Over the last few years I’ve come to love my dip nib pen. I use it for all my ink testing because I love the way I can change the nibs easily in the pen and see inks over wide variety of line types. This is to say that I have long coveted one of Papier Plume’s Bertoletti Entwined Glass Murano Dipping Pens ($42+), so I was excited when Ana loaned me hers to play with.
The Bertoletti glass pens are hand-crafted in Italy, and come in a variety of colors of entwined glass. Mine is the Alexandrite color. The grip section is a nickel-metal alloy with an elegant design of flourishes. Despite the scroll work, it is comfortable to hold, and the glass itself is well-balanced. The glass pen comes standard with a metal nib or you can upgrade to a glass nib (+ $12) or get both (+ $14).
I spent the most time playing with the dip nib, which is very fine with a bit of flex. I used a bottle of Papier Plume Ivy Green that I already had to play with lettering and flourishes as well as my sad little attempt at sketching an ivy leaf.
Truthfully, I found the glass nib a bit harder to play with. The glass nib has swirling channels in it, designed to hold the ink so you can keep writing. I have an acrylic nib in a different dip pen that I use quite often and I love how long I can write with it, but I didn’t quite find my sweet spot with this one (It took me a while with the other one as well, so I can’t say that it’s a fault of the pen … probably user error!)
I was also a bit disappointed in how the nib + ink + paper worked together. I was writing in a Maruman Mnemosyne N182A Inspiration Notebook. Though I haven’t had problems with that paper in the past, you can see that the ink feathered quite a bit.
Regardless, I loved playing with this pen and I may need to own one for future exploration!
- Papers: Maruman Mnemosyne N182A Inspiration Notebook A5 ($8.75)
- Pen: Bertoletti Entwined Glass Murano Dipping Pens ($42)
- Inks: Papier Plume Ivy Green (30mL for $8)
DISCLAIMER: Some of the items included in this review were provided to us free of charge for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.
Hi Laura,
I own exactly the same glass dipping pen. It’s a real piece of art and I love it but unfortunately I can’t manage to load ink correctly. I presume that the problem comes from me but I don’t know how to proceed. For now I need to dip my pen quite often and the ink drips away.
If you have any advice I would be infinitely grateful.
Have a nice day !
P.S Sorry for my rusty english, I don’t have so much opportunities to use it.
Hey there Laura. I’m Laura too. I just purchased my Bortoletti pen same as what you reviewed here
Since it’s been a bit since you wrote this, I am hoping you can recommend some inks to play with that work with this pen. I just got the brown that came with it and now I want to try some pen and ink sketches with my writing. What companies have you had good luck with for ink??
Thanks for a lovely blog!!