Visconti Van Gogh 'pollard Willows' - How To Drive A Sales Person Mad :-)

[TheDutchGuy]

A week ago I accidentally discovered a batch of Visconti van Gogh's in a bookstore nearby, all priced at full retail. Thus far I've never given Visconti the time of day, because of their notoriously poor quality control. But seeing the whole range of van Gogh's on display, with their accompanying boxes (so you can see the similarity with the paintings), that took my breath away. I'm sensitive to certain colours and these colours really spoke to me. I like how each pen is different, yet closely matches the colours of the paintings. To avoid an impulse acquisition, I walked out to see if my interest would wane over the next week. It didn't. I read every review I could find about this pen and as always with Visconti, they were ranging from 'perfect' to 'atrocious'. But I did notice a higher ratio of positive feedback than usual.

 

So I went back after a week and had quite an interesting discussion with the sales person (bear in mind: this is a bookstore that sells the occasional pen, not a pen store). Basically I stated that in return for paying full retail, I wanted to:

-try every available pen to find the best nib, with a cartridge (i.e. not by dipping it into a bottle).

-mix and match nib, barrel and cap to get the nicest possible pen

-be able to return the pen within a week if something was amiss and then swap it immediately for another one (they normally send them to Italy so you're without a pen for 3 months).

My wishes led to various exclamations of disagreement, in turn expressing denial ("we've never had any problems with a Visconti!"), surprise ("we've never had a customer make such requests"), irritation, ignorance ("there is no difference in performance between a cartridge and dipping into a bottle!") and finally submission. A particularly noteworthy exchange occurred when I challenged them on their insistence to send all returned pens to Visconti instead of just swapping them, leaving the customer empty-handed for three months. They argued that with fountain pens, the nibs adjust themselves to the style of writing of its owner. I pointed out to them that whereas this might be true for some gold nibs, it is certainly not the case with the stainless steel nibs of the van Gogh's. This, however, was categorically dismissed as nonsense. Oh, well.

 

The display was emptied and away we went with nib #1. I limited myself to F nibs because my e's and p's tend to close up with M nibs. The sales person put in a Visconti Blue cartridge and proceeded to spend 6 quite unsuccessfull minutes getting the pen to write, at which point I offered to give it a try. I quickly got the pen to write, but it was a hard starter, a skipper, and bone dry. Next nib. Same issue. Next nib. Didn't write at all. Next nib. Ah, now we're getting somewhere. Smooth, no hard starts, no skips and still writing after a minute or so uncapped. But still dry. Given that pretty much all reviewers whose prose I consulted assessed the van Gogh as a wet pen, I assumed the dryness was due to this particular Visconti ink and/or to newness and not being cleaned. So I didn't regard this dryness as a disqualifier.

 

I then selected the nicest barrel and cap (an utterly subjective process of course), headed home, threw away the Visconti cartridge, flushed and cleaned the pen, put in the stock converter, filled it with Robert Oster Fire & Ice, zipped out Rhodia 80g and Oxford 90g notebooks, settled down with a coffee and then proceeded with the arduous process of discovering if I'd made a mistake with this pen.

 

I haven't.

 

Cosmetically, I adore this pen. I find it to be spectacularly beautiful. But if it hadn't been a very good writer, I'd have returned it instantly. Unlike the van Gogh painting that inspired it, this should be a functional instrument, not just something to look at. Given its price point, it should even be a supremely functional instrument, to the extent that its use inspires joy. It does that. And then some.

 

The steel nib is smooth but not soulless. I might even prefer it to the much-praised steel nib of my Diplomat Aero. Even reverse writing with the Visconti nib is a pleasure. The flow is wet, but just as I like it. Putting down a signature is not problem, the feed keeps up with the pace. The nib brings out the best qualities of Fire & Ice: lots of shading and a hint of reddish sheen.

 

On Rhodia, this nib is a close contender for 'best nib thus far in my humble 8-pen collection'. On this paper (which is my preferred paper) it writes like a M nib. On 90g Oxford paper, which is somewhat less smooth, the van Gogh is definitely a F writer, less wet, yet smooth, well-lubricated and with a nice hint of feedback.

 

Construction-wise, the pen seems solid. The steel section gives it some much-needed mass. There are metal threads inserted in the barrel. The clip seems sturdy. The various decorating rings are so-so and could've looked a a bit less, um, cheapish. The nib looks great, just how I like it.

 

We'll see how this pen holds up over time, as I intend to use it intensively at work as one of two real workhorses (the Diplomat being the other one).

 

As a final note, buying this pen means I'll have to postpone my planned acquisition of a Pilot Custom 823 from Japan. I've really wanted that pen, but it doesn't bother me at all at the moment. If I remain this happy with the van Gogh, then I might not even need the Pilot (as good as it might be, and no doubt the Pilot is very very good).

Edited March 17, 2018 by TheDutchGuy

[farazqamar]

congrats...yours looks a lot nicer than mine but then i had to order mine from Italy and there is only so much you can tell the shop over email. I love both this model and the starry night. I have opted to put in palladium nibs in both and now it is a beautiful writing instrument.

