A little bit of history  In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a succession of European countries established footholds in the East Indies, and eventually consolidated to the point that a small island off the coast of one continent ‘owned’ a whole sub-continent half way around the globe. Dark deeds were done. Eventually the mists cleared, and India was left with the aftermath of the old Empire, and there were one or two advantages; the railways, English language, the civil service…. OK, maybe not the civil service, but you get the point – it wasn’t all bad. Then a few decades later, a nice chap from Arkansas was travelling in India and found another curious carry-over; people were still using fountain pens – and making them, too. Kevin was so impressed he set up a business to bring these craftily-created pens to an international audience, and so the Fountain Pen Revolution was fomented. The Jaipur is the latest in the line of FPR specials, and when United Inkdom was asked to put them through their paces we gladly took delivery of several different colours and nibs so that we could test the whole range.

How it looks  The Jaipur is available in two main costumes; business suit or party frock. The plain-coloured version looks suitably formal, and includes an ink window which gives a functional view of what’s in the fuel tank. The demonstrator comes in a range of finishes, all of which shout ‘this is a pen for having fun with’. The two-tone nib pulls off the clever trick of fitting in with either message.

How it feels  The natural resin is warm and comfortable to the touch – and ever so slightly fruity to the nose (but you get used to that pretty quickly). It’s a fairly light pen of a comfortable size for the majority of users.

How it fills  Now here’s a novel thing; these are hand-made piston-fillers. They look like nothing else, and the workings visible in the demonstrator body in particular appear almost organic. If the famed Pelikan is a CD, this is the 78rpm vinyl alternative. But it all works, can be dismantled for cleaning, and holds plenty enough ink. Being made by humans rather than laser-guided robots, the Jaipur can experience the occasional minor leak, so it’s perhaps not going to be our top choice for a pen to take to work – but when used at home, a quick wipe with a tissue is all that’s ever required before getting down to writing.

Crucially, how it writes…  Extraordinarily well. The standard round-ended nibs are firm and impressively smooth, and would be a good introduction to the difference a fountain pen makes, should you need to convert anyone languishing in the slough of ballpoint despond. The flex nibs are justly famous as the most affordable flex that money can buy; they produce line variation without enormous effort and no special expertise is required to get started; even some of our reviewers who are not usually flex fans were almost won over!

Pen! What is it good for?  This is a seriously affordable pen, so it’s fairly good for beginners (occasional dribbles notwithstanding), and the ink capacity makes it a strong contender for an artist’s pen too. As a low-risk way of trying out a flex nib, it’s unbeatable; the cost is so low that there’s really nothing to lose, and if you’re at all unsure about whether you’ll like it you can ask for a standard firm nib to be included in the package – the feed is a simple friction-fit affair so swapping them is a straightforward operation.

VFM  These pens give you a chance to play, tinker and experiment, to have fun writing and to support sustainable employment in a developing economy, all for about £16. There is really just no reason to quibble – all our reviewers consider the Jaipur brilliant value.

If this isn’t quite your cup of tea, but almost…  Have a mooch around the FPR website and size up a few of their other models; there is quite a range, and most offer the same options as regards nibs.  For flex enthusiasts on a budget, there is little on offer elsewhere which really competes.

Our overall recommendation  Just buy one already! If you enjoy getting to know how a fountain pen works, want to give flex a try, or just want something a bit different in the pen-pot, there’s just no reason not to. These are not hi-tech over-produced pens, certainly, but if something does go wrong FPR’s customer service is fast and friendly. Aside from preparing you for a minor ink leak here and there, we really have no reservations!

Where to get hold of one  Direct is the only way; head straight to Fountain Pen Revolution’s site and fill your boots.

This meta-review references:

• Scribble Monboddo’s hand-written reviews of the fine nib and flex Jaipur
• Ian Hedley’s text-and-photos review of the medium nib and flex Jaipurs
• Ruth Hanson’s video review

Thanks to  Kevin and the whole family at Fountain Pen Revolution.

Giveaway!  Two lucky readers were given a chance to win a Jaipur in the colour of their choice (with their preferred nib, too) in this week’s piston-powered bonus bonanza (is that a tautology?). We asked entrants to drop us a line in the comments box with their wildest ideas about what the next clever product from FPR should be called, and some of them were very creative indeed! We picked two winners – Mike Church and Rai Toffoletto – via random.org on 15 November, and Kevin will get the booty winging its way as soon as we have their delivery details.

