Lantibou 866

March 17, 2010

Being a student, I'm continually poor, and so cannot always afford to spend a lot on things that I buy. So, when I ran across some 3 dollar pen sets, even I was able to scrape up enough for that. I ended up getting a pair of the Lantibou 866 polished stainless steel pens. Upon first look, they seem to be fairly basic pens, with a design that is more utilitarian in nature. Not a problem for me, I just wanted something cheap and durable to survive the abuse of my pocket.

Again the pen has a simple design. Straight tube with the only real changes coming in for the grooves for finger placement, and the two black bands near them. Uncapped, it a slight hood is seen over the nib, nothing quite as much as the Parker 51, but a hood none the less. A raised ring circles the base of the hood, for the cap to lock on to. Easily rising an 8th of an inch, so very noticeable. Looking at it internally, it has a sliding plunger mechanism to fill it, akin to a syringe. Working the fill mechanism, it seems it takes a few back and forth movements of the slide to get it to completely fill. Due to the length and diameter of the reservoir, really not much ink can be held. The cap itself has some quirks of its own. The aforementioned ring allows the cap to easily spin around, with almost zero effort, while locking the cap on firmly. It isn't uncommon for the cap to require such force to remove, that ink ends up splattering out of the pen when you open it.

When it comes to writing, it is fairly smooth, however a bit on the wet side. I ran Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Brown and Higgins Black India Fountain Pen inks through the pens. Both would lay down a little heavy, making for a longer dry time. Sometimes the writing would still be wet as long as 10-15 seconds later. The other downside to this, is the ink doesn't last as long. I find myself refilling every 2-3 days.

Overall, it isn't a bad pen for the price, but I'd say hold off unless you can find it for under $5.

March 18, 2010

thanx for the review!

i tried to post a pic of your pen from ebay, but didn't work. can you post one?

Edited March 18, 2010 by lovemy51

March 18, 2010

Nice review, thanks.

March 24, 2010

thanx for the review!

i tried to post a pic of your pen from ebay, but didn't work. can you post one?

Tonight I plan on posting pictures, including of the one that I carried with me daily (now has a nice size dent in it). Just didn't get to earlier due to a hectic schedule.