Moonman Leonardo (800)

[A Smug Dill]

Leonardo Momento Zero "homage" much?

 

Bock nib is an interesting choice.

 

 

Wonderful! Considering that I've been informed by a retailer, when I asked the specific question, that it has decided to stop carrying Leonardo Officina Italia (after a lot of you guys bought out the retailer's stock in a closeout sale that wasn't quite framed as such) because of the brand's poor quality control and post-sale service, especially to do with the (Bock!) nibs it uses, hopefully this will send a rocket up the company's backside where complaints from and through the retailer have failed, to precipitate change in what it does in the nib department. It mightn't be good for Leonardo, but whether the company decides to change or not, it can only be good for consumers like us who favour that style and shape of pen.

 

Other than the fact that I still have a gold-nibbed Leonardo Momento Zero in celluloid on an yet-unfulfilled order...

[penzel_washinkton]

 

 

 

Wonderful! Considering that I've been informed by a retailer, when I asked the specific question, that it has decided to stop carrying Leonardo Officina Italia (after a lot of you guys bought out the retailer's stock in a closeout sale that wasn't quite framed as such) because of the brand's poor quality control and post-sale service, especially to do with the (Bock!) nibs it uses, hopefully this will send a rocket up the company's backside where complaints from and through the retailer have failed, to precipitate change in what it does in the nib department. It mightn't be good for Leonardo, but whether the company decides to change or not, it can only be good for consumers like us who favour that style and shape of pen.

Are people still experiencing issues with their LMZ nibs? I thought it was an issue around launch of the pen and has been rectified currently

[mke]

> Leonardo & Bock nibs

It seems now to me that I was lucky with my Momento Zero and the Bock steel nib in EF - I have the red LE of Endless Pens. Not only no problems but a really nice writer.

[A Smug Dill]

I was told the defect rate was in excess of one in three, but it's mainly to do with the nibs and not with the pen bodies. Allegedly, Leonardo agreed to move to JoWo nibs after the retailer pushed for it repeatedly, in the face of all the complaints and returns, but never made good on its "promise" after several months, so the retailer had to make the decision to stop carrying Leonardo pens at least for now.

 

If Moonman can produce this in high volume, use Bock nibs, and not suffer the same defective rate, then it proves Leonardo can do better if it tries.

 

If Moonman can't, then it may convince Leonardo that it must change its nib supplier.

 

Either way, I believe fans of Leonardo products will win, even if the company suffers in the short-term because of Moonman's "incursion"; and I seriously doubt Leonardo will just fold because of this setback.

[Mech-for-i]

I've heard about it but it never did concern me , never want a Leonardo, its not their pen, but their customer service and post sale, seems like non existent from all the source I've read about. Bock nibs are OK , they generally keep theirs , especially their steel nibs. Cannot understand why it could fail as frequent as more than 1 in 3

[Theroc]

I think it's quite complicated for those companies. When Delta fell down, one of the founders and his son&daughter built Leonardo. MZ is similar to the Jounal of Delta, but those two pens were both designed by Salvatore, the son and the current CEO of Leonardo. I don't know how it goes with the law, but if the same person designed it, can we call it a copy? Maybe a self-copy, but I'm not sure.

 

I'm quite curious about the role of Marte Modena. During the last days of Delta, Marte Modena seemed to collaborate with Delta. But suddenly at some point, they just made their own pens, practically a degraded copy of Delta pens. Anyone know what was happening between them?

I have no idea how I never made the connection. Of course: Ciro Matrone was a Delta founder, duh . Oh well, regarding MarteModena, I recall that when Delta went out of business, MM acquired all of their remaining inventory and supposedly Delta's tooling. Once they sold out all the inventory and defaulted themselves off eBay they started selling/auctioning their pens on their own website. That went on for a while. I think it's more likely that MM never acquired any equipment and never produced the Chronicle in house, but rather had it made for them by, perhaps, Ciro Matrone and sons.

[A Smug Dill]

but exact copy...that's morally difficult to approve...

 

If the market feels that way, and consumers in the fountain pen user community -- especially those in the domestic Chinese market, as well as "accumulators" globally who are into buying more pens for the sake of variety without wanting to spend US$100 or more apiece -- assert their collective moral judgment by not rewarding Moonman with their custom for copycat products, then the company and perhaps even the broader fountain pen industry will eventually get the message. Edited January 19, 2020 by A Smug Dill

[clear1]

I've heard about it but it never did concern me , never want a Leonardo, its not their pen, but their customer service and post sale, seems like non existent from all the source I've read about. Bock nibs are OK , they generally keep theirs , especially their steel nibs. Cannot understand why it could fail as frequent as more than 1 in 3

I loved Bock nibs. But these days, steel nibs of Bock tend to have problems in my and my friends' experiences. So many pens with problematic tipping. Not only Leonardo, but also many other brands' lower end pens with that nib. Very sad. I hope it gets better like old days.