A little bit of history  Back in the early twentieth century, there were several great British fountain pen manufacturers, and although debate will rage ad infinitum about who was the greatest, Conway Stewart is usually in most people’s top five or so brands from the period.  Like so many famous names of the era, it died a death at least in part due to the ghastly machinations of László Bíró, only to be reborn earlier this century.  The reanimated Conway Stewart, based in Devon, could no longer claim to make the ‘all-British pen’ (the nibs were made on the continent), but they certainly turned out a decent range of very attractive writing equipment – ironically including some bodies adapted for the dreaded alternative to a proper pen, but we’ll have to overlook that.  The new CS pens were made of a fine range of materials, and this caught the attention of many a fan, but may also have been part of its undoing; lacking an affordable end to its range it was always a high-margin but low-volume business, depending heavily upon exports, and it only took a fluctuation in currency exchange rates for feast to turn to famine.  When the reborn brand was wound up last year, a number of enterprising firms bought up machinery, rod stock, and parts for partially-assembled pens, and one of these operators, Bespoke British Pens, has been trickling out a modest but interesting line of cannibalised Conways for the last few months.  We couldn’t resist trying one out.

How it looks  Big, shiny, solid and posh.  Those resins are hard to capture in the camera, but they do reflect the light nicely and that Conway Stewart nib really sets it off to perfection.  The only slight drawback may be the simplicity of the nib presentation, which some of our reviewers felt was a little under-ornamented.  The union jack etched onto the nib would have pleased Winston, of course, although he may have raised a wry smile to find that (being a Bock) it was made in Germany.  Overall, it looks expensive – which it is, really, but we’ll come on to that later.

How it feels  Again, big – and fairly hefty.  Neither was a problem as far as any of our reviewers were concerned; indeed we all found it sat very comfortably in the hand and felt ready for a good long writing session.  Some of these pens – but not all – still have Conway Stewart imprints and limited-edition numbers engraved into the barrel.

How it fills  It’s a piston-filler.  The piston in question is essentially a decent captive converter, so the ink capacity is perhaps not as great as that in one of the bigger TWSBIs, for instance, but it takes on enough ink to keep going for a fair while.  The piston screw is hidden under a blind cap, which would be all too easy to lose – but it does keep the lines of the pen nicely rounded.

Crucially, how it writes…  Not all the spare parts were available in the same quantities, so Bespoke British Pens soon found themselves running out of an essential component – nibs!  They seem to have made a virtue out of a crisis here by getting in touch with the original nib suppliers and procuring a unit with longer tines, which makes for a civilised semi-flex performance.  It’s not as noodle-soft as the likes of the Pilot FA nib, so it can be used for everyday writing but there’s a decent degree of line variation available when you want it, without requiring too much effort.

Pen! What is it good for?  Now, flex isn’t everyone’s favourite thing, and even a rather civilised flex nib like this won’t be too everyone’s taste – indeed, some of our reviewers felt this was a nice pen to play with but really not their bag for keeps.  But one of us thought that it deserved a new category: ‘everyday flex’.  A serious, big pen with a nib which offers flex but behaves well enough to use for ordinary note-taking and writing is not so easy to find – even if, at this price, you probably won’t want to take it out and about with you often.

VFM  This is a tougher question.  At a ticket price of £450 there’s no getting away from it; this is a very expensive pen.  We think the materials, the quality of workmanship and the relative scarcity of materials do justify a premium price, although probably more at the £350 level really.  Whether you feel it’s worth such a lot of money is, as always, very much a personal matter; it could be good value if it’s your dream pen, but if it’s not all that then you could get two or three good pens for the same money.  Of our test panel, two were happy to play with it and pass it on… and one of us smashed the piggy-bank and bought one!

If this isn’t quite your cup of tea, but almost…  There’s no point splashing out this much if it isn’t absolutely right for you, of course.  In truth, the Winston seems to be one of the most popular CS models amongst fountain pen aficionados, but the similarly large Churchill brings a flat-top cap to the collection, and there are several smaller models still available for those who find this a bit unwieldy – all the way down to the diminutive Dandy. If a big, expensive, British pen is on your bucket list but for some reason Conway Stewart doesn’t cut the mustard, Onoto and Yard-o-Led are also still out there – and we’ll get on to reviewing their competing offers in the months ahead if we can find a way to do it.

