Art AlternativesPen & Ink Sketching Fountain Pen, Extra-Fine

Rather than going through the effort of cleaning totally, I buy a new pen for each color I use. So, I have a lot of these. Mostly they are excellent. This set the cap is too tight! and one pen came broken in half, not a shipping prob.. But all in all an excellent pen. These are chinese ef, not european ef. So, they are finer than most we see here. It is slightly scratchy due to its hyper fineness, in time it smooths out. Well worth the money. You can get a bucket full of cartridges for little here! Or like me use the excellent converter! I've written thousands of pages with these! I took one off for the broken pen, but as to the pen, generally I would give a 5.

Bought the pen in 2012.The good: nib is not XF, but treated as a F it is very consistent and gives just the right amount of feedback. Moreover, written upside down the pen keeps up and is a very good XF. Nice convertor.The bad: The rubberised pen body made for very nice grip the first couple of years and was one thing I liked about this pen, but it has degraded to a sticky mush so I had to throw the pen away.Served me well for a few years. That said, of all the FPs I have owned for more than a decade, this is the only one that didn't hold up.

Writes smooth no tearing paper

I bought this fountain pen since a friend's gift of an extra fine Jinhao student version broke on me. I loved the previous fountain pen for my constant use, and this one is far better quality for the body of the pen. This fountain pen is light in weight, but I've been using it as an everyday pen and I'm in love with it. I bought 2 and both worked amazingly straight out of the box. I haven't had any issues with the pen at all and would purchase it again in the future if anything should happen to this one (the second pen was for my daughter who spends a lot of time writing and drawing, whom also loves the pen for everyday use). As this is an extra fine nibbed pen, it is actually really a smooth writing pen and can withstand lots of writing or sketching. The suede pouch is not tremendously impressive, but it was nothing I was purchasing this pen for anyway. The outside texture of the pen adds to ease of use and handling comfortably. I think that for the price, it is a great buy and, if you're a regular user of fountain pens for journaling, notes, sketches, etc., this is definitely a pen worth having. I am a pen lover and fountain pens are my favorite... and this one is one that has been added to my favorites that I carry everywhere and use daily. If the body of the pen can withstand being in my pocket 24/7, it is a truly sturdy pen.

First off- the ink that comes with this is lousy. But I didn't buy it for the ink, and it does come with a cartridge that lets you use your own ink.The nib itself is not as good as it could be. It's not sharp enough to warrant the 'X-Fine' label, and isn't really suited for anyone used to sketching with a regular dip pen and nib.The nib doesn't have a very good spring too it. You don't get very much variation in width as you change pressure.All of that aside, it is a very decent pen for just regular, on the go sketching. It does what it says, doesn't seem to clog, and the ink runs smoothly but doesn't pour out.I have a couple of rapidograph pens which could wipe the floor with this thing, for about the same price. But, you don't get any line width control from those, and I like the look of quill pen style lines.All in all, it's worth what I paid for it.

I bought one of these, used it for a year, and found myself preferring it over a Waterman and a Montblanc, both with gold nibs, both handed down from my father. So I bought a second one of these. I am now buying a third. I want one in every place I reach for a pen. The nibs (well, my *n* of two nibs so far) are smooth and the ink flows evenly and works well on many types of paper. And if you do happen to lose the pen (or in my case, if my kids get hold of it and break it), you are not out hundreds of dollars or losing a family heirloom. My only quibble is the ink cartridges are small and get used up quickly, HOWEVER, there is room in the barrel to store a back-up cartridge, so you can change it out quickly and easily. (I get weary of dealing with plunger cartridges, but if you like to use real bottled ink, it's an option too.)I see there are even cheaper fountain pen options coming up in Amazon's algorithm when I click this one, but I can't vouch for the quality of those. This pen, however, gets an A+++. Highly recommended.

I have used fountain pens for years. I purchased this one as an inexpensive pen that I didn't have to worry very much about.The feel of the pen in hand is nice. I like the satin-like finish and the size is good. It has a decent balance.So far, the ink flow is relatively smooth, although it does like to blot slightly on first touch to the paper (even with the pen stored nib up). Given the price of the pen, this isn't too much of an issue. I haven't tried using the refillable cartridge yet, so I may have to update this at a later date.My main issue with the pen, though, is with its description as an "extra fine" nib. It certainly LOOKS like a fine nib, but it definitely doesn't write like one. In fact, it produces a thicker line than some of my medium nib pens. This is disappointing because the "extra fine" description is the reason I went with this pen.

I've been looking at this pen for a while, and when I saw it online for a better deal than I found in the art specialty store, I jumped on it. I'm not unsatisfied with the pen as a whole. It writes very nicely and is good for sketching. Although I wish I had purchased the fine nib as opposed to the extra-fine nib because the pen sometimes scratches the paper. However, I'm not so satisfied with the ink that came with the pen. It took a while for the ink to start flowing nicely through the pen and when it finally did the ink wasn't the greatest consistency. It started out gray with varying darkness. After about a half hour of messing around with lines the ink finally started writing black.I would recommend the pen, but would suggest using a different kind of ink.

For the price, I figured it would be a terrible pen but it is actually a wonderful one. It writes nice and smooth and looks great. I'm definitely going to be buying more.

Only complaint is that the nib was very scratchy out of the box. Have the fine nib also and very happy. After aligning the tines and smoothing the nib it now works wonderfully. It took a bit of work, though.

Lid keeps falling off!!!!