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Hello people of FPN! It’s been over a year since I’ve last posted here, I’ve been busy with my first year and a half of college. In the last month or so, though, I’ve started lurking around reading the forums again, and I’ve been wanting to write another review. I just needed to find a pen that was the right balance of inexpensive and interesting, and luckily I found just the thing. As I was browsing the shelves of my college’s bookstore, procrastinating studying for my final exams, the blister pack these pens came in caught my eye. Zebra fountain pens. “An easier fountain pen” the box proudly states. I wasn’t aware that writing with pens was difficult, but that’s neither here nor there. I bought them (obviously, who wouldn’t buy a pack of 4 fountain pens you’ve never seen before for $8), and rushed them home to see what was in store. The single most important and obvious thing about these pens is that they were clearly designed to be a direct competitor to the pilot varsity. They’re made of the same materials with even the same shaped nib. They come in the same colors, and they’re sold on adjacent shelves. Zebra wanted to have a product in the disposable fountain pen market, so they emulated the most popular example of that market. Personally, I’m a huge fan of the varsity, so I’ll always be happy to see more Varsity-style pens enter the market as simple starter pens to help people make the switch and understand what fountain pens are all about. Because these pens were clearly designed to emulate the varsity, and most people have used a Varsity at some point, I’ll be comparing the pens to Varsities for the majority of this review. First off, in terms of appearance these pens aren’t terrible, but they fall short of the Varsity’s design in my opinion. There’s certainly nothing hideously ugly about them, and beauty is subjective so you’ll be able to see the pictures and make your own conclusions about the appearance, but for me the design on the Zebra’s just seems cheap. They are cheap, so that’s fine, but it would have been nice to have a design that’s a bit more clean and polished. The pen compared to a sailor procolor as a reference for size. The pens come in at least four colors (they were only offered in a four pack of purple, pink, blue, and black where I bought them, I’m not sure if more colors exist). The black is a fairly standard black, reminiscent of Parker Quink in shade. It’s not particularly dark, but it is definitely a black. The blue ink is very reminiscent of the typical blue ink you’d find in the average blue ballpoint pen. At first glance of writing with the blue pen, you might expect that it came from a ballpoint. I’m not familiar enough with pink inks to make a good comparison, but it’s what I would call a fairly standard, not too bright but not too pastel pink. As someone who doesn’t usually like pink things, I actually really like this ink color, and I plan on using it in the future. The fourth color, purple, is a pretty dark purple. It’s not so dark that it could be considered a purple-black, but it is definitely a very deep color, and in poor light conditions it can even look black. By now, you may have noticed that I’ve used a lot of words and still haven’t mentioned the most important part of any pen: how it writes. It’s complicated. Pilot Varsities are, in my experience, remarkably consistent. Especially within a particular color, every pen is exactly the same in how it writes and feels. Throughout my freshman year of college, I worked through a box of 12 Varsities, and all 12 felt exactly identical. These pens are not that. Don’t get me wrong, they all write well, and none of them are bad pens by any means, but the nibs on the four pens from the same blister pack offer vastly different writing experiences. Here is a writing sample with the four pens. Please excuse my horrific handwriting and cursive. The black and pink pens are the most similar to each other, and I have the least to say about them. They are pretty much a drier version of a Varsity. Slightly less smooth (probably because they’re more dry) but around the same width and writing behavior. The width is marked on the box as 0.6mm, and I’d call it around a Western Fine / Japanese Medium. The purple pen is wildly different from the black and pink pens. It is a very wet nib, more than a pilot varsity, and the thickness is equivalent to a western medium. Additionally, the purple pen came out of the box with ink on the inside of the cap and some ink on the grip, which may be due to a mix of the pens wetness and being moved around during shipping, but none of the other pens had that happen. There is some texture to the way it writes, it is not perfectly smooth, but the wetness makes up for any scratchiness in the nib itself and offers an enjoyable writing experience. The purple pen arrived with ink on the inside of the cap, the nib, and the grip. The blue pen is again, wildly different. This time, though, it is absolutely exceptional. The width of the pen is what pretty much every manufacturer would call an Extra Fine, and it’s incredibly smooth. I own a number of pilots with 14k fine nibs, and a number of western pens with extra fines of around the same width. This is unequivocally the best writing pen I’ve ever seen at this width. The problem is, these pens are so inconsistent that I don’t think I’d ever find another pen like it from them, no matter how many packs I opened. Still, I plan on using this pen for as long as I can (which I think will be a while with how thin the nib is and how large the ink reservoir is), and then hoping I can find another nib like it sometime in the years to come. All in all, I would recommend these pens. I would have paid the full $8 (and then some) for just the blue pen, but even without that likely fluke, these pens are a solid disposable pen. I plan on buying another pack at some point, and if the blue is like the blue in this pack then I would recommend these pens 100 times out of ten over the Varsity. That being said, if the blue I got really was a fluke, and you have a choice between these and some Varsities for around the same price, I’d probably take the Pilots.

