Dani Brillante idiosyncratic review

[petra]

Not scientific, just wanted to share my thoughts on the Dani Brillante I recently acquired & am thoroughly enjoying. It's black with green abalone inlay & is a good looking pen with comfortable weight and balance. The abalone has wonderful depth and displays a rainbow of irridescent colors. Unfortunately I can't provide a picture, but you can see it at WNDpens.com, where I purchased mine (no connection, just a very satisfied customer).

 

5.5" capped, 5" uncapped, 6.5" posted, .5" barrel. Fills with a convertor. I'd describe it as medium weight (the inlay keeps it from being a lightweight). I ordered it with a gold stub nib. Not quite as wide nor as crisp as a Bexley stub, but very smooth writer with very good flow, no skipping or start up problems.

 

My question is: is it possible to screw too much? This pen has more thread than ANY pen I have ever come across! There is also thread on the back end to post the cap, although not quite as much as for capping. I never post any of my pens, so I don't particulary enjoy seeing the thread there, but I've noticed more and more pens with this feature.

 

I really like this pen & it instantly became a daily user because it's so good-looking AND reliable, and I love the nib. Caution however: the cap doesn't have a reinforcement ring around the edge & must be treated gently. The cap cracked when my three-pen leather case was squashed in my briefcase (no more soft pen cases for me). Or maybe I was over-zealous with all that thread and cap screwing. In any case, the good news is that WNDpens is sending me a replacement cap at no charge! (Great folks & customer service, and the Dani is still on sale there.)

 

Overall I think this is a great pen & I was happy to be able to get a stub nib without additional cost / replacement wait / customization charge.

 

Petra /:)

[southpaw]

Thanks for the review - good, interesting info on a nice pen. Great to hear about the service also!

[Maja]

Ok, I have one of these...and it is a gorgeous pen, if I do say so myself!

The nib writes very well and I don't mind the threaded barrel end. Sorry to hear about the cap-cracking incident but glad that WND was able to help you out. I've heard that Ray is a great pen seller and a real gentleman.

[Mr. Sweet]

Do you have any photos to share? The dark green sounds wonderful!

[Lorna Reed]

I have the mother of pearl version of this pen and really like it. I'm not keen on the threads at the back end of the pen either, as I don't post caps, and think it rather spoils the appearance, but that's a minor point.

I hadn't used mine for a couple of weeks, and I just picked it up and it started immediately. I think the abalone version might be my next pen purchase.

[sexauerw]

This was a really old thread, I don't know whether the original poster will reply or not to your request for pictures. So here are some of mine. The Brillante came in both black and white versions, I have one of each. The long white shells are mother-of-pearl; the little green triangles at both ends are the abalone. Here's the black one:

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j66/sexauerw/DanitrioClosed-1.jpg

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j66/sexauerw/DanitrioNib.jpg

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j66/sexauerw/DanitrioOpen.jpg

 

And the white one:

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j66/sexauerw/DT05DanitrioBrillianteWhite.jpg

[sexauerw]

I would put this in my previous post, but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to edit it. Anyway, the Brillante series was sold out long ago. The only way to get one is to search for one on the second-hand market. Steel nibs were standard on these, my white has a medium steel nib. The nice 18K gold stub on the black one was an option that nearly doubled the price. However, the steel nibs are excellent nibs, I haven't adjusted mine at all and it's a very nice, smooth writer.

 

Also, I don't think Ray Adams is still in business. That's too bad because Ray was a wonderful seller. There is still a store named WND Pens (Wood 'n Dreams), but it is in California and I bought mine from Ray in Vermont. So I think perhaps Ray sold the name to someone else. None of the products now listed there look like the things that Ray used to carry.

[watch_art]

Wow those are beautiful pens! Reminds me a bit of some of the very old Parkers.

[terim]

I realize this is an ancient thread, but I wanted to caution anyone considering the Danitrio Brillante because they break really easily.

 

We bought a collection with fountain pens, rollerballs and ballpoints and over 50% of them are cracked or otherwise broken.

• The finial which secures the clip breaks.
• The barrel breaks right at the border between the gold ring and the mother of pearl, both on fountain pens and ballpoints

This is a biggish sample size .... at least 10 pens out of 20 are broken. These were compiled across a few different collections, so it's not a case of pens being stored in poor conditions. We've got a pen with a broken barrel coming back to us, and we're hoping we can swap around barrels and come up with the good one, because the customer really likes the pen.

 

TERI

 

[jchch1950]

Thank you for your comments, especially coming from a very well-known pen expert. Maybe is a late warning for some of us that we thought our pen was the only one with problems.