Do you recommend Leonardo pens?

[francoiacc]

2 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

I like the acrylics used in the Tibaldi Bononia Bora Bora (when done right), Seashell Mist, and Martini Olive. I also have a Modello 60 Retro Zest on order, just on account of how pretty the acrylic is. Does Leonardo use those acrylics as well, in either the Momento Zero or the Furore? I wouldn't have a clue, since I lost interest a long time ago.

 

As for Tibaldi's nibs, which are no doubt made by either JoWo or Bock, three out of three so far wrote just fine out-of-the-box, even if the nibs themselves are uninspiring. That's better than two-out-of-two fails I got from Leonardo pens.

I had a Tibaldi plus many Montegrappa with very dry nibs, I never had a failing Leonardo. As far as for material I'm pretty sure that there are many beautiful Leonardo acrylics that Montegrappa (Tibaldi) does not has.

 

Unfortunately it is all a matter of taste and experiences, and we are just few numbers compared to the number of produced pens that we should consider before saying that a specific brand is not reliable or that they make rubbish.

[DvdRiet]

I know this is not the point of this thread, but I read somewhere that the alumilite (Brooks) blanks such as Golden Rule (which I have) and the various Primary Manipulations that Leonardo has used are polyester resin rather than acrylic. Different feel, softness/hardness, ease of polishing (as I understand it). 

[Carrau]

I have 9 Leonardo pens bought over the past 4 years, and for me the overall quality has been excellent.  Mine have been in the Momento Zero or Zero Grande model form, in acrylic.  Seven have steel nibs, and two gold, mostly stubs at the time of purchase, although I have purchased several broad, medium, and fine nibs to change out when I want something different, although they see less use than the stubs.  None have given me any trouble, and I would say Leonardo factory stub nibs are probably my favorite to use, and are close to some of the custom stubs I use.  The only quality issue I had was a problem with the convertor fitting into the section of a new pen several years ago, which the vendor promptly replaced.  I’ve never seen that issue with any of the other pens, and have not seen any posts indicating others have had that same issue.  

[A Smug Dill]

7 hours ago, francoiacc said:

I had a Tibaldi plus many Montegrappa with very dry nibs, I never had a failing Leonardo.

 

I'm not worried about ink flow, as long as there is no skipping or other visible signs of ink starvation that interfere with the legibility of my handwriting by make the lines appear broken. I have a problem with nibs that are not ground and/or finished properly, with asymmetrical or lopsided tipping such that height between the two halves are uneven, etc.; and that's not even being nitpicky about how Italian pen manufacturers can't seem to grind a fit-for-purpose Extra Fine nib on the whole. For all it's worth, the three Tibaldi nibs I have here probably write wetter than I prefer, given the EF nibs are not ground to be all that fine.

 

7 hours ago, francoiacc said:

Unfortunately it is all a matter of taste and experiences, and we are just few numbers compared to the number of produced pens that we should consider before saying that a specific brand is not reliable or that they make rubbish.

 

You may very well think that, and that's your prerogative as an individual consumer, hobbyist, and forum member.

 

In any case, this is a thread asking whether one would recommend Leonardo pens. My answer is an emphatic no, in terms of what my decision would be; and I'd have been happy to leave it at that. If and when asked again, I would have been happy to just express my dislike and disdain for the brand, as a matter of personal sentiment, if that is enough to answer the question. If asked for details of either my reasons or my experience, as I was in this thread, then I may just oblige and answer, because someone else wants to know; and my stories are all only about my personal experiences, not whether 100% of the products, of which I haven't seen 99.99%, would also reflect my past experience.

 

Whether anyone actually gets influenced by what I think or feel is completely beside the point, when I don't need to spare Leonardo Officina Italiana any consideration. I have given LOI the benefit of the doubt before, and it isn't incumbent on me to advocate that others do as well.

