Kaweco Sport Coral Collectors Edition Fountain Pen Review

(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Twitter. And check out her latest book, Out of Water, now available where books are sold!)

Kaweco Sport pens are petite but practical, colorful, fun, and affordable--making them the Pokemon of the pen world. They are almost too collectible, between new color series releases and a scattering of limited and collectors editions.

This new Collectors Edition is a Coral color--not to be confused with (or to be entirely confused with) the Kaweco Sport Coral Guilloche Special Edition released by Fontoplumo earlier this year. While the two are extremely similar in name and color, there are a few obvious differences. The Coral Guilloche has gold debossed lettering that specifically says "Coral by Fontoplumo" on one of the pen facets, and the body has a patterned texture to it. This Coral Collector's edition has the classic Sport smooth plastic, and the lettering is debossed but has no color to it. It says "collectors edition" on the facet. See? Totally different. I'm of the bold opinion that you can't have too many coral pens, anyway.

Speaking of bold, this baby comes with a double broad nib option, which happens to be the model I was sent. This nib is a show-off. It will absolutely highlight the best properties of your ink as it glides across the page. This thing is for writing with emphasis, and I love it.

The one downside to the double broad nib is that it will eat through your ink supply faster, and this wee pen only takes short standard international cartridges (or a few options of specially-made wee converters that, by all accounts, are not great). You can find a lot of lovely colors and inks in short cartridges, though, including some beautiful ones from Kaweco. And there's always the option of refilling your cartridge with a syringe. There are also success stories out there from the brave souls who have eyedroppered their Kaweco Sports, but that's a step outside my comfort zone.

Kaweco nibs are easy to swap around, so you can customize that element of your pen, if you like. Replacement nibs are about $11.50 for steel, which I think is very reasonable. You can also get clips that friction fit in a variety of metal color options for around $6. Considering this pen costs under $25 to begin with, you can get a lot out of a low investment here. The price point puts it in a great range for gifts, too.

Kaweco Sports are tiny workhorse pens. Workhorse ponies. Workponies? In any case, they are small, adorable, tough, reliable, and full of rainbows. This coral color is incredibly charming--classic, but bright and cheerful. I'm not entirely clear where the fuzzy line is drawn between special editions, collectors editions, and limited editions, but I imagine this is one you don't want to wait on.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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The Galen A5 Leather "Everyday" Notebook and Scrikss 419 Indigo Fountain Pen: A Review

(Susan M. Pigott is a fountain pen collector, pen and paperholic, photographer, and professor. You can find more from Susan on her blog Scribalishess.)

Galen Leather and Vanness Pens sent Pen Addict two products for review: the Galen A5 Leather Notebook in Crazy Horse Forest Green and a Scrikss 419 fountain pen in indigo. I decided to review them together, using the pen to test the notebook and the notebook to test the pen.

The Scrikss 419 Fountain Pen in Indigo

Scrikss is a Turkish pen company established in 1964 in Istanbul. The 419 model is a reproduction of a pen created by Scrikss in the past, and it is a limited edition. It comes in a cardboard box with Galen branding.

The pen is made from acrylic resin and has a clear ink window. I was surprised to discover that the pen is a piston filler because the pen is so small and light.

The Scrikss 419 is a diminutive pen, measuring 125mm/4.9 inches capped, 117mm/4.6 inches uncapped, and 150mm/5.9 inches posted, with a grip diameter of 9.16mm. It weighs next to nothing even when fully inked (unposted) (8.21 grams).

The clip is gold-toned with the Scrikss logo and the cap ring is engraved with the Scrikss name.

Although the cap threads are located above the grip, your fingers still touch them, at least partially. But the threads are smooth so the pen is comfortable to hold.

The medium nib is 23k gold-plated stainless steel. It's a simple nib engraved with the Scrikss logo.

The piston is hard to turn at first. Once you get it in motion, however, it moves more smoothly. The pen doesn't hold much ink--maybe .5 ml.

When first inked, the medium nib was wet, sometimes leaving blobs of ink in its wake. But, the longer I wrote, the drier it became, to the point that it suddenly stopped writing. You can see this in the photo below. At the top of the page, the ink is much darker and flows well. It gets lighter and drier and then stops writing mid-sentence.

The only fix for this is to manually push the ink down with the piston. Then the process starts again: too wet, just right, dry, then nothing--a frustrating experience.

In addition to the inconsistent ink flow, the medium nib is a little scratchy. It isn't terribly bad and might be fixed by using micro mesh.

I'm just not impressed with the pen at all. It's too small for my hand (but for people who love small pens, this would be a plus). It feels flimsy, the piston is finicky, the nib is inconsistent, and I found the writing experience unpleasant. $35.00 might be reasonable for a piston-filled fountain pen. However, the problems I had with ink flow and nib inconsistency make me hesitant to purchase another Scrikss pen.

The Galen Leather A5 "Everyday" Notebook

Galen's leather notebook in Crazy Horse Forest Green is simple and beautiful. It arrives in a black magnetic-closure box.

