OPUS88 Demo- the new king of $150 segment

[Detman101]

For me, It does not burp at all.

Going from my pants leg pocket to my hand or from my desktop to my hand...the ink does not burp out of the pen at any ink-level.
Close to empty, or full to the brim...the pen functions the same.

[A Smug Dill]

5 hours ago, Modus Ponens said:

I guess I should replace the and with or in "The only buyers I can see for this pen is for those who are still new to the FP game and don't really know the FP market yet."

 

I applaud your awareness and articulation of the limits to your visibility.

 

As I've mentioned, I just ordered the pen for roughly US$80, not because I have high expectations of the pen or even like what I saw in images and descriptions, but just to find out. I expect the cheaper Opus 88 Picnic, of which we already have three and I've just ordered a fourth, will (continue to) please me much better in comparison; but that doesn't stop me from continuing to throw money at exploration and experimentation, in spite of having accumulated a few hundred fountain pens between my wife and I. Maybe I'm still “new to the FP game” in spite of it; or maybe “the FP game” is not one where every player only tries to buy what is strictly necessary for his/her use cases, and choose only the best value-for-money candidates that meet his/her functional and qualitative requirements.

[Detman101]

43 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

I applaud your awareness and articulation of the limits to your visibility.

 

As I've mentioned, I just ordered the pen for roughly US$80, not because I have high expectations of the pen or even like what I saw in images and descriptions, but just to find out. I expect the cheaper Opus 88 Picnic, of which we already have three and I've just ordered a fourth, will (continue to) please me much better in comparison; but that doesn't stop me from continuing to throw money at exploration and experimentation, in spite of having accumulated a few hundred fountain pens between my wife and I. Maybe I'm still “new to the FP game” in spite of it; or maybe “the FP game” is not one where every player only tries to buy what is strictly necessary for his/her use cases, and choose only the best value-for-money candidates that meet his/her functional and qualitative requirements.

BOOM!

[punjabi]

21 hours ago, Pensei said:

I enjoyed your review, because I like the enthusiasm. May I ask you to help me be sure I understand one point? If the pen is used properly, is ink burping absolutely eliminated? And by absolutely, I mean from complete fill to empty. I have a pen I really like, but when eyedroppered, I am almost certain that eventually I'm going to get a big blob of ink on my page, and I hate that. It this pen eliminates that problem, then I'm interested. 

Their is absolutely no burping, Carried in plane & train too on various occasions. No leakage, no burping at all... My pen was dropped many times, its scratch resistant too incase you want to use this Eyedropper as daily carry pen 

[lehi53]

Thanks

[atomix]

On 5/4/2021 at 3:42 PM, punjabi said:

Their is absolutely no burping, Carried in plane & train too on various occasions. No leakage, no burping at all... My pen was dropped many times, its scratch resistant too incase you want to use this Eyedropper as daily carry pen 

Making it through the plane ride for an eyedropper had me floored.  I thought I was done with them after so many burps at the wrong time.  Interesting!

[Karmachanic]

8 hours ago, atomix said:

On 5/4/2021 at 8:42 PM, punjabi said:

 

Making it through the plane ride for an eyedropper had me floored.

 

Shut-off valve!

[Detman101]

On 5/4/2021 at 3:42 PM, punjabi said:

Their is absolutely no burping, Carried in plane & train too on various occasions. No leakage, no burping at all... My pen was dropped many times, its scratch resistant too incase you want to use this Eyedropper as daily carry pen 

Agreed.
I used to swap out to my "Delike - Element" metal pen for when I had "outdoor duty" or if I went hiking/camping/climbing/hunting/etc but the Opus-88 has held up to everything i've done lately without a scratch!
Consequently, I havent touched my "Delike - Element" in over a month...lol.

[kazoolaw]

On 5/3/2021 at 2:15 PM, Modus Ponens said:

There are people who play the piano for years and years and not make any improvement. So I guess I should replace the and with or in "The only buyers I can see for this pen is for those who are still new to the FP game and don't really know the FP market yet.".

 

C'mon people, give MP a break.  Not everyone can be both condescending and uninformed simultaneously.

[Detman101]

10 hours ago, kazoolaw said:

 

C'mon people, give MP a break.  Not everyone can be both condescending and uninformed simultaneously.

Lol, well they sure hit it out of the ballpark! 😒
 

[chromantic]

I've had mine for a couple months and I'm quite pleased with it. I wouldn't call the nib buttery smooth but it writes smoothly enough, it holds a ton of ink and it looks really sharp. It's a little larger than I normally use but it fits nicely in my hand and I don't find it uncomfortable. The small step and threads aren't sharp, I barely notice them.

