vjreviews Magna Carta - Elements (Earth).

[VijayGS]

Magna Carta Elements (Earth)

This pen is an entry level offering from Magna cart pens from India. Me, being from India and with an eye for new innovation came across this pen and the company during one of my searches on Facebook. It was instant Bollywood style love at first sight with this instrument. The price quoted on the webpage was around INR 10,000/-. So with a few bucks to spare for the month and making up my mind with self justification of the purchase, i took the leap through the Rabbit hole. I contacted Mr. Hardik Kanakarra of Magna Carta through mobile and the order was placed with no hassle. The pen was shipped and delivered in pristine condition.

 

First Impressions

The pen is made with Resin and the variant i chose was the earth, the black cap with the green barrel. The build was sturdy with an apt weight and size for my medium sized hands (Glove size 7.5). A screw type cap and the bottom of the pen comes with a blind cap which leads to the pneumatic filler. A long brass plunger with a hole in the top enclosing a silicone sac (Claimed Capacity - 2ML) within the barrel connected to the nipple of the nib section reminds the Sheaffers of the pre touchdown era. The pen is equipped with a size 6 in-house Magna Carta gold plated steel nib with ebonite feed, enclosed within a Bock threaded ebonite housing. Over all a posh looking and definitely an eye catcher pen.

 

First Write

After the initial admiration of this exotic beauty, it was time to put into test. The ink is fed into the pen via the pneumatic mechanism i.e negative pressure caused by pushing the plunger with the top hole closed and opening the hole after the plunger is totally inside the barrel. One can hear a satisfying POP on the removal of the filler suggesting the opening of the sac and ink gushing into the silicon sac. Little tricky but an interesting and fun way to fill ink. The initial stroke of the pen on the paper was flawless. The fine tip nib that i ordered did justice to the word "fine tip". 

 

First Problem

The first problem encountered was the in-house nib. The tipping of the nib was amazing, however the skips by the nib was unbearable not to mention the drying up of ink even on short storage. Every time the pen had a troubled start. After running out of ink and when trying to refill, There was no POP and to make things worse the ink gushing out of the rear hole of the plunger. A messy outcome on the second fill. A search on the web revealed the problem to be an alleged ruptured sac. The problem was confirmed on opening the nib section after soaking the pen in lukewarm water for a few hours. Another minor issue being the cross threading of the cap during closing of the pen.

 

 

Final Word

No doubts a great looking pen. Hats off to MAGNA CARTA for taking the step towards making the fountain pen interesting and offering a premium product from India. However the problem arises with the performance of the pen. A pen is judged by the way it writes and the major flaw with this pen is the skips during writing. I've swapped with a compatible Bock nib and the writing is flawless. Magna Carta elements is good but far from perfection. 

 

 

Rating 

Looks - 5/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Build - 3/5 ⭐⭐⭐

Nib - 2/5 ⭐⭐

Value for Money - 3/5 ⭐⭐⭐

As an EDC - 👍 (After the nib swap).

 

[K Singh]

Quite a honest review there 👍 Have you tried contacting the seller regarding the problems. 

 

Also the pics aren't visible. Perhaps adding them to the gallery first in simple jpg/bmp format might solve the issue.

[Uncial]

Does the back of the plunger need to be unscrewed a little to allow ink to flow as in some other plunger filling pens? It might solve the skipping and junk starvation issues.

[jchch1950]

The information is very useful.

[VijayGS]

16 hours ago, K Singh said:

Quite a honest review there 👍 Have you tried contacting the seller regarding the problems. 

 

Also the pics aren't visible. Perhaps adding them to the gallery first in simple jpg/bmp format might solve the issue.

Thank you K Singh ji. This is my first post and am getting used to this platform. I hope the pictures are visible now. Mr. Hardik was very responsive and pleasant but apparently the problems mentioned above starting from the cross threading of the cap, skipping issues of the nib and the silicon sac rupture were universal with all the Magna Carta elements. The prime problem was with the in-house ebonite feeders and people were going bonkers on FPCI on FB. So got the sac fixed, swapped the stock nib with a BOCK 250 and marched on forward. 

[VijayGS]

5 hours ago, Uncial said:

Does the back of the plunger need to be unscrewed a little to allow ink to flow as in some other plunger filling pens? It might solve the skipping and junk starvation issues.

This model from Magna Carta is a Pneumatic mechanism filler with a silicon sac which differs from the Vaccumatic/power fillers offered from Pilot, Twsbi and Visconti. The pneumatic fillers uses positive pressure to collapse the sac and the ink gushes back into the sac filling the vacuum in the sac on release of the finger. There is no permanent seal in the ink chamber on the pneumatic fillers like that on the vaccumatic fillers.

[VijayGS]

26 minutes ago, jchch1950 said:

The information is very useful.

Glad I could be of help. 

[Uncial]

On 10/4/2022 at 5:36 PM, DrVijayGS said:

This model from Magna Carta is a Pneumatic mechanism filler with a silicon sac which differs from the Vaccumatic/power fillers offered from Pilot, Twsbi and Visconti. The pneumatic fillers uses positive pressure to collapse the sac and the ink gushes back into the sac filling the vacuum in the sac on release of the finger. There is no permanent seal in the ink chamber on the pneumatic fillers like that on the vaccumatic fillers.

 

Ah, ok. I have a blow filler that uses this principle. The old Sheaffer PFM uses the same idea. I get ink starvation and skipping in it from certain inks that have a high surface tension causing the ink to load to the back of the sac. It sometimes needs a flick to correct.

[K Singh]

On 10/4/2022 at 10:00 PM, DrVijayGS said:

Thank you K Singh ji. This is my first post and am getting used to this platform. I hope the pictures are visible now. Mr. Hardik was very responsive and pleasant but apparently the problems mentioned above starting from the cross threading of the cap, skipping issues of the nib and the silicon sac rupture were universal with all the Magna Carta elements. The prime problem was with the in-house ebonite feeders and people were going bonkers on FPCI on FB. So got the sac fixed, swapped the stock nib with a BOCK 250 and marched on forward. 

Welcome to FPN.

 

The pics are visible now 👍 Yes, remember that post regarding their feed. Haven't tried their pens yet, so can't say much. 

[Anindya Roy]

In general, Magna Carta nibs and ebonite feed have problems. They look promising but fails to deliver the ink to the nib. I had purchased several nib and feed units. However, nibs can be used with normal plastic feed. Ebonite feeds were big disappointment.