Visconti quality control, is that an oxymoron?

[by78]

Surprise, surprise... a €1350 ($1500) Visconti doesn't write. In a previous video, SBREBROWN revealed that 60-70% of Visconti pens he received for review suffered from issues so severe that it was impossible to review them.

 

Why do so many in the FP community tolerate such nonsense from Visconti and continue to apologize for the company?

 

 

 

[kestrel]

Contact Coles of London and ask for Dan Ryan either by email or phone.  I recently purchased a rather expensive Visconti that came with the most twisted, malformed, and bent nib I have ever seen on a new, never inked pen.  Mr. Ryan helped me a lot with a Visconti Art Nouveau several years ago and he reached out to me when I sent a message to Coles about this atrocity.  He did the necessary nibwork and all it cost me was postage to the Coles office in Charlotte, NC.  Turnaround was six days door to door but then I sent some homemade shortbread in the box with the pen.  The nib is near flawless, now, needing just a little tweak to suit my taste for wetter than normal nibs. 

PM me if you need more specifics.

[langere]

I think SBRE Brown is one of our best and one of our most fair reviewers.  I have not had any problem with any Visconti nib (and I have 25 Viscontis), but if he says so, I think the company needs to take this very seriously.  I hope it does.

 

Erick

[jthole]

My experience with the lower end Viscontis (Rembrandt and Van Gogh) wasn’t really positive. A nib with baby bottom symptoms, and two pens with corrosion inside the caps.

[lionelc]

having a trusted seller is important with visconti, someone who will actually ink and test the pen before shipping it.  a must with the old 23k palladium nibs.  even though i can work on a nib myself, i find it a bit ordinary to have to do so for a usd 1000+ pen.  why do it at all?  some prefer not to and never buy visconti.  i take the risk because if the nib is right, a visconti can be be one of the best writing experiences out there.

[Harold]

I see two major problems with Visconti's nib issues that differentiate them from other brands' nib issues. The first is that a significant number of them are so blindingly obvious that you really have to wonder if they simply don't even check the tipping for alignment and tine spacing after pairing them with a feed and installing them into housings. The second is that it's been going on for so long now that it's morphed into a reputation rather than an occasional data point. This means that even if they get their act together, the occasional bad nib will inevitably still slip through as it does with any manufacturer, and then it will immediately make people suspicious again, regardless of whether Visconti's error rate is actually higher than that of other manufacturers.

[langere]

14 hours ago, Harold said:

I see two major problems with Visconti's nib issues that differentiate them from other brands' nib issues. The first is that a significant number of them are so blindingly obvious that you really have to wonder if they simply don't even check the tipping for alignment and tine spacing after pairing them with a feed and installing them into housings. The second is that it's been going on for so long now that it's morphed into a reputation rather than an occasional data point. This means that even if they get their act together, the occasional bad nib will inevitably still slip through as it does with any manufacturer, and then it will immediately make people suspicious again, regardless of whether Visconti's error rate is actually higher than that of other manufacturers.

True, all that - but ya gotta start somewhere...

 

Erick

[kestrel]

This is the nib mentioned in my post above as it looked when I took the brand new pen out of the box.  The pen is a Visconti Voyager 30.

 

[by78]

23 hours ago, kestrel said:

This is the nib mentioned in my post above as it looked when I took the brand new pen out of the box.  The pen is a Visconti Voyager 30.

 

 

It speaks volumes that such a nib managed to pass through QC, assuming Visconti has a QC department to begin with. Visconti elevates insulting customers into an art form.

[by78]

Sbrebrown makes fun of Visconti again (around 3:17 mark in the video). If a pen that costs less than $20 USD was tested by hand before being shipped out, what excuse does Visconti have?

 

P.S. I wonder if Visconti is the must-have brand for masochists. 

 

 

[by78]

Here's the final verdict on Visconti from Matt of The Pen Habit:

 

"They are heavily invested in the art of the pen, not the function of the pen… I think that’s why you’ve gotten pens from them in the past that are beautiful to behold, over the top, sometimes garish, very deliberately designed, but THEY DON'T WRITE… I think the company does not care about building writing experiences… While the pens may look good, they don’t write very well... It’s really unfortunate that Visconti can’t make pens that write. If they did that, I’d probably be the biggest Visconti fan in the world… I’m just not gonna buy them anymore.”

 

 

 

[inkstainedruth]

I remember talking to a friend of mine a few years ago and she LOVES her Viscontis.  And this was back when pretty much EVERYONE here on FPN was grousing about how bad their quality control was. 

