What pen was your biggest disapointment ?

[tomkeb]

My first FP – Lamy Safari with an EF nib, I definitely expected EF to be much finer; also it was scratchy and skipping. It delayed my FP addiction for a year, until a Japanese F nib gave me the thickness I looked for.

[fncll]

Amazing. Not only have I almost never had a Lamy nib that needed to be tweaked for alignment or the like (one out of maybe a dozen so far), but my main complaints are 1) the EF is more like a F or F/M -- but that seems to be pretty common knowledge, and 2) the nibs are sometimes TOO smooth...almost, if not literally, squeaky smooth!

[Sailor Kenshin]

Amazing. Not only have I almost never had a Lamy nib that needed to be tweaked for alignment or the like (one out of maybe a dozen so far), but my main complaints are 1) the EF is more like a F or F/M -- but that seems to be pretty common knowledge, and 2) the nibs are sometimes TOO smooth...almost, if not literally, squeaky smooth!

 

My first Safari was a lemon like the above poster's. Yeah, it happens...if not for the people here and elsewhere I wouldn't have tried another. But all my Safaris since then have been fine.

[Penne Stilografiche]

The Omas 360 Magnum was a disappointment for me... The Broad 18k gold nib writes so beautifully but the triangular section just doesn't agree with my fingers. I can write for about 5 minutes with it before it starts to become uncomfortable. It's the only Omas pen that I was ever disappointed with. I was also disappointed with my Parker Vector because it skips constantly, but I wasn't expecting much from a $15 pen.

Edited July 23, 2013 by collectiblepens.com

[Vendome]

The couple of Parker 51s I've tried. Not my type of writing instrument.

[georges zaslavsky]

waterman serenite and waterman exception, worst modern pens ever made by waterman. Stiff nib, crappy baionet closing system, ugly colors and drop in quality of built

[pajaro]

Montblanc 146. Might have been repaired with a bad feed--skips.

[Johnson]

So funny about Lamys. I have been through so many Lamys, since I love their simplistic design and have wanted to love them. I've had a handful of 2000s and Studios, and all of them have suffered from "mushy nib" syndrome. They felt like I was writing with a bad felt tip pen. But hey, plenty of people love them, more power to those that do.

 

Strangely, the only Lamy I had that wrote well was a Safari. The nib was hard and precise and pretty much perfect.

[Felix1]

Not sure about "biggest" disappointment but will most recent work for ya?

 

Bexley 2013 Owner's Club pen (stock Stub). Wrote terribly and looked even worse when I examined it under a 15x loupe. Reportedly Howard Levey hand sets every OC nib but if he did this one he didn't test it afterwards.

 

Sent it in and came back with a new Bock nib which writes like a dream. Only problem I've had with a Bexley, they are typically bulletproof.

[JessR45]

Let me see, this brings back painful memories :

 

1) Omas Emotica - M Nib, scratchy, skippy, too dry for my taste, had high hopes for the titanium nib, having missed out of the Limited Edition model

 

2) Omas 360 Blue Celluloid - M nib ... as above, however, my 360 demonstrator is spectacular for my writing preferences

 

3) Montegrappa Duetto Espressione - M Nib... as above

 

4) Montegrappa Miya (Yellow) - M Nib .... behaved like a diva: wonderfully smooth and juicy at times, but most times annoyingly skips and starts. Interestingly, my other Miya (a Red) M Nib wrote perfect from the get go, delightfully wet and super smooth with a nice gentle flex. Oh, well

 

5) Porsche Design P'310 - M Nib... wrote ok, but the all metal body kept slipping from my preferred grip (my fault).

 

6) Sailor 1911 Green Demonstrator - M Nib, too dry for my taste. Pretty reliable though. Ultimately for me this did not have much life and I got bored with the way it writes. I like the pen though, so I will have this pen tuned.

 

Thanks,

Jess

[Houston]

Edison Nouveau Premiere, probably. ... I would contact Brian about it and see if I could get it tuned, but after three out-of-box disappointments, I am not very motivated to spend money to ship my nib overseas. Part of me thinks I should order a broad and have someone with good tolerances grind it down to something I'd enjoy.

