Visconti 23Kt Palladium Nib Comparison: Ef - Bb

November 21, 2017

Continuing my previous post on current production-line Visconti fountain pens, I want to share my experience with Visconti's 23kt Palladium "Dream Touch" nibs.

As you know, Visconti's reputation for its poor quality control is mostly based on what they do on their nibs. People say that their nibs barely write well from out-of-box, and some works are needed. Personally, I don't feel too scared to adjust ink flow and tine alignment of expensive pens by myself. And feel very uncomfortable not to fix a pen that doesn't write well. So all the nibs (EF - BB) are adjusted to my taste. Some of them needed just tiny bit of work, and some of them did not. I'm gonna tell you what it was out-of-box, and show you what it is now.

Below is the writing sample using Diamine Majestic Blue, which is well saturated blueblack with pinky sheens, on the A4-size Rhodia dotpad. For your information, the each grid on the paper is 5-mm apart from its nearest neighbors.

Diamine Majestic Blue is basically a saturated blueblack ink. I chose this ink because it shows both the line width and wetness. Some famous inks with very much shading such as Pelikan Edelstein Topaz are so unsaturated, that it exaggerates the line width especially for finer nibs. A fine line is seen much finer than it actually is because the color is too unsaturated. But Diamine Majestic Blue is well saturated ink, so you can see the line width more clearly. For wetness, this ink shows the pen is whether dry or wet by amount of pink sheen. By virtue of the pink sheen in it, it shows a hint of pink even in fine nibs if it is wet. Going to wetter and broader nibs, it starts to be seen like blue with purple accent. It is hard to in the bare photo I took with my iPhone, but under bright light, you can see beautiful pinky snow on blueblack if you use wet nibs such as vintage flex. A photo below shows character of this ink very well. It is written by Visconti 23kt Pd Broad nib on Tomoe River 58gsm white paper. You can think that the darker or maximally saturated part of the writing samples on Rhodia dotpad shows sheening under bright light.

This is not a ink review, so I shall show you close-up images of the writing sample on Rhodia dotpad.

The extra fine nib above came with my brand new Homo Sapiens Bronze Age. I indeed expected something broader because Visconti's nib is normally on wetter side, but I would say this extra fine is really, a good western extra fine or Japanese fine in my Pilot Metropolitan. With this nib, Diamine Majestic Blue is just a vibrant blue-colored ink.

It wrote well without any adjustment. But I smoothed just a little bit. It writes smoothly considering its tip size. However, I think it will be unpleasant if your writing style is to give some pressure. It is that fine.

This fine nib came with my brand-new Medici. It did not write well when out-of-box, so a nibmeister at the retailer shop adjusted it for me. It is fairly wet, but not terribly wet to be unable to use in a quick and busy writing session.

It shows a hint of pinky sheen in the ink, but it also shows unsaturated blue color in some lines. I think this is pretty standard fine nib.

This medium is from pre-owned Opera Element Air. So I don't know what it was when out-of-box. It has been a pretty good wet medium from the moment it came to me. Line width is similar to 14k medium nib of my modern Montblanc 146.

I think it is usable in everyday writing in your working place. It makes you enjoy your writing experience with fountain pen, but not too wet. Medium is medium.

From broad, which came with pre-owned Visconti Divina Desert Spring, it is about to cross the line. I love this nib, but it is too wet for me to use in quick and busy writing session like business meeting. It is prone to blur written characters with your own hand. When it came to me, unfortunately, the cap was almost off during the shipping to overseas and the tines were significantly misaligned. I had to align them and adjust the flow to make it write properly. It also had a baby's bottom in the angle of my writing, so I had to get rid of it.

Even though it seems like tines are still misaligned in the magnified nib photo, it writes perfectly in my writing angle. It is super wet. Actually, I would say it is even wetter than double broad in terms of ink density (= ink per unit area, to say). With natural springiness of the nib, I enjoy to write with it with certain amount of writing pressure. It's just fantastic.

A unexpected character of this, and the double broad of later, is that they are stubbish. The left two vertical strokes at the bottom of the writing sample at the top was written without pressure, but they are already broader than the horizontal strokes.

I ordered this double broad nib separately from La Couronne de Comte as a nib unit. It had a serious baby's bottom problem, and the gap between the tines were too narrow. It almost did not write at all without significant pressure. So I got rid of the baby's bottom, and widened the gap a little bit. Now it writes as it should.

In terms of stubbishness, I think it is just some mild stub nib. the vertical stroke at the right-bottom corner of the writing sample shows the stubbish character very well. And due to the stubbishness, it has a narrower sweet spot. The second horizontal stroke at the writing sample shows some skipping, and reason of the shipping is on me; I turned the pen a bit more than it allows.

Wetness. It is definitely wet. There is no such thing that dry double-broad nib which writes well. Even though it is wet and pours ink to the paper, I think it has lower ink density than the broad nib of above. It is very smooth by virtue of lubrication, but it also shows less saturated light-blue color in some letters.

