OMAS or Visconti?

[john]

Among these three brands, Omas is my first choice, especially the Old Omas.

[tandaina]

I own one Visconti and one Omas. I would not buy another Visconti to, I would buy another Omas. the Omas I have probably started as a cheaper pen, but I find the quality better and the writing experience is leagues better. It even has a nice piston instead of the Visconti cart/converter disguised as a piston filler. Go Omas, lovely.

[picautomaton]

I have one Omas pen, a yellow Emotica that I paid the equivalent of $130 from a local auction site. Bought it last January and still in daily rotation. The titanium nib and ebonite feed are simply excellent. This pen makes Quink blue look good which not many pens can. The ebonite feed would be my selling point.

[fountainpenkid]

OMAS pens may be more easy to upkeep. In the case of the old style piston-filling models, entire pen (nib assembly, piston assembly...etc) can often be taken apart without use of tools, both for repair or general maintenance. I have owned a vintage Paragon and a borrowed an older Van Gogh, and they are worlds apart in terms of character and feel. The OMAS had a decidedly vintage feel--very lightweight, delicate, and warm and organic feeling in the hand. The pen sunk away while writing. The Van Gogh felt heavy, metallic, and very much modern by comparison. Visconti is certainly more innovative in their approach, with all sorts of novel differences from other pens, but I think the old style OMAS pens are the better writers' pens, possibly emote more true emotion (that's probably taking it too far). 'Top of the line' used pens from both brands can be found for well under $300.

[Chi Town]

I have about 15 Visconti's and 2 Omas. I like the designs of the Visconti's very much, but like the nibs on my Omas better! Problem is I cannot afford to buy all the Omas that I want due to their expense. so you have to make a call on what your budget is? If it is wide open, I would go with Vintage Omas Paragon, if it is tighter, I would go with a Visconti Rembrandt series pen.

[Misfit]

I only have Visconti and Delta for my Italian made pens. I love my Visconti Homo Sapiens. Have you checked out pentime.com, which redirects to Chatterly Luxuries? Bryant Greer has some very good prices, so check out what a Homo Sapiens costs there. I don't know your budget, but the HS costs less there than many other sites.

[2ntense]

Thanks, everyone, for the continual feedback! It does sound like Visconti emphasises design, while OMAS generally has excellent quality nibs.