Pineider - La Grande Bellezza

[DasKaltblut]

How do the earlier Pineider nibs compare with the Quill nibs?

How early? Vintage or like the nib on the Avatar?

[Boz]

No, not vintage - just the recent non-Quill nibs.

[jmccarty3]

The nib on my Key of Heaven pen had a baby's bottom that was easily corrected by a nibmeister. It remains very smooth. This is a very firm nib.

[Boz]

The nib on my Key of Heaven pen had a baby's bottom that was easily corrected by a nibmeister. It remains very smooth. This is a very firm nib.

 

Thanks - that was very useful.

[AGxM]

Been playing with my EF version, and to be honest it's a bit meh for me!

 

Writes nicely enough but not a huge fan of the beaten metal bits on the section and cap - look a bit cheap and nasty to me.

 

Nib runs a lot wetter than my Homo Sapiens Bronze EF, but has traveled from Singapore to Australia, then India and now Vietnam over the past 4 weeks with no issues. The only problem is the converter, as the ink sometimes sticks to the sides - a flick on the side sorts this and I will try the dish soap thing when it runs out.

 

Got mine about the half the RRP, but wouldn't pay anymore to be honest. I personally find the Visconti's I have to be nicer writers for my hand.

[Ghost Plane]

Have a stub at Yafa for service. I hit the recent sales to round out my colors and got one that snuck through QC and had a bit of a burr. Sent it off and expect their usual awesome service. Full report when I get it back.

 

Meanwhile these are good note taking pens when you need to grab & uncap quickly.

[DasKaltblut]

I have a medium and a stub....and oh boy I love the medium. Most comfortable pen I have. I think this is a combination of the feels of the pen and the bounce of the nib. It is just so easy to write with!

[DasKaltblut]

And the piston filler version of this has been announced: Pineider Arco

 

Sadly only in brown.

[dapprman]

I took advantage of the Chaterly deal and picked up a green one with fine nib and ... a mixed bag.

 

The nib wrote nicely, soft and fluid. It is very wet. The grip worked for me and the pen is comfortable. The green material. Total meh. Feels like an average acrylic of no character. The green pattern is flat and lighter then the pictures. I do regret not going for the red instead as two of us picked up three pens, the other guy got a green (as flat as mine) and a red (actually nicer than the pictures). I went to try and flex mine (my friend has a medium which flexes a little and a broad that does not flex at all). The pen did not even rail road, it just stopped, no flow and would no restart without priming. Tried again, same results. Looked at the nib to find the feed was not aligned (QC = joke). Brining them in to alignment the pen still writes sweetly without flexing, with flexing, some variation, but not much. Looking from the sides while writing and trying to flex, the cut outs are purely decorative.

 

Now I've fixed the feed and nib alignment do I like using the pen - yes, I'm happy to grab it or even choose it. Is it a pen I'd use for flex - no - not even close, it's a soft nib, not a flex nib (which actually is what it says in the blurb, but I seem to remember Dante telling Brian Goulet it was flexible). Do I think it's worth what I paid for it (just over half price), yes, though just. Do I think it's worth full price? not a chance.

 

Oh (edit shortly after the original post) - the cap closure I consider a gimmick and do not expect it to last more than a couple of years, and I wouldn't trust posting it (though I don;t so not an issue for me).

Edited October 2, 2018 by dapprman

[DasKaltblut]

Dante mentions that it is a nib with a little flex, but that it is not meant to be a full flex nib. that was not his intention with this nib. It is meant to be a soft writer as you have discovered.

[dapprman]

Dante mentions that it is a nib with a little flex, but that it is not meant to be a full flex nib. that was not his intention with this nib. It is meant to be a soft writer as you have discovered.

Yup which is what I've taken it to be - I suspect Pelikan, Montblanc, Sailor fans will not like it due to it's feal, but for me it's a very nice writer.

[TheDutchGuy]

My local brick and mortar store carries them, and my bday is coming up, so I will give them a try. Having said that, it takes a lot to make me put 450 euros on the table for one new pen when the same amount buys me several amazing vintage pens. Yet the entousiasm for this pen as seen in this thread makes me want to try it.

[zaddick]

You can get these from several folks on clearance so I'd shop around.

 

So far my Honeycomb has been disappointing but I have not given up on it yet.

[TheDutchGuy]

You can get these from several folks on clearance so I'd shop around.

Thanks! I'm in Europe so I need to order from there to avoid substantial import duties. Also I want to try the pen before I buy.

