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Snippets: Capillaris, Tibaldi, Dialog CC, Eco Raden, and this wonderful community

My review queue is hanging over me with a disappointed look on its face. I am overdue to write up a proper review of three Silverburl pens, which I’ve had in hand for a month now (check out my first impressions video here). I’ve also got three beautiful Tibaldi Bamboo pens on loan from Iguanasell that I need to knuckle down and do justice to:

And half a dozen colourful metal beauties from Gravitas have been brightening up my desk for a couple of weeks already: see my first impressions video here. I owe each of these pens a full individual review, so bear with me.

Then this week a very unusual pen turned up from Capillaris. Capillaris is Zsolt, an obsessive machinist in Budapest. He’s been working on the design of this pen for more than five years, and now the first batch of ten are ready to order. He loaned one to me to review. This is going to be a tough one. It’s an ultra-minimal design, solid titanium, #5 Ti nib, cartridge/converter… and it’s 835 euros. Zsolt’s perspective is that the price is a fair reflection of the sheer quality and work involved in the machining tolerances, surface finishing, and premium grade of titanium. But I’ve already seen from the Instagram comments that people are shocked by this price for this kind of machined pen. It’s going to be a tough one to review.

I would normally be excited to plough through this review queue and kick out posts. But the second half of January was a real slog. Yes, I reviewed the excellent ebonite Pen7 and a selection of inks from Korea’s hot new ink house Wearingeul, and four other reviews and a smattering of other posts earlier in the month. But my energy levels are low. And when my energy is low, so is my willpower. You know what that means. I start placing orders.

Some of them are small. I ordered a Platinum Curidas from Amazon, hacked off all the sticky-out bits of plastic, and have been using it a lot. It’s not perfect, not by a long shot, but it is defiantly its own thing.

Still on a retractable kick, I finally cracked and ordered a Lamy Dialog CC (technically for the second time — I had a preorder way back when it was first announced, but cancelled). Iguanasell whisked it to me in record time and I was genuinely really excited to unbox it. And actually it has blown me away. It feels ‘right’ in a way that the Dialog 3 never quite hit. Perfect size, the usual Lamy engineering, and a spot-on nib.

I also finally put a plan into action that I had been stewing on for some months: I installed a Platinum 3776 nib in my Kasama Una Panahon. I picked a rhodium soft fine from Cult Pens, and it went beautifully into a FNF housing and now my Una is transformed. Buying a Platinum 3776 and junking the whole pen just to steal the nib seems wasteful, but at about £135 the 3776 is about the same price as a JoWo gold nib alone.

I also impulse-ordered from Bungubox three inks and a TWSBI Eco Raden. After shipping and duties it was not a trivial amount of money. When I figuratively sobered up I sold the pen on. It was beautiful, and I am a huge fan of the Eco (as I reasserted in my recent review), but I made myself be sensible for once.

Feeling the pressure of all these purchases, I sold my Radius Superior too (too close to my Leonardo Cuspide in features and feel), and the Eboya Kobue I recently reviewed. Trying to keep the books balanced!

But with all these ins and outs, and trays of review samples, some only on loan, it’s getting hard for me to keep track of my collection, and that always makes me feel uncomfortable. I have just a few still incoming, including the Elbwood I ordered at the start of January (currently stuck in DHL hell), my 149 coming back from a nib swap in Hamburg… and a preposterously expensive impulse buy that I won’t talk about just yet. Suffice it to say that I didn’t follow any of my own advice or wisdom that I’ve so painfully accumulated over the years.

But let’s finish this post on a positive note. This community is full of lovely people, and pleasant surprises. I had two this week. The unparalleled gentleman that is Rupert Arzeian dropped a Cross Bailey Light on my doormat today, which turns out to be a really blinding little pen, as well as gorgeous in this terracotta and gold colour scheme. It really did make my day.

And earlier in the week, a parcel from Lois of Pebble Stationery turned up, containing their newest release, the ‘Art Deco’. I am a big fan of Pebble’s work, from their Liberty-fabric A5 notebooks with Cosmo paper to their gilt-edged pocket Tomoe notebooks. They are great products made by great people. Thanks for thinking of me, Lois.

So, consider yourself caught up, and thanks for bearing with me. The blog has been quiet for a week or so, but life has been frantic! See you on the other side, I hope…

6 Comments

  1. Helen

    I just had a pen back for a nib exchange at mont blanc, it took a really long time. I think they must had a big backlog! Although now it’s done it’s of excellent quality and now I’ve got a good few pages written is smooth and beautiful. Totally sold on their oblique broad. I hope yours comes through soon!

  2. rupertarzeian

    Thanks for the kind mention. It sounds like you have had a very busy time of late. I was interested to read that you had bought a Curidas and removed the protrusions. The nib on mine is wonderful. I escaped the problem of feeds cracking that some people reported but imagine that’s been resolved by now. Platinum’s famous blue black ink is also very pleasing.

  3. Ruth Feiertag

    Anthony,

    Cut yourself Some slack. We’re all slogging along and we’ll be here to keep reading, even if you decide to take a break.

    Ruth

  4. Spencer Braithwaite

    Wow, that Cross is gorgeous and about 1/10th the price I would have expected! Maybe that’s the Cross I should have bought all along, not the Century…

    I’m sure everybody here understands that life has its ups and downs, as do our hobby experiences. Personally I’m just happy for a nice bit of reading whenever you do make a post.

  5. tomalaerts

    For that price, I hope that the capillaris is at least made of hardened titanium grade 5 so it is more scratch resistant.

    • tomalaerts

      Meanwhile I checked and it is indeed using a top grade titanium alloy that was hardened

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