[clear1]

Allegedly, Leonardo agreed to move to JoWo nibs after the retailer pushed for it repeatedly, in the face of all the complaints and returns, but never made good on its "promise" after several months, so the retailer had to make the decision to stop carrying Leonardo pens at least for now.

I heard this bock-> Jowo change also. Bamboo in the stilografica.it actually is fit with the Jowo nibs. I wonder why it's taking so much time to use it on other models.

[sansenri]

If the market feels that way, and consumers in the fountain pen user community -- especially those in the domestic Chinese market, as well as "accumulators" globally who are into buying more pens for the sake of variety without wanting to spend US$100 or more apiece -- assert their collective moral judgment by not rewarding Moonman with their custom for copycat products, then the company and perhaps even the broader fountain pen industry will eventually get the message.

I hope so

but you know what?, not just for the sake of Leonardo

for the sake of Mooman

I was really hoping they would be the first to produce a really really nice looking, original, high quality, Chinese pen! (for us to love)

You remember the history of photography when Nikon copied German brands?

One day they got it right and never looked back.

Moonman seems to have the skills to follow the same path (I'm not so happy about using Bock nibs and raising asking price to $50 though...)

[A Smug Dill]

It would be nice to see some of these pens offered with broad nibs....

Would be nice, but...

 

Perhaps you can swap them with the size you like.

I think I'm in agreement with mke, in the these are 'commodity' Bock nibs in the industry that consumers can source from different retail channels. The Chinese fountain pen market has relatively little use for Broad nibs, when even a 0.7mm Medium nib would "force" users writing in Chinese kaishu characters to require (as large as) a 1cm-squared grid. In the Western world, fountain pen brands sometimes don't even offer EF nibs (for writing in English or any other language that benefits from it by a segment of prospective customers and users) and their EF nibs often aren't even all that narrow; equally they don't always offer Italic nibs, which are primarily used for writing in English (or at least some language based on a Latin alphabet). These are minority preferences in those Western brands' primary target market, and when those "special" nibs are offered as options, the customer may be asked to pay more for them. In the case of Chinese fountain pen brands, Broad nibs are definitely a minority preference in their primary target market, so in the first instance I'd expect that there would be additional cost to the manufacturers to accommodate those requests that come in low volumes, and recoup that cost of offering the "would be nice" option by asking customers who want it to pay more for it.

 

And I understand some prospective customers might balk at that, but the beauty here is they can then go buy a Bock Broad nib from a Western retail source that consider a request for that item nothing out of the ordinary.

 

for the sake of Mooman

I was really hoping they would be the first to produce a really really nice looking, original, high quality, Chinese pen! (for us to love)

You remember the history of photography when Nikon copied German brands?

One day they got it right and never looked back.

I seriously doubt that is Moonman's ambition or aspiration. The company does have/offer original pen designs, as I understand it. Producing something "really really nice looking, original, high quality, Chinese" is a commercial risk. I'm also getting the impression that, if Moonman did come up with a steel-nibbed pen that match your description, and offered it at, say, US$120 to compete with an Italian pen priced at US$150 that are considered equivalent, you probably wouldn't buy the Chinese pen at that price even though the 25%-higher price tag probably won't stop you and other consumers in the market from buying the Italian pen. I personally don't think it'll sell well at all in the all-important domestic Chinese market, or even in the broader global market where Western fountain pen buyers are a smaller proportion of the whole; but that's just my opinion and conjecture, with no market intelligence or research to back it up.

 

Then there's the issue of, even if it achieves some success with one such model, other companies in China (and possibly elsewhere, too) could just copy the design and flood the market with a cheaper "knock-off".

 

It's about profitability, at the end of the day, if we want to propose something "for the sake of Moonman" — where Moonman's objectives and priorities are what matter first and foremost. I don't see — as in cannot imagine, since I'm not part of that company in any capacity — the point in offering something "really really nice looking, original, high quality" for US$40 that would deliver subjective customer satisfaction comparable to what a >US$100 pen would offer; it neither elevates the brand, nor the prestige of Chinese manufacture as a whole.

 

Maybe one day Moonman and PenBBS will be the new Sailor and Platinum, but I don't think that's on the cards in the next ten years. "Famous last words", though; time may well prove me utterly wrong.

[Honeybadgers]

> offered with broad nibs

Perhaps you can swap them with the size you like.

 

Well, I mean, they're selling them with stock bock nibs, there's kinda no reason not to offer them in EF, F, M, B, BB and stub.

 

When they're in-house, I agree with Gil's sentiments. No point really making that many different ones yourself. But when you can source them, why not just source the range.

 

These are handsome. I just don't really want one for 50 bucks. I'd buy one for 25 with a moonman nib. I like moonman's nibs.

Edited January 21, 2020 by Honeybadgers

[A Smug Dill]

When they're in-house, I agree with Gil's sentiments. No point really making that many different ones yourself. But when you can source them, why not just source the range.

 

Because it costs money to source the Minimum Order Quantity from Bock and then warehouse the Broad nibs just in case someone might want one.