The pen does not post, period. I don't post anyway so that doesn't bother me. When the OP says 3 1/2 turns to upcap, he must mean full turns because it takes almost 7 'twists' to unscrew.

I paid $120; judging from some comments, that may have been a little high. I thought it seemed reasonable, though a week or so after receiving it the seller offered an $18 discount on the white frosted version I had also added to my watch list. It's a big on-line retailer I've bought from before so I aware their prices aren't rock bottom.

[Detman101]

4 hours ago, chromantic said:

I've had mine for a couple months and I'm quite pleased with it. I wouldn't call the nib buttery smooth but it writes smoothly enough, it holds a ton of ink and it looks really sharp. It's a little larger than I normally use but it fits nicely in my hand and I don't find it uncomfortable. The small step and threads aren't sharp, I barely notice them.

The pen does not post, period. I don't post anyway so that doesn't bother me. When the OP says 3 1/2 turns to upcap, he must mean full turns because it takes almost 7 'twists' to unscrew.

I paid $120; judging from some comments, that may have been a little high. I thought it seemed reasonable, though a week or so after receiving it the seller offered an $18 discount on the white frosted version I had also added to my watch list. It's a big on-line retailer I've bought from before so I aware their prices aren't rock bottom.

Awesome!
I obtained mine from Ebay...the "Goldspot Pens" store online.
They said I could make an offer for the pen...so I offered $80...and they accepted!
I was so over-the-moon I didn't know what to do...started freaking out running around to pay for it before they changed their mind...lol.
I think that was the longest week-long wait ever...I was sooooo excited to receive the pen. 🤣

[TheDutchGuy]

On 5/4/2021 at 1:34 AM, A Smug Dill said:

As I've mentioned, I just ordered the pen … just to find out.

 

Did you get it yet? First impression?

[A Smug Dill]

31 minutes ago, TheDutchGuy said:

Did you get it yet? First impression?

 

Nope, not yet. LCdC is sending me some pens I had on order (for a while now), and they should get here next Monday or Tuesday, but the shipment does not include any of the Opus 88 or Edison Pen Co. products I ordered.

[MichaelHall]

Stephen Brown (sbrebrown) put the extremely similar Opus 88 Omar clear demonstrator on his list of Greatest of All Time for 2020.

 

https://www.sbrebrown.com/2020/12/greatest-of-all-time-2020/

 

[Detman101]

Righteous!!

[altair]

One of my favorite pens. Beautifully styled and comfortable in my hand. This high capacity eye dropper is a superb platform for thirsty nibs. The Flexible Nib Factory offers two JoWo #6 units that i especially like in this pen.

 

The S6E-XF is a Fountain Pen Revolution Ultra Flex nib on a high capacity ebonite feed that almost never railroads. It writes well unflexed and offers a good amount of line variation but does not have an ultra  fine hairline and fast snap back. For that there's the Z6E. I love the Zebra G in this pen. If it weren't for corrosion I'd leave it on permanently.

 

If you want an edged nib the Opus 88 demo can also accept Pilot Parallel Pen nib units. They just press in. I've tried the 3.8mm in mine and it works very well, but guzzles ink.

[A Smug Dill]

On 6/17/2021 at 4:52 PM, TheDutchGuy said:

Did you get it yet? First impression?

 

The package containing the pen (finally!) arrived yesterday morning, and I have just opened it up.

 

First impression? The pen looks and feels well made, but I've scarcely seen a plainer looking nib than that. Not only is it not a black nib like the O.P. has shown on his/her pen, it's a plain polished steel nib that is completely devoid of scrollwork. Two lines on either side of the nib slit marks out a chevron, and the face of the nib bears the name OPUS 88 in the most minimalistic way. On the rear edge on the right-hand side, there's a small EF grade marking. That's probably the ‘new’ style of JoWo nib, but I must say I feel quite let down by its stark appearance. No idea how well this nib is tuned or will write yet, as I haven't inked it up or even dip tested it.

 

The piston of the shut-off mechanism barely moves in line with the pen barrel, once the knob at the end has been unscrewed enough for the thread to disengage. I suppose there is no need to actually pull the piston back, but I certainly don't recall it being so rigid, or being gripped so tightly, on my Opus 88 Koloro and four Picnic pens.

 

The cap takes 3.8 turns to unscrew, making it worse in that regard than even the Fine Writing Instrument Planets series plans, for which I've always counted that characteristics as one of their biggest drawbacks.

