Leonardo Momento Zero Hawaii

[Karmachanic]

 

Yes, but gold is more expensive than steel. A £150 pen with a steel nib has got to be impressive when most pens in this price range come with gold nibs.

 

A limited edition Sailor Cosmos costs £125 -it's a pretty pen and comes with a nice 14K nib.

 

If you want £150 for a pen with a steel nib - then it should be one of the best pens on the market.

 

Gold nibs that are nails do not impress me. Good value does. What is good value for me may be rubbish for you. Subjective experiences.

[TheDutchGuy]

Quality is objective, i.e. how well something is engineered, the materials that are used, ruggedness, if it functions properly, etc.

 

Things like beauty and writing experience are mostly subjective.

 

Good value strikes me as "quality + pleasure at a price you'd be happy to pay".

 

But perhaps everything about pens is subjective :-) .

[Gloucesterman]

Just checked these out on the "bay". Prices go from $168.00 to $795.00.

Guess I won't be getting one of these soon.

[A Smug Dill]

Overall, I enjoy it more than many luxury pens that cost many times over. I'm really happy with this purchase and I would highly recommend it whether your budget for a new pen is $100 or $1000.

I love the look of the pen, I enjoy holding it in my hand because of its form factor, and the steel EF nib on mine writes 'well' with Pilot Iroshizuku kon-peki ink if a bit too broadly for my tastes.

 

Positano is such a pretty pen too! I have a goal to not order any more pens this year, but the Positano is on my wish list for sure!

It is pretty. I think the Blue Emerald acrylic used in the Furore is even better-looking, though. Then, of course, there is the Mediterraneo 2 celluloid – possibly the perfect match for Sailor Shikiori souten.

 

£125-150 for an acrylic pen with a steel nib, when a Japanese pen with a 14K gold nib can be had for £100-125 seems a bit pricey.

£100+ for a pen is pricey, full stop, irrespective of the nib. Whether that's punching above its weight in the market is a different contemplation.

 

It's not the materials per se, but when Japanese manufacturers can produce a similar pen, with a 14K gold nib for less than this one - you have to ask - is this pen really worth it?

It's worth it to the buyer if he/she will derive £125 or more's worth of enjoyment (from usage in writing, or just holding or displaying as an object of beauty) and/or pleasure of ownership, wouldn't you say? I don't think worth is relatively. Let's pretend for a moment that gratification is quantifiable with some sort of equivalence to monetary amounts. If I could spend £125 on a Leonardo Moment Zero Hawaii and get £150 of enjoyment out of it, and spend the same mount or less on a Platinum #3776 Celluloid with 14K gold nib and get £250 of enjoyment out of that, surely the conclusion must be that either (or both!) of the purchases is worth it. Buying one instead of the other, irrespective of whether one's budget can stretch to both, is not part of the equation of whether one is worth it and the other isn't.

 

And then, what if the subjective evaluation of the buyer/user is that the Leonardo Momento Zero Hawaii will deliver £200 of enjoyment, and the Platinum #3776 Celluloid £180 of enjoyment? What then?

 

By the way, the only Platinum #3776 Celluloid I've seen offered for cheaper is the Sakura version, and I don't think I'd like it as much as the Leonardo Momento Zero Hawaii, at least to look at and to hold, even though I like Platinum #3776 'hard' gold nibs.

 

Only you can decide if it's worth it, it's a very personal thing and one man's gold is another man's lead.

I agree.

 

Yes, but gold is more expensive than steel. A £150 pen with a steel nib has got to be impressive when most pens in this price range come with gold nibs.

It is impressive. I've very impressed with the pen body and ergonomics of the Leonardo Momento Zero. The nib doesn't impress me much, but that it is made of steel has little to do with it. I like this nib better a hundred-fold than the Pilot 14K gold #10 FA nib on the Custom Heritage 912. However, it does not compare to the steel EF nib on my Diplomat Aero, or the steel M nib on the best of my three Rotring Initial fountain pens.

 

If you want £150 for a pen with a steel nib - then it should be one of the best pens on the market.

