Disclaimer: Explicit pen images enclosed.

It may not be fair to be reviewing a discontinued pen from a company that is no longer in business, but I was using the Omas Paragon last week at work and thought I would share the experience with you, as this is a beautiful pen.

Omas was an Italian pen company that closed its doors in February 2016. Following the announcement, fountain pen aficionados scrambled to buy the last Omas fountain pens that were floating around in shops, particularly models in the highly sought after “Arco Celluloid” materials. I sought something less flashy, this Burgundy model which I had been eyeing for a little while.

At the time of purchase, I had hoped to purchase a medium nib with my pen, but had limited nib options due to the closure of the company. So I purchased the extra flessible fine nib instead. I was worried about springing the nib on use, after reading Azizah’s story at Gourmet Pens, but I don’t tend to press hard on my pens, so figured I would probably get away with this nib.

The pen is quite large – it is easily the largest pen I own from a diameter point of view, and it is only one of two pens that I own that is too fat to fit into my Franklin Christoph Penvelope. For longer writing sessions, I find that it can be a bit uncomfortable as I don’t have terribly large hands and it can feel like I am writing with a crayon its so big. However, it is fine and not noticeable in normal writing sessions so its not a huge deal.

The paragon has a piston filling system which is smooth and works well. I have heard that Omas pistons are not as reliable or as durable as Pelikan or Lamy pistons, so that’s something to keep in mind if you are looking to purchase an Omas. The paragon doesn’t have an ink window, so often you don’t know that you are close to running out until its too late. My advice – bring a spare pen with you if you are planning to use this!

Now the nib. There have been a lot of reviews on the Omas Extra flessible nibs – generally all of them have been very positive. I was very concerned that I would spring the nib after the Gourmet Pens story, however, I have used a Pilot Justus set on flexible for normal day to day use without any issues, so I felt I could be trusted to use this pen without issues. I was right – the nib is very soft, but if you write with a light hand, it will just be a very springy, responsive nib for you. I don’t spend a lot of time flexing this (too paranoid!) so its just a nib with a lot of character for me.

The nib is very soft so I need to be very careful when flushing the pen and leaving it to dry. Often after flushing the pen, I need to readjust the nib tines to make sure they are even again.

The fine is not that fine if you are a Japanese fine nib user. Also, given the flexibility of the nib, it often becomes much broader than you expect when in use. However, I really enjoy the width of the nib, so its suits me. Just be warned, that if you are a needle point lover, this equates to more like a Sailor M nib rather than a fine.

I purchased this pen for US$636 as stocks were running out last year, however, you can often find these now for much more on Fountain pen network, or ebay. I’m not in the habit of recommending whether you should or shouldn’t buy a pen at this price point, but this is a wonderful pen with a wonderful nib and I would buy another one at the price point I paid.

In Japan, it seems most fountain pen shops have custom fountain pen inks made by Sailor. This is one from the highly sought after “BunguBox” range. BunguBox is a store in Hamamatsu, Japan, which is roughly halfway between Osaka and Tokyo on the Shinkansen. They have also recently opened a store in Omotesando, which I visited while I was in Japan not long ago.

Unique, custom Sailor inks have always been popular, due to their rareness and uniqueness of their colours – it really is amazing how many different ink colours one single company can manage to produce. BunguBox inks have been so popular mostly due to their unique colour range and also because they are so difficult to obtain – they are rumoured to produce each colour only once a year.

Piano Mahogany is a saturated red-brown ink which is highly reminiscent of deeply lacquered mahogany wood. This is my first and only brown ink so I have no baseline to compare it with colour-wise on a first hand basis. The colour matched my Faber Castell E-motion Pearwood very well.

For such a dark, saturated ink, there is still a level of shading that can be observed in the TWSBI Stub nib. Sailor inks are always extremely well behaved and I can always trust them to behave in slightly poorer quality paper – this one continues that trend – I used this ink in a training session which had rubbish photocopy paper handouts and it didn’t feather or bleed through at all.

As I mentioned, I have no other browns in my collection and I confess that I have no current aspirations to acquire more (don’t gasp – I’m not a fan of brown). When I purchased this ink, my hope was that this colour would be a dark red colour and the brown tone to it would only be slight. So when comparing this ink to others in my collection, the BunguBox “Tears of a clown” would be the closest colour match.

If you use the awesome Swab Shop tool at the Goulet Pens website, you may find something that is more similar or cost effective. To my eye, Diamine Rustic Brown is the most similar. However, if you are keen on this particular colour, it is likely that you will not be able to find an exact dupe – like I said, these inks are so popular because the colours are so unique.

Swab Shop Image – courtesy Goulet Pen Company

Cleaning wise, this is not that difficult to clean – for this tone of colour. Reds seem to be the most difficult to clean, so this is going to be more trouble than say Iroshizuku Fuyu Syogun (blue toned grey) but you are not going to have to spend the rest of your life flushing the ink out.

Now – the cost. This is the most expensive custom Sailor ink I’ve come across and the most expensive ink I own. In Japan, you can get these straight from the store in Hamamatsu (or their new store in Omote-sando) for 3240 Japanese Yen. You can also order these from their webstore in Japanese for that price, but shipping is an additional 4700 JPY (for 1 bottle). Or you can get it from Vanness Pens for USD$43 per bottle plus an additional USD$25 for shipping (up to 3 pounds). So with the exchange rate, you could easily pay close to $100 AUD for a bottle of this ink. You can occasionally get them on Massdrop deals but you do need to get in quick to do this, as popular colours sell out quickly. The colours are super pretty but you’ll need to consider if this is a reasonable price point for yourself.

 

 

I’d heard about Kingdom Note and its legendary wall of inks and how the store was willing to let you try inks to your heart’s content, so it really surprised me how small the store actually was.

About 3 walls of the store was lined with pens – the majority appear to be second hand pens and while I was there a gentleman brought in about 10 MontBlancs to be sold (so a word to the wise, if you are struggling to sell old pens, try here). There was a massive binder of ink swatches for you to peruse and behind the counter, there was the wall of ink.

I asked the lady there if I could test their Kingdom Note line of inks and they pleasantly accommodated. I stopped at trying about 6 inks but I think they would’ve let me try as many as I wanted.

When planning my trip to Japan, I had ruled out going to BunguBox in Hamamatsu because it was a little out of the way from my destinations (it turned out that it is not – if you are going on the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Osaka or vice versa, it is a stop right in the middle of that line and Google Maps tells me its not actually that far from the train station). So when I realized they had opened up a store in Omotesando (Tokyo) we set out to visit.

The Omotesando store is not open regularly so make sure you check the website before showing up. Once there – the store is tiny. Its probably about 4×4 metres, predominantly selling their ink. There are a few pens on sale, but not a huge amount.

Once again, there is an ink testing station with all of the BunguBox inks in pens ready for you to try – most of the pens are labeled in Japanese but the lovely lady that works there was more than happy to assist with finding the right pen to fit the ink you are looking for.