Leonardo Art Dèco 2021

[francoiacc]

It has been a long waiting, but finally I got it, the new Leonardo Art Dèco 2021 is finally in my hands. The hardest part has been to choose one color on the four available, I'd have taken one of each color, but I decided to save my  marriage and my savings going for the Terracotta only 😅

 

 

The Art Dèco 2021 is a limited edition of 100 pens each color and is the second collection made by Leonardo inspired to the Art Dèco pens made in the '30. The pens are made of ebonite, a quite common material for that time, engraved with an Art Dèco pattern.

 

Leonardo shipped all the parts made in their facilities to a French artisan which engraved the Art Dèco pattern without the use of CNC machinery, the pens are finally manually assembled by one of the Leonardo employee back in Naples. Every pen is numbered within a box that is kept free form the Art Dèco pattern, a solution that I found quite stylish.

 

 

The model of this pen is the same used for the exclusive celluloid special editions, a real oversize pen: a big and solid pen. Here are the technical details:

Closed length: 155mm

Uncapped length: 141mm

Posted length: 176mm

Max barrel diameter: 16mm

Section diameter: 12-14mm

Weight: 34gr.

 

On the cap there is the typical "Ruzzolina" clip, on the bottom there is a ring with the same Art Dèco pattern engraved on the pen, surrounded by two thin rings.

 

 

The cap unscrews in 1 turn and just a bit more and can be safely posted, nevertheless the pen become quite huge and top-heavy. Anyway, given the size I'd say that it can be used un-posted even by those with big hands.

 

 

The filling system is the usual high capacity Leonardo piston, which can also be easily disassembled with the tool provided with the pen. The ring under the piston knob also has the same Art Dèco pattern engraved, still another element that shows the attention to details that Leonard put in the design of this pen

 

 

The section is lightly conical, I found the diameter at the end a bit too big for a #6 nib, I'd have preferred a #8 as I have on a custom Leonardo in Saft Green celluloid. Below is shown a comparison of the two pens, the Art Dèco with a #6 nib and the custom Saft Green with a #8 nib.

 

 

The pen has a 14K gold nib made by JoWo and an in house made ebonite feeder. Initially I was considering to go a stub, but I've other Leonardo/JoWo stub so I finally opted for a nice Bold. Moreover I don't found the JoWo the most pleasant stub, to me Bock is more enjoyable being more juicy and soft.

I think that Leonardo made anyway the perfect wedding, matching the JoWo nib with the in house ebonite feeder which squeezes the best performances out of these reliable nibs.

 

(sometimes light makes some odd things, it looks a different color, but it is always the same Terracotta Art Dèco!! )

 

 

The pen has been inked as soon as it arrived home with Leonardo Sepia ink, just out of the box the pen started to pleasantly write and it never stopped. I started to write pages and pages, including this review, initially in italian for the italian fountain pen forum: it pleasantly glides across the paper, but not sliding away, the flow is good but not too lavish and the B is a good bold not a double broad or a medium. I left the pen on the desk uncapped for more than 5 minutes, it start writing as soon as it touched the paper, not even a micro-skip. Nothing to complain even on this aspect. Here it is a writing test.

 

 

I found the Art Dèco another lovely Leonardo Officina Italiana collection, it is not that easy to criticize such a pen made with attention to the details, high quality materials and that also writes very well (do we really want to consider this as a given for a top level pen?), but I've couple of points.

First, I think that it is time now for Leonardo to start also making their nibs in house. They produce everything, including clips, rings, feeder; all but nibs... may be in a near future? let's hope.

Then I found the section not as comfortable as the Momento Zero Grande one, the latter has a more conic shaped section that also match better with a #6 nib. But this is also a matter of personal taste.

Finally the cost: 630€ is not just couple of cents, but.... for the same money, just to have a comparison term, we do not even buy a Le Grand in precious resin, so is it really too an expansive pen?

 

[Michael R.]

Very nice! Thank you for sharing. I really like the updated section without the metal ring. I own the firs edition model in sand color and would have loved to add a mustard colored one. Unfortunately they did not make this edition in this color.

 

Enjoy yours in good health.

 

Michael

[como]

@francoiacc Congratulations on your new Leonardo Art Deco! I like this color and pattern very much, and of course the ebonite material. I really favour this type of earthy orange / terracotta in ebonite. It probably pairs very well with the KWZ Fontoplumo ink 🙂! I have both the KWZ Fontoplumo and Leonardo Sepia and enjoy them very much. I totally agree with @Michael R. that the section without the metal ring looks nicer. On the Grande models, Leonardo did the ring less on celluloid editions, so it’s good to see that now ebonite is also without the ring, at least on some models. Enjoy your new pen, and thank you for sharing!

[dms525]

Congratulations! The Terra Cotta looks very nice. I chose the Cobalt Blue, and it arrived last night.

 

 

I posted more photos in the Leonardo Photo topic.

 

David

[francoiacc]

David it is an amazing color, but which one is not? 

[dms525]

5 hours ago, francoiacc said:

David it is an amazing color, but which one is not? 

 

Yes. I keep looking but have yet to find the ugly Leonardo. Of course, some are more beautiful than others to my eye. This is one of them.

 

David

[mauckcg]

The 21's are a bit bigger than the 19's.  Mostly in the cap, Leonardo changed the grip as well, not for the better compared to the 19, but it's not uncomfortable.

[dms525]

14 minutes ago, mauckcg said:

The 21's are a bit bigger than the 19's.  Mostly in the cap, Leonardo changed the grip as well, not for the better compared to the 19, but it's not uncomfortable.

The length difference is entirely in the caps, comparing mine. The section shapes are quite different. I find them both comfortable, but I haven't used the 2021 Art Deco long enough to say for certain. So far, so good.

 

David

[mauckcg]

My 21 Green Art Deco has had 4 inks run through it, washed it out with mildly soapy water each time.  It writes very dry.  I'll take it apart after i get home from work tonight and tweak it a bit.  I have a Speranza Cherry that was the same way that i managed to tweak and is now stellar.

[Recursion]

On 12/12/2021 at 6:10 PM, francoiacc said:

It has been a long waiting, but finally I got it, the new Leonardo Art Dèco 2021 is finally in my hands.

It's real a lovely writing instrument. here is my green version (limited to 50 by Fontoplumo in The Netherlands)