Pineider Metropolis Fountain Pen

Chris never disappoints! I wasn't sure when I opened the box, but as always I needed to test the nib. I chose the #2 vial which was the color Hwangto of the 3 Oyster Seoul Collection. Great color! Somewhere between yellow and bright orange. Anyway, it was love at first write. The pen is light, smooth to hold, and the nib and ink just flowed. I always test the nib on the card that identifies the pen. This is good stock and for those newbies (I still consider myself a newbie) paper and ink make a HUGE difference with fountain pens. Today, I found this to be true. I filled my Pineider filling system and had enough ink left over to refill the pen again. I made a note on a cheap post-it to put with the Pineider filler so I would not forget the color/producer. What a difference! Always write on paper designed for fountain pens.

Chris, thank you for another great monthly script! Love it! Can't wait for July! Happy Fourth to you and your family.

Trish

I received this pen in my subscription box. Looks-wise, this is a sturdy, functional pen. It isn't a pen that I'd immediately label "pretty" but is nicely styled. Mine is yellow, smooth and has a nice clip. The custom end is a nice touch. The pen is not super light--it has a small weight to it -- lighter than a full metal pen. It feels solid.

Initially, I put a pink Noodlers ink in the pen and was having a horrid time with it skipping and writing oddly. I did what I should have done first, emptied it and cleaned it out, dried it. Then I tried again with one of the cartridges (I recommend either trying a pen out with a cartridge or using a reliable ink like Diplomat or Pilot--something functional not a specialty ink.

Once cleaned, with new ink, I loved it! Very smooth and moderately wet. No adjustments needed. I write a lot with medium, broad and stub nibs and this one is a nice medium. It is probably a bit on the larger size--more an American/European medium than a Japanese size. Vertical stroke is wider than a LAMY M, horizontal the same. It has a tad flex and tiny bit of line size difference vertically to horizontal.

All in all, I will use this as a workhorse/office pen. Not likely to be my choice for writing letters or anything fancy.

I received this pen (yellow, medium nib) in a subscription box and was initially pleased to try my first Pineider. Appearance-wise, it is an interesting pen. I rather like its overall design with the clean outline and spring-loaded clip. The bright yellow resin has a slight pearlescence that is just a little too subtle in my view, giving the pen a slightly toy-like appearance, even though it feels very solid. The "personalization" feature, consisting of little punch out circles that fit into the end of the barrel did not appeal to me and I felt cheapened the look.
The real failing is that it does not write well! The medium nib writes a very fat line that is more like the broad nibs in my collection. More seriously, it is often hard to start, requiring several jabs at the page before beginning a stroke, even in the middle of a sentence. Even when running, the ink flows erratically light and heavy. Little pools of ink often occur at the end of strokes--much more so than with most pens. I've attempted slight adjustments--the sort of gentle things one can do without risking damage, such as cleaning the whole pen and aligning the nib with the feed. (The nib moves around against the feed even during normal writing, even after tightening, but that is not the source of all the trouble.) I've tested it with a variety of inks including the Private Reserve samples that came with it (not always great), Diamine Ancient Copper, FPR Mardi Gras, TAG/Kyoto Koke-iro, Noodlers Apache Sunset, and tried and true stand-by inks like Herbin Perle Noir and Pilot Namiki Blue. While some are better than others, the overall performance is still relatively poor. I have several cheap Chinese, Taiwanese, German, and other pens that sell for 1/4 to 1/3 the price but are much more pleasurable to write with. It is possible that my specific pen is defective, but another member of my family has experienced the same difficulties with a second example.
Note that this pen is based on the design of Pineider's Avatar, but the Avatar has a different nib and feed. (Also better-looking overall.) I'd like to try that one some day.
Truphae, to their credit, exchanged this pen for another model from another maker that is much better constructed and works well. Thanks, Truphae!

The pen is lightweight, the nib quick to start writing right out of the box, and the converter easily filled. I like this pen.