I wanted to check with my fellow Visconti addicts. I just returned from the Post Office after sending out a grail pen to Ken Jones to swap for a stub nib. Granted my sample size for the 18k B nibs has only been 2 pens, but the last the seller was kind enough to swap nibs and the new one STILL exhibited problems after extended use. I'd say 3 problem B nibs out of 3 is not good.

The first was a Ripple I managed to acquire around Christmas. It came with a VERY scratchy B nib which Ken test drove at a local pen show and swapped for the stub that got me hooked.

The second was a Romanica [yes, I managed to get one without selling my car!]. Not just the black and silver, but the glorious vermeil with the lovely enamel work The first nib wouldn't lay ink at all. The seller had me return it and swapped it for another B nib. That one wrote perhaps a half page, then would unexpectedly begin to skip and continue to do so. NOT what one expects for pens with list prices climbing above $2k USD This is the pen I'm sending to Ken to trade the B for a stub.

Has anyone else experienced 18k B nibs and anything similar? Or did I find the deals of the century on these pens BECAUSE of the nib problems? I test drove an M nib Romanca at the same time and it was glorious. Almost enough to make me go back to M nibs. Almost. But not quite.

Now I've got more 14k Bs than I care to admit and none, absolutely NONE of them ever acted like this. I'm a Visconti addict. But the postage, insurance, delivery confirmation, etc on top of the ghastly prices [even at less than 1/3 list ] is painful. These beauties should write out of the box if someone's dropping a mortgage payment on them.

Your dilemma strikes me as doubly disconcerting. First, Visconti making problem nibs. And second, those problem nibs being "B's." More often than not, even if a company happens to make some rough EF or even F nibs, the B nibs tend to glide effortlessly over paper. Given the price of the pens involved, I would be irked, too. I really look forward to the response you get.

I have a question, and please don't flame me! Who is Ken Jones? I don't know the name. Is he the U.S. Visconti guru?

Ken Jones is the national sales manager for Visconti and is helping intensely in their fight to turn things around and produce quality pens. Absolutely he is the Visconti in US guru. Good question!

It baffles me too as their nibs are so luscious on all the other pens, even the steel nibs, that to find the top of the line flagships having problems with the B nibs of all things is what led me to post. I'm currently test driving a luscious LE with an 18k M and it's blissful, which makes things even more confusing.

I'm wondering if it was the year these LEs were produced, or whether the bad nibs have flowed downhill to the discounters or what. I await enlightenment from those with longer collecting histories.

I am sure Ken Jones is a great guy. But what concerns me in general is the attitude of the U.S. distributors of so many European pen companies to be just distributors. They often don't know much about their products save how to repair them. They don't test anything. They'll exchange things like: Ok, customer x is dissatisfied with part y1 of pen z. Therefore, I will send part y2 out to him or her and see if that solves the problem. I wished, these people would actively test such things as nibs before sending them out. My own very irksome experiences with the Omas reps in the U.S. speak volumes about these practices. An exorbitant amount of politeness doesn't resolve any problems unfortunately. Only knowledge and hands-on experience do! I can only think that most of these distributors mostly deal with people who are not as much users as we on here usually are. The only real hands-on approach I know about is implemented by the Pelikan service (Chartpak) and their technician(s).

I remember PMing you about the issues my own Visconti stub was having laying down a consistent line. I haven't followed up on it yet (been busy). I was going to try a flush and screw the nib assembly in and out again just in case something got messed up when the nib was swapped.

What a disappointment!

I have two Visconti 18K B nibs and one 18K stub. All the B nibs have been reground by Greg Minuskin to stub/CI. However, all of the nibs had excellent flow and were very smooth before the regrind. The most I wrote at a sitting was probably 2-3 pages. I bought all pens from Ben Djiridjian who swapped in the B or S nibs for me (he no longer stocks the S nibs).

Are Visconti nibs made by Bock?

