Cross Century 1

April 16, 2015

I'm new to fountain pens and I have a Cross Century ballpoint. Being the penny pincher I am, I sought out a matching fountain pen on eBay. I found one for $25 with free shipping. Sure sounded better than the $80 Cross wanted for a brand new one! After waiting a month (it was shipping from India), I finally received the pen. I waited a couple more weeks to purchase the converter as there were mixed answers as to whether the green converter would fit or if I would have to use the slim cartridges. After all of this waiting I FINALLY had it inked up and ready to go. This is my short and 1st review ever of this pen. (Please disregard any scribbling or unreadable words in my handwriting)

I inked it up with Noodler's Red Black, which has become one of my favorite inks out of the 5 that I have tried. I put the nib to the paper and signed my name, it was the smoothest experience I have had with fountain pens. But that isn't hard to beat when the pens you've used are Pilot Metropolitan (M), Platinum Preppy (F), and a Lamy AL-Star (EF). The medium nib on this pen just glided across the paper and left a nice wet line and offered some shading that my other pens didn't. Since I'm new to fountain pens, I was conscious of the pressure I was putting down for fear that I might break it!

The pen has a great classic look to it and I'm very pleased with this purchase and it was well worth all of the waiting. The only thing I would like different is the nib. I write small and the medium nib forces me to write a little larger, if I could replace it with a fine nib, I would. To others that may be looking around to see if the green converter fits these pens here's your answer: YES!

Thanks for checking this out and providing feedback!

Edited April 16, 2015 by atc729

May 2, 2015

Yes the Century is very nice pen, and indeed very smooth. But my Metro (M nib) was VERY smooth. In fact I could not believe how smooth the Metro was for an $18 pen.

You will find the Century F nib to be very fine. I normally use old US Parker F nibs, but I had to go up to a M nib on my Century, as the F felt just a little too fine.

The other thing is, the width of the ink line depends on several factors; pen, ink and paper. Any one could change the ink line from wide to narrow, or narrow to wide. Such as:

1 - A very wet ink could just flow out of the pen making a wider line than a less wet ink. I used one ink that did just that. It looked like I wrote with a Sharpie. Change ink to a dryer ink, and all was good again. I use Cross/Pelikan black ink in mine.

2 - Similarly paper can blot/wick the ink out, so your ink line is wide and looks like it was done with a Sharpie. Again changing to a different paper that did not blot/wick made the ink line look normal.

Using a fountain pen successfully is an exercise in testing various combinations to find those that work for you.