I have got in some great new items. Exciting for me and hopefully that passes along. For some time I have been impressed by the Jinhao #599. It's a Acrylic Resin pen, so at first glance it gives the appearance of a cheap disposable. Perhaps this is reinforced by the non-traditional design which is modern in that French School of Design, trend [stark] It's frankly a knock-off of a LAMY Safari. This is where the ergo shape and details come from. There is no surprise that a China-made pen maker has gone and copied another's design. Generally it turns out these same manufactures likely produce the originals as well ... none of this is new in this industry whatsoever.
Back to the 599. And despite the cheap look & feel, the knock-off design. It's really a nice pen. And when you look at it's price. That just gives it more of a boost. It's a great writing pen. The medium and fine nib variants are both on the broad side of said line width. This could be related to their flow, which is wet and robust. Something that repeats in a lot of Jinhao models. But this makes it a reliable daily writer, that can be put down and ignored and it will still write without effort after idle. This claim isn't always the case with fountain pens. Those of which can cost far more. So, as a writing tool they excel.
The Jinhao 599 (599A fine point) 588 and Hero 1515 are all mostly the same pens. That is you can take all of these various models and swap the parts on them! They are completely interchangeable. This really adds a fun and custom aspect to what is otherwise a cheap and cheerful fountain pen. (BTW they do make ballpoint variations, but really, a plastic, ball pen, it loses a lot of it's character in that translation ... )
One thing is they come in a broad variety of colours. This alone is handy if you want to say have a rack of different inks ready to go. You can separate them by pen colour or the various models? Well body colour swapping idea is an obvious step? You can take two different colour pens and suddenly you have two mirror custom hybrids. The Black & White pens do this with a fair bit of style. A sort of checkerboard effect can be had. And lately with the new additional clear tint colours. Mixing an opaque and a tint pen, gives you even more interesting custom designs.
I received the first of the all transparent #599a Jinhaos. They are impressive [to me] as they fit the definition of a demo pen. You can see the workings of the entire pen and so your ink colour is a part of the look and feel. You know exactly how much ink in reserve. I have a feeling these are going to be popular and so I want to get more. It was hard not to redirect these new clears into my own collection ... the new clear Jinhao #599a shown here is illustrating it's demo bones and modelling two of the new short cartridges
INK INK INK !!!
Well more like ink cartridges, but I have ink and I have colours to choose from. These inks are made in the EU they are made with watersoluble dyes. They will not discolour or harm you pen or it's insides. and I will be creating ink reviews here showing the colours in calibrated photos so that you can pick and choose from the ones that suit you the best. I haven't got everything in, but a good showing to start off with including these colours: Tui Black | Pacific Blue | Tasman Blue | Pounamu Green | Lupine Pink | Whero/Red | Hebe Violet | Kowhai Amber | Manuka Honey Brown They are going to be online soon and come in handy 4 packs of your colour choice.