 

[TheDutchGuy]

I was very enthusiastic about the brand when they first emerged and bought an early MZ and Furore. Lovely colours, solid builds and nibs that I initially liked a lot. My review is still here on FPN somewhere. Over time I moved away from the brand, mostly because of the nibs. I sold the MZ and put a JoWo #6 in the Furore that I modified myself into an italic. The Furore is in heavy use as family pen for scribbling groceries, chores etc. Everyone grabs it, scribbles a word and puts it away. That’s been the case for years now. The pen holds up beautifully to this treatment but obviously the custom nib is a big part of that.

 

As for recommendations, I’d say the huge success of the brand speaks for itself. Appelboom only brought Leonardo to the DC pen show and from what I understand they went like hotcakes. The brand appeals to many people.

[francoiacc]

2 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

I'm not worried about ink flow, as long as there is no skipping or other visible signs of ink starvation that interfere with the legibility of my handwriting by make the lines appear broken. I have a problem with nibs that are not ground and/or finished properly, with asymmetrical or lopsided tipping such that height between the two halves are uneven, etc.; and that's not even being nitpicky about how Italian pen manufacturers can't seem to grind a fit-for-purpose Extra Fine nib on the whole. For all it's worth, the three Tibaldi nibs I have here probably write wetter than I prefer, given the EF nibs are not ground to be all that fine.

 

Unfortunately nibs you are referring to are not made by LOI or Montegrappa, they do not grind, they can fix most of the issues but you may understand that is impossible to fix all of them. As I wrote many Italian brands moved from Bock to JoWo because of high ratio of failing nibs. Recently two firms, Visconti and Leonardo, started in house production trying to improve even more the quality of their writing instruments.

 

2 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

You may very well think that, and that's your prerogative as an individual consumer, hobbyist, and forum member.

 

In any case, this is a thread asking whether one would recommend Leonardo pens. My answer is an emphatic no, in terms of what my decision would be; and I'd have been happy to leave it at that. If and when asked again, I would have been happy to just express my dislike and disdain for the brand, as a matter of personal sentiment, if that is enough to answer the question. If asked for details of either my reasons or my experience, as I was in this thread, then I may just oblige and answer, because someone else wants to know; and my stories are all only about my personal experiences, not whether 100% of the products, of which I haven't seen 99.99%, would also reflect my past experience.

 

Whether anyone actually gets influenced by what I think or feel is completely beside the point, when I don't need to spare Leonardo Officina Italiana any consideration. I have given LOI the benefit of the doubt before, and it isn't incumbent on me to advocate that others do as well.

 

You have all the rights to express your experience, but as a consumer and hobbist I have not understood if you ever contacted LOI expressing your issues and disappointment. This would have probably solved two main issues:

1 you get your pen properly fixed: they may have replaced your nibs

2 LOI is made aware of these issues and can take corrective actions in the production line.

 

if you have not, sorry but I think that you are unfairly negatively influencing other forumers, hobbits, consumers.

[A Smug Dill]

31 minutes ago, francoiacc said:

You have all the rights to express your experience, but as a consumer and hobbist I have not understood if you ever contacted LOI expressing your issues and disappointment.

 

In one out of the three cases, yes, upon the retailer's urging — and I cc'ed the retailer on that correspondence. Let's just say, the retailer was shocked by the reply, and promptly arranged for return international shipping by DHL at its expense to collect the problem pen from me (so as to ‘own’ dealing with Leonardo Officina Italiana on the issue from that point on), and offered me a steep discount on any alternative Italian pen I wanted, as a gesture of apology.

 

In another case, a different retailer never got the replacement gold EF nib from Leonardo Officina Italiana that it was trying to get, before sending me the pen I ordered, because the EF nib that was originally on it was inspected and deemed by the retailer (who knew well how picky I am with nib fineness and performance) to be unsatisfactory. What was there for me to contact Leonardo Officina Italiana about? The owner of this second retailer told me the return rate of Leonardo pens was too high, and mostly due to nib problems, so he was going to discontinue carrying Leonardo (and he did).

