Three weeks ago, I bought a lovely Tianzi 02 piston-filler in "skyblue" from Stephen Brown (aka SBREBrown on YouTube). Stephen had it up for sale on his website and his YT review of it was a very positive one, so I jumped at the chance to acquire the pen from him.
After it arrived, I planned to do a review of it for this blog, but Andy beat me to the punch with his excellent review of his own Tianzi pen (same model as mine, but different material). I wasn't upset at all, because Andy's review was so thorough it saved me the time I'd have spent writing a much longer review (lol), but I thought I'd share some photos of my Tianzi pen today anyway. So, without further ado.....
(please click on images to enlarge)
I couldn't find much information about the pen's manufacturer but I know they're based in Shanghai, China and I found their Instagram account. On it, I discovered they just started selling their Tianzi piston-filler pens this spring via their etsy shop . The pens retail for $53 CAD (including free shipping) on etsy, which I think is a very good deal for a well-made, attractive-looking piston-filing fountain pen.
This pen style comes in two demonstrator options--"white" (clear
colourless acrylic with white swirls) & "skyblue" (clear light-blue
acrylic with white swirls)-- and three solid-colour options ("mauve",
"dark green" and "mystery blue"). I think the solid colours are model "T01" and the demonstrators are model "02", based on the company's Instagram posts, but don't quote me.
My Tianzi is a great fountain pen and I really have no complaints about it. Theoretically, it can be used posted but it's very long when posted. It is, however, very comfortable to use unposted--it's a nice length without its cap on, and it has a nice heft to it. It's also very easy to clean--just unscrew the section from the barrel; there's no need to disassemble it from the piston knob end (actually, one YouTuber--not Stephen---had a lot of problems putting the pen back together when he took it apart from the piston knob end).
My pen has a #6 size steel nib in Medium (I believe it also comes in Fine width) that writes well with just a hint of feedback, which I like. The engraving on the nib represents both a stylized dragon and the famous "Temple of Heaven" (Tiantan) in Beijing, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
A nice mug of hot chocolate and a great fountain pen to write with... Ahhhh...
...and speaking of mugs, here are some photos
of my Tianzi pen with a better look at the cool SBREBrown mug I blogged about here a couple of days ago (link):
(note: the photo above and the next two images show the pen's colours more accurately than the other photos in this blog post---I was trying different lighting conditions with my new phone's camera).
When the pen arrived, I actually thought the material's swirls were light blue, but they're actually white swirls within a light-blue acrylic material. The material reminds me a bit of my PenBBS '355' "Misty Mountain" pen, but that pen's material is a clear colourless acrylic with bright blue swirls.
Many thanks to Stephen for selling me this beautiful fountain pen! If you want to see my pen reviewed by Stephen in his YouTube video, you can check it out here on his YT channel :)
(~ Photos & review by Maja ~)