My dear, naive sister took all my blathering about fountain pens to heart and bought a few to try out. She didn’t like them, and offered them to me. I got them last Thursday.
What was in the box?
- A neon pink Lamy Safari with a fine nib, plus a converter to go with it. Yeah, it’s a chick color, but I love the Safari model. I cleaned it out and filled it with Franklin Cristoph Red 182 ink.
- A fuschia/pink Nemosine Singularity with an extra fine nib and a converter. This one will is now inked with Waterman Tender Purple.
- A 50ml bottle of Lamy black ink. (I now have five different black inks, not including Parker or Nemosine cartridges, but one can never have too much black ink.)
- Extra Nemosine nibs, consisting of a standard medium and two different widths of calligraphy nibs. As you well know, I don’t do medium nibs, and my chicken scratch is not conducive to calligraphy, so I will probably try to find a new home for those.
- A gray (gunmetal) Nemosine Neutrino with a metal body, also with an extra fine nib and a converter.
This is my first experience with Nemosine pens. I had to ask my mentor about them when I found out that they were on the way. She had nice things to say, and my experience agrees with that assessment. Both are attractive, but the Neutrino is a particularly pretty pen. It’s not as awesome in appearance as my Parker Sonnet, but it’s quite nice. The major difference is that the gray seems to be a coating or paint of some sort, likely to be slightly less robust than the (probably) electroplated Parker.
If she had offered them to me a few weeks earlier, she may very well have saved me delayed my spending of $100+ between the Parker Sonnet and the Platinum 3776. The Neutrino is ideal for what I bought those to be – a reliable, attractive pen with a conservative, professional appearance that is nice enough to be appropriate when wearing something nicer than jeans and a t-shirt.
Not only is it a pretty pen, but it writes very well. It was still inked, who knows how long after Sis set it aside. It took off right out of the box – no hesitation, no skipping. It’s smooth and a true extra fine. It also has a feature that I had never seen before. The trim near the tip of the barrel is actually threaded. The cap screws on when posted. I prefer screw caps over pull caps, and making a threaded barrel to secure the cap while posted is a nice bonus.
In other news, my Sonnet has returned. It is now fitted with what Parker claims is an extra fine nib. Just like Lamy, Parker’s XF is barely a fine, but it is a huge improvement over its original equipment magic marker width “fine”. Like its predecessor, however, it dries out enough to produce a momentary skip if left uncapped and unused for more than a minute or two. Otherwise, I’m happy with it. Which one of the three (Platinum, Parker or Nemosine) I choose for the rare occasions when I wear nice clothes will probably depend on my mood more than anything. They are all beautiful, quality pieces.
Wow. The Neutrino is really, really pretty.
Yes, it is. I really like it. When I looked it up, I couldn’t believe it was only a $20-ish pen. Less than the Lamy, metal, is a true EF, and comes with a converter.
I’m honestly considering a Nimosine base model–I think that’s the Singularity. Are those about the same size around the grip section as the Parker Vector, or are they chunkier?
They are very slightly (10% would be my estimate) chunkier than the Vector. I can put the calipers on them this afternoon when I get home if you want an exact comparison.