[Ghost Plane]

Sounds like the shop staff got an education on the pens they carry as well. Good!

 

A Visconti steel nib was my gateway drug to the gold nibs of the day, so you have been warned. Lovely pen and should last you for years.

[TheDutchGuy]

I have opted to put in palladium nibs in both and now it is a beautiful writing instrument.

Visconti steel nib was my gateway drug to the gold nibs of the day

I'm curious why both of you upgraded just the nib, but I could definitely imagine upgrading the nib + feed + the ink channel leading to the feed. That last bit, that seems to be a weakness of this pen. All the nibs I tested in the store were bone dry with a cartridge, except for the one I bought. After two hours of writing with a converter, even my pen became dry-ish. It's not the feed itself. That feed has more than enough buffer capacity, it took a lot of writing before flow started to get noticeably less. Now that the surplus buffer capacity in the feed has been used up, the pen is at the point where the flow from the converter to the feed (not from the feed to the nib) determines the overall wetness - and it's barely enough. This is a lovely wet pen when the feed is buffering, which is the case for about 2 hours of writing after filling the converter by dipping it into the ink.

 

So just changing the nib will probably not improve the pen much. Also, I kind of like this nib. It's stainless steel, but the most flexible stainless steel I've ever had in a nib. It's remarkably easy to create line variation with this nib.

 

Out of curiosity: how did you change the nib and for what? And how do you take this pen apart, should it be needed?

[Ghost Plane]

I don’t buy these horrible later models that replaced the fabulous discontinued Van Gogh Maxi. That pen boasted a 14kt gold nib of similar size and performance to a Montblanc 149 and a lovely chunky c/c filler. My original steel nib was on the Pericles back in the 90s, a sturdy entry level pen that somehow never caught on.

 

I’m a writer looking for pens that will effortlessly perform for hours under their own weight. Flex is anethema to me as it requires shoving nibs into the page to get calligraphic effects best achieved by dip pens rather than seeking the fastest, most effortless writing. I’m not after a bulldozer nib, but the fighter plane version that floats across the page. So in any discussion involving flex, we are talking apples and oranges.

 

I belong to those who can write for decades without disassembling a pen and only then because something is catastrophically broken. So here I bow out of the conversation.

[TheDutchGuy]

If you only knew how much I write during a workday... page after page... I like effortless writers that lay down quite a bit of ink. I admit that I primarily bought this Visconti for its looks, and it will take some tinkering before it writes like I want it to. Impressions so far are quite positive. By no means would I call this "a horrible pen." Even compared to the most recent FPN pen (a colleague has one), which is a very very high end pen costing 1300, I would call this van Gogh a decent pen. But to each his own.

[Ghost Plane]

My apologies. By comparison to the earlier models only. They’re still good pens. I’m simply spoiled by having found the perfect pens for me. Sounds like you have now done likewise for you.

[KellyMcJ]

Wow!!! That's a gorgeous pen!!!

 

As a side note, I certainly hope that the salesperson knows how to (and understands the necessity of) cleaning the pens that you tested later. I can only imagine the conversations later between employee and supervisor/other employees.

[TheDutchGuy]

@Ghost Plane: no apologies needed, I was not offended :-). Pens are personal. This van Gogh is by no means my best pen. I simply fell in love with it. Personally I don't insist on gold nibs; I really love some steel nibs and the steel nib in this van Gogh is right up my alley. I will need to find a solution for the reduced ink flow from converter to feed however. The pen is running on fumes.

 

@KellyMcJ: thanx!

[WmEdwards]

And how many Visconti's did you have to go through to find one that did not skip and hard start?

[TheDutchGuy]

And how many Visconti's did you have to go through to find one that did not skip and hard start?

The answer to that is in my first post above ---^ :-).

 

In fairness, the Van Gogh series are relatively cheap pens (at least by Visconti standards) and they've sold truckloads of them. These pens are probably machine-made and the nibs are probably outsourced, Long story short, QC of these pens probably isn't as bad as with some high-end Visconti's. My most robust and well-engineered pens are a Diplomat Aero and a Kaweco AL Sport. You can derail a train with those, and both are superb writers. This Visconti obviously isn't as bullet-proof, but it is as nicely made as, say, a Kaweco Dia2 - only much more beautiful. I used it at work today, did 6 or 7 pages A5 with it, and it's really nice. If the feed is buffering the ink like it is supposed to, the writing experience is probably the best of all my current pens (which, in fairness, counts to only 8 pens ranging from a cheap Kaweco Classic Sport via a TWSBI Eco to an AL Sport, a Diplomat Aero, an old Sheaffer Targa 14k to a Cross Townsend). However, I will need to find a way to increase ink flow from the converter to the feed.

Edited March 19, 2018 by TheDutchGuy

[Honeybadgers]

it should be noted that the visconti steel nibs are actually famous for good QC.