Speedball Calligraphy Fountain Pen

[Wolfman Zack]

As of late, I have had a bit of a fascination with inexpensive fountain pens.
The higher end pens I own certainly offer better aesthetics and feel, as well as great performance, but it’s also quite gratifying to find affordable pens that can offer a great writing experience while costing about the same as a pack of disposable ballpoints.

The Speedball Caligraphy fountain pen can be found in many craft stores in the art section, these fairly unassuming pens are offered in three nib widths, 1.1, 1.5, and 1.9mm, and sell for $7-8 generally, they are also available from online sellers for even less sometimes.
I had a coupon for 40% off any one item at a local craft store chain, and was able to pick up this review sample for only $5 and change.



The first thing I noticed when opening the package is that the plastic body is very lightweight but feels fairly sturdy, perhaps not as solid as a Lamy Safari, but not far off either.
The cap is a snap fit, and is very secure, placing it on the pen results in a solid snap, assuring you that the cap is on, and there is no concern about it coming off accidentally.
The pen also included two cartridges that are close to standard international, but proved to be a bit out of spec, as I will explain later.
This leads to my first negative about this pen, and that is that it will only accept standard international short cartridges, and the barrel is designed to hold them securely in place so they can’t become dislodged, this is a nice feature at first glance, but it also means that the pen cannot be fitted with a cartridge converter for using bottled ink, as there isn’t room for the larger converter inside the barrel.
This limits your ink choices, unless you want to refill cartridges yourself using an ink syringe.

Before inking, I disassembled the nib and feed and throughly rinsed them before drying and reassembling, and then installed one of the included ink cartridges to began testing.
It took a little priming with an absorbent cloth to get the ink flowing, but no more than any other newly inked cartridge pen, and soon the ink was flowing consistently.
As soon as I began some test strokes and writing samples, I was immediately impressed with just how smooth this nib is, there is no scratchiness or noticeable feedback at all, it just glides across the paper smoothly.
This kind of performance is what I would expect from a good mid priced pen, but for under $10 it’s absolutely outstanding.

I then separated the barrel from the section again, and discovered my only other problem with it, the included cartridge immediately fell off of the nib unit.
Perhaps this is why they designed the barrel to hold the cartridge securely in place, but it’s still not ideal.
However a standard Kaweco cartridge fits perfectly, and stays securely attached, so this is really just an issue of the included cartridges being out of spec, and is easily solved by replacing them with a quality brand like Kaweco or Diamine.



Overall I would definitely recommend this pen, especially to anyone new to pens and interested in trying a stub/italic nib, the writing experience is far beyond what you pay for the pen, so if you can live with a cheaper feeling plastic pen body, and don’t mind the limitation of only using standard international short cartridges, then it’s a great option.
Mine will be used as a general purpose knockabout pen, something that writes quite well, but I also won’t worry as much about damaging or losing when carried in a pocket or thrown in a bag.

For anybody who is unsure what size nib to get, I would probably recommend the 1.1mm.
The 1.5mm is nice too, and has great line variation, but can be a bit large for smaller handwriting, the 1.9mm is really only good for writing headers or large script on cards and such, in my opinion, not as much for general use.

Hope that you have enjoyed this review, and that a few of you may end up trying this pen as well, let me know if you have any questions.