Overall, all five nibs are quite wet considering their line width. Finer nibs were with no, or tiny problem when out-of-box, but broader nibs had much more serious problem at first. I think you should be ready for making a contact to your favorite nibmeister when you order broader nibs and you are not comfortable to adjust very soft palladium nibs by yourself.

But after proper adjustment, they write like a dream. They deserve the name "Dream Touch". I think you will never regret buying Visconti palladium nibs if you like wet and soft writing experience.

November 22, 2017

You have a pretty good selection of those nibs in how they're supposed to write. I had two F's that were unusable and now an EF that is still, after much tuning, very very wet (ALMOST too wet) and writes a western F.

I am probably going to have my EF nibmeistered. I love the spring of their nibs, they really are lovely when they're working properly. But good god they're tuned from the factory by a monkey.

November 22, 2017

You have a pretty good selection of those nibs in how they're supposed to write. I had two F's that were unusable and now an EF that is still, after much tuning, very very wet (ALMOST too wet) and writes a western F.

I am probably going to have my EF nibmeistered. I love the spring of their nibs, they really are lovely when they're working properly. But good god they're tuned from the factory by a monkey.

Indeed, I didn't expect this much of ordering. I would not be surprised if the extra fine is broader than the fnie. The "Nib Nook" page of Gouletpens website actually shows that there is no significant difference between extra fine and fine. So when I ordered my Homo sapiens with extra fine nib, I expected some juicy F. However, because it was too good, I decided to order separate BB nib unit from La Courunne de Comte.

So it's quite embarrassing to hear that your previous F nibs were unusable. Their nib QC is worse than I guessed.

November 22, 2017

Have a BB and an EF of Visconti, they are one of my favorites (battling with Pelikan Souveran 1000 and a Sailor KOP)

I like the feel of the " lava", and the nibs are smooth and have some flex. I was lucky, and didn't have to do a lot about the nibs.

In Europe we are used to Italian goods, if you want it to work you take something German, if you want something beautiful you take something Italian....

November 23, 2017

Indeed, I didn't expect this much of ordering. I would not be surprised if the extra fine is broader than the fnie. The "Nib Nook" page of Gouletpens website actually shows that there is no significant difference between extra fine and fine. So when I ordered my Homo sapiens with extra fine nib, I expected some juicy F. However, because it was too good, I decided to order separate BB nib unit from La Courunne de Comte.

So it's quite embarrassing to hear that your previous F nibs were unusable. Their nib QC is worse than I guessed.

And when I say "Completely unusable" there is no hyperbole. One hard started every single letter (vicious baby's bottom) and the other had awful ink flow, starting from way too wet to going unusably dry and starting to skip over the course of one sentence.

It peeves me off so much. The visconti divina metro in stacked green celluloid with the sterling silver accents is, hands down, the single most gorgeous object I have ever seen in my life.

But the section's metal segment is not sealed to the celluloid of the grip - so the ink got caught in a place that couldn't be cleaned, and the pen was completely unusable. The replacement did exactly the same.

The my pen jewel on my homo sapiens wasn't stamped properly either, it sat off-center and wobbled. Thankfully Coles of London has excellent service and they sent me a new jewel (after already having had to reaplace the homo sapiens once via Goulet, who in all their spectacular awesomeness threw in an $80 visconti pen case for no reason in addition to personally testing my pen)

August 25, 2019

Can a nibmeister adjust the wetness of the Visconti nibs...make the really wet nibs dryer?

Also if you could do it all over again would you stick with the Palladium nib or go for the 18k gold nibs that they are using now?

The Medici is a beautiful pen.

Regards,

David

Edited August 25, 2019 by NeverTapOut

August 25, 2019

Can a nibmeister adjust the wetness of the Visconti nibs...make the really wet nibs dryer?

Yes. Or vice versa. Or any other nib, for that matter.

Also if you could do it all over again would you stick with the Palladium nib or go for the 18k gold nibs that they are using now?

I haven’t yet tried the newer 18k nibs, but if my 23k Pd nib somehow got damaged, then I’d scour the Earth to find another one. I love that nib.

August 25, 2019

The BB that I have writes very smoothly, but only when I hold it a lot straighter than I normally do. When I hold it at my usual angle it railroads or the feed can't keep up. It feels like it needs to be held very straight in order for the ink to flow down. At first this frustrated me, but I have adjusted to it. I use it only for notes in big bold letters, so it isn't a problem.

The 18K nib in my older Visconti writes like a dream though. So I have high hopes for the future.

August 25, 2019

Can a nibmeister adjust the wetness of the Visconti nibs...make the really wet nibs dryer?
Also if you could do it all over again would you stick with the Palladium nib or go for the 18k gold nibs that they are using now?
The Medici is a beautiful pen.

Regards,
David

Adjusting ink flow is not the hardest job even for an amateur nib worker.

I haven't used any new Visconti 18k nib yet. I have experienced several (3-4) older 18k nibs, and I felt the 18k nibs are more consistent than palladium nibs.