Ever since knowing about the Online SG50 Vision Calligraphy Set, I have grown interested in Online fountain pens. The SG50 was no doubt a very elegant piece with its brushed red body and the shiny engraving. I decided to look more into another Vision pen, this time a non-calligraphy one, and make a few notes about it here.
I have this pen and other than knowing that it’s from the Vision range of pens, I have no idea what specific model name it has. It is nevertheless an attractive pen which is clearly targeted for everyday use. The patterned body is youthful with meandering silver lines against pink and purple alternating strips of colour. Taking a look at the Online Pen website, you can see that they have pens for “Young Writing”, “Fine Writing”, and “Modern Writing”. The Vision range of pens fall under the “Modern Writing” concept, which to me is like the meeting point of Young and Fine Writing instruments.
The pen comes in a simple but nice textured cardboard box with a transparent plastic window. Sometimes, it’s nice to have small, light and simple boxes for a change, especially if you’re like me and like to keep boxes – smaller boxes take up less space! The pen is held in place within the box with an elastic band.
The pen’s body is largely made of aluminium, with chrome trims and clip. The section is made of black plastic. Having this much metal on the pen does not add too much to the weight. It’s rather a medium-weight pen, tending towards the light side, in my opinion. The pen weighs about 26g. This weight is comfortable enough for writing, and whether or not you post the cap at the back of the pen, the weight is well-balanced throughout the length of the pen.
The cap snaps off by pulling (instead of twisting), and snaps back on firmly. The chrome clip is spring loaded. You can even depress the end of the clip for it to be lifted.
The nib is stainless steel and features a cross-hatched design, which I quite like. On it, you can see the engraved words “Online” and “Germany”, along with the nib size (in this case, “F” = fine). The tip is made of iridium and writes smoothly enough even for a leftie! There is some slight feedback on smooth paper, and the feedback is more pronounced on rougher paper. It does not annoy me so much, though.
The Online Vision pen comes with its own converter, but is able to take international cartridges as well. I filled it up with Rohrer & Klingner Smaragdgrün (Viridian Green), which is a green that I usually dislike, but it’s starting to grow on me lately! The ink flow is a consistent, medium type of ink flow – not too wet and not too dry, which is rather perfect (for most of us, at least)!
Besides being simple and attractive, the nib section can be easily remove by twisting. Having a few varieties of nib types means that you can change from a stub to a fine while using the same pen body. The twisting system is called the “Easy Change System” according to Online Pen.
Check out the “Easy Change System” of the nib section in this video by Online Pen.
Do you have an Online fountain pen? What are you thoughts about the brand?
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.