The green leather is smooth to the touch and has variations that add to its character. Over time, scratches, nicks, and fading will make it even lovelier. The leather is thin, so the notebook doesn't feel overly heavy. The only branding is on the back cover, and it is tasteful.

Inside are 200 sheets (400 pages front and back) of hand-sewn, blank, white 52gsm Tomoe River Paper. The corners are curved for a sleek look.

Galen provides four templates: 7mm lined, 10mm lined, 5mm graph, and 10mm graph. Because Tomoe River Paper is so thin, these templates work perfectly to provide guidance for writing or drawing. A plain piece of leather serves either as a blotter or a pad for writing.

The notebook doesn't include any pockets or bookmark ribbons.

I tested the paper with the pens I currently have inked. As expected, the paper handled all of them admirably, although there is significant show through.

Swabs look wonderful on Tomoe River Paper:

I'm quite happy with the Galen Leather Notebook. It is beautiful, simple, and useful. It lays completely flat when open, which is another plus.

I plan to use my notebook to practice Zentangles and Mandalas.

You can purchase the Scrikss fountain pen in a variety of colors for $35.00 fromGalen Leather. The Galen Leather Notebook in either Crazy Horse Brown or Crazy Horse Forest Green costs $36.00 (Galen or $25.00 Vanness (currently out of stock).

(Galen Leather provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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Sunderland Machine Works mk1 Review

Machined metal pens are one category that never becomes less interesting to me as time goes on. The idea of taking a metal rod and machining it down to a finished product isn't unique; it's similar to how plastic (acrylic, resin, etc.) fountain pens are made, but with some different tooling involved. I like the industrial and robust feel of a metal pen, and I also like supporting small makers that are using their imaginations to create different pens to hold our beloved refills.

The latest in my collection of metal machined pens is the Sunderland Machine Works mk1. It's unique to me in the sense that the aesthetic has a "softer" personality. There aren't any harsh edges, and there are soft slopes on the pen body as the diameters shrinks toward the butt of the pen. In fact, the soft edges and round ends are found all over the pen. This adds up to a very comfortable writing experience that also looks clean and inviting when not in use.

On the exterior of the pen, there are several machined grooves that add nice visual separation along the length of the pen, and the grip section has several grooves that make it easy to grip the pen when writing. These grooves don't have sharp edges, making them very comfortable and secure when writing.

The clip on this pen is exceptionally strong, which makes sense after reading that it's made from machined stainless steel. It's not difficult to slip onto a pocket or bag sleeve due to the generous angle of the clip opening. Once you've secured this pen to something, it takes a good amount of force to move it. I have no doubts that this pen is staying right where I put it unless something underneath it pushes it straight up and away from whatever it's clipped onto. So, it might not be the right pen to clip onto your jeans when doing maneuvers that require lots of agility.

But, even if the pen does go for a tumble, it should be just fine due to the aluminum material. The pen is still lightweight, but the aluminum material makes the pen feel very solid and high quality. I'm sure it will take on lots of micro-scratches over the years, and I look forward to that worn-in look it will surely develop.

One of the most marvelous things about this pen is the unique cap threading design. I was baffled when first playing with this pen out of the box. It's a screw-on cap, but I couldn't find any threads on the grip or body to accept the cap threads. After more inspection, I noticed that there's a small gap between the cone and the grip section. Inside this gap, you can see some threads on the inside of the grip section that mate up with threads in the top of the cap. It's an ingenious design that really adds to the clean look of this pen. On top of all that, it feels remarkably smooth when capping and uncapping. The pen slots into the cap threads in a way that feels like there's almost zero tolerance in the thread size. It's extremely satisfying, and probably explains why this design is patent-pending.

After a bit more inspection, I noticed that the interior of the cap is also lined with some sort of plastic sleeve. It's extremely thin, and I think the only functional purpose of this addition is to avoid the scraping, clanking sound you get from metal on metal. This is something I've grown used to with custom machined pens over the years, but this extra little "nice to have" feature is just delightful. I can uncap and cap this pen with almost zero noise. Not something I can say about any of my other machined pens, but that doesn't mean I love them any less.

Writing with this pen is comfortable and enjoyable. It ships with a Pilot G2 0.7mm black refill, and I quickly swapped that out for a Pilot Juice refill. The G2 is ubiquitous, so I understand why someone would pick it for a bulk operation, but I just wish the Juice would become the new standard for this kinds of things, similar to how the Schmidt P8126/7 is the standard refill now for custom rollerball pens. Besides the lack-luster default refill, this does mean your options for refill replacement is huge. Any Pilot G2 size refill will work with this pen, not just the Pilot Juice that I chose to swap in.

I really like the "clear" aluminum color of the pen I have, but there are several other colors to choose from — Blue, Green, Orange, Red, Black, and Grey to be exact. At $85, this isn't an impulse purchase, but it is priced fairly considering the materials and competition. I think it's a great value and serves well as a personal treat or a gift for someone else.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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Enjoy reading The Pen Addict? Then consider becoming a member to receive additional weekly content, giveaways, and discounts in The Pen Addict shop. Plus, you support me and the site directly, for which I am very grateful.

Membership starts at just $5/month, with a discounted annual option available. To find out more about membership click here and join us!