A Query About Visconti Opera Honey Almond Fountain Pen

[parban]

I purchased one new Visconti Opera Honey Almond Fountain Pen about two years ago paying a high price from ebay. It had a mototone 14K nib that wrote smoothly.The box was a standard one with a booklet.

 

But the grip section regularly left ink marks inside the cap from the very first day. I also found that the area encirling the nib and feed was always wet and thats why that messs happened. A semitransperant body with such traces of ink looks bad and the hazard of regular cleaning and drying eventually became unbearable. Out of frustation I sold that pen at a throw away price.

 

I came to know from FPN posts that some other users have also faced the above problem of having ink mark inside the cap for this pen.

 

The beauty of the pen compelled me to find out another, and this time I decided to ink it rarely and just enjoy having it in possession. At last I found one new old stock at a very reasonable price. This pen has bicolour 14k medium nib producing wet lines very very smoothly. It came in a Visconti leather box and ink bottle. Interestingly it doesnt have that wetness around the nib area after getting inked and that ink trace problem is not there at all! It has been in continuous use for several days. I also found a serial number for the pen in the booklet which was to be written on the warranty card.

 

It seems to me that this pen is from an earlier date of production when Visconti's quality control was much better. Could anybody explain the mystery? Does any one have similar experience about opera honey almond or any other opera semitransperant fountain pen?

 

Thanks to all.

 

[lterry]

I purchased one when they first came out. It is a single tone gold nib and I haven't had any leaking issues!