 

In the first out of my three bad experiences ordering Leonardo pens, I was shocked to see the nib tipping was lopsided, but because the overseas retailer was not someone I have dealt with previously, and it was something I could fix, I reground the nib myself to make the tipping symmetrical. All the same, that speaks to very poor nib QC on the part of Leonardo Officina Italiana, and it was not a good introduction to the brand.

 

41 minutes ago, francoiacc said:

if you have not, sorry but I think that you are unfairly negatively influencing other forumers, hobbits, consumers.

 

I don't see what's unfair about it. Every QC failure is a QC failure in its own right, it isn't as if I'm making the stories up, and it's not my responsibility or anyone else's to compile statistics on what percentage of nibs going out of Leonardo's factory managed to be OK despite the slack QC. Whoever wants to take a punt with the brand is free to do so; if you observe carefully, I didn't tell them and am not telling them not to.

 

What I advise friends, to protect their best interests as I see it, is a different matter. The random fellow hobbyist is not my friend, and Leonardo Officina Italiana is certainly not my friend, so I'm not going to watch out for either of them as if I owed any of them a duty.

[francoiacc]

Yes I think that in your interest you should always go up to the pen producer if you don’t get a satisfactory solution through the shop.

 

My general approach is that make more noise a falling tree than a growing forest.

 

All the best.

[A Smug Dill]

1 hour ago, francoiacc said:

Yes I think that in your interest you should always go up to the pen producer if you don’t get a satisfactory solution through the shop.

 

The only “satisfactory solution” I want to see is that Leonardo acknowledges there is a high incidence of nib QC failure, letting nibs that are not ground properly out the door (which I've seen first-hand more than once), and so undertakes to invest in inspecting and testing every nib more stringently, even though the steel nib unit itself is just a low-value component with a retail price of ~€25, and investing more labour to catch the defects and errors before customers see them is obviously not the most profitable use of resources. I don't just want bad nibs fixed on a case by case basis if the customers spot them and complain; I want the brand's obvious weakness (as is Visconti's weakness too, apparently) addressed.

 

I used to work in Six Sigma process improvement for one of the largest corporations in Australia, one which “everyone” just loved to hate — and the idea of fixing each instance of defect (that could have been caught earlier, or better still, prevented altogether by proper investment) only when a customer makes noise is a risible approach, instead of improving the production process fundamentally.

[francoiacc]

1 hour ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

The only “satisfactory solution” I want to see is that Leonardo acknowledges there is a high incidence of nib QC failure, letting nibs that are not ground properly out the door (which I've seen first-hand more than once), and so undertakes to invest in inspecting and testing every nib more stringently, even though the steel nib unit itself is just a low-value component with a retail price of ~€25, and investing more labour to catch the defects and errors before customers see them is obviously not the most profitable use of resources. I don't just want bad nibs fixed on a case by case basis if the customers spot them and complain; I want the brand's obvious weakness (as is Visconti's weakness too, apparently) addressed.

 

I used to work in Six Sigma process improvement for one of the largest corporations in Australia, one which “everyone” just loved to hate — and the idea of fixing each instance of defect (that could have been caught earlier, or better still, prevented altogether by proper investment) only when a customer makes noise is a risible approach, instead of improving the production process fundamentally.

Here is the main point, LOI has invested a lot to address nib failures, now they make their own nibs. There is no interest in putting on the market pens that needs repair, it is more expansive to fix these issues than preventing them.

LOI identified the issue and fixed the root problem, you have simply been quite unlucky or just getting the first LOI production with Bock nibs.

I’m not a LOI employee, I am a satisfied customer with 20+ LOI pens, most of which exclusive models, none of which has ever been a problematic pen. I personally know Mr Matrone and they keep increasing the production, this means only one thing to me: they are doing better.

[ErrantSmudge]

5 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

The only “satisfactory solution” I want to see is that Leonardo acknowledges there is a high incidence of nib QC failure, letting nibs that are not ground properly out the door (which I've seen first-hand more than once), and so undertakes to invest in inspecting and testing every nib more stringently, even though the steel nib unit itself is just a low-value component with a retail price of ~€25, and investing more labour to catch the defects and errors before customers see them is obviously not the most profitable use of resources. I don't just want bad nibs fixed on a case by case basis if the customers spot them and complain; I want the brand's obvious weakness (as is Visconti's weakness too, apparently) addressed.

