Conklin All American Courage Red Review

[collectorofmanythings]

Today, I am reviewing the Conklin All American Limited Edition Courage Red pen. First of all, in my opinion Conklin get a lot of unnecessary bad press. While brands like Edison get wonderful reviews for their pens which often are around 170 bucks that come with a steel nib, and Conklin which also offers cast resins for sometimes over 100 cheaper, and they get horrible reviews. Now I am not saying that Edison pens aren’t great, because they are, I’m just saying that they are pricey for what they are, and, in my humble opinion, Conklin pens are a steal. If you don’t like the nibs, then you can get a Goulet nib or an Edison nib, and if you want a good nib, you can get an Edison gold nib or a JoWo gold nib from fpnibs.com (who offers the JoWo 14k gold nib at just $115!) in the #6 size.

 

Sorry about that, now let me get back on track. This pen is a limited edition of 1898 pieces (Conklin was founded in 1898) and I personally have #0693. So be sure to get it while you can!

 

Design and Build Quality (8.5/10)

 

This pen is huge. It’s about the size of my hand. Granted, I have relatively small hands, but nevertheless it is huge. I can’t imagine anyone ever posting this pen. 
 

I personally don’t like reds and pinks a lot, but this pen really spoke to me because it reminds me of a betta fish I used to have when I was younger. Without that though, I don’t think I would have gotten it. It is medical themed, and it is called the Courage series because of the incredible amount of courage shoes by first responders during the pandemic. The clip has the medical snake around a pole, and then the cap band has a heartbeat in the front with another heartbeat on the back which is used to spell “COURAGE”. The body tapers down to the end. The swirls in this pen are magnificent. The material has such a depth to it, and it has pearlescent whites and thin streaks of black all throughout the semi-translucent red resin. It is just gorgeous and a sight to behold. When you unscrew the cap (which takes about 1.75 turns), it reveals a JoWo steel nib, in my case a 1.1 mm stub. It doesn’t have a lot of decoration, just the Conklin logo and Toledo, U.S.A. . 
 

The reason that it is a 8.5 out of 10 is because it’s just so huge.

 

Nib and Writing Experience (7.5/10)

 

The writing experience is pretty good. You can’t write incredibly quickly, or else you’ll get skipping. Otherwise, it works great. Relatively dry, but that can be fixed. Reverse writing is not recommended. Has pretty good line variation. Adds a nice bit of character to your writing. I have nothing wrong with this nib, it’s just like a lot of stubs where you have to be more thoughtful how you are writing. In fact, I like it quite a bit. 
 

Thank you for reading this review! As this is only my second review, please leave some constructive criticism! I would appreciate very much. Or, just tell me what you thought if the review! Just please leave a comment so I know what to keep doing and what to improve upon. Here are the pictures:

Edited April 9, 2021 by collectorofmanythings

[MidSouthern-Dad]

I have always found the Conklin pen bodies to be beautiful.  However, the nib and feeds have ranged from good to terrible.

 

Conklin may now use JoWo nibs, but they use their own proprietary nib housing.  A JoWo nib unit will Not fit a Conklin pen.  I know, as I have about a dozen Conklin pens.  I had Flexible Nib Factory custom make Conklin housings in Ebonite for me.  He is now offering them as a standard item on his site.  Paired with his ebonite J6E feed, ink flow is generous.  I put in Fountain Pen Revolution 14K #6 flex nibs into many of my pens.  These are some of the best modern flex nibs now offered.  Made in the traditional way, without ugly cutouts to achieve flexibility.  Flexes from a hairline to 2 mm wide.  The ebonite feed keeps up with no railroading.  You do have to heat set the ebonite feed, which is easily done with a mug of water in your microwave oven, heated to a boil in 3 minutes.

 

The Crescent fillers have the Conklin housing glued to the sack.  I contemplated filing away the little flat area on the housing opening that mates with a flat area on the underside of the plastic feed.  However it was unnecessary, as I could easily force the J6E ebonite feed and gold nib in, over the ridge.  The feed has periodically cut circumferential grooves.  The ridge on the housing locks into one of the grooves.

