Cult Pens birthday offers

[A Smug Dill]

The main event is the site-wide discount(s): 10% off the total for orders of value £40 or more¹, and 15% off the total for orders of value £75 or more². The respective discount codes expire on 26 May.

 

Then there are selected items specially discounted, including Faber-Castell Essentio Carbon fountain pens (all nib sizes) for £13.33 ex VAT each — before applying a site-wide discount code! They're probably worth buying at that price for the excellent steel nib alone, never mind whether you may be apprehensive about (numerous) anecdotal reports that their gripping sections cracking. Buy three or more of them, or two pens and a handful of Faber-Castell (‘international standard’) converters, and qualify³ to get, free of charge⁴, a Faber-Castell pencil case filled with a Pitt Artists Drawing Pen, a 2B pencil, an Apollo mechanical pencil, an eraser-tipped Grip pencil, a fineliner and a kneadable eraser as well. 75ml bottles of Graf von Faber-Castell ink are also £13.33 ex VAT each.

 

 

 

 

I think the pens are regularly priced at £25 ex VAT, and the inks £20.83 ex VAT.

—

¹ The actual eligibility criterion is order total value of £33.33 or more excluding VAT and shipping. Apply discount code BIRTHDAY10. 

² The actual eligibility criterion is order total value of £62.50 or more excluding VAT and shipping. Apply discount code BIRTHDAY15.

³ With eligible Faber-Castell (not GvFC) products in the shopping cart totalling £33.33 or more excluding VAT.

⁴ If the item is in stock at the time for you to add, and you in deed (remember to) add it to your shopping cart before checking out.

 

Edited May 12, 2021 by A Smug Dill
One of the offers appears to have been withdrawn overnight

[grmbrk]

It's a nice deal, and sadly faber castell basic/essentio sections DO crack, although the worst part is the rubber section wears out with time and becomes unpleasantly tacky. The nibs are great, I would even buy another to replace my section but I've already spent this years fountain pen budget, a man has to know when to stop.

[A Smug Dill]

I bought three Faber-Castell Essentio Aluminium (one in each colour) fountain pens last year, with metal gripping sections that aren't prone to cracking, and I really quite like them. My wife and I also have three Faber-Castell Ambition fountain pens here, which use the same type of nib unit as the Essentio but are better-looking pens (however their cap seal effectiveness is worse). Last year, when there was the opportunity to apply a double-discount and get a bunch of bottom-of-the-range, silver-coloured Essentio pens (which I hear are heavy, and awkwardly balanced) just for their nibs, I came very close to pulling the trigger; I'm now glad I didn't! Anyway, I bought four of Essentio Carbon pens today, one for each nib width grade. (All my F-C fountain pens have EF nibs.) Got the free pencil case SKU, too.

[Aysedasi]

Many thanks for the heads-up on this. 

[A Smug Dill]

On 5/12/2021 at 2:21 AM, A Smug Dill said:

… get, free of charge⁴, a Faber-Castell pencil case …

 

That offer^† appears to have been withdrawn overnight (in the UK time zone), after the promotional SKU's product page has been returning HTTP error 404 for several hours last night and into the wee hours of the morning, when the offer was still shown in an alert panel above the item price on every Faber-Castell product page.

 

^† First announced in the Penorama newsletter as well as on Twitter on 20 April 2021, although Google's cache has a snapshot of the promotion page dating back to 17 April.

[Dione]

I took advantage of the deal and bought the F-C Essentio pen but despite it showing as "in stock" when I made the purchase it says "stock to be confirmed" on my order.

[A Smug Dill]

I just had another look. Yozakura, Electric Pink, Midnight Blue and Hazelnut Brown among the GvFC inks now appear to be out of stock. However, given that the site-wide discount codes are (supposedly) valid until 26 May, there is a chance (if you want to take it) that those colours may come back in stock before then, even though others may sell out in the meantime.

 

All nib width grades for Essentio Carbon still show as being in stock; but, yes, I've seen the “stock to be confirmed” thing in system-generated confirmation email for accepted orders before. I'm not sure whether that means the item at the listed (and paid-for) price would be locked in, even if Cult Pens cannot immediately fulfil that (part of the) order.

[Calabria]

I love posts with research footnotes!!

[A Smug Dill]

On 5/12/2021 at 2:51 AM, A Smug Dill said:

I bought four of Essentio Carbon pens today, one for each nib width grade. (All my F-C fountain pens have EF nibs.) Got the free pencil case SKU, too.

 

 

All delivered by DHL to my doorstep (so to speak) on Day Five after order placement, despite everything on the order being doubly discounted! How wonderful and efficient is that?! 👍

 

On 5/12/2021 at 2:21 AM, A Smug Dill said:

75ml bottles of Graf von Faber-Castell ink are also £13.33 ex VAT each.

