Conklin Mark Twain Fountain Pen

[river1]

Mark Twain says:

"I prefer it to ten other fountain pens, because it carries its filler in its own stomach, and I cannot mislay even by art or intention. Also, I prefer it because it is a profanity saver; it cannot roll off the desk."

 

In the mail sometime this week, my first Conklin should be added to my collection of pens. It is a Mark Twain fountain pen in black and rose gold with a 1.1 stubby nib. It just looked good in the pictures and the push to load crescent may be an easier way of loading or keeping the nib wet between uses, I'm thinking. Does anyone have any experience with this pen and have you been happy with it?

 

 

[PatientType]

These have been out for awhile. If you do a search you'll find a number of threads on the various Conklin Mark Twain fountain pens.

Personally, I don't see the Conklin Mark Twain pens, overall, as a terrific value of extremely high quality. They're a decent fountain pen... I have had one of better steel nib versions, perhaps comparable to yours but it wasn't black with rose gold color trim. I still have a gold nib, somewhat upscale version. It's kind of cool to have a crescent fill pen but I tend to use my converter fill and piston fill more regularly for day to day writing.

I guess I should add ... the primary reason for that is that I find the crescent fill a little more time consuming to clean between ink changes - much like lever fill pens. Converters and piston fill are quicker to completely rinse of ink.

Edited March 27, 2014 by PatientType

[river1]

That is a great suggestion, using a converter. While most of my pens are cartridges, several like the Online, Delta, and Labans are converter fill and piston fill. A friend sold two bottles of Mont Blanc in the impressive looking bottle which sits on my desk and looks rather important. I dip my Delta to wet the nib in the new Mont Blanc to start everything working.

 

The Mark Twain will be the second with a stubby nib. Also, after reading your comments, my old Parker with the metal squeeze was just cleaned and returned to action; it has a 14 K gold nib with 585 England inscribed. It writes like magic, for me, and seems to be somewhere between medium/fine? Generally, the mediums work better.

 

Anyway, thank you so much for the reply, candor, and suggestions.

[river1]

"The Conklin Mark Twain I kept is one of the celluloid butterscotch crescents with solid silver furniture. It has a two-color 14K nib and right now it's loaded with Apache Sunset. Here's a photo..."

 

Just found your excellent review from Aug. 2010. Exchanging thoughts with folks who own and use the same pen is more fun that reading from a search but there were 384 results in 0.2 seconds....did not read all of them yet

[GUNGA GALUNGA]

These have been out for awhile. If you do a search you'll find a number of threads on the various Conklin Mark Twain fountain pens.

Personally, I don't see the Conklin Mark Twain pens, overall, as a terrific value of extremely high quality. They're a decent fountain pen... I have had one of better steel nib versions, perhaps comparable to yours but it wasn't black with rose gold color trim. I still have a gold nib, somewhat upscale version. It's kind of cool to have a crescent fill pen but I tend to use my converter fill and piston fill more regularly for day to day writing.

I guess I should add ... the primary reason for that is that I find the crescent fill a little more time consuming to clean between ink changes - much like lever fill pens. Converters and piston fill are quicker to completely rinse of ink.

I could not agree with you more. Mine leaks like sub with a screen door

[Scribblesoften]

I have one of the new Conklin crescent fillers. It has a steel nib. I had to change out the nib because I could not separate the tines enough to start ink flow. Once I got a new nib in there it worked well enough but the crescent back weighted the pen a bit. I seldom use it. I hope you have a better experience than I did.

[Tas]

I've had my Zebra version for a few weeks and am head over heals with it.

Easy one of my smoothest nibs and one of my favourite writers. Holds a ton of ink and the nib screws out for easy flushing & cleaning.

 

I never thought I'd want two of the same pen but if I see a demonstrator for the right price I know I won't be able to resist.

 

Enjoy and post some pics for us when you get it