 

I have no idea about this pen's cap seal effectiveness yet.

 

On the positive side, I found to my mild surprise that the Edison Pen Co. standalone nib unit that was also delivered in the same package (from a different order, though, that was only placed not two weeks ago) screws into this pen as a replacement nib unit perfectly. I always thought Edison pens didn't use the ‘standard’ JoWo housing?

 

Anyway, for the price of this pen, I dunno… I probably would have preferred a Wing Sung 699 (with a steel EF nib) and a FWI Planets series pen (also with a steel EF nib), with enough spare change left over to get at least one Kaigelu steel Togi-style nib as a replacement for fun use sometimes. FWI's JoWo-made #6 steel EF nib are fantastic and pretty hard to beat.

 

Even if the Opus 88 Demonstrator is the pen everyone says the business end of a Pilot Parallel pen will slot in perfectly. For now, all I can see is why most people see this pen as a glorified nib holder for some other #6 sized nib. Whereas I'm very happy with the Opus 88 Picnic pens I have, and never entertained the thought of wanting to fit some other brand or style of (#5 sized) in them.

 

[A Smug Dill]

On 1/14/2022 at 9:24 PM, A Smug Dill said:

No idea how well this nib is tuned or will write yet, as I haven't inked it up or even dip tested it.

 

I've now dip tested the nib. It's OK for an EF nib, and writes finely enough, but not so well-finished out-of-the-box that I'd say wrote smoothly. In fact, while it wasn't outright scratchy as far as the writing experience goes, it was pulling a fibre up here and there writing on Rhodia DotPad 80g/m² paper. Edison Pen Co. and Fine Writing International's JoWo-made #6 steel nibs are decidedly better out-of-the-box. The Opus 88's nib is about on par with the one that came on the Wancher Crystal I got.

 

By the way, I've now checked and confirmed that the nib units in my Edison Collier, Wancher Crystal, and FWI Planet series pens are all directly interchangeable with the one in the Opus 88 Demonstrator.

 

Which makes it all the more disappointing to me that I didn't receive a black-coated JoWo-made #6 steel EF nib, complete with fancy scrollwork on the nib face, fitted on my Opus 88 Demonstrator so that I could swap it out and into one of the other pens.

 

After applying a bit of silicone grease on the thread of the piston knob and on the piston stem (after pulling it back once, slowly, squeakily, and with difficulty), that mechanism in the pen is now much more usable.

 

Ergonomically, the pen is fine, with nothing to either irritate my fingers or upset the weight balance. However, so are my (cheaper!) Opus 88 Picnic and Koloro pens, with bodies produced with the same good manufacturing quality, but have smaller JoWo-made #5 nibs. I personally don't think more highly of a pen as a writing instrument (as opposed to a collection of modular parts ready for playing mix-and-match with whatever else I have on hand) for having a #6 nib instead of a #5 nib. So, the Opus 88 Demonstrator is not going to be a pen model I'd be keen to recommend to someone, unless they're having a whinge about the poor portability/usability of Pilot Parallel pens, and purport to want a better solution that will also give them high ink capacity while writing/drawing with a Pilot Parallel nib; here's one, if they want the portability and convenience so badly that they're prepared to pay US$100(±20) to get it.

 

[1nkulus]

Pens in general are a subjective purchase owing to a combination of variables and price points.

There is NO right pen, only a right pen for YOU.

 

Technically, if it writes and doesn't skip/leak then it is performing it's duty.

 

OTOH, the concept of 'best under $100/200' etc. only applies to collections/collectors IMO.

 

If I am going to purchase only 2-3 pens, then it is a case of what feels right/appeals to me and stretching the budget for the 'right' pen would be advisable.

I might even come across a $400 pen on clearance that costs only slightly over my $150 budget.

The pen would never feature in the 'best under $200' category and may not even make it in the 'best under $500' BUT it fits my needs/wants perfectly.

 

IMO, this pen serves a specific purpose for those requiring a large ink capacity for/during travel.

The nib swapping is a bonus.

 

On 1/14/2022 at 10:24 AM, A Smug Dill said:

Even if the Opus 88 Demonstrator is the pen everyone says the business end of a Pilot Parallel pen will slot in perfectly. For now, all I can see is why most people see this pen as a glorified nib holder for some other #6 sized nib. Whereas I'm very happy with the Opus 88 Picnic pens I have, and never entertained the thought of wanting to fit some other brand or style of (#5 sized) in them.

I concur.