Truly the TWSBIs are a great value for one's money. To me they are the "anti-Pelikan", which, in my view, are over-priced and over-rated.
Truly the TWSBIs are a great value for one's money. To me they are the "anti-Pelikan", which, in my view, are over-priced and over-rated.
I'm discovering vintage pens. Oh no!
jay.is.here (April 13th, 2014), thagbert (May 6th, 2013)
I have both a 540 and a few Pelikan pens. The broadest TWSBI nib barring the stubs are still not as wet, flexy or broad as a Pelikan medium nib. As much as I like my TWSBI pens, and I recommend them to anyone, my Pelikans are higher quality pens.
Fountain Pen Sith Lord | Daakusaido | Everything in one spot
jay.is.here (April 13th, 2014)
Of course they are higher-quality. That was not my reasoning. They are not higher enough quality to warrant what they want for them. I believe people have become subconsciously convinced that Pelikans are wonderful pens worth every penny of what they cost, so naturally, when they get them, they are pre-disposed to say, "Great pen. Wondeful. Such quality!" etc. I think that the emperor has very few clothes. Not naked, but not opulently decked out either.
Now granted TWSBIs are not flexy. If you want that then TWSBIs are not for you. TWSBIs have greatly increased the nib breadth offerings howoever. Just be sure to order an extra size up for what you want (i.e. order a broad for a medium, etc.). I can get good flex nibs for alot less money than buying a Pelikan if that's what I wanted.
I'm discovering vintage pens. Oh no!
jay.is.here (April 13th, 2014)
I will say that the Broad nib on my new 580 is as wet as any I've seen, wetter than my classic Pelikan nib from the 80's
Oh sweet Lord, I finally succumbed....after buying my new vacuum with my bonus check, I had some left over and of course you know how taht goes. Good to know not to post the cap - it's not a problem one way or the other for me, but I'd rather not break it and learn that tidbit the hard way. Also finally found a broad nib for my Esterbrook so I'm happy. Easy come easy go with the bonus check but Liberty Mutual was good to me this year
Maybe it's because I got mine before the ridiculous price hikes, through the Goulet Outlet Bottom Shelf deals and/or off eBay for a lot less than street prices. As Doc brown stated, value is in the eye of the beholder. I can respect your point of view. I was there a couple of years back. After purchasing over 100 pens (I just took a count this past weekend) It wears off and I just buy what catches my eye and is what I consider affordable. Eric alluded to this in one of the broadcasts. The longer you stay in the hobby, the easier it gets to start seeing pens you used to consider off limits as more attractive and attainable. I have not broken the $200 barrier.
A large majority of my pens are budget pens. You can see almost all of my pens at my Flickr page. I feel fortunate to have been able to purchase or trade for what I would consider expensive pens.
Don't get me wrong, TWSBI is a great value. TWSBI not only listens to their customer base, they use the customer base as a resource to develop and improve their pens. Something I don't think I have seen other pen companies do so overtly and something that I find admirable.
Fountain Pen Sith Lord | Daakusaido | Everything in one spot
I thought the €90 I paid for my M215 at a brick and mortar store was pretty good bang for my buck for a really nice pen. Does it feel twice as nice as my 540 which cost about €50? Nope. Straight out of the box, anything not TWSBI feels like a ripoff.
Skip ahead 10, 20 years and I'm confident my Pel will still be around and oft-rotated. My TWSBI has already needed a replacement part.
But my main reason for wanting pelikans is an aesthetic one. They just look great.
"What are moon-letters?" asked the hobbit full of excitement. He loved maps, as I have told you before; and he also loved runes and letters, and cunning handwriting, though when he wrote himself it was a bit thin and spidery.
Fountain Pen Sith Lord | Daakusaido | Everything in one spot
Hmmm....I must decide...TWSBI Mini or 580...for my "weird inks" pen.
I just ordered a Broad nib for my 580. I currently have a Fine nib.
Last edited by thagbert; May 6th, 2013 at 07:32 PM.
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I am but a simple caveman.
At the risk of derailing the love for TWSBI, I purchased a 580 not long after they were released in spite of not liking demonstrator pens. There is no doubt it has become a cult pen - I doubt there are many being used outside the world of the "Pen Geek."