So, I  guess it's a case of YMMV (I remember people complaining about the QC on Pelikan pens/nibs too, and I've never had a problem with ANY of mine (except for the Pelikano I paid five bucks for at a pen show, and the issue there wasn't the nib, it was that the pen broke at the join between the barrel and the ink window).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[by78]

54 minutes ago, inkstainedruth said:

I remember talking to a friend of mine a few years ago and she LOVES her Viscontis.  And this was back when pretty much EVERYONE here on FPN was grousing about how bad their quality control was. 

So, I  guess it's a case of YMMV (I remember people complaining about the QC on Pelikan pens/nibs too, and I've never had a problem with ANY of mine (except for the Pelikano I paid five bucks for at a pen show, and the issue there wasn't the nib, it was that the pen broke at the join between the barrel and the ink window).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

YMMV indeed. Not everyone will be struck by lightning, just as not everyone can win the Visconti lottery and find one that writes well out of the box.

[Scribs]

I have four Viscontis, all bought within the last twelve months, and every single one of them has written perfectly. I have also read in recent threads here that others have had multiple positive experiences with Visconti pens.

 

Don't forget, The Pen Habit's videos are years old by now. He unfortunately stopped making pen videos quite a while back.

[by78]

18 hours ago, Scribs said:

I have four Viscontis, all bought within the last twelve months, and every single one of them has written perfectly. I have also read in recent threads here that others have had multiple positive experiences with Visconti pens.

 

Ahhh, the standard Visconti fanboy response. Insert "I bought xxx (hugely exaggerated) number of Viscontis, and they ALL wrote perfectly out of the box.

 

Two can play this game. 

 

I've handled 162 brand new Viscontis as a seller, and only 11 of them wrote acceptably out of the box. That's just from the past 18 months.

 

18 hours ago, Scribs said:

Don't forget, The Pen Habit's videos are years old by now. He unfortunately stopped making pen videos quite a while back.

 

Another standard Visconti fanboy tactic: ignore all evidence that might contradict pre-formed position and selectively focus on nitpicking one piece of information. 

 

Did you forget to watch the Sbrebrown videos I shared, two of which he posted within the last month?

 

 

[Scribs]

 I didn't post here for an argument, I wished to relay my experience. If liking and enjoying my pens makes me a 'fanboy', then so be it, I can think of plenty worst things to be.

 

No, I didn't forget to watch the SBREBrown videos, I have no desire nor need to do so.

[langere]

This is sooo interesting.  I have no dog in the fight in the sense that if it's a dog, I call it a dog.

 

I have 26 Viscontis.  So far, every one of them has not had a problem.  I hope I remain the exception!

 

Erick

[CraigN]

Scribs,

 

Like you, I have no issue with Visconti pens.  All of my pens perform well.  Looking at my spreadsheet, I have 6 and my wife has 5.  The dates they were acquired range from 2007 to 2022.  No issues at all, except with their price.  From one response, this makes me a fanboy, although I disagree.  Together, we own over 200 fountain pens and Visconti comprises a small percentage of our inventory.  Sorry, by78, but I am not a fanboy unless your definition is quite weird.  It's a shame that you have such bad experiences.  Please tell us more.

 

Scribs provided a datapoint for others when deciding if they are to purchase a Visconti fountain pen.  Others have a larger number of pens for their experience, but this is just an additional datapoint.  Visconti pens are not perfect but look at the feedback of other pens as well.  Unfortunately, nobody makes perfect pens in the eyes of people on this page.

 

Thank you for your input.  I value this.

 

Regards,

Craig

 

P.S. I didn't watch the videos.  My experience speaks for itself.

 

[Harold]

17 hours ago, by78 said:

Ahhh, the standard Visconti fanboy response. Insert "I bought xxx (hugely exaggerated) number of Viscontis, and they ALL wrote perfectly out of the box.

 

Two can play this game. 

 

I've handled 162 brand new Viscontis as a seller, and only 11 of them wrote acceptably out of the box. That's just from the past 18 months.

You sound like an anti-fanboy. If you really were a retailer seeing a 93% defect rate, why would you continue to carry the product? Let everyone tell their side of the story as they experience it so people can get an accurate overall picture of the defect rate. It's entirely believable that some people never have any issues while others have nothing but issues, that's just down to the luck of the draw.

[dms525]

I have been among the host of complainers about Visconti's QA. All of my Visconti's with nib problems were from the palladium era. Visconti recently had a sale, and I decided to buy a HS model I have admired. It has a gold nib. I ordered one with a Stub. It writes flawlessly. It will be my first Visconti I don't have to send off for custom grinding or tuning. I hope it's a trend.

 

 

David