Informal Review - Wing Sung 500

[sanyalsoumitra]

A handwritten review and some photos. welcome comments.

Warm regards

Soumitra

 

 

 

 

 

[bob_hayden]

I have two of these and gave one to my sister. They are brushed metal with cranes, plain brushed metal, and painted dark green. Finish is a bit rough. For example if you run a fingernail along the side of the clip, it feels unfinished. However, they look quite nice from a short distance away.

 

The nibs on mine are very fine and rather scratchy. Although the nibs have some flex, they do not show much variation in line width with pressure, and you have to keep the pressure very light anyway because of the scratchyness. I like these for marginal notes but not extended writing.

 

The flats on the section are quite mild. Usually I don't like them but these are OK. The flats on the Lamy Safari make that pen extremely uncomfortable for me.

 

Mine seem to take Parker cartridges rather than the international ones that most Chinese pens like. Actually, most Wing Sungs won't take any cartridge. Parker does not offer many colors and I do not like their blue or black or blue/black but red, green, and turquoise are fine though hard to find. I have not tried Lamy cartridges or the Monteverde or generic cartridges (eBay) for Lamy pens. Together those give a fairly wide choice of colors. (Lamy cartidges fit some Parker pens -- not most of the Vectors I have.)

[bob_hayden]

Since I responded more than two years ago these pens have become favorites. Use has smoothed the nibs and I find they do indeed work with Lamy-shaped cartridges, which opens up the possible use of cartidges from Lamy, Monteverde, and the very cheap ones from Thornton you can find on eBay. I have since added a red one which is sort of a candy apple metallic red and another that I think was described as blue but is hard to tell from black. If you like the red, green, or blue/black, they are still avaialbe on eBay for as little as $3 in lots of ten. I got mine from jewelrymathematics with whom I have done lots of business and always been satisfied.

 

The model with cranes and the golden one seem to have vanished from eBay. There is now an all-black one with squiggly lines engraved on it for more money. Could be the same squiggles as the golden one.

Edited August 21, 2016 by bob_hayden

[bob_hayden]

...and the Hero 50 is very similar with a slightly better nib.

[bob_hayden]

Back again a year later with another update. During that time I have had the pleasure of using several Yiren 358 and Wing Sung (or WingS) 78G clones. These offer F to XF nibs with a lot less tooth than the 500 (or the very similar Hero 50). But I would have to say the older pens are more toothy than scratchy. By that I mean that they do not catch on the paper, or offer random, unpredictable resistance. But they do have a somewhat gritty feel and offer significant but predictable resistance in all directions. For nibs, I would probably prefer the newer pens, though not by a wide margin. The old models are not bad -- just different. The main advantage to the old ones is that they are made of metal and so are likely to last much longer. And they look like real fountain pens, not toys. You can still get green 500s on eBay in the US of A for as little as $3 each in quantity. But there are only four listings now, and prices have gone way up from other sellers.