Laban Swarovski Crystal / S-C1B-F Review

[Guardy]

Now, this review might come a bit late, since I'm pretty sure those pens are out of production by now. There's still plenty of new ones floating about the internet, though, so I suppose writing a review can't hurt.

 

The pen I'll be talking about is this little beauty here:

http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n522/Guardevoir/Pen%20and%20Writing%20Stuff/P1120216.jpg

 

Its model number is S-C1B-F; shops seem to call it "Laban Swarovski Crystal" a lot.
Laban, being Laban, has long removed the (several years old) model from its website, which seems to be a thing they do a lot.

 

I came upon this pen while perusing the amazon sales page - I was actually merely searching for a metal pen with a screw cap, and this was just about the only one that fit my specifications. Nowadays I'd have bought a Jinhao 159, but back then I thought that those pens seemed too good to be true.
The fact that it also happens to be a pen made of solid sterling silver that usually costs quite a bit more than the 40€ I paid for it (yes, you read that correctly. The amazon price for this pen was fluctuating wildly and I got lucky - two days afterward it was back up to 135€. As of writing this, the one remaining pen available on the German amazon page costs 117€), was mere coincidence.

 

TL;DR for those not wanting to read through the rest of the review: Is it a good pen? Sure. Would I have paid the full price (~170€ or something thereabouts) for this pen? Nope; Why should I pay so much extra for a silver barrel of all things?

 

Appearance & Design (7/10)

http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n522/Guardevoir/Pen%20and%20Writing%20Stuff/P1120225.jpg

Sleek, modern, simple, understated, elegant.
Probably about as understated as something with Swarovski crystals on the clip can possibly be.

http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n522/Guardevoir/Pen%20and%20Writing%20Stuff/P1120230.jpg
I like the color combination of the pen: capped, the silver goes well with the black resin cap (and, yes, the glittery stuff), giving the pen a very classy look.
Uncapped, the bi-color nib sets a surprisingly strong counterpoint to the completely silver/metal rest of the pen body.
If I'd have to design a pen like that, I'd either go for a more defined profile (see Waterman Perspective) or a more classical look, but the pen looks nice enough as it is, so... de gustibus non est disputandum and all that, am I right?
The only truly bad thing about this pen, in my opinion, is the grip section: It's quite heavily concave which looks interesting and it does mitigate the "slippery metal section"-issue to a certain extent.
On the downside, it also means that the section is quite a bit slimmer than it looks. What I am trying to say: my fingers touch while writing. I do not appreciate that. At all.
It's not exactly uncomfortable, though, it just bugs me. I've written near-constantly for over an hour with this pen before and there's no finger cramping or anything like that.
The cap posts quite nicely and securely.
(-1 point for the general profile, -2 for that section)

Construction & Quality (9/10)

Please note: I'm not all that well-versed when it comes to the technicalities of fountain pens, so take this part with a grain of salt.
From what I can tell, the pen seems solidly made: a metal body, a stable resin cap with a rather nice, spring-loaded clip. The threads of section and barrel are both metal; the threads on the cap, however, are plastic, which is rather... eh. All threads are clean-cut and work exceedingly well, however.
The nib is nice, the feed looks nice, clean and well-made... and the Swarovski crystals reliably stay where they're supposed to be.
Note: The barrel is sterling silver, the section probably not and I have no idea when it comes to the clip and the metal parts of the cap.

http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n522/Guardevoir/Pen%20and%20Writing%20Stuff/P1120227.jpg
(-1 point for the plastic threads on the cap)

Weight & Dimensions

I'm not giving any points on that, because weight and dimensions are really just a matter of personal preference, and I have none.
The weight (including cap) according to my kitchen scale is 37g. I usually don't post it because it feels perfectly balanced like that, as opposed to slightly back-heavy when posted.
Probably depends on how big your hands are and how you're holding your pen.
The pen is about 14 cm long while capped; 13.3-ish while uncapped, around 11.5 from the front of the grip section to the back of the pen un-posted and 13.8 when posted.
(for comparison: My Lamy AL-Star, from the front of the section to the back of the posted cap measures 11.8 cm)

Nib & Performance (8/10)

http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n522/Guardevoir/Pen%20and%20Writing%20Stuff/P1120234.jpg

It's a bi-color stainless steel nib, made by Bock (according to the pen's Amazon description).
The nib is technically M, but clearly on the finer side of M, if not outright F.
It writes markedly finer than my Lamy F nib (which, admittedly, doesn't say much).
Ink flow seems decent enough - you can use Pelikan 4001 royal blue ink (which is a dry ink) without getting any ink flow problems or skipping. Why you'd to that is beyond me, but you can - although I don't think the pen is a wet writer.
There's never any skipping, and, more remarkably, the first time I inked the pen (with a cartridge and without priming the nib), it wrote perfectly from the very first stroke on.
The ink in the pen tends to darken after very short periods of time, but it always starts up without the slightest problems, even after days of not using it. Weeks, possibly.
Point is, I never had any problems whatsoever getting the pen to write the instant I picked it up.
It's a reasonably smooth nib with some feedback and no scratchiness. Not the smoothest writer I've ever encountered, but I'm also fairly sure it's the finest nib I have, so there may be some correlation there.
The nib is really quite fun to write with.
(-2 points for being solidly good and reliable, but nothing incredibly special and amazing for the price)

Filling System & Maintenance (6/10)

It's a c/c pen. No converter included. Laban makes their own converters, but I have no idea if there's one for that model. According to the amazon description (and the official website, if I remember correctly), you can use Waterman converters.
About as much of a pain to clean as any other c/c pen. Awful without converter, probably substantially less awful with converter.
Ink seems to clean out of the feed much easier than with some other pens, though.
The biggest (absolutely massive) pain is that this pen is not only a dust magnet, it's an everything magnet. Dust, fingerprints, you name it.
It's virtually impossible to use that pen and make it look reasonably clean.
You're likely to spend more time polishing the pen with your best lint-free cloth than actually writing with it if you want it to look all nice and shiny.
(-1 point for being a c/c pen, -3 for the sheer amount of time spent getting the fingerprints off the section and cap)

Cost & Value (4/10)

The full price of the pen seems to vary, I've seen everything from 170-200€.
You get a stainless steel nib (albeit a fairly nice one), a c/c pen, no converter included. That is not good for a pen this expensive.
I can understand the stainless steel nib and do not mind that at all. I'm not too fond of the pen being a bog-standard c/c pen and I'm really not amused about there not being a converter included.
Yes, it's a silver pen, but that has absolutely no effect on its use.
For the 40€ I paid for it, it's an extremely good pen. For 80€ it would be a really good pen. For around 100€ you'd still get something worth your money. Anything above that? Forget it.
Unless you really want your pen to have a sterling silver barrel, that is.

http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n522/Guardevoir/Pen%20and%20Writing%20Stuff/P1120199.png

A/N: First review here, and by a long-time fountain pen user but a fairly new fountain pen geek too, so if there's anything missing (apart from the conclusion, I just don't particularly enjoy writing those), feel free to tell me.

Edited April 30, 2016 by Guardy