Newest Acquisitions (Virtual "Show & Tell") ~ part 221

Today we're shining a spotlight on another lovely Italian fountain pen recently acquired by Jerred (and it's not a Delta!).....

(all photos courtesy of Jerred ~ please click on images to enlarge)

 
Jerred: "This is a Pineider 'La Grande Bellezza' (The Great Beauty).  Pineider is a pen company that was founded (or resurrected) by Dante Delvecchio, one of the original co-founders of Visconti.  The current Pineider pens share a lot of design features with some Visconti pens, including a magnetic capping system, metal section, spring-loaded clip, and the use of bright acrylic resins.  This particular pen is part of the 'Gemstone' series, which supposedly incorporate marble dust in to the acrylics used to make the pens.  This particular finish is the Lapis Blue."

 

 

 

"There are certainly some interesting features.  I've mentioned the magnetic capping system already, but this pen will also post magnetically as well, something not present on Visconti pens.  The magnetic also uses di-pole magnetics, meaning the pen will only cap in certain orientations.  The front end of the grip section is textured and the section is deeply indented, likely to ensure that the pen won't slip while writing."

 

 

 
"By far the oddest feature, though, is the cap band.  It contains the phrase "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" in its entirety, in relief.  This is an example of a pangram, or a sentence that contains every letter of the alphabet.  It's also commonly used as a way to test the writing qualities of a fountain pen.  I could understand how it would appeal as a design motif, but having it written in its entirety is a bit strange.  Parts of the pangram are visible in the photo above."

 

 

"This pen uses one of Pineider's 'Quill' nibs, which are 14k nibs tempered and shaped to provide some give when writing.  While the nib is certainly on the soft side, I'd refrain from calling it a flex or semi-flex nib as the feed doesn't really provide sufficient inkflow for constantly writing under pressure.  Unfortunately, the nib on this pen was complete trash out of the package.  Despite being sized as a fine, it writes as a wet medium.  It was also so badly overpolished that it would skip on every second word.  Not a difficult issue to fix, but not something you want to see on an expensive purchase."

 

Many thanks to Jerred for sharing his thoughts and photos of this beautiful writing instrument with us!