[Ghost Plane]

Chatterley Luxuries had them on special for $260 & ships.

[TheDutchGuy]

Out of stock by now. Not sure I would've taken the gamble. No warranty, import duty, some reports of QA issues...

 

Coming back to the nib, based on this thread, I'd say its main qualities seem to be a nice, soft bounce, smoothness and wetness. Other pens offer that as well (mostly vintage pens, in my limited experience). I'm curious where the 'magic' in this particular nib comes from. Will find out.

 

Given the choice.... Visconti HS Lava Bronze F or Pineider La Grande Belleza F...? The HS has been giving me an itch for a long time now...

[TheDutchGuy]

Given that it's a sunny Saturday morning and I happen to have some free time, I walked to my local store and tried the EF, F, M and stub versions. For comparison, I brought with me some of my most loved pens. What I found:

 

-The bounce of the nibs is impressive, which is most noticeable with the larger nib sizes

 

-The nibs *feel* like most good Western nibs of that size (in terms of smoothness, feedback, feel on paper, etc - except for the bounce, of course) but *line width* is one size up, i.e. M looks like B, etc.

 

-Very wet pens; especially the stub and the M deposited loads of ink on the page and it took forever to dry. Substantial showthrough on Oxford 90 g/m^2 paper as well as on Rhodia. The test ink was what the store provided: Lamy Blue (which I consider to be a rather dry ink).

 

-Construction-wise, the pen reminds me a lot of my Visconti van Gogh: metal section, metal barrel threads, magnetic cap, etc. It struck me as an evolution of the van Gogh, with the indented section and the oriented magnet in the cap being subtle improvements (apart from the nib, which is obviously incomparable to the van Gogh).

 

-The stub railroaded on almost every downstroke, from a featherlight touch to slight flex.

 

-The EF, F and M offered very little shading, making the blue ink look super-saturated.

 

-I first wrote with a given Pineider LGB, then switched to one of my own pens with a similar nib size. Without exception, I preferred my own pens in terms of feel on paper, wetness, feedback and performance (no skipping, railroading, etc). This is a matter of personal preference, no more, no less.

 

-Only some of my vintage pens can match the bounciness of the Pineider, which in my view is key differentiator of the La Grande Bellezza.

 

All things considered, I passed. I think this pen is just what the doctor ordered for a certain kind of writer, and I am not yet in that league. I'm not yet at the level that's needed to play with the big boys ;-) . If you like smooth, wet pens that glide over the page, deliver tons of ink, have amazing bounce and if you can afford to wait for the ink to dry, then this is something to do a backflip over.

[Ghost Plane]

Waiting on a Malachite to come back from Yafa. There was a burr feeling to the nib, so I sent it off so they could make it feel as lovely as my others.

 

I’m one of the back flip contingent. When I’m writing, I need fast & comfortable for long periods of time. Four of these inked will get me through a day. With the cartridge option, I can carry these to conferences knowing the cap won’t slide off and roll around an auditorium full of note takers.

[TheDutchGuy]

I’m one of the back flip contingent. When I’m writing, I need fast & comfortable for long periods of time. Four of these inked will get me through a day. With the cartridge option, I can carry these to conferences knowing the cap won’t slide off and roll around an auditorium full of note takers.

Reading between the lines on FPN, I'd guess that you're a professional writer who writes drafts in longhand. In that case, you need a pen that takes the pen out of the equation. The pen is a given, it's there, it's perfect, it's a silent conduit from mind to paper and it doesn't get in the way at all, so the rest is up to you.

 

Me, I free-lance for a magazine (for which writing in longhand is not efficient), but my day job is an office job. I write all day, because I have to switch my attention to another matter dozens of times a day when talking to different people, and I really need to be on top of all of it. I need to remember lots of details. So I systematically make notes in longhand - it helps me to internalize. Also when talking to people (which is pretty much all I do), writing in longhand is totally acceptable and perceived as paying close attention, while typing is distracting and is perceived as not paying attention. So I write a lot, in endless series of short bursts. I need a comfortable pen, ink that dries fast and handwriting that's legible. These Pineiders are just too wet for that purpose. Also I prefer the pencil-like feedback of Sailor nibs and the tactile response of old Sheaffer nibs.

[Ghost Plane]

Pegged me down to the silent conduit. Wonderful description. If I could manage a transporter beam from brain to page, I’d do it. Nibs like this are the next best thing to keep me in the flow.