Jinhao Y3 "rosewood" Review

September 21, 2017

Greetings fellow stationary nerds.

I come to you from the far north, the land of Lego, pastries and wind power, with this, my first pen review. The subject in question, the Jinhao Y3.

This is an interesting one, because I literally couldn't find anything resembling a review of this pen prior to my purchase, so it was a bit of a jump into nothingness, but it looked good and it was only about 8 bucks on Aliexpress.

The pen came in the most luxurious and decadent cheap, gray, foam padded cardboard box, as with most pens of AX. Oh well, waddya expect.

Appearance/Design:

The pen is really a looker. Flat, and cylindrical in design with only few tasteful appointments. The cap features a black gloss laquer/paint and is made of brass as well a the body of the barrel. The outside of the barrel is covered in a machined piece of rosewood which really astonished me, because CITES has just this January banned the international trade and sale of all types of rosewood, since it is an endangered species (much to the dismay of musicians as myself, who enjoy rosewood used in musical instruments). It made it through customs, but I dont think I'll try my luck again. The clip is medium stiff, and very useable. The chrome appointments are very nicely done, and the branding is stamped very deeply into the metal, and looks great. The section is a matte metal finish and has the Jinhao chariot logo stamped into it. Again, very nice and tastefully done. Overall, I feel that the pen has a cool asian vibe to it. I like it. Oh, and it comes with a nice standard Jinhao converter.

Length:

Capped: 13,9 cm

Uncapped: 12,4 cm

(against a TWSBI ECO for scale)

The weight (Take a load off Fanny) is a healthy 19g uncapped and a rather heavy 32g capped. This means that a lot of the weight is in the cap, and by far most of it is in the very heavy end cap beyond the clip, making it very unbalanced when using it posted. And very unsatisfyingly when posted it doesn't post all the way down to the chrome ring at the end, making it look pretty goofy (as seen above).

Construction/Quality:

All in all, I'm very impressed. No gaps to be found. The rosewood is beautiful. The clip is sturdy but not too hard. The gloss finish has no imperfections, and the cap sits securely when on, but is not a two man job to take off (like my X450). I have no complaints.

Nib/Performance:

The nib in this pen seems to be a #5, and it does indeed say "5" on the back of the feed, but I have no replacement nibs to try, so this is a guestimation. It is a nice glossy steel, and features the jinhao logo, but it also features a stamped "F", indicating, that this indeed is a fine nib. First time I've seen this on a Jinhao nib. It arrived reasonably smooth with a bit of feedback. A bit too much feedback to my tastes, so I smoothed it a bit, and now it has the perfect feel for me, which is just enough feedback, so I feel the connection with the page and it isn't slipping and sliding (yes, to me a nib can be too smooth). Not much in the way of line variation and flex, but just a tiny bit.

Here the writing is compared to my much broader and wetter X450:

Cost and Value:

It's amazing what you can get for $8 with free world wide shipping. As with my other (but cheaper) Jinhaos, this pen is sure a kick above it's price range, and i don't regret the purchase one bit.

Conclusion:

It's just great. It's stylish, writes well, looks great, is relatively cheap, is stunning in appearance, is a bit of a naughty one because of the forbidden wood (no boner jokes please) and did I mention how good i think it looks? Has become one of my new daily note takers.

- Haun

Edited September 21, 2017 by Haun

September 21, 2017

Good work here, and I am not even aware of CITES ban on trade of all rosewood, got to have a dent on all those guys doing wood turning. Anyway these days I buy wood products that come build with cultured source materials. I suppose the rarity and thus premium value of such exotic material add to the end product a flair and certainly so that the Mfr can priced them higher, but in reality cultured source Wood or better Bamboo are just as good and made a more steady supply and made prices cheaper overall for consumers.

Europe and US are , AFAIK, still pretty fancy on large pieces wood fitting, here in Asia though, bamboo had been and is used for centuries ( well tens of centuries in fact ) and the usage of scrap woods pieced together to form pieces too. I surely like to see these put into fountain pens more.

September 21, 2017

As far as I can remember, the main reason for the rosewood ban was actually the Chinese furniture industry, which uses a ton of rosewood for furniture which again gets exported to primarily Europe. It's just a shame that the ban was on all types of rosewood (and a whole bunch of other species), because rosewood can be and is harvested in a sustainable way in a lot of places. The trade with certain types of sought after illegal wood (like Brazilian rosewood) just ruins it for everybody. Braz. rosewood btw has been completely outlawed since I think it was '92.

Glad you liked the review.