Impulse buy of Visconti Homo Sapiens Bronze Age

[fountainpenlov]

I've been looking at this fountain pen for a while, and based on people's positive reviews, I thought I should buy this unique pen.

 

I went for an offer on Ebay that is lower than the retail price. Is this legit? Or did I get a fake?

[mulrich]

Seems fine to me. I don’t see these being faked like some other brands. 

[nm4]

Make sure you get a seller with good service. Many of these pens don’t write out of the box.  Sad but true. 
 

N

[fountainpenlov]

15 hours ago, mulrich said:

Seems fine to me. I don’t see these being faked like some other brands. 

Thanks!

[fountainpenlov]

1 hour ago, nm4 said:

Make sure you get a seller with good service. Many of these pens don’t write out of the box.  Sad but true. 
 

N

I see... unfortunately this seller is far away from me, so I'm on my own I guess.

[nm4]

Actually it’s Regina Martini and she’s great. You should be ok…but maybe ask her if she can ink and make sure it works before shipping ?

 

N

[Dillo]

Yes, Regina Martini is well known. Do see if she can check it.

 

As a side note, none of my four Homo Sapiens wrote properly out of the box. One could say they wrote like "garbage" or in some cases in a "barely tolerable" way and I got them from regular dealers brand new. They write wonderfully now, but that was after I adjusted the nibs and reground them. One of them had a problem with the feed, and when I hold it point down, the ink just dripped out of it until the pen is empty. I troubleshooted it by swapping parts with my other Homosapiens, and that feed consistently caused every pen I put it into to drip ink like that. I heat set the feed, but that did not fix any issues. I had Aurora Blue in that pen, so nothing exotic and I had Montblanc, OMAS, and Pelikan inks in my others. To add to the insult, I sent the pen to Coles of London (the US distributor), and they sent it back without replacing any parts and without checking it properly after charging me $25 to look at it. They told me it was "fine."

 

I got a Visconti feed from someone else and it works properly now. I have some friends and sources. All around a very frustrating experience. It's a real kicker that I can get a TWSBI Vac700R (I have two) that have a silky smooth piston (My Homo Sapiens are all not that smooth, even with proper lubrication) and cleaner fit and finish. Not to mention that both of them wrote out of the box perfectly. I have them in the same case as my Viscontis and I use and enjoy them all, but wow, for the price I paid, I question what I'm even getting sometimes. I've had my TWSBI Vacs long term, and I have had far fewer complaints about them than I do my Visconti Homo Sapiens

 

In short, ask her to check them. If she can ensure that it works, it is a very enjoyable pen to own and has the potential to put a smile on your face each time you use it. If there are problems, that pen can drive you bananas

[Chimera01]

19 hours ago, fountainpenlov said:

I went for an offer on Ebay that is lower than the retail price. Is this legit? Or did I get a fake?

I secured my Visconti Homo Sapiens Bronze Age new for under retail. It was perfect and wrote beautifully straight out of the box. Now one of my favourite 'everyday' writers which came as something of a surprise. I think they can be a bit hit-and-miss but my experience has been great. The listing looks pretty kosher to me. I think you'll be happy... let us know!

[fountainpenlov]

3 hours ago, nm4 said:

Actually it’s Regina Martini and she’s great. You should be ok…but maybe ask her if she can ink and make sure it works before shipping ?

 

N

Okay, good to know. I think it might already be shipped, but I did send a message.

[fountainpenlov]

2 hours ago, Dillo said:

Yes, Regina Martini is well known. Do see if she can check it.

 

As a side note, none of my four Homo Sapiens wrote properly out of the box. One could say they wrote like "garbage" or in some cases in a "barely tolerable" way and I got them from regular dealers brand new. They write wonderfully now, but that was after I adjusted the nibs and reground them. One of them had a problem with the feed, and when I hold it point down, the ink just dripped out of it until the pen is empty. I troubleshooted it by swapping parts with my other Homosapiens, and that feed consistently caused every pen I put it into to drip ink like that. I heat set the feed, but that did not fix any issues. I had Aurora Blue in that pen, so nothing exotic and I had Montblanc, OMAS, and Pelikan inks in my others. To add to the insult, I sent the pen to Coles of London (the US distributor), and they sent it back without replacing any parts and without checking it properly after charging me $25 to look at it. They told me it was "fine."

 

I got a Visconti feed from someone else and it works properly now. I have some friends and sources. All around a very frustrating experience. It's a real kicker that I can get a TWSBI Vac700R (I have two) that have a silky smooth piston (My Homo Sapiens are all not that smooth, even with proper lubrication) and cleaner fit and finish. Not to mention that both of them wrote out of the box perfectly. I have them in the same case as my Viscontis and I use and enjoy them all, but wow, for the price I paid, I question what I'm even getting sometimes. I've had my TWSBI Vacs long term, and I have had far fewer complaints about them than I do my Visconti Homo Sapiens

 

In short, ask her to check them. If she can ensure that it works, it is a very enjoyable pen to own and has the potential to put a smile on your face each time you use it. If there are problems, that pen can drive you bananas

Hmm.. this sounds very concerning. The pen may have already shipped, but I have sent a message, we'll see. 

[fountainpenlov]

1 hour ago, Chimera01 said:

I secured my Visconti Homo Sapiens Bronze Age new for under retail. It was perfect and wrote beautifully straight out of the box. Now one of my favourite 'everyday' writers which came as something of a surprise. I think they can be a bit hit-and-miss but my experience has been great. The listing looks pretty kosher to me. I think you'll be happy... let us know!

