Tibaldi Impero

[youstruckgold]

OK. The pen is here and inked so here goes:

 

FIRST IMPRESSION

Whoever takes the photos, just cannot capture the sheer beauty of the celluloid in this pen!

In different lights, the blues, the pearl, the grey, just sparkles - magnificent! (*sigh) - I know, get a life!

The Impero is a large pen, beautifully presented in a large maple box that doubles as a holder for 7 pens - nice touch.

 

APPEARANCE/FINISH

The pen has 12 sides similar to Omas (and great for stopping it slipping off the desk) with a silver clasp and three silver rings around the base of the cap. It would probably look better with a rhodium nib as the gold nib doesn't match as well with the silver, but not such a big issue.

The finish is at the top of my lists: a truly gob-smacking giant of a pen!

No surprise for my score here: 5/5.

 

DESIGN/SIZE/WEIGHT

4/5

It's big!

I like to write with the cap on the back, making it even bigger! 170mm. Without the cap, it's 130mm. The nib is also huge (see pics).

I like big pens, so this one clearly fits the bill.

The Impero is a well balanced, large, lightish pen, but still a good weight for writing. I would still prefer it to be a little heavier.

 

NIB/FILLING AND WRITING

3.5/5

The pen is a piston filler, my preference; and filling was easy and smooth.

Have I said it's a big pen? Yes, well clearly ink capacity is large. This pen won't run out in a hurry.

 

The nib (all yellow gold) is marked with Tibaldi Extra 750, and marked as F (fine). As opposed to my recent Tibaldi Modello 50 purchase which also boasts a fine nib (but smaller) and writes smooth and wet, this is a very large nib with a very dry output. Unfortunately, this was the most disappointing part of the pen.

Where the ink in my Modello 50 glides like silk across the page, this one, also producing a medium width line, is very scratchy, to the point that I can hear myself writing, and quite stiff/inflexible . I'm not sure if this is the ink (I'm using Herbin Lie de The for the first time for me) so I'm going to flush it out and change inks to see if I get a smoother response from my Waterman Florida Blue.

 

COST

5/5

On ebay, this was a $499 pen. Given the difficulty in finding Impero's now, and the beauty of the pen, I think this was still a good deal,- but IO'm hoping to improve on the nib and would welcome suggestions from the FPNers out there in the know.

 

CONCLUSION

A beautiful, pen that stops just short of meeting it's "grail" potential.

 

Pictures here:

http://s278.photobucket.com/albums/kk107/y...baldi%20Impero/

 

[Bulldozer]

Thanks for the nice review. Reviews with writing samples are the best.

[omasfan]

Nice review! Just spread the tines of the nib a tad and you'll have a jucier ink flow. Tips on how to do that can be found on John Mottishaw's site www.nibs.com. Essentially, carefully grab the shoulders of the nib and spread them apart gently and ever so carefully.

[georges zaslavsky]

I had nearly bought one in the past but the too scratchy nib was a nono and therefore I didn't buy the pen.

[Bryant]

Very nice! I love the celluloid on this pen. Thanks for the review...

Bry