Leonardo Rosy

[wyldphyre]

Having only gotten into fountain pens in the last several months I've not yet convinced myself to spend all that much on any individual pen. This was purchased from a Chinese supplier for around $15, mainly because I liked the look of it and wanted to experiment and see what I would get from one of these cheap Chinese dealers. I got another pen at the same time which I didn't really like, and which seems to have an issue with feeding excess ink from time to time, but this Leonardo is actually pretty decent. It's not my favourite, primarily because of the weight and the nib being a little wide for my tastes, but there's certainly nothing to complain about.

 

So this is my first ever review. It's probably not going to be great, but I hope it's useful to someone. Mainly I want to do it because I quite like the look of this pen and want to share it with others .

 

 

 

Pen: Leonardo Rosy

Nib: Fine, partially hooded (supposedly gold plated but doesn't look it, and for the price I don't believe it)

Cap: Push on

Material: All metal, which gives it a fair bit of heft

 

Appearance and Build Quality

What attracted me to this pen was the colour and styling. It's a fairly deep burgundy colour and the way it reflects the light gives the appearance of some depth to the pen. The body is all metal (except for the black grip section) and nice and smooth. The pens feels solidly constructed. Given how little this pen cost me I find it to be surprisingly well constructed. It's not a large pen, but that works out for me as I don't have large hands. It's also on the thin side, so it might not be suited to those with large hands or who have trouble with thin pens. The metal body and cap have a bit of weight to them. If you like heavier pens then this will probably feel good to you. Unfortunately it's just a little too heavy for my liking, which is one of the reasons I find I don't use this pen very often.

 

The cap pushes on with a nice clean clicking noise and feels secure when in place. The clip is attractive (to me at least) and seems to be flexible enough to do it's job, though I never clip my pens so I can't speak from experience. One of the things I like about the cap is the little picture of Leonardo on the wide chrome band at the base of the cap. It's surprisingly detailed and I think it looks quite nice. You can see it in one of the pictures below.

 

The Nib and Writing

The nib is supposed to be an F nib, and I think that's true. I like fine nibs so I was hoping it might be closer to a Japanse F, but I was expecting a Western F and that seems to be what I got. The nib is hooded and there are no markings to be seen on the little that is exposed. My initial impression of this nib when I first inked it up and put it to paper were not good. It felt really scratchy and so after playing with it for a while I put it away. A day or so later I gave it another go, and while part way through what I was writing I discovered it's sweet spot and it suddenly felt fairly smooth. I don't have enough fountain pen experience to say where this nib might fall on the smoothness scale, but it feels pretty good to me. After realising that it was in fact capable of smooth writing I gave the nib a bit of a rub on a smooth nail buffer to see if I could expand the sweet spot a bit. Not sure if that made much of a difference but it seems to write nice and smooth all the time now, so I'll call it a win.

 

The flow of ink is good and the pen keeps up with rapid scribbling with no trouble. Skipping doesn't seem to be an issue. I've certainly never experienced it while using the pen. The line it produces is a little thicker than the EF on my Kaweco Sport, so I guess the F nib claim is accurate. Unfortunately I find the line it produces is still not quite thin enough for my tastes, and that's one of two reasons it won't be a daily driver for me.

 

The cap will post with out any trouble, but with my smaller hands I find that this makes the pen too top heavy to use comfortably with my smaller hands. If you have larger hands this would probably be less of an issue.

 

Filling

The Leonardo came with a standard cheap twist action piston converter that seems to do it's job nicely. The pen will also take standard international cartridges. It looks like there might be enough room for a long cartridge but I don't have one to try so I can't say for sure.

 

Overall

I can't see this ever being a pen I use regularly because it's a bit heavier than I like and the line it produces is too thick for my messy, cramped handwriting, but those are just personal issues. The appearance and build of the pen are good, so it's a bit of a shame I can't make it part of my regular rotation.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 6, 2012 by wyldphyre

[myn]

While it may not fit the bill for you it sure seems like you got more pen then you bargained for and that

always makes for a sweet deal. Congratulations and thanks for a very nicely done review.

[estie1948]

I enjoyed your review. I found it well written and informative. Based on your review, I feel I have enough information to make an informed decision on purchasing or not purchasing the pen. That, in my opinion, is what a fountain pen review is suppose to do. I look forward to reading your future pen reviews.

 

It is a beautiful pen. I think you got a bargain. Unfortunately, sometimes a real bargain of a fountain pen just does not meet our personal preferences. Isn't that a bummer?!

 

Thanks for the excellent review.

 

-David.

[wyldphyre]

Thanks for the feedback guys. It's good to know someone enjoyed my writing.

 

@estie1948 You're right, I did end up getting a good deal with this pen. Since it doesn't suit me very well I'm hoping that someone I know will eventually get the fountain pen bug and I can pass it on to them.

 

Cheers