After my post about reproduction Chinese pens, my good friend Donovan of The Letter Writers Alliance (LWA to those in the know — including my father-in-law!), offered me three HERO 329 pens from China to review and giveaway. So, here goes: This particular HERO pen is listed on Ebay as a “vintage” edition of the…
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Pilot Metropolitan Fountain Pen Review
I had recently seen the Pilot Metropolitan pop up on JetPens but noticed that most of the color options had sold out immediately. Then I heard Brad of The Pen Addict Podcast discuss his rather blah reaction to it and his general aversion to all things gold. So… guess what I bought? Yup. The gold…
Sailor Desk Pen EF Review
The Sailor Desk Pen EF doesn’t look like much with its fleshy-colored, plastic cap but under that cap is what makes this sub-$20 pen such a little gem. It does not have any fancy packaging and even the two black cartridges that came with the pen came in a plain plastic bag but for less…
TWSBI Mini Review…Finally
I’ve had the TWSBI Mini ($50-$55) since Christmas but I haven’t reviewed it because I’ve been waiting for a new EF nib unit. Initially, I got it with the F nib thinking I’d like to be able to compare the F nib with the EF nib I have on my TWSBI Diamond 540*. What I…
Budget Fountain Pen Showdown
After lampooning the Pilot Varsity, I got a lot of feedback from readers that they had a good experience with the pen and that it helped to inspire them to try fountain pens. While I am still not over the bruising experience of the Pilot Varisty, I was willing to try some other sub-$5 fountain…
HEMA Vulpen Fountain Pen Review
While vacationing over the holidays, my friend Cecelia picked up a HEMA Vulpen fountain pen in Belgium for me. I had to do a bit of detective work about it before I could post a review about it. HEMA is a chain of department stores from the Netherlands. From their website it looks like a…
Pilot Varsity Fountain Pen
I noticed that I had never written a review of the Pilot Varsity Fountain Pen so I thought I’d add it. Let me start by saying that I bought this several years ago and was very unhappy with its performance and stuck it in a drawer. It actually took quite some time before I was…