I held back from buying a new Apogee in hopes of seeing them come online as second-hand sales. I haven't seen many at all, and wonder: Were sales of new pens weak from the get-go?

A related question: Were buyers so well satisfied that they just aren't letting go of them?

So what do you think?

Well, I like mine, although I had Richard adjust the nib. It is a hefty pen (weight) which is quite a contrast to my Pelikan 400 and others that are light, but similar in weight to my Rotring 600.

I bought the black one and keep thinking about the titian red... *sigh* and the others....

Short version: Mine is not coming up for sale.

I really want(ed) the red one too, but I've also wondered if the chrome version might stand the test of time better. The chrome finishes on my Century pen / pencil set is quite durable. I suppose the Titian Red lacquer is like that on my Townsend (green / gold finish): really first-rate.

R

I have the Frosty Steel in a medium nib. It's been inked once.

It was an impulse buy...

I don't like the feel of it and should probably get rid of it because the other pens in the case that get used make fun of the Apogee.

So far we have one post supportive and one non-supportive of the product. Anyone else?
Hmmmmm..........

I prefer my Apogee to my Townsend. There's something quirky about the design and undersized nib that appeals to me, and it certainly writes well.

However, when posted you end up with quite a short pen with a lot of weight. I can see how some people would be put off by that, but I think it balances quite nicely.

I have the titan red. I love the weight and the colour and it writes superbly (unlike the user that makes chicken scratch marks on the paper )


http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/in...st&id=25482

What's not to love

David

Currently loaded with Waterman Purple - lovely colour, although I'm debating about a brown or turqouise

I have the Frosty Steel with a med nib. It's too scratchy and it's too heavy. It was my first expensive pen and I was disappointed with the results. I've thought about selling it, however I've seen similar models listed in the FS forum for $70-90 in the last few months and none of sold. Since I paid a lot more than that I haven't bothered to post it. Shrug. Maybe interest will pick up in the future or maybe not.

I have been looking at one of these for a while. One came up on FPN for $50. I should have snapped it up, but I faffed about too long and it went. Then I missed another on eBay UK.

I have got to the stage where I have realised that I like modern flexy nibs or stubs so there is probably little point shelling out on an Apogee, but I am still intrigued!

Andy, I think you could stub an Apogee and have a really nice pen. The short, wide section would seem completely in character with a stub line...

I found one in that Staccato Chrome several weeks ago. I believe that was just about the time that they'd gone on discontinued markdown from the factory. I'd happened to have glanced at that same online seller two days in a row, and the Apogee was $150 on the first day, and half that the next.

So I grabbed it.

I had wanted one for a while, but I was more intrigued with the idea of it, which is to say the idea of an upmarket Cross pen because I was so thoroughly enjoying the titanium Townsend I was given as a gift a few weeks prior. Of course, that isn't the soundest of reasons to drop seventy-five clams on a pen, especially with that critical corner of one's conscience always harping about how one store brand ballpoint at Wal-Mart can be had for about thirty-nine cents, and it'll write letters and numbers as clear as any way more expensive pen. But then, I wouldn't be handing a store brand ballpoint to my daughter in fifteen or sixteen years on the day she goes off to college, either.

I won't be putting my Apogee up for sale any time soon, and most likely never will, because I really enjoy the better Cross pens (my new ATX is fantastic---but if you'd like to buy or trade for my two-year-old Aventura, gimme a holler). Also this Apogee has performed exceptionally since the moment I unpacked it and inked it up. Any pen fan, especially if they are any species or another of writer, can really "click" with a pen when it fits their hand. And this Apogee fits my hand perfectly; the weight is just right, the length is a tiny bit short, but the heft and balance make the length seem perfect. And the actual writing of the Cross fine nib is, in a word, amazing. I've blown past my bedtime at least half a dozen times in the past two months because I was writing with my Apogee while working on this or that manuscript and the time just disappeared.

As an aside, Cross's Chrome Staccato styling on the Apogee sort of puts me in mind of an art deco kind of thing, which may seem a stretch, but I don't have much of an eye for that kind of thing in the first place. And because my ultimate-goal fountain pen is the F. Scott Fitzgerald Montblanc, for now I'm enjoying a sort of entry-level version of that pen with all its roaring twenties/Gatsby-esque goodness in this Staccato Apogee. And like I said, this pen writes so perfectly it almost makes you not need or---gasp---want another pen, anyway.

For me, the Apogee writes well as a ballpoint AND as a fountain pen, so, heh, as long as I have mine . . . you know. The model still seems to be available. In my book, the Apogee is a nice amalgam of some of Cross's past models until the time of the Ap'.

The ones I have came in a black Cross box/jewel box. Now, as I understand it, the box is brown. Wonder how much a black box for the Apogee (for any Cross pen, for that matter) would be cherished?

I used to work in a brick&mortar pen store outside of Chicago and kept really good records of my sales. I sold a lot of Apogee rollerball pens, but very few fountain pens. The weight and dinky nib seemed to turn most people off, although the fountain pen writes very nicely.

Both my fp and my bp came in black boxes and they were certainly shown with black boxes on the Cross site. I think the black boxes might have superseded the brown ones.

Well, I broke down and bought one, a Frosty Steel in M. Wow -- this is a very, very nice pen. I've sketched a formal review that I'll post after revisions take place, but for now my curiosity has been very well satisfied. This pen's a keeper.

I keep wondering: What will Cross do to supersede the Apogee? I'll be waiting.......

I got my Apogee second hand off of ebay. I just sent it in to Cross for repairs and it came back in perfect condition. This is a keeper.

I was meeting with the Cross representative today, and she told me that the Apogee is a very good seller. It's still a relatively new design, which may explain why you don't see as many of them on the secondary market.

It did sell well; that's why I couldn't resist buying one even if it was second-hand.

Must be quite successful, since cross.com now has an "Apogee Executive" collection, with fp's in sterling silver and gold-plate.

But I still think the nib should be 1.5x to 2x as large on such a wide pen.

-Mike

I think increasing the size of the nib would have required also increasing the size of the cap at the narrow end.

I also wonder if a larger nib would lose some of the flexibility of the current nib.

I ultimately resisted buying one: the nib was good but not as nice as my Carene, and the rear of the pocket clip was sharp and felt unfinished.

Nice, but only at half the price perhaps.

Hi - I've had an Apogee (chrome) since March 07 - for ages I used cartridge ink in it and it worked just fine. However, has anyone else found that when using the converter the ink flow becomes pretty awful?
I'm using Pelikan 4001 Blue Black Ink and the flow is really poor - as soon as I put the cartridge back in its fine again (despite Cross branded ink being made by Pelikan!).
Anyone else have the same problems?

Chris

Flush the converter out with a warm water/dish soap mixture a few times and see if that helps. Also the bottled and cartridge inks are a different formula.

I never use cartridges and my Apogee is fine.

Apogees are £50 (USD100) on ebayUK, but seem to go for much more used on here!?

It makes a change for things to work out like that here. I was looking at Roxio Toast Titanium for Mac. They have an interesting pricing structure: -

US Boxed $99 (less $20 mail in rebate)
US Download $99
UK Download $140

The Ben Dover pricing model I believe! No wonder people rip off software!

Edited for spillong

I bought a RB in black/silver and I love it. I got it on eBay for 42 + shipping so I couldn't pass it up. If it were a fountain, I think it'd be too heavy for my liking.

Anyone know how fine the lines are from a cross apogee if it has an extra fine nib? I'm curious if it will write as fine a line as my rotring 600 that has an EF nib. The Rotring writes at the same size as the XF line width on Richard Binder's nib size chart.