot Knight for that kind of money?

As Fox in the Stars put it, thanks for taking the bullet for us.

or a nice TACCIA portuguese (approx $35)!!... have you checked out the ROMET's Todd has at isellpens.com (N/A) for $38!!!

Actually, I just bought this one today, and I must say, it's flawless. Everything is where it should be, and it writes perfectly. Yes, the nib is made to be screwed all the way in, otherwise, it will just flop around without support. I think it just screws out for easy cleaning, so you don't have to wet the barrel, as it comes all the way apart.

I just bought one today for $7.50, and have no complaints.