Pen Review

Took this last night. Nice "little" pen. Has the cool Dunhill retractable clip.

- Mark

My Retro 51 Tornado Cioppino. Nice inexpensive pen. What's this called Abalone, Mother-of-Pearl?

Probably one of my favorite ballpoint pens. Nice quality. Has the adjustable clip. I wonder if this is exclusive to Dunhill. Perhaps they have a patent?

- Mark

Anyone notice anything interesting about the photo?

Frank Dubiel introduced me to the Parker 61 MkII pens a long time ago at the Orlando Pen Show. I really liked the 2 steel dots on the section. Quite different than 51s. This has an aerometric fill like a 51 but is called a 61. The aerometric filler is also different. I'll see about posting a picture of it.

I've wanted one ever since I saw the ones Frank had, but you don't run across these very often. At least I haven't.

- Mark

Well this is one of my latest acquisitions from Stan. I'd heard of the Pilot Custom before but have never held one. This pen reminds me of a Parker 75. It has a similar feel and look to it with the top and bottom tassies and the way the cap "snaps" on. It doesn't have the same type of nib though, it has a (integrated) nib similar to other Pilot pens I own. The model I have is steel and feels a lot like a Murex Long Sr. type pen. The Custom has a spring loaded clip to fit a variety of fabrics.

The nibs on these pens are either 14K or 18K white gold. It appears that the older version's of these pens have 18K while the newer ones have 14K. Pilot used WG to indicate white gold on the older pens, but the newer ones have 14K-585 on the nib.

All in all it's a very well made pen. This one was used for which I'm thankful as it made my decision to try it out much easier. I'll probably keep this as a writer in my rotation. These pens take the standard Pilot cartridges or converter.

The black lines on this pen are etched into the steel so they won't suffer from wear. This is probably similar to the black-striped MYUs. These pens appear to have come in a variety of patterns similar to the way the Parker 75 was done. I don't believe there was as large a variation though. I haven't seen any in gold, but I have see them in Sterling. I'm guessing most were like this one.

I found a good deal on a Stipula Duetto that I couldn't pass up. I think I had seen one before and liked it, but probably passed because of the price. I got the Cognac with Silver trim. Stipula refers to the material as Cellocride. It has a celluloid and vintage look to it. It doesn't look completely vintage but does put out vibes to that effect. This is a cartridge/converter filling pen.

One thing I noticed right away is the location of the threads on the section. The are at the very end of the section close to the nib. This makes for a smooth surface area where you grip the pen. No section threads to worry about. Another nice thing about this is when you post you don't have to worry about cap threads since they are way up in the cap.

It is one of the nicer posting pens I've seen. When I use a pen I sometimes post and other times I don't. I'd probably post with this pen on a regular basis as it just feels right. Sometimes you post a cap and you are concerned that it might fall off or be too hard to pull off, but not this pen. I think this has to do with the threads or lack of them.

Since there are no threads around the section area and I'm assuming Stipula wanted to keep that area smooth they have you unscrew the pen in the middle of the barrel. Where the additional ring is in the full image above.

It has a nice sturdy clip that should fit over most material. The nib is a nice large 18k two-tone standard Stipula nib.

It's a good size pen at 140mm capped.

These are some cute little ballpoints from Parker. Since I'm a guy I try not to use the word "cute" too often, but these are just that.

They are so small that Parker designed a special click mechanism for these. There is small piece of spring metal that pushes the cap to one side and the lip of the cap catches in a groove on the inside of the cap itself. I'll work on a drawing of a cut-away and post it.

Well I worked on a cut away image in Photoshop Elements. I'm not very happy with it but it is my first time doing this.

Hand drawn version of the same illustration.

Another hand drawn illustration of the whole pen with colors.

I picked these up at the 2005 Atlanta Pen show. I think I saw some on eBay at one time and thought it looked pretty cool.

Anyway, if you ever find a good deal on one you may want to get it as I think they're pretty unusual.

Here is an ad provided by Henry Gostony. Thanks Henry!

- Mark