This is really a nice pen! Im impressed! I got this pen as a freebie on my Montegrappa Blazer order from Goldspot. Ive been interested in trying one of these Pilots for a while now but kept forgetting to throw one in the basket on other orders. Now I finally got to write with one and its very nice! It wrote right out of the bag with a nice medium line. Not scratchy at all but a nice quality feedback to the nib. I even like the blue ink in the pen. It looks like it has a cap liner too so I imagine it wont dry out super fast. The most amazing part, reverse writing is just as good as normal writing. Ive never had a pen like that or had the patience to grind a nib to do it. Seriously if I had the nib upside down, I wouldnt know it unless I looked at the pen. Maybe the line is a micron thinner......maybe, but its just as smooth as regular writing. The nib even looks kind of cool. Overall I dont have any complaints about the pen. I got nothing here! Its really a good pen and Im thoroughly enjoying it. Ive heard there are ways to refill these. Ill be doing that for sure. I cant see just tossing this pen when its out of ink. Call me crazy, but this one is really entertaining me.

Hello and greetings to all of you! I was quite happy with my Pilot Varsity/V-Pen. But the only problem for me was with the nib being a very fat Japanese medium (even fatter than a JoWo medium). It was also very wet with its original ink contributing to fatness. Now 15 year old me was curious about grinding my Parker Urban nib to one size down to probably a fine or at least remove its baby's bottom. But the fear of ruining it forbade me to. Then it dawned upon me. I took my Varsity and sat down for an hour or so and reground that medium to almost a nice fine. How I did it? Here you go: 1)Took my mom's nail buffer and started running the nib on the coarsest side first for about 45 minutes to get it to a fine (Relax, it takes time on that thing. The reason I didn't grind it to an extra fine was the time). 2)Then after I got it to where I wanted, I smoothed out the nib from all sides making a consistent shape. 3)Then took a cup and smoothed the pen on its underside by drawing figure eights until I was happy. Now I am really proud of myself as this is the first nib grind I have done and achieved success with it. The Varsity writes beautifully with a fine consistent line with consistent ink flow wit Pelikan 4001 Royal Blue. Feel free to ask me anything! Thanks for reading, Adit Sreesh Kamath

I just ran out of ink in my Pilot Varsity. I recalled that the "surprise me" ink sample from my most-recent Goulet Pens order is Diamine Shimmertastic Blue Lightning, and was getting ready to fill the Varsity with it. I then remembered that the Varsity uses a wick in the feed, and I was wondering if that would make it impossible for the shimmer particles in the Blue Lightning to make it to the nib. Has anybody used one of the shimmering inks (Diamine or the J. Herbin 1670 line) in a Pilot Varsity? What was your experience?

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I just send a new to FPN pen user some black ink samples and a pilot varsity in black. I told him how to do the refill, and drew this little instruction set. These instructions work great for your Montblanc fineliner (I've done it), or rollerball (done it too). I can't take credit for the bright idea, to quote Microsoft, I "embraced and enhanced" this little time saver. http://sheismylawyer.com/She_Thinks_In_Ink/2014-Inklings/slides/2014-Ink_270b.jpg

Hello All, I forgot my Lamy 2000 F at home today and at work we only have ball point pens in the cupboard. So after the usual grumbling I remembered the backup but only used once every 3months Pilot varsity that I had filled with Noodlers Black. It's a wonderfully performing pen. The nib is great and the handling isn't bad at all. It looks the all of $3 it costs, but writes and handles way above that price point. I wonder what other pens are unsung heroes that are at lower price points. I think that for me the lower price point would be <$35 and the normal, need to think for a month or two before dropping that on a pen, price point is $150. If only they mad a better looking varsity.

Hey guys! Just thought I'd introduce myself. I'm a 19 year old Pharamacology student (pre-med) and I actually just recently took an interest in fountain pens (about a week ago). I then went out and purchased a pack of Pilot Varsities from my local OfficeMax to see whether FP's are for me. I loved the way the FP's wrote, and now I can't even fathom how nice it would be to use a better FP for my daily writing. My professor even complimented my pen while we were taking a quiz last week. I'm currently awaiting my shipment of FP's and Ink to arrive. I ordered a Lamy Safari (F), a Pilot Metropolitan (M), The Lamy Z24 Converter, and some Waterman's Havana Brown ink. I've basically been getting my fix of FP's from Youtube video's this past week. LOL. I also went out and purchased a dip pen a few days back and a bottle of Higgin's black Ink. It's been a fun few days. I'd appreciate it if you guys could give me some advice on how I can make my FP experience as enjoyable as possible. I'd love to here from all of you FPN veterans. Also, I'm looking for suggestions as to what my next pen in my collection should be. I'm thinking of upgrading to a gold plated nib that write nicely. I'm also a college student so please keep suggested pens relatively cheap. Thank everyone! -Fahad

From the sublime to the ridiculous? Not so fast, my friend. How did they stack up? Watch and see: