Grand Allusions

A couple of months ago, I was on the lookout for the ultimate pen to use with my moleskine notebooks. I'm a big fan of the Pilot Precise V7 pens for this purpose, but I was curious to see if I was missing out on a better option. In particular, I was looking for something that could give me a little more variation of line. My searches brought me to the Pentel Tradio Fountain Pen.

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with fountain pens. I love the fact that you can get a really nice line, with some nice variation in the thickness. The problem is that it hard to find a good one for a reasonable price. It seems that most fountain pens are designed for fancy corporate executives rather than people looking to doodle in a notebook.

The Tradio was a bit of surprise. It by no means a cheap pen (it runs for around $8), but it does compare favorably to some of it's fancier brethren. The main reason for this is because it is mostly made of plastic, and that includes the pen's all important tip. This gave me some pause when I first heard about it. I was a little skeptical that a plastic could hold up to a beating, let alone give good line. I was pleasantly surprised how well it worked out. The ink flowed freely and the tip was flexible yet durable. But, the best thing about the Tradio is the feel of it. It just feels good in your hand and is a pleasure to write with.

The pen gives a nice and black line that looks great on a moleskine. Keep in mind that I generally don't mind a little show through from my pens as I generally consider it a trade off for a rich black ink. The Tradio's show through is comparable to that of the Pilot V7.

One of the weird things about the Tradio is the refill cartridge. The refills include the pen tip and are nearly the same size of the complete pen. The good part of this is that you get a fresh new pen tip every time you get a new ink refill. The bad part is that the refills tend to be a bit pricey (nearly half the price of the pen itself). When I was doing my initial research, I found a review that jokingly suggested that one could simply use the refill as the pen itself. I probably wouldn't recommend it, though.

Give the Tradio if you are looking for a moleskine pen upgrade. I can't say that it has totally replaced my trusty V7 as my moleskine pen of choice (the refills are a bit too pricey for heavy use), but it serves a perfect compliment to it.

Until recently, the Tradio was a bit hard to find here in the States. Fortunately, my search for the Tradio tipped me off to JetPens, a new online pen vendor. JetPens imports all kinds of cool pens from Japan.
 
Here's where things get really cool. Since I picked up the Tradio, JetPens started stocking various import brush pens, including my coveted Pentel Brush Pen. Thanks to this blog, my love of brush pens has been broadcast all over the internet. Word apparently reached a representative at JetPens who sent me some sample brush pens to review (no strings attached). Once things settle down a bit at the day job, I plan on giving each on a fair shake and reporting my findings. Stay tuned!