True Writer Pen Collection - So Far

[mge01park]

I did hang onto a decent amount of the Greystoke gray ink. It’s a great saturated gray, which can be very hard to find.

[mge01park]

1 hour ago, donnweinberg said:

Hi, mge01park.  I also purchased the same color pack back in the 1990s.  They are interesting colors.

For sure. The Fireball Red, Blue Bahama and Always Greener also released with the Demo FP with the ink bottle in big boxes and then they did an Amethyst Demo too. I'm sure you know about these. 

 

 

 

Edited December 22, 2024 by mge01park
Changed Pictures

[donnweinberg]

Hi, mge01park.  I also prefer broad points.

[mge01park]

2 hours ago, donnweinberg said:

Hi, mge01park.  I also prefer broad points.

Great to hear that. 😂

[Misfit]

Levenger sells a broad nib unit, so why can’t they offer it on the pens? Makes them more money if you buy it separately, I suppose. I was able to put an Opus 88 nib in a True Writer. The collar on the nib/feed holder is not as wide, but it seems to work. 
 

The Sugar Plum ink is not as dark as the color on the box. Even though I am a female, I’m not a great fan of pink inks. 
 

@mge01park I have the same ink set as yours. I got it on eBay this year. 
 

I did see an email from eBay that showed what looked like the Cafe au Lait and Always Greener demonstrator fountain pens. But they were at a higher price than I’m willing to pay. Plus, though likely not their fault, the seller doesn’t know the color names. They want $64.99 for the pens. 

[mge01park]

12 hours ago, Misfit said:

Levenger sells a broad nib unit, so why can’t they offer it on the pens? Makes them more money if you buy it separately, I suppose. I was able to put an Opus 88 nib in a True Writer. The collar on the nib/feed holder is not as wide, but it seems to work. 
 

The Sugar Plum ink is not as dark as the color on the box. Even though I am a female, I’m not a great fan of pink inks. 
 

@mge01park I have the same ink set as yours. I got it on eBay this year. 
 

I did see an email from eBay that showed what looked like the Cafe au Lait and Always Greener demonstrator fountain pens. But they were at a higher price than I’m willing to pay. Plus, though likely not their fault, the seller doesn’t know the color names. They want $64.99 for the pens. 

Good move on the Opus 88 switch out. I prefer #6 nibs in general from Opus 88 so mainly the Koloro Ddmonstrator size pens which have a standard line of colors and then they did colors of the year and a year ago did 5 new offerings of Koloro Demo size. Any #5 should fit the TW. 
 

I need to look on the site as I’ve not seen a broad nib unit for sale now. 
 

Sugar Plum - I might add some black ink to it then. I did it with the Private Reserve Infinity Violet and it’s great. The Levenger Amethyst is dark enough for me. I have this P Reserve mixing kit where you can do this stuff easy and in a small amount. My favorite colors fall in the purple to the dark red area followed by gray and blue. 
 

On Demonstrators, there’s also been a True Teal and a Claret or Shiraz Demo (need to check which one) which they did in FP and RB which I bought. Levenger shifts the prices so much with the sales that if you don’t get it at the right price, it’s hard to buy it. 😀. 

[Misfit]

11 hours ago, mge01park said:

Levenger shifts the prices so much with the sales that if you don’t get it at the right price, it’s hard to buy it. 😀. 

This is so true! 

[Misfit]

I missed out on a True Writer Blue Bahama because I forgot how to bid correctly. Grrr! Instead of bidding $20, I bid $10 which I’d already bid. Brain fart lost me that pen. I wanted it too. Oh well, patience is needed to get the discontinued True Writers.  

[Misfit]

@mge01park did you start a Levenger sub on Reddit?

[mge01park]

Yes. Several months ago. Thanks for seeing and acknowledging it. 

[Misfit]

Did anyone else shop at Levenger’s buy one pen, get one free today?  I did. 
 

I chose the Larimar Blue and Sapphire Mosaic pens with M nibs. They do ship for free. But I could not use points on the order. Maybe the $10 off $100 doesn’t include tax. Or because it was buy one get one free. 

[mge01park]

Congratulations 🎈 🎉 both are real nice and FP’s the way to go. I had the email but got sidetracked some and then got back on but wanted some other stuff elsewhere unrelated that made this moot for more TW’s with tons of them already (and many unused). They’re not bringing back the TW Select line so I’m quiet on any Levenger pens as these are my favorite with the 3 generations of them (I’m including the Plumpster). Their website at times is a bouncing and jumping disaster as it keeps scrolling and times out, etc., it does all kinds of weird stuff for me.  Prices are back again to the full price, (but when you open up an item it says sale and it’s not) this will last like for one day and then obviously they start doing all the promotions and discounts again, that’s why I’m real careful if I buy anything from them because I do buy a lot of the Freeleaf as you could wind up with 40% 50% off so I wait for free shipping which is the only time I jump in. The rewards reduce the price and tax accordingly when you can use them. The free shipping last weekend got me involved and I had 300 points and it worked on sale items in Freeleaf even the new ones not in stock yet. 

Sorry to be random I’m dictating! 
 

7 hours ago, Misfit said:

Did anyone else shop at Levenger’s buy one pen, get one free today?  I did. 
 

I chose the Larimar Blue and Sapphire Mosaic pens with M nibs. They do ship for free. But I could not use points on the order. Maybe the $10 off $100 doesn’t include tax. Or because it was buy one get one free. 

