C40
February 24th, 2015, 05:13 PM
SOLD!
FOR SALE:
Visconti Homo Sapiens Bronze Age, Oversized
Power Filler
1.3mm Mike Masuyama Cursive Italic
Price: $400, shipped to CONUS. (in original box, with the special polishing cloth!! :-D )
I bought this pen new just under a year ago. I’ve used it regularly, but not a lot. It is in good condition, I can’t find any scratches or damage.
The nib can produce a LOT of line variation, as the cross strokes can be very thin. This way, by a factor of more than 2, my most expensive pen. For the money I spent on it, I was hoping for a pen that I would use regularly – that I’d use more than any of my other pens. I haven’t ended up using it nearly that much. I'm wishing I would have bought a Midi size with a fine nib now.. I really do like the pen - it looks great, it feels great, and it can write very well. But I just don’t use it very much. I think it is because of these two reasons:
1 – The size. It’s bigger than all my other pens, and I have small hands.
2 – The nib -
2A– I’m left-handed, so I like italic nibs. I’ve discovered that, for me, an italic nib being soft and having some line variation is not really worth the extra cost. I suspect that for if I was right-handed, I’d love the line variation in combination with it already being italic.
2B - It’s a pretty crisp italic. And also, the tines don’t stay as perfectly aligned as I’d like. They the nib doesn’t get scratchy, it just gets to where it takes a little bit of pressure to write (and won’t write if you just glide the nib across paper with the back of the pen only resting on top of my finger). I don’t believe this means there is anything wrong with the nib. It’s just (for me) not entirely magic in that a small minority of the best nibs can feel.
These two things mean that, for me, I’m not able to write quickly with this pen, and when I do write, if I want to write well, it requires a fair amount of mental focus and deliberateness. When I do write with it, It’s still nearly always a joy. Because of the thin cross-strokes, I can end up writing better with this pen than any other italics I own. But I just haven’t ended up using it very much, and so I feel guilty having such an expensive pen. I might try to find a midi size Homo Sapiens with a fine nib after selling this.
Also - for full disclosure - it had an issue that I believe is very common to Homo Sapiens. Some ink could creep out from the pen onto the front of the section (the end of the section near the nib). So then you'd get it on your fingers when you write or you'd have to clean it off before using the pen. This happened for about 2/3 of the inks I used in the pen. It did not happen with drier inks (Nooderl's Bad blue heron, or J. Herbin Rouge Hematite). I removed the nib unit a month or two ago to grease the piston, and I also put some grease on the threads of the nib unit. That made this issue go away and I've used a few different inks since then without any creeping out.
PICTURES:
With a writing sample, date, and my username:
http://i.imgur.com/J1RiXWql.jpg (http://i.imgur.com/J1RiXWq.jpg)
Another writing sample,. In the upper right, I’ve showed some of the line variation possible with the nib – the wider set is with it flat, pulling backwards, and the slimmer lines are cross-strokes. Each set varies from light pressure to fairly high, and back to light again. So with this pen, it’s possible to make line widths ranging from extremely thin – like a Japanese fine or extrafine, to very wide.
http://i.imgur.com/whD3Odgl.jpg (http://i.imgur.com/whD3Odg.jpg)
Nib:
http://i.imgur.com/xyKK4sll.jpg (http://i.imgur.com/xyKK4sl.jpg)
http://i.imgur.com/HfmclXFl.jpg (http://i.imgur.com/HfmclXF.jpg)
The pen, capped:
http://i.imgur.com/4I9xxs2l.jpg (http://i.imgur.com/4I9xxs2.jpg)
http://i.imgur.com/Fq2QzGTl.jpg (http://i.imgur.com/Fq2QzGT.jpg)
http://i.imgur.com/k0lVntpl.jpg (http://i.imgur.com/k0lVntp.jpg)
Uncapped:
http://i.imgur.com/DPbcA2wl.jpg (http://i.imgur.com/DPbcA2w.jpg)
FOR SALE:
Visconti Homo Sapiens Bronze Age, Oversized
Power Filler
1.3mm Mike Masuyama Cursive Italic
Price: $400, shipped to CONUS. (in original box, with the special polishing cloth!! :-D )
I bought this pen new just under a year ago. I’ve used it regularly, but not a lot. It is in good condition, I can’t find any scratches or damage.