Our overall recommendation  Think before you press the button, as ever. Unfortunately there are few opportunities to try this before purchase, so an honest calculation about your own needs and resources is the order of the day.  If you like flex nibs and can sensibly afford one of these (preferably without triggering marital disharmony), go for it; this is quite a pen!  If flex isn’t really your thing, or you have any doubts about whether you’ll get enough mileage out of this to justify the cost, be careful.

Where to get hold of one  Other by-products made from salvaged CS components are also available, and if we get our hands on them we’ll review those too.  But in the meantime, if you’re after this particular combination with the ‘flag’ flex nib, you’ll need to go directly to Bespoke British Pens.

This meta-review references:

• Scribble Monboddo’s hand-written review 
• Ian Hedley’s text-and-photos review
• Ruth Hanson’s video review

Thanks to  David at Bespoke British Pens for kindly lending us a splendid brown Winston for its little tour around Britain.

A little bit of history  Pelikan are already famous as the pre-eminent purveyors of the smoothly-tuned piston-filler, from the small but perfectly formed M200 to the huge M1000.  We’d have to get around to reviewing one sooner or later, but Pelikan forced the issue somewhat with one of their limited editions, in a nice dark purple.  Be fair now – you couldn’t expect us to say no, could you?  Thanks to a bit of help from the very lovely Pure Pens of Pontrypidd (who sell Pelikans – have your guessed their favourite letter?), we have been playing with two fine examples with very different nibs – but we’ll come on to that in a minute.  First, the eye candy!

How it looks  The sophisticated end of purple, this is a serious amethyst shade rather than brash violet, so any chaps who feel overly protective about their masculinity have nothing to fear.  But according to our panel, it also still looks ‘fun’, which is a difficult quality to define, but if it can achieve that at the same time as exuding luxury, it‘s getting something right.  The preposterously swanky packaging doesn’t hurt, either.

How it feels  It’s a shapely pen which feels like it’s built to last a lifetime, and probably will.  Whether it’s the right size for you is quite a personal matter – this is the smallest end of the Pelikan range, of course.  The majority of our reviewers found it just perfect, but one of us found it a bit too small for longer-term comfort – but then again, he thinks Sailor’s ‘King of Pen’ is a perfectly sensible size.  There’s no accounting for taste.  What the M205 definitely doesn’t feel, however, is cheap.

How it fills  A piston, obviously.  Until TWSBI came along Pelikan pretty much monopolised the piston-fill market, and they do it well.  The actual ink capacity is not earth-shattering, but it still opens more options than reliance upon over-priced cartridges would do.  The piston itself is smooth and authoritative in action, and doesn’t feel like it’s going to let the user down any time soon.

Crucially, how it writes…  Very well indeed.  But exactly how depends upon your choice of nib, of course.  Ruth was most impressed with the smooth but surprisingly generous steel EF nib, and you can watch it gliding suavely over the page in her video (links below).  Scribble and Stuart opted for a ‘stub’ italic nib personally ground-down from a BB nib by Ross at pure Pens, which retains a little bit of spring and is a nib full of ‘character’.  Either way, using this brings a bit of a smile, somehow.

Pen! What is it good for?  With a ‘sensible’ nib in, you could probably just about get away with taking this to work – although in this case it may depend upon your profession!  On the whole, this one’s probably a nice one to have safely wrapped in a pocket or hand-bag for when you need to scribble a few notes while out and about.  Longer-writing sessions may be possible too, for scribblers with smaller hands.

VFM  TWSBI do a similar job as the M200 for half the price, so the unusual colour and trim of the M205 goes some way to justify the premium price of the Pelikan in this case.  It really does look better in purple and chrome!  It’s not a cheap pen, but if you are after a special nib (like that ‘Cymrucised’ italic) and you want it connected to a proper piston system, this is a good choice.