This is nice. I hope my pen writes beautifully out of the box too! 

[Driften]

Good luck, both of my HS's wrote fine out of the box. One is 18k and the other 23k pd. I think Visconti only uses gold these days and in general people are happier with those.

[fountainpenlov]

I got my Homo Sapiens Bronze Age yesterday, and I have tried a few writing samples. I must say I have mixed results. On the one hand, when the ink flows well, it is super smooth. But on the other hand, the ink flow stops unexpectedly. And then I am writing a half letter with a dry nib which by itself is very smooth, and then the ink starts flowing again. 

 

I'm not sure if the paper smoothness is a factor. I'm using Rhodia 90 gsm "ivory vellum" paper. It is super smooth and I've had great results with a Montblanc. But with the HSBA it seems like I'm getting better results on slightly rougher paper from a non-Rhodia notebook. 

 

At times, it felt like the problem might be "baby's bottom" because it seemed to start writing again if I pressed the nib a little. But other times, it seemed like the problem might be the "sweet spot" because with a really narrow specific position, it seemed to write best.

 

Not sure what to make of this.

 

Otherwise, I love the feel of the "lava rock" and the weight of the pen and the cap lock. I'm not loving the ink filling mechanism a whole lot. Hard to clean out because of the suction at the end of the downstroke. It sucks in any remaining ink in the feed. And also, there is no way to see how much ink is left in the pen. 

[nm4]

Sigh....just what I was afraid of.  Classic Visconti.  I'd recommend sending to a nibmeister to have it fixed - note that once ground down it will be less smooth.  If you can find a paper and ink that works well maybe you can get away with it as is.  

 

N

[Dillo]

How long does it write before it stops? I have had a lot of issues with Visconti feeds working correctly. My best luck was with their single channel feed which they only used for a short time before switching back to their three channeled feed. Flexiblenibs is working on a Visconti compatible feed in ebonite. When it is released, I plan to try it in some of my pens to see how they work.

 

One of my Viscontis has a replaced feed already (replaced with another Visconti feed) and it fixed my issues.

 

For me, because my pens all have custom ground nibs, I didn't have to deal with the baby bottom problem. When I got them, the stock nib setup was not at all able to write. It's worth having someone look at the pen. I don't have much faith in Visconti's service.

[fountainpenlov]

14 hours ago, nm4 said:

Sigh....just what I was afraid of.  Classic Visconti.  I'd recommend sending to a nibmeister to have it fixed - note that once ground down it will be less smooth.  If you can find a paper and ink that works well maybe you can get away with it as is.  

 

N

Thanks, it's an option I'll have to look into. Curious, why would the nib be less smooth once ground down? Wouldn't they make it smooth again?

[fountainpenlov]

14 hours ago, Dillo said:

How long does it write before it stops? I have had a lot of issues with Visconti feeds working correctly. My best luck was with their single channel feed which they only used for a short time before switching back to their three channeled feed. Flexiblenibs is working on a Visconti compatible feed in ebonite. When it is released, I plan to try it in some of my pens to see how they work.

 

One of my Viscontis has a replaced feed already (replaced with another Visconti feed) and it fixed my issues.

 

For me, because my pens all have custom ground nibs, I didn't have to deal with the baby bottom problem. When I got them, the stock nib setup was not at all able to write. It's worth having someone look at the pen. I don't have much faith in Visconti's service.

It really varies. Sometimes it's just after I stop writing and start again... a few seconds. Other times it's just after uncapping. 

 

Thanks for the tip about the feed.

[nm4]

3 hours ago, fountainpenlov said:

Thanks, it's an option I'll have to look into. Curious, why would the nib be less smooth once ground down? Wouldn't they make it smooth again?

 The nib slot will come in contact with the paper once the pen is made right.  It won't be as smooth.  At least that's been my experience.

 

N

[Dillo]

Generally though, problems with a baby bottom are pretty constant but can be masked by an inconsistent feed. Generally if the feed is delivering a lot of ink, the pen will write fine, but once it starts delivering less ink then you will see consistent skipping at the beginning of each stroke even with the nib sitting squarely on the paper (not turned left or right).

 

If the baby bottom is fixed, the pen should still write reasonably smoothly if it is done right.

 

The way you describe it though, it sounds more like a feed issue, or an issue with the way the feed and nib are interacting. If it's running dry for that long, I think your main issue is not a baby bottomed nib. Baby bottomed nibs don't cause pens to run dry for that long. They cause intermittent skipping. Feeds do cause pens to run dry (or overly wet) intermittently (for sentence and paragraphs) if there is an issue with it.

 

If I were you, I would try to get any feed issues fixed before even touching the nib.

 

Also, before anyone says anything silly, the Homo Sapiens Bronze is a single chamber power filler. It has no shutoff valve unlike the TWSBI Vac700R or the Pilot Custom 823. There is no shutoff valve to open or close when writing with the pen. It functions just like a Sheaffer Vac Fil. The Visconti Double Chamber power fillers also don't require you to open them before you write because the front writing chamber holds almost a cartridge full of ink. The single chamber power fillers should write and work properly with everything screwed down properly.

[fountainpenlov]

@Dillo Thanks for the detailed notes and tips. 

 

I think I have some improvement now. I flushed the pen while changing the ink, and now it writes much better. I suspect it must have been some debris blocking the feed or nib. It's super smooth now.