Hmmm, I don't know. I like the Diplomat Aero in orange very much, and the looks/design of the pen body is excellent, although I do enjoy the Leonardo Momento Zero Hawaii more. However, from a writing experience and output perspective, my Diplomat Aero trumps my Leonardo Momento Zero.

 

Good value strikes me as "quality + pleasure at a price you'd be happy to pay".

Yep!

 

For a teensy bit more than the price of the Leonardo Momento Zero Hawaii, I can get an Aurora Ipsilon Deluxe with 14K gold Stub or Italic nib, and a Pelikan M200 with marbled brown body and a steel EF nib, delivered. I was thinking very long and hard about that last night, and the night before, but ultimately I couldn't bring myself to do it. However, spending €147 on this (delivered) was a no-brainer to me, didn't take more than ten minutes' consideration, and I don't regret the purchase even though I wish the nib was as good as that on the Diplomat Aero.

Edited January 28, 2019 by A Smug Dill

[RoSpectre]

Hm, Diplomat nib swap into Leo body? Both #6s right? I am always on the hunt for the best XF nibs.

 

In terms of value, I think the Leos are made in small batches by a small team (there's a video online touring their shop.) So it's true you won't get savings from economies of scale. But, some value the small artisan approach and you get that here. I'm pretty sure there are lots of "by-hand" steps on the Leo line.

 

Also, looking at gold vs steel is a tired topic probably, but the monetary value of the gold itself might add $30 to a pen... and a gold nib adds nothing absolute to a pen's performance. Experienced performance, smoothness, softness, flex, etc. rests entirely on polishing, nib shape, and placebo due to human's inexplicable fascination with the shiny metal. So saying, "that's a lot for a steel nibbed pen" doesn't always make sense. Even worse is, "it's very smooth for a steel nib"... that said I do like the idea of my words being laid down through a piece of gold. That's subjective value, though.

[A Smug Dill]

So saying, "that's a lot for a steel nibbed pen" doesn't always make sense.

If there's a market, in which various pen models with steel nibs and gold nibs have their respective prices, then it's quite reasonable to say, "that's a lot for a steel-nibbed pen," if the asking price of the pen in question is two or three standard deviations from the mean price across steel-nibbed pen models, and especially if the asking price falls within the price range of gold-nibbed pen models (albeit less than their mean price).

[RoSpectre]

But the nib material is only one (often small) fraction in the cost of a pen. It's like saying, "that's a lot for a house with engineered hardwood floors instead of solid hardwood floors"... what about all the other factors? So I don't think nib material should be the main metric in judging a pen's value or pegging it in the market.

 

It sounds like the Aero and the Momento Zero both have excellent build quality and detail throughout, plus well-tuned steel nibs, and so they offer great value but it can be tough to see when there happen to be gold-nibbed pens in the same price bracket, or lower.

[sansenri]

It's a very nice pen. The people at Leonardo have the experience from their Delta past and they know how to build pens, plus they also have access to some very nice materials.

The Hawai (which was also earlier released first in Italy as Corsani blue, in cooperation with Corsani shop in Rome) is a beatiful resin, which is rather different than others. This material was used by Delta years ago in a LE version of their Dolce Vita called Blue Jay (the colours are inspired by the plumage of the Blue Jay bird).

I'm happy with mine and the steel B nib. The Furore is very similar to this pen (but rounded ends) and behaves similarly.

 

Here is my Corsani Blue

and this is the Blue Jay Dolce Vita

[A Smug Dill]

But the nib material is only one (often small) fraction in the cost of a pen. It's like saying, "that's a lot for a house with engineered hardwood floors instead of solid hardwood floors"... what about all the other factors?

What about them? A first generation Lexus LS400 cost "a lot for a Japanese car" in 1989, but at the same time, "not a lot for a luxury car"; both of those assertions would make sense, and without contradicting each other.

 

So I don't think nib material should be the main metric in judging a pen's value or pegging it in the market.

There's price, then there's value. I have no problem with people choosing to comment (in a throwaway manner or otherwise) on the price of something without also reflecting on the item's value.