The nib can produce a LOT of line variation, as the cross strokes can be very thin. This way, by a factor of more than 2, my most expensive pen. For the money I spent on it, I was hoping for a pen that I would use regularly – that I’d use more than any of my other pens. I haven’t ended up using it nearly that much. I'm wishing I would have bought a Midi size with a fine nib now.. I really do like the pen - it looks great, it feels great, and it can write very well. But I just don’t use it very much. I think it is because of these two reasons:
1 – The size. It’s bigger than all my other pens, and I have small hands.
2 – The nib -
2A– I’m left-handed, so I like italic nibs. I’ve discovered that, for me, an italic nib being soft and having some line variation is not really worth the extra cost. I suspect that for if I was right-handed, I’d love the line variation in combination with it already being italic.
2B - It’s a pretty crisp italic. And also, the tines don’t stay as perfectly aligned as I’d like. They the nib doesn’t get scratchy, it just gets to where it takes a little bit of pressure to write (and won’t write if you just glide the nib across paper with the back of the pen only resting on top of my finger). I don’t believe this means there is anything wrong with the nib. It’s just (for me) not entirely magic in that a small minority of the best nibs can feel.
These two things mean that, for me, I’m not able to write quickly with this pen, and when I do write, if I want to write well, it requires a fair amount of mental focus and deliberateness. When I do write with it, It’s still nearly always a joy. Because of the thin cross-strokes, I can end up writing better with this pen than any other italics I own. But I just haven’t ended up using it very much, and so I feel guilty having such an expensive pen. I might try to find a midi size Homo Sapiens with a fine nib after selling this.
Also - for full disclosure - it had an issue that I believe is very common to Homo Sapiens. Some ink could creep out from the pen onto the front of the section (the end of the section near the nib). So then you'd get it on your fingers when you write or you'd have to clean it off before using the pen. This happened for about 2/3 of the inks I used in the pen. It did not happen with drier inks (Nooderl's Bad blue heron, or J. Herbin Rouge Hematite). I removed the nib unit a month or two ago to grease the piston, and I also put some grease on the threads of the nib unit. That made this issue go away and I've used a few different inks since then without any creeping out.
PICTURES:
With a writing sample, date, and my username:
http://i.imgur.com/J1RiXWql.jpg (http://i.imgur.com/J1RiXWq.jpg)
Another writing sample,. In the upper right, I’ve showed some of the line variation possible with the nib – the wider set is with it flat, pulling backwards, and the slimmer lines are cross-strokes. Each set varies from light pressure to fairly high, and back to light again. So with this pen, it’s possible to make line widths ranging from extremely thin – like a Japanese fine or extrafine, to very wide.
http://i.imgur.com/whD3Odgl.jpg (http://i.imgur.com/whD3Odg.jpg)
Nib:
http://i.imgur.com/xyKK4sll.jpg (http://i.imgur.com/xyKK4sl.jpg)
http://i.imgur.com/HfmclXFl.jpg (http://i.imgur.com/HfmclXF.jpg)
The pen, capped:
http://i.imgur.com/4I9xxs2l.jpg (http://i.imgur.com/4I9xxs2.jpg)
http://i.imgur.com/Fq2QzGTl.jpg (http://i.imgur.com/Fq2QzGT.jpg)
http://i.imgur.com/k0lVntpl.jpg (http://i.imgur.com/k0lVntp.jpg)
Uncapped:
http://i.imgur.com/DPbcA2wl.jpg (http://i.imgur.com/DPbcA2w.jpg)