 

[Misfit]

I know what you mean about the website jumping, timing out, resetting. If I try to increase the size, it does that jump thing and resets. 
 

Reddit does that a lot too. I’ll get down a ways, and it will encounter a problem, taking the page back to the top. It’s frustrating because it happens every time I look at Reddit. 

[Misfit]

I contacted Levenger about replacement black finials. They said they did not carry spare parts for their pens at this time. So no replacement black finials. There looks to be a Flourish Frost on eBay, but both finials are damaged. They look like the black is pealing off. I figured the finials would be plastic. 

[mge01park]

They need to have parts and they should be doing this already or need to start. They’re selling $100 pens and offer a replacement in done cases which can be a process. I have a decent number of peeled finials. A teal demonstrator FP barrel that discolored in the box before I ever used it and very annoying was on the last round of the TW Select the gold band on one cap discolored to a grayish silver and my biggest issue on those was some of the nibs rusted or got stuck in the section and of course they could do nothing about it besides some of the nibs were horrible on that last batch too. I’m using them with different nibs like Jowo #6 or some FC nibs. I got hooked on the Select as I like larger pens and #6 nibs vs. #5 which is sought of a Twsbi issue for me (I wish 😊 I don’t think I’ve missed a new release in years in any Twsbi pen) besides the 700 series. 

[Misfit]

I agree with you @mge01park on Levenger needing parts. Black finials would solve the newer way they have of using the same material for finials. 
 

 

I got the True Writers today that I ordered on buy one, get one day. 
 

 

The top pen is my favorite of the two, the Sapphire Mosaic. The lower pen is the Larimar blue. Both have M nibs. 

[mge01park]

They want to sell $100 pens and the Select were more and they need to support the purchase and also stop with this one year warranty stuff they always default to. Twsbi doesn’t do that and many others. And in some cases, even at the one year mark, they no longer have the pen so you’re not getting anything from them. This rusted in nib and feed into the section of my Select is annoying, I intend to keep T it and see if I can contact the manufacturer which I presume is in China. 

[donnweinberg]

Speaking of the True Writer Select, I have all four colors.  Here is one, in black, in which I replaced the standard nib with a 1990s era Schmidt 14k medium stub nib.  I also provide a writing sample, which appears larger than life, at least on my big screen:

 

    

 

 

 

I learned a lesson in my effort to replace the nib.  I was lucky with the black pen but suffered a loss with another one.  As we know, the nib is encased in a unit that screws out of the metal section.  Easy enough.  But, removing the nib from the unit (collar with feed and nib) is extremely difficult.  In my effort to reproduce in another Select what I did with the black Select, the feed broke off in the collar, and the nib tines got temporarily twisted.  I was able to remove the nib and restore the alignment of the tines without too much work.  

 

Perhaps that difficulty could have been reduced had I soaked the other Select first.  I had used the Black Select with its standard nib for the first time just before I changed nibs, and I wasn’t pleased with how the pen wrote.  I had used water to clean out the ink and had not dried the parts before attempting the nib change.  It was relatively easy to make the nib change.  I had assumed, wrongly, that a never-used unit would be just as easy with which to work.  My bad.  

 

It is fortunate that in the past, I had purchased from Levenger several replacement nib units for the Select, and I used one of those to place back in the other Select, wanting for now to leave well enough alone.

 

The Black Select with the 14k medium stub nib is amazing.  The Select is a hefty pen, compared with the standard True Writers, but definitely a “step above” in luxury.  However, I was disappointed with the standard medium nib that comes with the pen.

 

Do any of you have experiences with the Select that you’d like to share with us?

Edited Wednesday at 06:24 PM by donnweinberg
Removed an error.

[mge01park]

 

 

Wow, finally somebody wants to talk about the Select 😊🙏👍✅, which I have talked about quite a bit in here previously. I consider the Select to have had three generations, starting with the Plumpster, then the next group which had the Mediterranean the Stormy Gray, and there was a brown color so that was a group of three and then the third phase of them with  black, navy, green. bordeaux and burgundy. I bought the Plumpster in the roller ball, fountain pen and ball point, all are phenomenal. I bought the Stormy Gray and the Mediterranean in the roller ball and fountain pen and then all 5 of the final group colors in RB and FP. There have been issues with them, the nibs being the fine and medium have not really been that great for me. I feel like I have to press down really hard to get them to perform. I’ve done some minor adjustments which hasn’t helped any. For some of mine the nib and feed I guess rusted into the section and I couldn’t get it out and ruined 2 of them. I also had a situation where one of the nibs got bent going back into the cap and then I have a discolored gold band on my black roller ball which now looks silver. Some was salvaged with the excellent Levenger. Customer service. I’ve changed out some of the nibs so far in three of the fountain pens and I also bought extra select, nibs and gold and silver along the way, which probably wasn’t a great idea. I have 3 inked now one is using a Goulet B, one an Anderson M, and a Leonardo F nib. I have some other nibs I can use also from Jowo, Knox and Bulow. I’ve not had any difficulty removing the nib and feed from the section to replace it using a rubber grip. I love the classy look of the pens and the substantial size. I don’t think they’ll have the Select line again though from what I heard. 

[donnweinberg]

Thanks, mge01park, for sharing your “Select” information here at this time.  So, I have the third phase pens in the four colors.  I had the same unhappy experience with the standard medium nib.