 

What I'm personally against is consumers judging the value of an instrument, or tool, or toy, primarily on the basis of the cost of manufacture (and then focussing on the materials and labour, without apportioning the production facilities and toolset required) and then allow arbitrarily for a consistent X% 'mark-up' on that. When I'm a consumer – meaning that I spend money to acquire something that is intended to be consumed, in that the item is not an asset intended to be resold or used to generate revenue, but its value will be depleted and extinguished by my hand, whether that's over two days or two decades – the value of an item to me ought to be independent of the price I paid, much less what percentage of that price was net profit to the retailer and manufacturer, and what percentage is 'lost' to sales and marketing costs, warehousing and distribution costs, 'waste' due to process inefficiencies and rejected defective units, etc. outside of 'bare' materials and labour costs that went (or would go) into actual manufacture.

 

In the case of my Leonardo Momento Zero Hawaii, even though I'm not perfectly happy with the nib or the writing experience it delivers, I still think it has sufficient value (let's say €N, where N>150, if such value is quantifiable) to me to be well worth the €147 I paid for it. Whether that €147 could be 'better spent' on a different pen that could deliver €(N+50) of value is not part and parcel to consideration or that statement (and neither is my budget).

[RoSpectre]

I think that makes sense. We've talked me into buying one... just need to see if any retailers will be kind and throw up a Valentine's sale.

 

I appreciate the pictures of the Hawaii... would you say the pen looks primarily blue, or more into teal? I don't own any acrylic pens, and Im usually into more subdued looking pens, so Im wondering if I should stick to the horn colour or go for the more unique Hawaii.

[A Smug Dill]

I appreciate the pictures of the Hawaii... would you say the pen looks primarily blue, or more into teal?

 

 

The lighter stripes on mine are teal, the darker stripes are navy/indigo, and then there are of course the bone/grey-brown colour stripes too. It certainly isn't subdued. I'd say the Positano is more subdued/tranquil looking, even though it's more teal than blue to me from the product images online. Unfortunately, the more 'true blue' one would be the Mediterraneo 2 celluloid, which costs several times as much.

Edited February 5, 2019 by A Smug Dill

[como]

They aren't ebonite feeds are they?

I believe only the limited edition ones with gold nibs have ebonite feed.

[sansenri]

colour really depends on the pen you get, there is a lot of variation, but that's a nice aspect of this resin, I would not call it teal though, I don't usually like teal so much, this is more a sort of dark turquoise mixed with a darker navy blue, and then with those light brown streaks.

It catches the light a lot. I find it's lovely. Between horn and Hawaii I'd take Hawaii any day (but that's just me of course)

.

[como]

colour really depends on the pen you get, there is a lot of variation, but that's a nice aspect of this resin, I would not call it teal though, I don't usually like teal so much, this is more a sort of dark turquoise mixed with a darker navy blue, and then with those light brown streaks.

It catches the light a lot. I find it's lovely. Between horn and Hawaii I'd take Hawaii any day (but that's just me of course)

.

 

 

May I ask how is the Broad, with the ink flow, any scratchiness or other issues? I have the Furore but in Stub because they didn't have the B. I smoothed it out a little bit for my angle of writing. I find the section also quite comfortable to hold. I will probably get a B next time if they have it, perhaps in the Momento Zero style.

[sansenri]

I like B nibs so it was a specific choice, I'm very happy with it too, ever so smooth and also a touch of bounciness, i.e. not at all a nail.

I could not ask for more from a steel nib.

Oh, and yes good flow too. I don't like very dry nibs.

Edited February 5, 2019 by sansenri

[como]

I like B nibs so it was a specific choice, I'm very happy with it too, ever so smooth and also a touch of bounciness, i.e. not at all a nail.

I could not ask for more from a steel nib.

Oh, and yes good flow too. I don't like very dry nibs.

 

Thanks for sharing. I also usually prefer B and wet nibs. I think at this price range it's really pretty good.

[sansenri]

Absolutely. True it's a steel nib, but a good one, and the pen is really, really well made, I don't regret the expense in the slightest.

[Karmachanic]

Fontoplumo sells Leonardo nibs. EF to B and Stub.

[jmccarty3]

I would find it quite difficult to distinguish between my gold-nibbed Momento Zero and my steel-nibbed one. I don't think you can go wrong with either.

[Karmachanic]

The gold nib's yellow.