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Sterling Silver Eye Dropper Pen From Raja - Any Idea?
kats17 posted a topic in Fountain & Dip Pens - First Stop
Hi today I got a new pen. I found it unique. Don't know about its previous user. Got it from a local dealer for reasonable price. It is a sterling silver pen with 14k gold nib. It shows a "made in" ENGLAND in cap and 925 embossed in the Body. The clip shows the brand name Raja. Are these pens known?- 9 replies
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Moderators- if this post is in the wrong forum, please move it to the correct one. Thank you! After using my Gama Raja for a little over a day, I've formed some tentative opinions of it. With the somewhat scarce information on this pen here on FPN, I'm hoping that my thoughts will help someone that's undecided about it. First off, I'll comment about the seller and experience I had with them. I ordered from ASA Pens, and being new to the Indian pen game I didn't know what to expect with my order (again, not too terribly much information that I could find). I couldn't be happier. The order took just under three weeks from ordering to receipt, including having Mr. Subramaniam test the pen before dispatch. It was very well packaged. I don't think that the pen would have been harmed if someone jumped on it (but I'm not willing to try ). I'm in the U.S. by the way. Upon opening the package and taking the pen out of its velvet slip and excessive (not that I'm complaining) bubble wrap, my impressions were very good. The pen is large (prior to this, the largest pen I owned was a Jinhao X-750), deep matte black, the trim is nice and shiny and golden, the pen has simple, clean, elegant looks that remind me of the Parker Duofold and other 30s-40s American pen designs. It's a very nice looking pen to my eye. Pros- -The fit and finish of this pen is superb, especially for the price. The threads, though single start, are well cut and mesh smoothly, the finish is even and well done, the polished ends are also well done, the trim is well set, the nib is set as it should be for a #6/35mm nib, and the Gama logo is nicely engraved. -The feel in hand (I have a medium mens' glove size according to Mechanix) is very good. The section is large to be sure, but it's comfortably cut with a nice, abrupt flare to keep your fingers off the nib. The pen itself, while long, is very well balanced and actually very light. It honestly doesn't feel any heavier in hand than a featherweight Lamy Safari. The ebonite feels good in the hand; it really is a warm feeling material. It doesn't feel like a plastic or metal or wood... it's unique. While the pen can be posted, the cap doesn't post very deeply, leaves marks on the barrel, makes the pen very long, and throws off the balance of the pen. -The writing, when the feed is saturated sufficiently and you're in the sweet spot, is superb. As I stated before, I had the pen tested before shipping and it paid off. After a little alignment (I was probably the cause of the issue to be honest) the pen (with the stock nib and feed) is wet, starts well with zero pressure (and I mean ZERO pressure), is very smooth with a TINY touch of feedback and the stock IPG duotone EF/Indian fine (I've seen it called both) writes a good, firm extra fine (compared to a Lamy fine). -The ink capacity is HUGE. As someone that's used to C/C pens, I was blown away by the ink capacity. I haven't measured it, but I wouldn't doubt an estimate of 3-3.5ml. As you may be able to tell, I quite like this pen already Cons- -The stock, unmodified nib on my pen (one example) has a fairly small sweet spot. When you're in the sweet spot, it's as smooth as I've felt as of yet, about on par if maybe a little under a JoWo (which costs, by itself, more than half of the asking price of this pen), but the moment you get out of the sweet spot there's a fairly significant amount of feedback. -If the pen is agitated and warm, say in a gesticulating hand or in a shirt pocket, a little ink seems to want to burp into the cap and get on the nib. It isn't a big deal, but it is slightly annoying. This issue could probably be fixed with a new feed. -When the pen was in my shirt pocket for a while, the feed dried up somewhat. It took a bit of tapping on the page to get it started again. -It smells like tires, which doesn't bother me and will dissipate, but the smell may offend some people. -There's some minor scratching on the very shiny clip and one of the cap bands is a teensy tiny bit wonky (I'm picking at nits at this point) Overall, this pen is an amazing pen, especially for what you pay for it. I'm in love already, and I'm hooked on Indian eyedroppers now. ETA- Sorry for the long post! I tried to make everything as detailed as possible to make up for the lack of pictures.
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Gama pens are made by Gem and Company in Madras, a pen shop in the business since decades. I have reviewed their pens and posted some visit reports earlier, the interested reader may want to see the previous reviews etc at the following links. https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php/topic/259557-madras-pen-shops-revisited/ https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php/topic/254169-the-gama-supreme/ https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php/topic/255781-the-gama-supreme-part-2/ https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php/topic/258030-the-asapens-kuyil-made-by-gem-and-co-madras-india/ The Gama Raja is a new introduction to their lineup. Specified by ASA pens(an online pen shop based out of Chennai). I placed my order for the pen as soon as I spotted it on their website (I was slightly miffed to see that I had received no prior intimation about the upcoming model and had to discover it per chance on their site). Raja is what they like to call it, I call my pen the "padpad" . Ok. the Padpad is also a dropper filled pen(regular filling). Made of black hard rubber, brushed finish. I liked the way the golden cap rings and the golden clip gelled with the brushed matte ebonite finish of the pen. It reminded me of my Deccan masterpiece GT which is the only other pen that I have seen with cap rings and a brushed finish. As you might know, the bushed finish is applied by hand using an abrasive paper, so by necessity, the shiny golden rings have to be attached to the pen(by swaging) after the final brushing to the pen is done, a laborious process. The mirror polished cap top and barrel bottom are nice touches. http://i991.photobucket.com/albums/af39/hari3171/GamaPadPad/IMG_9594.jpg http://i991.photobucket.com/albums/af39/hari3171/GamaPadPad/IMG_9595.jpg Cap top: http://i991.photobucket.com/albums/af39/hari3171/GamaPadPad/IMG_9596.jpg Open: http://i991.photobucket.com/albums/af39/hari3171/GamaPadPad/IMG_9597.jpg The padpad came fitted with the standard issue 2 tone EF nib that Gem likes to use. When set up properly, the nib is a delightful true EF writer, however EF is not my size at all usually( unless it is a Pilot), I like M or fatter and one has to make do with what one has on hand, I had only M nibs in GT so I fitted my own nib to the pen and tuned it. For some practical reason, they decided to very deeply set the huge 35mm nib thus somewhat negating (IMHO, YMMV) the advantage afforded by the bigger nib. As shown in the following picture, a standard and cheaper Indian no 8 nib (28mm) could have done the job sufficiently well on the Padpad. http://i991.photobucket.com/albums/af39/hari3171/GamaPadPad/IMG_9598.jpg I guess the reason they did this was primarily due to the washer clip, where they wanted the washer's edges displayed for cosmetic effect. The washer has too small an ID to allow the nib to pass through it. Hence, a longer exposed length of the nib would have meant a longer length of the cap, so they arrived at this deep set nib design to achieve a nice balance. I have nothing much to comment about the writing aspect as the aftermarket nib in the pen was installed and set up by me, to my preference. The padpad is a good sized pen: capped: 147mm open: 131mm including the nib posted: 168mm Cap diameter, max: 15mm Barrel diameter, max: 14mm Section diameter: 12mm, tapers to 11mm and then flares. A comparison of the padpad with some other pens at hand: http://i991.photobucket.com/albums/af39/hari3171/GamaPadPad/IMG_9600.jpg L-R: Early 14C nib M800, Padpad, Kuyil, GT Supreme FT. Cheers! Hari
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