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I have noticed that you often receive Hero 616 pens that do not appear to work. How common is it to receive pens with a defect right out of the packet? I presently have pens from 3 different sellers in red, teal and black. Only the red one slurped up ink in the normal manner you would expect of a proper Parker. With the other two pressing on the bar does not properly squeeze the sac. If you take the aluminium sleeve off and directly squeeze the sac with one's fingers the pen fills properly. At least the defective two were not really DOA. I just had a play with them before throwing them away.

If the subject has been done to death, sorry. How does one ensure that you are getting the best version? That's weird: A knock-off of a knock-off. The worst are like dragging a finger nail on a emery board, not surprising given that the nib is very fine.

I'm interested in playing with my first Chinese pens. One of the ones that interests me is the Hero 616, but I've been told by a few people that there are different variants, of varying quality or writing smoothness. Which are the better variants? And is there any way to tell which is which?

Hi all, I was just about to hit buy on a lot of Hero 616 pens, which would render each pen a mere 50p each. Why do I want them? I don't know. I've been looking at cheap Chinese pens for 4 weeks, it's time I bought something already. Buying a lot of this style of pen would: - allow me to test several ink mixes in the same nib - use a fine nib, which I prefer in the mean time - feel old-schooly. My sister, who is 10 years my senior, probably used a Hero pen of the same appearance when she was in school. That was a long time ago, and I was pretty young. I remember buying those pens from the nearby grocer for her. Would be fun to have one in hand a couple score years later. Now of course I've learnt that it is a copy of the much higher end Parker 51 (comparatively). The question is. Just before hitting buy-now, I read somewhere that the Hero 100, and maybe other Hero 3## pens, may in fact be better-built, or feel smoother to write with, while looking very similar anyway. Is this true? Am I going to buy something I will regret buying and tell myself why didn't I buy the other one? What do you recommend in terms of build-quality and smoothness of the nib, in this family of pens? BTW, I've always loved exposed nibs, but a certain unnamed Sheaffer hooded pen that I posted about in the Sheaffer forum got me into the mood for a hooded pen... or 10.

Recently there's been a lot of talk about Hero 616s here and so I wanted to share my experience with you. Not going to go into too much detail, I'm leaving for vacation in two days but wanted to get this out there in case someone would find it helpful. I ordered 3 616 Doctors from ebay seller 'mentag'. Three pens for US $12.90. When they finally arrived the first interesting thing was the packaging itself. See that there is no 'Doctor' mentioned anywhere on the package. I've contacted the seller and he explained that this is new packaging and that it does say Doctor on the back. I have translated what it says on the back and it does say, right above the barcode: "Big Hero 616 High Yijin Bi". So I guess that means it is a Jumbo. I was also assured that these indeed are genuine. Don't know if you heard but for example my Hero 9018 with fude nib that I got earlier this year had a QR code that redirected me to a Hero verification site that checks whether the pen is genuine. There is also a secret code which you can get to by scraping a little film or layer of protective paint (similar to that used on lottery tickets). My 9018 is genuine according to this Hero site. This one, though it does have a QR code on the back of the package and it does have the secret code couldn't be verified, because it redirected me to a nonsense site. When I typed the 616 code to where I verified my 9018 it wouldn't verify it either. The next images are of the pen itself. It does look OK. There are scratches on the pens straight out of the box but what can you do. The plastic is super cheap, not substantial in any way. Does have a hole in the back of the body. Filling system is ok, this is the bigger one, the 'Jumbo' size. It operates well, I was able to fill it easily, no problems there. Lastly the cap. It looks worse in real life than on the photos I think. There is not that much definition in the engraving/stamping. It's shallower than looks here and also there is less shine, much less shine than it seems to be the case here. That being said, writing is very nice, surprisingly so. I have only tried the black one so far with Noodler's Black (will test the others when I return from my vacation and post an update) but it writes beautifully and smoothly, it's wet enough and there are no issues with scratchiness or dripping, etc. There is just a tiny bit of line variation but I won't be pushing it at all so my tines remain aligned. All in all, it writes really well. No issues whatsoever. At least so far. Here is a quick writing sample. Make of it what you will but my impressions are that these are as genuine as they get and yet they are not great, aside from the writing itself - which admittedly is indeed great. The build quality is sub-par in my opinion and for example Jinhao X750 is far superior to these pens. Feel free to ask any questions, etc. and I hope some of you will find this post helpful. edit: scroll down to reply #8 for more pics and further facts

Hello, Today I found a listing for a variant of what I believe is a 616 Jumbo (hard to exactly say, the seller just calls it 'big size', but I did spend a bit of time looking from the picture to my current Jumbo and the sections seem about the same length in ratio to the overall length of the pen, so I'm pretty sure it's a Jumbo), and with a new gold cap. I have never seen the Jumbo with a gold cap, and as far as I can tell it looks like the clutch's two metal rings don't stick out past the body of the pen, something that always bothers me about my current Jumbos. The nib also looks to be at least gold-colored. Anybody know if these are a new form of Jumbo, possibly to complement the recent 616-2's, or have these been around and I've completely missed them during all my searching? Here's the listing I found, I've done lots of business with this seller, so I'm pretty sure they're not going to be fakes... http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hero-616-Big-Size-Burgundy-Fountain-Pen-Golden-Cap/331457032219?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D34494%26meid%3D78d996d9eccf4105a44863fe175c59d7%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D331457020275 Thanks, jcreilley

Hello everyone! I bought a Platinum Century 3776 in a medium nib and I am really liking the size of the nib. I found it to be much finer than my other japanese mediums though, such as the Pilot Metropolitan and the Pilot Kakuno. I also quite like the nib on Hero 616. However, I found the Century 3776 nib to be a bit toothy for my liking, while my 616 is fairly smooth I would say. How do the fine Pilot fine nibs compare? I was thinking of buying a Metropolitan in a fine nib but just wanted to check in, before I regret a purchase that will simply lie on my desk!

Does anyone know of a simple and reliable way to increase the forward weight of a Hero 616 Jumbo? Specifically I find the pen a little back heavy when it is posted - it's a light pen already. The balance doesn't feel quite right unposted either. Many thanks.

I recently acquired a Hero 308 fountain pen and 10 Hero 616. These pens are very risky, they are both from the same company but one is comparatively more expensive (308) than the other (616) by about 30 times. I just wanted to show that cheap pens sometimes can outperform noticeably and can make for a better starter. The 308 has a very cool looking nib, it writes OK and feels very expensive. However upon inspection, not so good. The nib and feed on mine is noticeably misaligned. The tines on the nib aren't parallel, the right tine is slightly bending up. The cap loosened after a few weeks and I had to put stickers in the cap so that the body wouldn't fall out. The metal piece connecting the two pieces of the cap already lost its grip. The piece of steel on the tail of the pen isn't soldered at the right angle so its lopsided. However, it didn't fall apart yet. The 616 on the other hand varies extremely from pen to pen. The feed and actual nib on all 10 of mine are misaligned horribly, but can be fixed in seconds. The build is plastic, so extremely light, a good transition from ballpoints to FP. The squeeze converter contains about 2 ml of ink (a lot). The flow is excellent. But if you are going to get this pen, buy at least 5, I find only 2 or 3 in my collection of 616 that actually feels extremely smooth. So my point is. Maybe get several cheap pens like the 616 instead of investing on a nice display piece.