 

Me, too, I'm sorry to say. Of my three most disappointing pens, two have been Edisons. I know Brian makes great pens. The raves on FPN attest to that. I just got two that didn't write well for me: inconsistent, skippy and dry-ish. And because I was so looking forward to my first Edison experiences, the gap between expectation and actual performance left me crestfallen. One of the two Edisons is among the most beautiful pens I own, but I rarely pick it up.

 

Brian has always been responsive on email, but I'm in the same situation as XiaoMG. Living outside the US makes any customer service transaction that involves physical shipment prohibitively expensive.

 

The third in my trio of disappointments was a Marlen. Gorgeous pen. Gorgeous nib -- made even more gorgeous by John Mottishaw. But a feed that two different repairers have told me is designed so poorly that it isn't fixable. It was a gift from a dear friend, so I haven't been able to bring myself to dispose of it, but every time I look at it I sigh with melancholy.

[Hawker]

My biggest recent disappointment came courtesy of a new red Italian Marlen Basilea. The Basilea is not cheap with current new prices in excess of the $400 mark. My first disappointment is that It came with a 'fine' nib that writes a line that is closer to a broad. The Basilea's filling system is a 'captured converter'. My second gripe is that the cheap-feeling knob of the converter rattles against the barrel, with or without the blind cap screwed on.

 

There were some positives as the pen is handsome (purely subjective of course), has a size and balance that appeals, and offers a very generous ink flow from a very smooth nib - a feature for which Marlen is apparently renowned.

 

I'm glad that I only paid around 65% of the full price as the seller was having a clearance sale. I would have been really miffed if I had paid the full amount.

 

Living in a rural town Downunder means that I have to decide on my pen purchases purely from reviews, photographs, Internet research and offshore suppliers. Most of the time I am more than pleased with the outcome, but every now and again something comes along that didn't turn out as expected. C'est la vie ...

Edited July 27, 2013 by Hawker

[arran]

A Nakaya palmet with F flexible nib , which was extremely scratchy and unusable.

Under the loupe , the nib was totally misaligned.

I had to send the pen back to Japan via my retailer.Just a bit curious how long this will last!!

This pen made a change in my head on quality control of Nakaya pens.

Also have the impression that Nakayas are less consistent in nib quality than the platinum nibs.

[Capt. Pat]

Monteverde MegaBall -- it never worked right

[brewsky]

Twsbi diamond 530, an unpopular opinion I know. Thing felt cheap and the nib was terrible. I've since sold it off and won't purchase from twsbi again.

[j1020]

My Montblanc 149. Factory serviced just before I bought it, it is slow to start up, often skips on the first letter of words and sentences and has poor ink flow. Took it in to a Montblanc boutique on Thursday and they sending it back to Ft. Worth for adjustment. There will be no charge because it is under 1 yr. warranty. It is a medium nib an using different inks made no difference.

[georges zaslavsky]

My Montblanc 149. Factory serviced just before I bought it, it is slow to start up, often skips on the first letter of words and sentences and has poor ink flow. Took it in to a Montblanc boutique on Thursday and they sending it back to Ft. Worth for adjustment. There will be no charge because it is under 1 yr. warranty. It is a medium nib an using different inks made no difference.

You should get the inkflow adjusted by masumaya or mottishaw

[fjf]

My aurora optima demo. Flow problems, and now this:

 

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c112/fj1121/IMG_20160115_193315_zpscmqdhhrm.jpg

[jmccarty3]

Visconti Blue Ocean: the tubular chromium nib is an absolute nail, although I have to give it credit for smoothness and the Waverley upswing at the tip. The double reservoir power filler with mosquito attachment is intriguing and does allow you to get the last drop of ink out of a bottle, but the writing reservoir doesn't hold much, and you have to refill it from the main reservoir too often. This system is very difficult to clean, so you have to stick to "safe" inks like Waterman Serenity Blue or Sheaffer Blue.

 

My other disappointment was the OMAS 360. I am a left-handed underwriter, and the triangular gripping section doesn't work at all. If they had made the nib and feed rotatable, like the Parker 75, they would have had a winner. As it was, I sold it.

[ScienceChick]

A Levenger TrueWriter. The thing just would not write - almost impossible to start and, if you could get it to start, would just stop after a word or three. I had it worked on three times and it would be better for a few minutes and then go back to its old, evil ways. Garbage.