 

If this were still 2020, your argument would have merit, but as others have pointed out Leonardo has already done as you asked in terms of addressing their product.  Yours was the criticism I specifically disregarded when I decided to buy a Leonardo pen, because while it was truthful I also judged it out of date and not pertinent to LOI's current production.

 

If I may quote from the disclaimer in your signature:

 

Quote

If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct for valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

 

which is what I've done in this circumstance, and I agree you're unfairly negatively influencing others on the forum.

[A Smug Dill]

57 minutes ago, ErrantSmudge said:

If I may quote from the disclaimer in your signature:

 

and I have another Leonardo Officina Italiana pen, fitted with a JoWo, nib on order (at a discount, of course), yet to be dispatched. I'll be extremely picky and judgmental about the pen's fit, finish and particularly writing/nib performance, but I am yet giving the brand another chance to get from very bad in my books to maybe OK. Until it has proven that it can serve up a JoWo nib that is finished perfectly fitted on a Leonardo pen, I will continue to treat the brand with skepticism and disdain based on my previous experiences.

 

As for recommending the brand, it'll have a long, long way to go to surpass Tibaldi and Scribo in my esteem as being worth consideration at anywhere near Leonardo's asking prices. Unless Leonardo is moving all nib production in-house, or unless it no longer offer models with steel nibs, I will look primarily at the quality of JoWo or Bock nibs from which it won't divorce itself; it's entirely up to Leonardo to make up for what the third-party nib supplier isn't doing for the brand under contract. If Edison Pen Company and Diplomat can turn out an excellent JoWo-made nib on every of their pens I've tried, and Faber-Castell never failed nib QC across the many Essentio, Loom, and Ambition pens I have (which I understand to be Bock-made nibs), then so could Leonardo if it so chose — and I'm not convinced it is choosing to do so. Thus:

 

57 minutes ago, ErrantSmudge said:

If this were still 2020, your argument would have merit, but as others have pointed out Leonardo has already done as you asked in terms of addressing their product.

 

no, I haven't seen any acknowledgement from Leonardo that it recognises it had quality problems with Bock nibs, which was still the company's own error and responsibility but has therefore “fired” Bock (the way a US-based retailer, of whom I was a repeated customer many times over, told me why he was discontinuing with carrying Leonardo and offering all his stock on closeout pricing to clear the decks), while also ensuring that extra attention is being paid to all the JoWo nibs it uses now. I'm asking for better in-house nib finishing and QC on nibs it outsourced to German manufacture, that may well eat into its profitability. I see no evidence that such is happening.

 

57 minutes ago, ErrantSmudge said:

I agree you're unfairly negatively influencing others on the forum.

 

Remember, my disdain for the brand is my personal sentiment, which I simply won't shy from expressing, any more than you should shy from expressing your love or adoration for the brand if you so choose. Neither of us “should” or need stop doing that.

 

If your criticism of me is based on my still sharing my past experiences with Leonardo even now, that's because, as I pointed out earlier, the O.P. of this thread specifically asked, instead of just accepting a random fellow hobbyist's expressed sentiment at face value and leave it at that. Otherwise, it's already posted elsewhere in the forum complete with date-stamp, for good reason; it's up to visitors and members to find those posts, read them, and decide whether they are still relevant. Or are you suggesting that history that reflects badly on a party ought to be hidden, if the party allegedly has made changes to address those issues, but never came out to state it themselves such that others can get it from the horse's mouth what happened to drive their decision?

 

Edited August 8, 2022 by A Smug Dill
added link to where I stated in the forum I was giving Leonardo yet another chance

[garyc]

4 hours ago, francoiacc said:

Here is the main point, LOI has invested a lot to address nib failures, now they make their own nibs.

