Faber-Castell Ondoro Fountain Pen

The Ondoro arrived at my office on a warm (for Edmonton) Thursday afternoon in March. I left the official unboxing until the weekend when I could devote my full attention. The white cardboard box was solid and felt like it held a quality instrument. It functions like a little drawer with a ribbon pull on the short end. I was disappointed to see the pen itself inside a crinkly, clear plastic bag. I know I am being overly picky, but I always feel that the plastic bag packaging bag cheapens the experience - it makes me think "made in China" in a bad way. Plastic aside, the pen is lovely. Modern is the first word that comes to mind. Sleek and shiny, it has a unique look that makes me feel I should using it to write something clever and urbane. The body has a seamless finish that is impressive - it took me a couple seconds to find how to open the pen to load the ink. The satisfying click when putting the cap back on gave me a sense of accomplishment, even if I was just writing a post-it reminding myself to pick up catfood. The nib is one of my favorites designs with a cool dot pattern. The pen does pick up fingerprints more than any of my other pens, especially the cap. A cartridge converter pen, it comes with an ink cartridge and a good size converter that held more than enough ink for a week's worth of work writing and a couple of letters to boot. Though itching to for some bright colour I of course started with my comparison ink, Heart of Darkness. My first impression was amazement at how comfortable the pen was to hold. A larger pen, it fit in my hand perfectly with the curved section holding my fingers perfectly. I can easily use this pen for long wordy letters without fatigue. The length is just right - long enough to use unposted but short enough that posting does not create an overly top heavy pen. I personally prefer to use it unposted but switched between the two depending on the circumstances. I chose a fine nib, my general preference, and found that it wrote beautifully from day one. A bit of a wet writer, over a week of using it almost every day I didn't have any hard starts and did not need to do any "warm up strokes". It wrote immediately, every time I needed it to until I ran out of ink. The fine nib was on the finer side of western fine nibs but still in the range of what I would consider fine over extra fine. A thorough clean and I inked her up with Caran d'Ache's Electric Orange. Again, over the course of a few days worth of writing, on a variety of papers ranging from Tomoe River to Rhodia pads to cheap copy paper, I didn't have any problems. Sketching wise, this pen produces an even line that doesn't falter even when I am drawing quickly. I can honestly say this is one of the nicest pens I have written with and a new favourite! .