[mrsharkbait]

As both Moonman and Leonardo are amongst my favorite brands, I feel the need to chime in. My Moonmen: N3, M8 and soon the 800. Leonardo: MZ Grande, MZ Art Deco, and regular MZ, the last one bought from Endless’ closeout.

 

1. Nobody will make a knock-off unless there is a significant demand for it. If Moonman can produce an identical pen to Leonardo’s at a fraction of the price, and you cannot tell the difference, then somebody is not providing enough value. I doubt, however, that the Moonman can match the hand-made quality and the beautiful weighting which is why I bought one to find out. Besides, it comes in the shade of brown I want that Leonardo currently does not offer. OTOH, you are not getting that same converter, I guarantee you that.

 

2. The 2 Leonardo Grande models have ebonite feeds, one with a music nib. Along with the Art Deco’s ebonite finish, I don’t know if it makes sense to knock off these higher end models, or if it will be profitable to do so.

 

3. At the end of the day, the person who bought the Moonman knows that the pen is not a Leonardo, and Leonardo benefits for the recognition. And if the Moonman purchaser wants a higher end model beyond the 800, well yada yada.

 

4. None of the nibs on my Leonardos have any problem. The MZ regular may be a bit overpolished on very smooth paper.

 

Bottom line, I am surprised, but not upset that Moonman has come up with a MZ knock-off.

[Enkida]

I like my Moonmans quite a bit (I have 3), and I like my Leonardo Momento Zeros quite a bit (I have 2), and all of them have not had any problems whatsoever with their nibs out of the box, so I guess I've been unusually lucky.

 

That being said, the raw quality on the body of my Leonardo MZ's are head and shoulders above even my loveliest Moonman, so... I suppose you get what you pay for, one way or the other. I agree with everyone else who's said they're a little disappointed in the blatant knock-off designs by Moonman; they're a company, alongside PenBBS, that seems exquisitely poised to bring Chinese fountain pens to the world market as fresh innovators -- brands that can stand on their own, rather than just make extremely skilled copycats of known products in new market colors. So this does feel like a step backwards, at least to me.

[Vicary]

I'm a big fan of the Leonardo pens, and have been interested to see and use some of these higher quality Chinese pens, so I figured this new Moonman might be just the pen for me. From the pictures, it's hard to tell just how close a copy the Moonman is. And it's a very true copy, too. I think the Leonardo folks might want to look into whether legal action might be necessary!

 

The Moonman is virtually identical in size, shape, and weight to the Momento Zero. Right down to the odd little kink in the section. In fact, you can swap out the caps. They're even threaded alike. As far as differences go, there are a couple. The roller clip doesn't have the same elegant taper of the Leonardo's, and there's a trim ring where it attaches to the cap. There's also an additional trim ring where the section screws in. The inner section is also metal.

 

The nib is labeled Bock, but I don't know if it's legit or if that's a copy too. Doesn't look to be finished to quite the usual Bock standards. I haven't inked it yet, but I suspect it's going to feel scratchy. I'll reserve judgment on its writing qualities, though, until I actually, you know, write with it...

 

I actually like the color on this Leonardo knock-off. It's a tiger eye material, the stuff PenBBS uses it and calls 'Amber is a Cat'. I think I also have a Bexley in this material too.

 

I've posted some pictures of the Leonardo and Moonman side by side for comparison, and also one of the Moonman with a PenBBS in the same material.

 

Edited February 3, 2020 by Vicary

[mke]

Someone asked about self-copy.

 

If you work for company E and design something like a fp for them, the design usually belongs to E - if not different due to a contract.

If company E stops their business, the design still belongs to E and remains in their assets which can be sold/bought by another company.

 

If you now start working at M, you cannot just make the same design. Would be a rip-off like by any other company.

[jekostas]

Someone asked about self-copy.

 

If you work for company E and design something like a fp for them, the design usually belongs to E - if not different due to a contract.

If company E stops their business, the design still belongs to E and remains in their assets which can be sold/bought by another company.

 

If you now start working at M, you cannot just make the same design. Would be a rip-off like by any other company.

 

A gross oversimplification of the issue. FP designs, by and large, aren't protected by patents. As long as you aren't using protected elements like a logo, wordmark or patented mechanism, anybody can copy what another company makes.

 

It amuses me that this is brought up time and time again in the thread for Chinese products, when it reality it happens in literally every industry in every country on the planet.

 

 

As always, it comes down to "If you don't like it, don't buy it."

Edited February 3, 2020 by jekostas

[taike]

[snip]

 

The nib is labeled Bock, but I don't know if it's legit or if that's a copy too. Doesn't look to be finished to quite the usual Bock standards. I haven't inked it yet, but I suspect it's going to feel scratchy. I'll reserve judgment on its writing qualities, though, until I actually, you know, write with it...

 

[snip]

 

I'm very favorably impressed by the nib. Smooth and juicy out of the box. Very similar line width to the Moonman #6 nib.

[mke]

> FP designs, by and large, aren't protected by patents.

 

Some people should better check the patent databases. Pilot e.g. has several design! patents - NOT about the mechanism! - for the VP.

 

Anyway, what do I care.