I may have missed something here. I’m confused. I thought it was the case that LOI used to use Bock, but then switched to Jowo (i.e. nibs sourced from a 3rd party, albeit perhaps ‘blanks’ but finished with their custom LOI engraving). But are you saying that they now make their own nibs entirely in-house?

 

If so I might well be tempted into ordering a Magico.

[francoiacc]

3 hours ago, garyc said:

I may have missed something here. I’m confused. I thought it was the case that LOI used to use Bock, but then switched to Jowo (i.e. nibs sourced from a 3rd party, albeit perhaps ‘blanks’ but finished with their custom LOI engraving). But are you saying that they now make their own nibs entirely in-house?

 

If so I might well be tempted into ordering a Magico.

yes, they started to make their nibs in house, I spoke about it in my review of the Leonardo Urushi

[garyc]

36 minutes ago, francoiacc said:

yes, they started to make their nibs in house, I spoke about it in my review of the Leonardo Urushi

Which I've just read - very interesting, thanks for the heads-up. But they were gold nibs only for an exclusive with Pen Venture, weren't they? And I'm guessing this would only make economic sense for that kind of limited edition release and not the sort of thing they would be considering for their bog-standard/run-of-the-mill steel nib ranges, or am I mistaken?

 

But in some sense, having a nib unit that can be easily replaced and purchased for relatively little cash is probably the upside to the whole equation. I do remember (and was a victim of) the terrible problems that Namisu had with Bock nibs not so long ago and can understand that, with pens retailing for at least 3x what the Namisus were going for, you might expect some better QC and inspection of nibs before shipping by LOI.

[francoiacc]

9 minutes ago, garyc said:

Which I've just read - very interesting, thanks for the heads-up. But they were gold nibs only for an exclusive with Pen Venture, weren't they? And I'm guessing this would only make economic sense for that kind of limited edition release and not the sort of thing they would be considering for their bog-standard/run-of-the-mill steel nib ranges, or am I mistaken?

 

But in some sense, having a nib unit that can be easily replaced and purchased for relatively little cash is probably the upside to the whole equation. I do remember (and was a victim of) the terrible problems that Namisu had with Bock nibs not so long ago and can understand that, with pens retailing for at least 3x what the Namisus were going for, you might expect some better QC and inspection of nibs before shipping by LOI.

No, Leonardo will install in house made nibs on all their production, not only on exclusive or limited editions.

Actually the Urushi had a JoWo nib which I asked to replace with the new in house nib.

It is likely that they will start making also steel nibs in house.

[garyc]

54 minutes ago, francoiacc said:

No, Leonardo will install in house made nibs on all their production, not only on exclusive or limited editions.

Actually the Urushi had a JoWo nib which I asked to replace with the new in house nib.

It is likely that they will start making also steel nibs in house.

OK, so that is interesting. Thanks for the info.

[CraigN]

TheDutchGuy,

 

I bought one of those hotcakes this past weekend at the DC Pen Supershow, a Leonardo Mosaico with a fine steel nib.  I also purchased a Leonardo pen last year at the DC show from Dromgoole's.  It was a pleasure dealing with Yoost and yes, he had lots of Leonardo pens in display.  I hope he returns next year.

 

I understand that some users have encountered issues with nibs.  Fortunately, I have not had any problems with either of the steel nibs that I own.  I also like the ink capacity and material colors that are offered.  

 

Regards,

Craig

[TheDutchGuy]

On 8/6/2022 at 6:46 PM, by78 said:

Visconti either performs no QC or deliberately damages its nibs before shipping them out. Probably the latter.

 

AVOID VISCONTI. I repeat, AVOID VISCONTI. P.S. This bears repeating, AVOID VISCONTI.

Speak your mind, son. Don’t hold back.

[TheDutchGuy]

On 8/10/2022 at 1:49 AM, CraigN said:

I bought one of those hotcakes this past weekend at the DC Pen Supershow, a Leonardo Mosaico with a fine steel nib. 

Congrats! May she give you many years of happy writing!