The Ultimate Visconti And The Ultimate Homo Sapiens?

[jskywalker]

Like many, my first is the Homo Sapiens Bronze Age 18k F nib. I was impressed. I  bought another Bronze Age 18k EF nib and the Tuff 14k F Nib. 

 

The issues with these pens are the gap between the nib and feed seems to be wider than acceptable, and the nib being slightly soft and bouncy, will widen the gap further and cause low flow or no flow.

 

But once you tuned the nib and feed, it's a fantastic writer and you doesn't want it off your hands. 😁😁😁

[eclectic2316]

Am considering purchasing a Visconti Homo Sapiens Magma.

Any thoughts and suggestions are most welcome.

Thank you.

       Kind regards,

              Paul

[Wayne1]

I have several Visconti pens in my modest collection, and all but one required tuning by a nibmeister (Michael Masuyama) to bring it to perfection as a glorious writing instrument. Included is a Homo Sapiens Crystal Dream, stub nib. Once tuned, they are hard to beat for artistic beauty and writing pleasure! My all time favorite is a Chatterly limited edition Watermark. Second is a Divina Elegance,green and bronze. They are simply beautiful to look at and stay in the inked group much of the time. The new in-house nibs are wonderful! If you love art and writing pleasure Visconti are hard to beat, maybe only by a Dupont, but this is really a differnt beast. 

[TheDutchGuy]

1 hour ago, Wayne1 said:

They are simply beautiful to look at and stay in the inked group much of the time. If you love art and writing pleasure Visconti are hard to beat...

+1. I guess I’m fortunate that both my 23k Pd Midi and my 18k full-size HS were perfect writers from day one. 

[Wayne1]

Yes, you are fortunate! I love the Pd nib, too bad that no longer offer it. The quality control on the nib tuning is pretty spotty. I have a couple perform well out of the box, but it has not been the rule for me. My Opera Master Polynesia was quite nice.

[vivdunstan]

12 hours ago, TheDutchGuy said:

+1. I guess I’m fortunate that both my 23k Pd Midi and my 18k full-size HS were perfect writers from day one. 

Me too I guess then, with my 18K new gold fine nibbed HS Midnight in Florence! It’s just the best writer I’ve ever had. To be fair I was rather relieved it worked so well, not expecting it.

 

Also my Visconti Van Gogh bought long before. That was bought despite my very big quality control concerns at the time. I was prepared that it might need fixing. Worked like a dream immediately.

[eclectic2316]

On 12/31/2020 at 2:04 AM, Wayne1 said:

I have several Visconti pens in my modest collection, and all but one required tuning by a nibmeister (Michael Masuyama) to bring it to perfection as a glorious writing instrument. Included is a Homo Sapiens Crystal Dream, stub nib. Once tuned, they are hard to beat for artistic beauty and writing pleasure! My all time favorite is a Chatterly limited edition Watermark. Second is a Divina Elegance,green and bronze. They are simply beautiful to look at and stay in the inked group much of the time. The new in-house nibs are wonderful! If you love art and writing pleasure Visconti are hard to beat, maybe only by a Dupont, but this is really a differnt beast. 

 

[eclectic2316]

Thanks.

Very helpful and informative.

           Paul

[eclectic2316]

On 12/21/2020 at 11:26 PM, jskywalker said:

Like many, my first is the Homo Sapiens Bronze Age 18k F nib. I was impressed. I  bought another Bronze Age 18k EF nib and the Tuff 14k F Nib. 

 

The issues with these pens are the gap between the nib and feed seems to be wider than acceptable, and the nib being slightly soft and bouncy, will widen the gap further and cause low flow or no flow.

 

But once you tuned the nib and feed, it's a fantastic writer and you doesn't want it off your hands. 😁😁😁

 

[eclectic2316]

Hello,

After a similar experience, I have purchased from nibs.com and have had excellent service and follow up.

        Paul

[sandy101]

That Romanica looks like a beautiful pen. 

[como]

Of all the Visconti lines, I consider Homo Sapiens and Opera Master their most iconic. I like the unique lava resin material, the warm tone of bronze and Visconti's various demonstrator patterns. They surely know how to make non-celluloid materials look good! This is a company whose design and innovation I admire, yet I have bought relatively few due to their past known QC problems. Over the Christmas holiday I discovered the Homo Sapiens in bronze but with a red demo barrel, by Pen Venture. I put it in and out of shopping basket several times but finally decided to talk to Emy, Pen Venture's owner, about it before committing to it. In the end I got a well tuned stubby B nib in 23k Palladium, with the power vac working well too. Quite happy!

[Torrente]

I received my Crystal Dream last week. While I love how it writes and how it looks I do not have a good feeling with the cap lock, I asumed that either the quality control or the tolerance levels on Visconti machining on the “lava” material are not strict.

Instead of having a snappy feel when I close the cap I feel a lot of friction.

Not sure if it will improve with the use of the pen as the rough edges get smoother.

 

I used a small detailing brush and applied Dupont teflon liquid to the grooves and the nubs, before that I cleaned a bit some areas that were specially rough with a toothpick.

I feel it much better now, but worse than what I expected anyway.

 

While I was doing it I was thinking if leaving the finishing that rough is part of the design and character of the theme of the pen. For sure with some minutes of expert handcraft work (not much) this part of the pen could have been finished much smother.

I have checked pictures on Visconti web and the finishing that I can see in Bronze Age pens corresponds to what I see in mine, they could have done additional work for the web pictures, but they didn’t. I checked too several photos of Steel Age and the finishing on those looks clearly better to me.

[Major_Tom]

Following @como here is my testimony for the pen of Emy of Pen Venture. I remember Appelboom recommending me Emy for tuning my M815’s nib that came with a lag in the writing. When I browsed his shop, I was stunned by the beauty of this pen and did not hesitate to pull the trigger. 
 

The two chamber red demonstrator is fitting perfectly with the lava and the rose gold trim. 25 pieces made worldwide and I cannot think of another pen having so many different and unique materials on. 
 

 

[TheDutchGuy]

Never seen one of those before. Very special!

[como]

@Major_TomIn reality I followed you, not the other way around! 😀 Thank you! 

@TheDutchGuyI used to love demonstrators, but it's not always possible to keep them impeccable. With this one, I don't see it very much if the barrel gets stained a little bit. I find the Visconti Caput Mundi very attractive but I was too late to get one. This barrel is lighter than the Caput Mundi. The red is less intense but more transparent.

The trims are bronze, not rose gold plated. I prefer the bronze, same as the original HS Bronze. The patina is slowly developing on mine, which is nice. Of course it can be polished away if needed.

[fabrimedeiros]

This is my favorite pen :Opera Master Demo Clear. 

[raging.dragon]

I'd say the most iconic Visconti designs are:

• The Divina Proporzione and it's many descendants (Divina, Cosmopolitan, Desert Springs, etc) for their distinctive spiral form.
• The Opera family (Opera, Opera Master, Wallstreet) for their distinctive rounded square form.
• The Homo Sapiens Bronze and Steel Age for their distinctive lava reinforced polymer material.

They also had a distinctive and long lived range of celluloids used in various pens designs, the (blue, green, grey, or red) stacked celluloid, blue and brown "Titanic" celluloid, and Lapis with brown and white speckles on dark blue, were probably the most common and thus recognizable. So anything that combines one of these celluloids with the Divina or Opera form (Wallstreet, various Cosmopolitans, probably others) would rival the lava Homo Sapiens for sheer Viscontiness.