Good luck and I hope your next nib will be perfect. Getting hooked on S nibs is worse than getting hooked on B nibs - in my experience, stubs are even harder to find.

mehitabel

Thanks for the intel, Mehitabel.

My only hope of stubs at the mo' appears to be Ken Jones as my local bricks and mortar only carries M and F at full retail. They tell me they'd have to order them from Ken themselves, so I might as well save myself a thousand or so and get the best deal, then send in for a swap.

I was just flabbergasted that every high end B nib that crossed my hands seemed to have problems. I was fortunate enough to find someone with B nibs, but then experienced the ultimate frustration of BOTH being flawed.

I'm not sure who makes their 18k nibs - will have to ask. Just assumed Bock.

That was going to be my question: Who makes their nibs? If it is Bock I am most interested since Bock makes Bexley's 18k nibs. I own 17 Bexleys and I've not had a problem with any save for one: An 18k broad in a Molteni Antonella. I have one other 18k Bexley broad and several 18k Bexley stubs, but have had no problems with any of them. The broad in my Antonella, however, suffers from ink starvation and once the ink in the feed is finished after the initial filling it doesn't seem to draw any ink from the converter; if I gently shake the pen I can get the ink flowing again. The only other pen I've experienced this problem with is a medium nib in my Taccia Imperial Portuguese, but this is a steel nib. Nevertheless, the feed in the Taccia could be made by the same company that makes the feed in the Visconti and Bexley nibs. Taccia has sent me two nib assemblies to replace the original, but all have suffered from ink starvation; a third replacement nib assembly is on its way from Taccia. I have a Visconti Van Gogh Maxi with a medium nib and it is a lovely writer. Anyway, it would be interesting to find out if the feeds for the Visconti 18k broad, the Bexley 18k broad and the Taccia steel come from the same manufacturer. If Bock is the nib maker I'm not sure it follows that Bock makes the feeds, but they may.

Indeed Ken Jones is very adept at customer service and warrants kudos in this industry.While i have had 5 Visconti's over the last few years,all have been M or F nibs with only one proving to have issues,which Ken promptly corrected. While i agree that all companies have issues,i echo omasfan in in the above post.The world's pen manufacturers(with a few exceptions) are simply becoming neutral shippers and not delivering intelligent customer service.
When an extra 2 minutes of time to test a nib and confirm that it indeed works is scrapped,they costs themselves more money and time due to returned nibs and pens and countless dissatisfied customers who complain and tell others.THAT is not good business.
How does it go:Do something good,your customer tells 10 people.Do something bad,he tells 100.

I like Visconti and will continue to unless major events change that.But they had better improve in quality control or their reputation will suffer.
Omas has shown us what this can be like as they probably have a worse reputation now than ever due to sloppy customer service and even more so it's repair system.

Jim

I hate to report that the Romanica returned home not as I wish. The glorious new stub is acting ink starved. Not even loosening the back end so the ink can flow freely cured the problem. I'll be contacting Ken to see what he recommends. Thank goodness I had the Ripple stub first so I know what a good pen SHOULD write like. I'm running my usual Private Reserve, so it's not an ink problem [other than the lack flowing off the business end].

Sorry to hear that. I think I'll just swap nibs on my Mazzi until you get your issue resolved, then I'll know what to do.

I'll let you know what Ken suggests. I'm hoping it's something glaringly simple. I've flushed it. Using PR as I usually do. Unscrewed the tail end for uninterrupted flow to the front chamber.

The original B nib was wet enough - until it skipped a word or 3. This is definitely ink starvation. Plenty on board. Gonna let it sit and see if that soaks anything thru that might have crept in during the swap.

The Ripple floats over the page and flows with the usual Visconti juiciness. I want the lovely flow I get with that.

This is just dragging. Such a beautiful pen and saved for so long... Waaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Ken's taking a well deserved vacation and will be back next week. I'm going to wait for his wisdom, as I have faith in his ability to sort any problem.