If this isn’t quite your cup of tea, but almost…  If price is the problem, try a TWSBI; the 580, Mini or Eco are all good introductions to piston-fillers and have a decent range of nibs too.  If you’re not so partial to purple, other M200 specials come and go with the seasons, so wait for a while and something else will be along soon enough.  If you want something bigger, Pelikan have three sizes of piston-filler above this – and if you’re keen for us to review them, just let us know…

Our overall recommendation  This one’s ideal if you feel like treating yourself to something unusual without completely smashing the overdraft limit.  If you like to have fun with proper pens rather than only thinking about office-work and calligraphy, and if you like purple of course, get one.

Where to get hold of one  As they helped us get hold of two of these smashers to review, we’re naturally going to name-check Pure Pens here – and if you want that specially-ground italic, their pelikanpens.co.uk subsidiary is literally the only place to go.  Other specialist fountain pen retailers including Cult Pens and The Writing Desk also stock the purple M205 in the UK, and at the time of writing it’s £90 at all of the above for one of the standard steel nibs.

This meta-review references:

• Scribble Monboddo’s hand-written review 
• Stuart Hazley’s text-and-photos review
• Ruth Hanson’s video review

Thanks to  Pure Pens for pulling out all the stops to get a couple of review samples into our paws.  By the way, if you’d like to see what this company offers, orders over £10 will be getting a 10% discount for the next few weeks for United Inkdom readers – just use the code  “UNITED10”  (all capital letters) and enjoy!

A little bit of history  Lamy have been making pens in Germany since 1930, when a Herr Joseph Lamy, then working for Parker Pens, no less, bought up another pen company and went into business.  Joseph, and then his son, Manfred, ran the company for 76 years.  In that time they produced one of the most respected fountain pens there is, the 2000 – its 1966 design still looking fresh and modern – as well as what is perhaps one of the most easily recognised, almost ubiquitous, fountain pens, the Safari.  This particular model isn’t so well known but a reader asked if we could look at it and, thanks to Cult Pens kindly sending us review samples, we’re glad to be able to share our thoughts on the Lamy Accent.

How it looks  Very similar to a lot of other Lamy pens, actually.  The wooden grip is pretty stylish and offsets the sleek palladium barrel.  In our collective opinion, it’s reminiscent of a 1970s hotel lobby, which is no bad thing, forty years on.

How it feels  Hmm… not so great for us, sadly.  The grip is high, hard and comparatively wide, which meant none of us found it very comfortable to write with.  But we found friends who really liked it, so if you hold your pen high up – perhaps for drawing with – it might suit you better.  When posted, the pen is a little long for some, but unposted it’s a good weight and length.

How it fills  As with all Lamys in this price bracket, the Accent is a cartridge/converter affair, using Lamy’s own versions of each.  Our pens came with converters (the Z26 version) and they’re good and reliable, holding a reasonable amount of ink. (The Z26 converter will fit any of Lamy’s c/c pens but, be warned, the Z24 version used in Safaris will not fit the Accent.)

Crucially, how it writes…  The reader who asked us to review the Accent liked the MK nib, with its round-balled tip, and this has now become the shape for the standard M nib, although a side by side comparison suggests the MK is a little wider. Flow is good and it writes nicely. As with all Lamy pens in this price range (and below), nibs are easily interchanged and are very good value.

Pen! What is it good for?  It looks great but we found it rather uncomfortable for extended periods of writing – so we’d say it’s best for quick notes or sketching.

VFM  The Accent is well-made, from good quality materials, but it’s hard to justify spending this much money for a pen if you’re not going to keep using it.  Much depends upon whether that unusual grip suits your style.If this isn’t quite your cup of tea, but almost…   Lamy produce a lot of similar-looking pens without the bulging grip, the Logo being particularly good.  If wood and shiny metal is your thing, the Faber-Castell Ambition is a similar price and looks fantastic.  It’s quite possible that the version of the Lamy Accent with the rubber grip is more comfortable, too.

Our overall recommendation  Definitely try before you buy.  If you get on with the grip then it’s a good solid choice, but if you find it as uncomfortable as we did, you may not be delighted.
Where to get hold of one  We’re very grateful to Cult Pens for donating these pens for review – we’re all impressed customers and generally feel that you can’t go too far wrong there!  If you want to shop around then, to be honest, it’s hard to find a fountain pen shop anywhere that doesn’t stock Lamy pens.  That seems like a vote of confidence in itself.

