http://novelli.it/limited/limitedfin.asp?p...=Fountain%20Pen
plus:
http://novelli.it/limited/limitedfin.asp?p...=Fountain%20pen
which results in:
http://picasaweb.google.com/ericzamir/ViscontiNovelli
So, it's a Wall Street LE in Titanic celluloid, in a limited edition of 300, apparently. That said, the pen is un-numbered.
(Web pages attributed in their addresses.)
It arrived in a Visconti plastic 'tube'* with an instruction booklet in brand new condition from a first class seller. (*The Visconti box is so awful, you just wouldn't want one.)
First impression was that, at 6", it's big, but no longer than, say, my oversize Dunhill AD 2000. Posted, however, it's 7 1/4", which is much longer than the Dunhill. That doesn't account for the Visconti's 'bigness', however, because it's still no longer posted than, say, a 1940s' De La Rue.
Second impression was that, just like my Visconti non-LE Wall Street, it's very well made, indeed. Very.
Third, it's heavy. (And with its enormous main reservoir filled, it's heavier still.) But the weight doesn't make it big.
Finally, I realised that it's big (and heavy) because it has a big (and heavy) cap.
Whatever the merits or demerits of this cap, the celluloid of the cap, barrel, section and blind cap is remarkable. The flat, almost liquid, rich blue exterior reveals a brown, crystalline interior. Like Tibaldi celluloid, this has depth and it really seems as if you can see into the material. A little disconcerting, actually.
The two-tone, again large, 'S' for stub nib was stuck up to the section into a bottle of Visconti ink, after the blind cap was unscrewed and the piston retracted, and the pen filled with one plunge of the piston and a five-second wait. Then, the pen wrote immediately, with no stutter, smoothly and wet.
In use, the nib reminds me of a slightly narrower version of a three-tined Platinum 'music'. This is not as strange as it may seem, because the Platinum nib is absolutely excellent and I use it a lot. (The pen has longitudinally seamed celluloid, which is a shock when you first see it, because the patterns at the joints just don't match, and the dome at each end, where the celluloid is fused, is poorly finished, but it's a very good writer. In contrast, the Visconti celluloid is immaculate.) The Visconti nib has some flex, but it's the stub tip itself that produces interesting line variation without pressure.
Now, back to the Visconti cap. Posting it produced a quick reaction: I took it off. Tried the pen unposted ... perfect ... then posted ... and took it off again. This cap is big and heavy, and it really seems to unbalance the pen. So, I shall either use the pen unposted or get used to it posted.
So, am I pleased? So far, very much. Particularly by the nib and the celluloid.
As for the filling system and cap weight, time will tell.
