ugly duckling: twsbi swipe fountain pen
The Christmas lights are already up on the streets, and they twinkle in the dawn. The days are short, and bright with a cold that brings out the sun. I can’t wait to go out, so I’m going to keep this short. I hope everyone has a lovely, sunny winter day!
There are some pens that I know I won’t get along with from the beginning. It’s a little frustrating, especially when it’s a pen that I want to like. A pen that I’d been looking forward to trying since I hear rumours of it. It’s only fair to say a couple things before I clean it up and prepare for selling.
The first sign whether I’d like a pen or not is usually determined by how pretty I find it. This beauty doesn’t only have to be only in an aesthetic sense, but also a beautiful design, anything to show that a lot of thought went into this. TWSBI pens share this design language that shows that they have been made by the same people, and it’s quite clear. I can say that their designs are to my taste and I was excited to see what TWSBI can do with a cartridge-converter pen.
The first thing that stood out to me was the clip. I cannot get over the clip. It’s simply so ugly. In my head, it might’ve been saved if it was metal or that it was just easier to operate. After getting the pen, I realized it was thin plastic. It bends to attach itself to paper or cardboard. It’s a bit rough, you need two hands to do it, and it’s a bit of a hassle. I’m also curious if the clip would have problems in the long run.
On the other hand, I can see that some people might like it. It’s cute, approachable, friendly. Gives the pen a retro-futuristic feel from the 70’s, 80’s. I can imagine this pen on a spaceship for some reason.
The second thing that stood out to me with their initial release was the colours. Prussian blue and smoke (the translucent black resin) are kind of serious colours. If you want to bring in some playfulness, almost child-like simple fun, which again feel like the design language of this specific pen (similar to TWSBI Go), why would you release it with these dark colours? Thankfully they quickly followed it up with a “Salmon” and “Pear Green” colours. I admit, these colours fit in pretty well with the theme of the pen and I was tempted to buy both.
The downside is that I find the red TWSBI logo distracting on this pen. It’s a shiny moulded plastic pen with a matte red logo on top. It doesn’t feel like a cohesive design to me, that there’s simply too much going on there. I sometimes wish that they made the logo a bit more subtle for colours that go less well with red, like stamping it onto transparent plastic, for example.
In the end, I got the green one, because green is one of my favourite colours and I thought that if it’s green, I might be able to get over the clip situation. The spring converter peeking through the ink window is not really my aesthetic preference, I prefer a cleaner window of piston or a completely translucent pen, but it’s actually my favourite part of the pen. I think this is where a good deal of thinking went. Perhaps, this is where the TWSBI language comes through too.
TWSBI’s most popular pens are translucent, and seeing your ink is definitely a fun plus to any fountain pen. In this one, it’s in the form of a generous ink window that’s flush with the barrel. When you open the cap, you can see that it steps down to the transparent section and it’s all in one piece. The section is completely round, it doesn’t have the slight triangular shape of the Eco, and has a curve to it that makes it quite comfortable. The completely flush barrel unscrews from the end of the transparent part too. Filling the pen is a pleasant experience, the body and section fit into each other nicely. I assume that this also makes the moulding easier, as they can mould the colourful, opaque part completely separately from the transparent part.
This. I like this.
I got a 1.1 stub nib on this pen because I was hoping to make it into a shimmer ink pen. Alas, that was also not in the books. The spring loaded converter takes up the ink nice, but for some reason it’s abysmally dry to write with shimmer inks. With all the other inks, it’s ok, just a little dry. I think it might be a converter problem, since I heard a lot of people using their Eco’s for shimmer (Eco and Swipe look like they have the same nib to me) and I have the TWSBI Mini with also a 1.1 stub nib that works wonderfully with shimmer. This might be the final nail in the coffin for me.
An interesting part about this pen to me is the converter itself. Spring-loaded converters are a bit weird usually, and since this one fits into the international fitting, it can be used with other pens too. It’s wider than most regular international converters, which also allow it to hold more ink, though not all pens can accommodate the width. The upside is that I’ve seen some makers make pens for this converter, and since it fits the international fitting, it can also fit any old international converter. It’s a nice opportunity to have.
The pen is okay. Genuinely okay. I think if you got this pen, most people would be pretty happy with its performance. There’s just something in its design that rubs me off the wrong way
Maybe I had too high hopes.
Anyway, thank you for reading a post where I’m kind of just ranting about a pen that’s average. This is what happens when you get used to amazing pens like the TWSBI Diamond 580 ALR. In all honesty though, I’m happy that this pen exists and TWSBI is trying new things. I look forward to seeing what they do next!