This meta-review references:

• Scribble Monboddo’s hand-written review 
• Ian Hedley’s text-and-photos review
• Ruth Hanson’s video review

Thanks to Cult Pens for providing the pens we reviewed, at double-quick speed too – that really helps us.  Thanks to them for providing the Deep Dark inks, too – see the details of an exciting give-away just below!

Giveaway!  Cult Pens, in conjunction with Diamine, have their very own range of “Deep Dark” inks: Deep Dark Blue, Brown, Purple, Orange, Green and Red.  They have very kindly offered up a set of all six of these inks, in 30ml bottles, for one lucky reader.  Entries have now closed, and we’ll be in touch with the lucky winner soon.  Just to make sense of the comments below, we asked entrants to tell us which Diamine ink colour was there favourite.  We had a little think about what our own favourite Diamine inks are and came up with: Imperial Purple – Scribble, Asa Blue – Ruth, Twilight – Ian (who really couldn’t make up his mind and wanted to pick Autumn Oak and China Blue too, but that’s not allowed).  As for our readers’ choices, well, they’re illuminating.

A little bit of history If you’re into fountain pens even a little bit you’ll probably already know about TWSBI.  If you don’t, the name may prove a little baffling, but the internet is full of exciting tales about how it means the hall of the seventh wonder of the world written upside-down by bees, or some such.  But let’s not worry about that here.  The main thing is that it’s a very enterprising Taiwanese company who really put the time in to listen to their customers and use the input to develop their new models, and this Eco is, as the name would suggest, the most affordable yet.

How it looks  Like a prop from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001, which is to say modern but groovy, in a subtle sort of way.  There’s no attempt at cheap bling, and whether you go for black or white caps, the barrel is clear, so you get to admire the main feature; that big barrel full of ink.

How it feels  Picking this up is quite a pleasure.  It’s full-length and well-balanced without needing to post the cap.  The finger-guide is effective without the sharp corners of the Lamy Vista, for instance.  The Eco feels solid and well-engineered.

How it fills  It’s a piston-filler!  That not only means that there’s a huge amount of ink in there – enough to get you through the average working week, we reckon – but it also marks this out as a manufacturing marvel.  Leaving aside some fun-but-fragile Indian budget pens, no-one has been able to produce a proper CNC-cut piston mechanism at anything like this price before (the cheapest Pelikan or Pilot pistons will set you back at least three times as much), and the Eco earns serious credit for this achievement alone.  There’s no removable section, but it’s still possible to clean thoroughly between fills as the feed and nib are friction-fit and the piston mechanism can be removed and replaced with the special tool provided with the pen (the box also includes a handy phial of silicone grease).

Crucially, how it writes…  Well enough at the price.  TWSBI has always used German nibs, switching from Bock to JoWo a couple of years ago, and while debate rages on incessantly about which is best, either makes perfectly good steel nibs to get started with.  The nib is a little smaller than on the 530/540/580, but they had to economise somewhere, and the surface area in contact with the paper to put the ink down is just the same, of course.  There isn’t much spring in the nib, and there can be some ‘feedback’ from the paper, but it’s not scratchy.  Many people do like that feel a lot – and you’re not going to find it difficult to run out of ink while you’re at it…

Pen! What is it good for?  We think this is just right for someone just getting in to fountain pens who wants to know what the fuss made of piston-fillers is all about, and probably a good choice for students too (albeit with the caveat that this is one to clip into a pocket rather than fling around in a pencil case, if leaks are to be avoided).

VFM  Absolutely stellar; a properly-engineered large capacity piston mechanism for so little money is a very impressive achievement, and there’s nothing much about the Eco that feels cheap and tacky (with the possible exception of the rather basic clip).

If this isn’t quite your cup of tea, but almost…  Then take a look at some of TWSBI’s other models, many of which use the same piston-fill mechanism with slightly classier components.  The 580, for instance, uses a larger nib, has a removable/swappable section for easy maintenance and nib variation, looks like a premium pen and yet often costs only 30-40% more than the Eco.

Our overall recommendation  If you want a brand-new functional and fun piston filler at the lowest price possible, look no further.  Should you be in possession of a fair number of fountain pens already and be curious about TWSBI as a brand, however, the 580 or even the Mini may be more compelling attractions.  But you’ll end up buying one of these because it’s just so darn tempting anyway!