The pen I got was a medium nib and a poor writer with many hard start events and frequent skips. Thanks to TWSBI's superb customer service, I was sent a replacement nib and feed - the new feed is much better but the nib is not as good. It is wet enough but not my favourite pen by any means.
I don't need a large ink capacity because I change colours quite frequently and the nib is a standard German JoWo which along with Schmidt and Bock equip the majority of low to medium price European pens - so its ok but nothing special.
The TWSBI is very nicely packaged but I have a feeling you are buying a £35 pen with £15 worth of packaging.
Everyone's opinion will vary but for me the heart of the pen is the nib rather the filling mechanism, so for me the 580 is an ok pen but nothing special. As a writing instrument, in the same price range I prefer the feel of my Monteverde Prima which takes a converter, has none of the TWSBI gadgets, but has a delicious vintage feel and a very smooth nib.
This is just my take - I realise many people love the features of their TWSBIs but I don't feel the pens are exceptionally good, just good.
Pens and paper everywhere, yet all our hearts did sink,
Pens and paper everywhere, but not a drop of ink.
"Cursive writing does not mean what I think it does"
UK Mike:
I have to agree with you. I recently bought 3 TWSBI pens, a VAC700 with M nib, a 580 with M nib and a 580 with 1.1 stub nib. All had issues writing out of the box. All skipped and had flow issues, and the 580 with M nib would even gush ink onto the page. Thinking it could just be the pens had manufacturing gunk in them from the factory, I pulled them completely apart and cleaned them (even used a soft toothbrush to scrub the feeds). I put them all back together and re-inked and the same issues existed. So apart all the pens came again and I gave them an even more thorough cleaning. Then when I was reassembling I tried to slightly adjust the nibs to give a better, more consistent flow, made sure the nibs and feeds were all correctly aligned, and then went back to using them. Still the same issues existed.
So I figured I would send an email off to TWSBI with the issues. They responded advising me to try and adjust the nibs by first squeezing the Nib wings, and then to take the nib and push it down hard on a flat surface in order to spread the tines. I had issues with this, as it seemed a very imprecise and dangerous way to adjust the nibs, and will be meaning there is more of a gap between the feed and the nib. But I followed their advice and I gave it a go, and when I tried writing again I found that I STILL had the flow issues and the ink would start and stop, but now my nibs felt more scratchy (obviously as they are slightly misaligned). So I carefully readjusted the nibs so they were smooth again, and replied to TWSBI's email saying I was still having the issues.
The next response was for they asked that I send them my pens and they will adjust them for me. I have 1 major issue with this, and that is I am based in Australia. So I had already paid to ship the pens to me here (which was around $40 from memory), and now I would have to pay $60 to send the pens back (we get hit with far higher costs down here, and while this was not the cheapest option to send the pens it was the cheapest which includes insurance and signature on delivery). So I was faced with having to stump up an extra $20 a pen to get QC issues fixed by the manufacturer.
At this stage I made a decision that the pens were not worth the cost. It was driving the costs of each of these pens way up. If that's the choice I had I saw no point in throwing good money after bad. So I replied to TWSBI saying that I found it hard to stomach having to stump up an extra $20 a pen to send them back for repairs when they simply would not work out of the box. I have yet to receive any sort of response from TWSBI to this last email, and it has been several days.
I do like the size and weight of the TWSBI pens. They are maybe a little smooth for me, but still I find them nice to hold. However they are really letting themselves down with the QC. The nibs clearly have an issue (and I am wondering if the nibs aren't able to keep a good flow of ink as well, causing the nibs to run dry after a few lines), and the issues with cracking which have plagued the Diamond series from the get go (and I am not convinced that they are solved in the 580. The plastic grip section looks to be VERY likely to crack, due to it being sandwiched between the hard metal collar and the plastic pen body).
And, in all honesty, I have found nothing in TWSBI's service that makes it outstanding. They are average, at best.
My TWSBI's will probably be relegated to a draw somewhere as they simply don't write in any sort of reliable or useable fashion. My $20 Kaweco's write PERRFECTLY out of the box and are a pleasure to use, yet are cost less than half what the TWSBI's do. And my $20 Noodlers pens simply blow the TWSBI's out of the water (and I have spent less time tinker with my 20+ Noodlers pens than I have my 3 TWSBI's).
jay.is.here (April 13th, 2014), UK Mike (May 6th, 2013), woosang (May 1st, 2013)
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