Faber-Castell Basic Fountain Pen

When I saw this pen at Georges & Co. in Paris, I just had to buy it. Another impulse buy, I guess. The first reason was that this was a Faber-Castell, which I never ever tried before. The second being the pretty checkered body, which is also a design I never had, and the gloss seemed to have a mildly hypnotic effect on me. The third reason: it is the first fountain pen in broad nib that I have ever encountered.

So I had to get it.

Faber Castell Basic FP on my purple Prints notebook

Trying to make the pic look stylish by arranging them at an angle…

The first thing I thought of this pen was that it is HEAVY. And no, it’s not the cap. The cap is light, hard rubber-like material, while the pen barrel is made of a thick plastic, lined on the inside by a cylinder of metal. No wonder it is heavy! If I flicked this pen against someone’s head, the person is bound to have a huge purple bruise that would last for weeks.

So when you hold the pen to write, it is quite top-heavy, which is definitely not suitable for long periods of writing. However for a signature pen (especially with that broad nib) it would be great! I normally use it for writing notes during meetings or for signing. The weight is distributed such that the centre of gravity of the pen is rightat the area between my thumb and forefinger! Which means it’s a pretty comfortable hold for me, although some people might prefer the weight to be concentrated on the lower part of the pen instead.

Maybelline’s Law of Gravity of the Pen. The Centre of Gravity has to fall in the Area between Thumb & Forefinger

The nib of the pen has a spotted design which I am still not sure whether I like or not. On first glance I thought the spots covered the entire nib area, but upon careful examination I found that they are arranged according to the shape of the nib itself, like an arrow shape. Perhaps it would be more stylish to reduce the number of dots and make the shape more prominent? But it’s just my personal opinion, and doesn’t affect my overall opinion of the pen (I still love it!).

Pity my camera is not powerful enough to capture the nib details

There is a letter B engraved on the nib to indicate the size, and below is the Faber-Castell logo, the jousting knights. The nib is clearly stainless steel but it writes so smoothly without ANY skipping at all that I didn’t need to tune it at all! However it was my first experience with broad nibs so I don’t know whether this is an accurate judgement or not. The ink flow is generous which lubricates the tip even more. You can probably see how generous the ink flow is from the writing sample below. So many smudges! The writing was done with J. Herbin’s Vert Empire on Rhodia Dot Pad paper. Ink on Rhodia paper generally does not dry quickly, so a generous flow of ink causing smudges wasn’t surprising for me (and being a leftie, too).

There is no flex, no line variation, but it’s alright. A very basic fountain pen, which is very accurately-named. You won’t expect anything fancy from a basic fountain pen, except probably the following:

1) The pen can stand upright on both ends (cap and barrel butt) although standing on the cap end is a little wobbly since the barrel is heavy.

2) Being called a Basic fountain pen, I wouldn’t expect much in the design of the pen, but (referring to first picture below) the barrel is of a nice design, and there is a nice and comfortable rubber grip which is made of the same material as the cap. Score points on this.

3) The pen measures 14 cm capped, 13.5 cm uncapped, and 19.2 cm posted, the last of which is a spectacular length for a pen, in my opinion. Almost like writing with a feather quill!

The cap of the Faber-Castell Basic looks bloated, giving some variation in shape of the pen as a whole. It is a click-on cap and not a screw cap. It posts onto the butt of the barrel securely (slides in with no click). The clip is an arched, hard black plastic piece which is attached to a little groove on the cap. In terms of shape, it aligns well with the shape of the cap, but I feel that it protrudes too much and causes the pen to take up more space in my pen wrap.

Overall, a nice pen, highly recommended if you are a beginner and looking for something that has a simple but cool design, in the price range of a Lamy Al-Star but heavier.

Do you like this pen? It doesn’t seem easy to find it in your regular online shops, so if you are in Paris or have a friend in Paris, go down to Georges & Co.:

Georges & Co. website: http://www.georgesandco.com/
Georges & Co. Twitter: https://twitter.com/georgesandco#
Georges & Co. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/georgesandco?sk=wall

Or if you still want to buy it online, there’s always good old Amazon.

Maybelline

I am the founder of this website.
Chemist by day, slacker by night, fanatic of stationery all the time.
I write with my left hand, but can also do the same with my right hand – it just won’t look very pretty.

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