Where to get hold of one  We all got ours from Pure Pens,  and in the UK several specialist retailers including Cult Pens and The Writing Desk also stock the full TWSBI range.  Internationally, as well as other specialist pen shops, you can also buy direct from TWSBI in Taiwan (but watch out for postage and customs charges).

This meta-review references:

• Scribble Monboddo’s hand-written review 
• Ian Hedley’s text-and-photos review
• Ruth Hanson’s video review

Thanks to Pure Pens for providing the pens we reviewed, and for putting up a nice discount for the first week after publication.

A little bit of history  The Pen Shop is a rare beast – a small chain of actual bricks-and-mortar writing kit specialists, with a website attached.  Based in the North East of England, they’ve been epitomising the archetypal canny Geordies recently by creating their own  brand, Dex.  There are two sizes of Dex fountain pen, the larger ‘soft’ (which describes the plastic of the body rather than denoting nib feel), and the smaller ‘compact’, the mini version that we’re reviewing here.  The Dexs, Dexa or Dexii (depending upon your etymological preference) have been around for a few months now and are attracting quite a fan-base in the fountain pen message boards, so we were very pleased when the Pen Shop sent United Inkdom its first dedicated test samples…

How it looks  It looks pretty good, for the money.  The clear barrel shows off the ink colour in the cartridge rather nicely, and it looks like it it’s going to be a fun thing to pick up and play with – which, actually, it is!

How it feels  With the cap on, we think it should be about the right size for most people’s needs, and it posts fairly securely so it feels reasonably robust too.  It’s very light indeed – the other end of the scale from the chunk of heavy metal we reviewed last week – but that’s often good news for beginners.  The rubber section is slightly shaped to add good pen posture, which is again quite helpful for anyone getting to, err, grips with writing properly.  It feels comfortable to grab and have a go with.

How it fills  This is a straightforward whack-in-a-cartridge job, and for the likely purposes of most owners that should be ideal.  The blue it comes with is perfectly adequate, and of course there are many tempting alternatives from Diamine which we’d recommend.

Crucially, how it writes…  Considering the tiny price tag, it writes rather amazingly.  The Dex pens use a steel nib made by Bock, whose reputation for quality probably needs little introduction to most people reading this.  It’s only available in M size as yet, but we don’t blame The Pen Shop for starting there as it’s a good size to get started with.Pen! What is it good for?  This is one for the classroom, without a shadow of doubt – indeed, our test samples have been enthusiastically ‘adopted’ by pupils and teachers already (and cats, of course).  Some of our reviewers are just little envious that there wasn’t a school pen this nice to use when they were getting started too…

VFM  For a beginner’s fountain pen. this is just about the best value for money there is.  High-street stationers will sell you pens which perhaps look a little shinier on the outside for only a little more, but for £10 this has everything a budding scribbler could need; that Bock nib really is built to take some abuse and still write well, and we suspect (although for obvious reasons it has been neither confirmed nor denied) that the body is made by Diplomat.  So it’s both Geordie and German, and should be flying off the shelves as an export if there’s any justice in the world… Auf Wiedersehen, Pen.

If this isn’t quite your cup of tea, but almost…  then other purveyors of appalling puns based upon 1980s television comedy dramas are available.  But, getting back to the Dex compact, the diminutive size might be the one thing that puts off some potential purchasers, but the larger Dex ‘soft’ model solves that quite easily.

Our overall recommendation  Buy one of these for a child who you want to see enjoying writing  – and a bigger Dex ‘soft’ for yourself!  This is brilliant value, and the Dex fountain pen deserves to be a success.  We’d really like to see a wider range of nib sizes available (and maybe an italic too), but we’re informed such developments are on their way soon…

Where to get hold of one  Obviously, enough, from the Pen Shop.  You can drop into one of their bricks-and-mortar establishments if you wish, or order direct from their website.

This meta-review references:

• Scribble Monboddo’s hand-written review 
• Ian Hedley’s text-and-photos review
• Ruth Hanson’s video review

Thanks to The Pen Shop for providing review samples and a handy discount for the first few weeks after the meta-review was published.  We do love a bargain…