I am about to purchase my second Stipula (my first being the Etruria Volterra LE last month). I've decided on the Ventidude. It comes in White Mistletoe (which looks like "cracked ice" to me), Brown, raspberry or Blueberry. Can anyone tell me if the Whie Mistletoe is as beautiful as it looks in photos? My second choice would be the brown and I cant tell if the other two are nice or not. Can't find real good pics of this pen series.

Also - what is the "22" for over the clip???

Thanks.

John
Krewalk.com

The pen's name is Ventidue, the Italian word for the number 22. 22 is the number for titanium on the Periodic Table of Elements. The first version of the Ventidue issued had a titanium nib.

Raspberry and blueberry have, I think, been discontinued.

I have "Cracked Ice" and the blue color that goes by the name "Forget Me Not." The Forget Me Not is much more attractive IMO. Also, it has an oak leaf instead of the "22." Bittner has a decent picture of this pen: http://www.bittner.com/pensDetail.aspx?Bra...=Fountain%20Pen


Not one to plug my own work (usually), I did a review of this pen with a mediocre photo. It can be found in the reviews.

Blueberry. I got to see these being made when I was at the factory in Florence. Then again, I rarely find a blue fountain pen that I don't like.

The only problem with this is that this pen is the "old type" with the titanium nib that I have heard so many bad things about. I have read on here that these pens had a serious flaw with ink flow and really should have been recalled. If that is not the case with yours then you are very lucky because there is tons to read about this flow problem on here. The blue color you talk about (which I love) is no longer available and has been replaced by Blueberry.

The "forget me not" pen has a titanium nib and the newer Ventidue pens now have a 14k gold nib and improved flow.

If anyone can jump in and correct me if I am wrong, please do so because I am kind of new to the Stipula brand. I am only relaying what I have heard and read about. Please clarify.

JK

1) The pictured pen had a metal section. The metal-sectioned Ventidues were introduced with the gold nibs, though there may have been some pieces made with Titanium nibs.
2) My Titanium-nibbed Ventidue is one of my best writers. The problem was not the nib, it was the feed.

If you see a cellocride Ventidue with a section from the same material, that one's got a Ti nib.

The bottom pen here is cellocride, but it's a Duetto (with a Ti nib):



Here's my Stipulas, with the Duetto on the left and the cellocride/Ti Ventidue on the right:



The more standard-style resin Ventidues are gold nibbed as a general rule. If there's an exception, I haven't seen one, but I wasn't checking out pens during the changeover.

My Forget Me Not blue came with a 14k nib. Absolutely no flow issues with either the Cracked Ice or the Forget Me Not. I think they are both the redesigned model.
I liked the 14k nib but prefer the titanium nib that was on my Duetto. So I swapped nibs and now use the 22 with a titanium nib. It's got great flow (if anything too much flow), and the semi-flex nib is wonderful.

Forget me not and Tortoise are my two favorite.

I pondered about it alot for more than a week now and finally placed my order today - a Blueberry model with .9 Italic nib is on the way!!!!!!!!! Thanks everyone for your opinions.

I'll give it a try .

Anyway, if you look back at all of the reports you'll find very likely 3 to 5 different Ventidues that had this problem, specifically with the feed. Just that either the same people reported it over and over again, or that others repeated this over and over again. Most people don't tell you if something works as expected, they'll only tell you if it doesn't. Furthermore, on the internet this type of stuff spreads even more and faster than with any other medium. This means that you hear about 100 times more about bad things happening than good things.

When this all started happening a few years ago, I deliberately visited 4 B&M stores in the NL to inquire about this. At the time, the Ventidue was regarded as a mid-class fountain pen, certainly not a cheap pen, and had been avaialable for several years already. These shops did sell the Ventidue on a regular basis, and never had a single return.

So I think those feed problems essentially were just bad luck, rather than standard problems.

There is 1 thing that can be considered a problem with these pens, however, and that is the extreme flexibility of the titanium nib, something that Stipula and/or Bock did not take into account when designing the nib/feed assembly initially. Essentially, the nib is so flexible, that it lifts off th efeed very, very easily, with relatively little pressure. Lift-off obviously stops the ink from flowing to the point, and therefore causes skipping. Over here in the NL there were very little problems with that, because peopel do know how to use a fountain pen; people still get taught at school to write with fountain pens, and thsi si also true for most other West-European countries. I can imagine, however, that anybody who starts using a fountain pen without prior knowledge of these types of pens, may press too hard, and thus cause the nib to lift from the feed, which then causes skipping. Add to that the reports of feed problems, and a legend is born, or at least reinforced.

At a later stage the feed was adjusted for the Ventidue, to cater better for the fact that these titanium nibs are so flexible - essentially, ink flow was increased with later production runs.

Now, let's say you'd receive a pen with a flawed feed; that is always a possibility of course. The thing to do is to agree with the seller that in that case you can send the pen back, and get a refund, or a new pen.

In short:
- there were a few Ventidues with feed problems, faulty feeds essentially, which caused severe ink flow problems
- the titanium nib is very flexible, and lifts off the feed very easily when pressing a little too hard - this causes skipping
- the original feed design of the Ventidue did not take the flexibility of the titanium nib into account; somewhat later in the production of this pen the feed was altered to increase the ink flow, to minimize skipping problems caused by nib lift-off
- in The NL at least there seem to be no reports of Ventidues with problems

HTH, warm regards, Wim

Thanks Wim - The one on the way for me has the 14k nib and is apparently the newest version. I will let everyone know how it writes when I get it.

JK

Hi JK. I have a Fine nib 14kt Ventidue in White Mistletoe. I wear and use this pen daily. I absolutely love it. Ink reserve that lasts forever and it writes really well. I had the nib replaced. I originally had a medium and found the line to thick for me.

Enjoy.

Dave

Not only them: the whole Ventidue series is no more in production, and few pieces left (latest news from Stipula head office)

Oh no!

The Ventidue was a great entry-level gold-nibbed pen. Now it seems there's nothing between the Vedo (street price in the US: around $100) and the Etruria (street price in the US: $400-500).

Now even better. I caught all the pieces left at Stipula head office, and a great close-out sale is now running...

Probably late in the blog but I own the Stipula Ventidue and shopped around until I found the titanium version. Seems something was lost in the translation of maitaining the ventidue story with the gold nib. I have the cracked white version with the italic 1.1 nib. I simply adore this pen and love the way it writes.