 

Only Carbon Black, Cobalt Blue, Royal Blue and Violet Blue remain in stock, when I went to look just now.

[Dione]

I also received my Essentio Carbon pen very quickly.

[mizgeorge]

2 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

 

All delivered by DHL to my doorstep (so to speak) on Day Five after order placement, despite everything on the order being doubly discounted! How wonderful and efficient is that?! 👍

 

 

Only Carbon Black, Cobalt Blue, Royal Blue and Violet Blue remain in stock, when I went to look just now.

I'm very impressed! Even more so given that I ordered a matter of a couple of hours later and mine won't even ship before the end of this week. About which I am not impressed...

[A Smug Dill]

On 5/17/2021 at 7:16 PM, A Smug Dill said:

Only Carbon Black, Cobalt Blue, Royal Blue and Violet Blue remain in stock, when I went to look just now.

 

I was notified that GvFC Moss Green ink is back in stock, some three hours ago, just as I was wrapping up my run. I hopped on to check which other colours have been restocked (because I didn't ask to be notified of every one that was out temporarily) — and that would be Cognac Brown and Viper Green, by the way — but then something caught my eye and jarred my senses, so I just had to go to the “£16 Sale” (that's £16 inclusive of 20% VAT, and so £13.33 ex VAT, for each product) Birthday Offers page to confirm:

 

 

Update: I see Cult Pens has since taken the GvFC off the list of Birthday Offers entirely.

 

Edited May 18, 2021 by A Smug Dill

[MuddyWaters]

How is the carbon part of this pen? I am guessing the pen is somewhat nib heavy? Also, is the section metal or plastic?

 

I see in reviews that there is an issue with the converter getting squeezed by the barrel... In any case, this looks like a nice deal. Thanks asd for pointing it out. 

[A Smug Dill]

On 5/20/2021 at 5:53 AM, MuddyWaters said:

How is the carbon part of this pen?

 

Heavy, compared to the Essentio Aluminium.

 

On 5/20/2021 at 5:53 AM, MuddyWaters said:

I am guessing the pen is somewhat nib heavy?

 

The opposite, actually. The Essentio Carbon feels uncomfortably top-weighted to me, in a way that the Essentio Aluminum doesn't.

 

Respective weights of the cap / gripping section / barrel:

Essentio Aluminium: 6g / 4g / 12g

Essentio Carbon: 6g / 2.5g / 18g

 

On 5/20/2021 at 5:53 AM, MuddyWaters said:

Also, is the section metal or plastic?

 

Plastic core, covered in a rubbery gripping finish.

 

On 5/20/2021 at 5:53 AM, MuddyWaters said:

I see in reviews that there is an issue with the converter getting squeezed by the barrel...

 

Not if a Faber-Castell converter is used, in my experience with the Essentio Aluminium. ’International standard’ is a myth when it comes to cartridges and converters; even though both Diplomat, Faber-Castell and Pelikan converters (I'm confident) are all rebranded Schmidt converters, they're not the same as each other. If you (try to) put a Pelikan, or even an actual/original Schmidt K5, converter into the Essentio (as is the case with the Ambition, of which we have a few), you're asking for trouble; if you succeed in jamming it all the way into the barrel, it may get ‘squeezed’ or stuck. On the other hand, if you take a Schmidt K1 (also being an) ‘international standard’ converter — typically supplied with Moonman models that use Schmidt nibs, e.g. the M100 and M200 — and put it in the Essentio, then there's no problem and no squeeze.

 

Given there is no converter included in the Faber-Castell Essentio retail SKUs, I wonder how many users will go out of their way to make sure they at least start off with using a Faber-Castell converter — buying one if they don't already have one on hand — and base their observations on that, instead of just grabbing and using whichever ‘international standard’ converter they have lying around?

[MuddyWaters]

Thanks for the heads up smug. You just saved me some money which I can keep for my original plan of getting a few more rangas. I didn't actually need the add-ons (inks, converters, notebooks) I was putting in my cult pens basket either. 

[A Smug Dill]

@MuddyWaters Now that I've actually handled the Essentio Carbon, in retrospect I'm glad that when I bought my first Essentio pens to try them out, an issue stopped me from getting two Aluminium and one Carbon from EndlessPens as originally intended, and got three Aluminium in all the different available colours instead (and my least preferred one, in pink, is actually quite lovely), all for roughly the same price; I'd needed to add three units for the order to be eligible for free shipping, so it wasn't a case of, “Shouldn't you just get one pen to try a model out if you were unsure?” The Carbon one looks good in the photos, and in the flesh as well, but the weight and glossy finish of the barrel isn't as suited to my preferences in actual usage; I don't think I'll be writing with the four Essentio Carbon pens I got from Cult Pens in this marketing campaign.

 

That said, I still think the nibs — if one is of a mind to build a nib library or just a stash of replacements — alone are worth the effective price for the entire pen (£12.47 delivered).