Gate City Pen, The Belmont (0.8 Stub Grind)

[mhosea]

OP, I think your pen would have looked a lot better if it didn't have that transparent/demonstrator part in the middle..That look kinda cheapens the pen tbh..But that's just me..

 

I think that's right. I think it would be improved if it had a 1cm ink window rather than an entire clear barrel. But, that require a sleeve/facade, which isn't happening on that contour, so it's all ink window or no ink window. Perhaps a compromise would be a much darker Lucite for the barrel.

 

The price of these things no doubt reflects their small-run circumstances--no economy of scale to speak of, and a custom-branded JoWo run was not in the cards for the Gate City pens. It took Brian Goulet a good long while to work up to whatever the order size was at GPC to get his. You can put any JoWo #6 on there, not that any of the steel ones look that much better, though an unplated one would match the color of the rhodium-plated trim better. I had an 18K Cartier-branded #6 nib (snagged off Ebay for a mere $60) on one of my Belmonts for awhile but later moved it to a Bexley Poseidon Magnum.

[georgeb]

I see the clear ink window as a piece of blank canvas that I can fill in with the color of the ink I am using.

[mhosea]

I see the clear ink window as a piece of blank canvas that I can fill in with the color of the ink I am using.

 

I can see that, and I have received compliments on the gray Gate City Belmont, in one case referring to the pen as a whole and the other having to do with how the person liked the appearance of the ink in the reservoir. Personally, the only thing I don't particularly like is the visible shellac'd threads at each end. It's fine on my Galapagos model, but on the gray model it introduces an amber color that shouldn't be there.

[georgeb]

I still have some of these pens and they have held up well, unlike some of my other pens.