Newest Acquisitions (Virtual "Show & Tell") ~ part 423

He couldn't make it our in-person meeting last night, but Lawrence was kind enough to submit this review of his new fountain pen for our website. Meet his handsome Visconti 'Homo Sapiens' Bronze age fountain pen!

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

Lawrence: "I had mentioned before that most of my pens are "ungendered". There are a few exceptions to this, of course - my Waterman Elegance is one example. While the Elegance has a decidedly "feminine" feel to it, the Homo Sapiens is on the other end of the spectrum -- butch pen. Of course, a pen can never, ever be completely butch because once uncapped, every pen needs to have a nib (nibs are very streamlined and anything but butch). Anyway...the Homo Sapiens did not attract me that much when I first saw it online. I thought it was a bit too "sporty-looking" at that time. But when I saw it in person (at Charals), the real pen looked pretty refined. Interestingly enough, most of the higher-end pens that I own did not initially attract me until I saw them in person.

The pen clip is the "standard" spring-loaded style of the Visconti pens: "

"There is the pen's name engraved, as well, on the section: "

"Speaking of the section, this pen has an interesting twist cap mechanism that prevents accidental uncapping: "

"So to twist it off and on, we need to press the cap down. Basically, looking at the grooves on the section, this extra step make sense.


It has the Visconti logo on the cap, and it's one of the "My Pen System" marketing bruhaha...that I don't care much about. I think the cap looks fine as is, and I don't see how replacing it with some gem stone or whatever will add anything."

"I got a 1.3 nib. It's 23K palladium:"

"I guess they call it the Dreamtouch nib. To be honest, it was anything but "dreamy" when I first got it. Well, "in my dreams" is more like it....because the pen had this skipping / baby bottom thing happening. However, like my stub nib pens, certain kinds of inks work well with them. The Pilot inks work with it very well. So now it writes like a different pen.

It has this vacuum filling mechanism that I'm ambivalent about. It takes a lot longer to fill up this pen, but the real drag is when I have to clean the pen out. This pump vacuum thing is very, very tedious. Also, I have to wonder how durable this is in the long run...

The material is a mix of resin and volcanic rock (Mt. Etna??). I do like the material. It is very light. Lighter than what I would have expected when looking at the pen. It is supposedly hygroscopic...but I'm not sure if this will make it stain easier when I'm filling it up. I know it is black, but stains will still show up as shiny film. I make sure to wipe it clean religiously every time I fill up.

It writes nicely (with the Pilot ink lines) and it has a nice balanced weight. I think it is a very nice pen to write with. However, because it is a stub nib, this is not a regular pen that I write with, but it's reliable when in use (again, after the ink change). And, of course, because it is a "black" pen...then it will be put into my "reddish" ink pen group." (Ed. Note: What Lawrence is referring to is his self-proclaimed "OCD thing with black/red combos -- black pen / red ink" :)

Many thanks to Lawrence for submitting yet another great review of a recent acquisition! :)

(I'll be posting photos from yesterday's in-person meeting this weekend, so watch this space!)