 

My point is that I agree with you.  Conklin pens have beautiful design and materials.  With the proper feed and nib, they are fantastic writers.

[collectorofmanythings]

6 minutes ago, MidSouthern-Dad said:

I have always found the Conklin pen bodies to be beautiful.  However, the nib and feeds have ranged from good to terrible.

 

Conklin may now use JoWo nibs, but they use their own proprietary nib housing.  A JoWo nib unit will Not fit a Conklin pen.  I know, as I have about a dozen Conklin pens.  I had Flexible Nib Factory custom make Conklin housings in Ebonite for me.  He is now offering them as a standard item on his site.  Paired with his ebonite J6E feed, ink flow is generous.  I put in Fountain Pen Revolution 14K #6 flex nibs into many of my pens.  These are some of the best modern flex nibs now offered.  Made in the traditional way, without ugly cutouts to achieve flexibility.  Flexes from a hairline to 2 mm wide.  The ebonite feed keeps up with no railroading.  You do have to heat set the ebonite feed, which is easily done with a mug of water in your microwave oven, heated to a boil in 3 minutes.

 

The Crescent fillers have the Conklin housing glued to the sack.  I contemplated filing away the little flat area on the housing opening that mates with a flat area on the underside of the plastic feed.  However it was unnecessary, as I could easily force the J6E ebonite feed and gold nib in, over the ridge.  The feed has periodically cut circumferential grooves.  The ridge on the housing locks into one of the grooves.

 

My point is that I agree with you.  Conklin pens have beautiful design and materials.  With the proper feed and nib, they are fantastic writers.

Yes; and of course you can swap just the nib and keep the feed and housing, and it will work great.

[MidSouthern-Dad]

The problem is, that most of the time the ink flow problem is due to the feed.   With the plastic feed, it is harder to heat set it properly against the underside of the nib.

[Honeybadgers]

On 4/10/2021 at 7:17 AM, MidSouthern-Dad said:

I have always found the Conklin pen bodies to be beautiful.  However, the nib and feeds have ranged from good to terrible.

 

Conklin may now use JoWo nibs, but they use their own proprietary nib housing.  A JoWo nib unit will Not fit a Conklin pen.  I know, as I have about a dozen Conklin pens.  I had Flexible Nib Factory custom make Conklin housings in Ebonite for me.  He is now offering them as a standard item on his site.  Paired with his ebonite J6E feed, ink flow is generous.  I put in Fountain Pen Revolution 14K #6 flex nibs into many of my pens.  These are some of the best modern flex nibs now offered.  Made in the traditional way, without ugly cutouts to achieve flexibility.  Flexes from a hairline to 2 mm wide.  The ebonite feed keeps up with no railroading.  You do have to heat set the ebonite feed, which is easily done with a mug of water in your microwave oven, heated to a boil in 3 minutes.

 

The Crescent fillers have the Conklin housing glued to the sack.  I contemplated filing away the little flat area on the housing opening that mates with a flat area on the underside of the plastic feed.  However it was unnecessary, as I could easily force the J6E ebonite feed and gold nib in, over the ridge.  The feed has periodically cut circumferential grooves.  The ridge on the housing locks into one of the grooves.

 

My point is that I agree with you.  Conklin pens have beautiful design and materials.  With the proper feed and nib, they are fantastic writers.

 

The new JoWo nibs are 5 for 5 all superb writers for me. I've got the whole courage line (I'm a paramedic, I couldn't pass, and goulet gave me a little public service discount which was sweet.) 

 

I have two EF, a broad, and two of the new jowo flex nibs. All wrote perfectly out of the box. Only difference I saw was one EF was a little wetter and wider, closer to a normal western EF, and the other was closer to a japanese EF, but still had no skip or dryness issues. They just have a little different personality.

 

The new jowo omniflex nibs are, like the old omniflex, not flexy. But instead of just being TRASH that sprung if you looked at them funny, they're bouncy and fun. The broad is butter smooth and wonderfully wet. 

 

Conklin pens will accept standard bock 255 housings. Old and new. they just had the new JoWo housings built to match the 255 housing they used. And JoWo nibs fit in the bock housing pens anyways.