VISCONTI Homo Sapiens Bronze Age Fountain Pen - Medium, black/bronze

Product Information

The cap pushes on to post. This is a large pen to start with and posted it’s very long and quite unwieldy. (My pen is the ‘oversize’ version. There was also a smaller ‘midi’ version but that will soon be discontinued.) This is the Visconti Homo Sapiens Midi Fountain Pen. It comes in a large leather box with the Visconti logo embossed there on the top of the center of the box lid. Rounded edges on the corners, and a small tray that pulls out with information about the Visconti brand. Clamshell style lid, hinged top, opens up. Good flow but not the usual Visconti wetness, and sometimes a bit of hesitation to start on the first word. As a fan of the old Dreamtouch nibs with their smooth, wet and slightly bouncy personality, this doesn’t wow me, but it’s OK. I’ve done a fair bit of writing with this nib now and I enjoyed it. The second innovation is the cap. Gone is the familiar Hooksafe bayonet mechanism; instead, the cap snaps on with magnets. It’s the simplest possible user experience, and it really works: the cap feels secure, the nib seems to be sealed well and doesn’t dry out, and yet the cap is also easy enough to remove. The magnets are embedded so they’re totally invisible, but you can feel their effects…

But: it actually writes quite nicely. The Lava Color writes fairly true to a European fine. There’s a bit of tooth. No flex as such. The clip and trim are plated in ruthenium. This gives the pen a kind of stealth look and also gives it its name. Some people love the clip design, some people hate it. I’ve always loved it. It does work as a clip but you have to lift it up to use it: it doesn’t just slide over whatever you’re clipping it onto. This is the Visconti Homo Sapiens Maxi Fountain Pen. It comes in a large, leather box that has rounded edges. Visconti Logo is embossed, on the center of the box lid. It has a small tray or compartment that slides out and there's a pamphlet in here, information about the Visconti brand. Hinged-style lid lifts open, has a leather interior. Also included with the pen is a rag, for cleaning and taking care of it. On the underside of the box lid, the Visconti logo is printed there. This is a piston-style fountain pen. So, to actuate the piston, you have a little knob here at the end to fill the ink. The cap on the pen can be posted. It's a pretty good size pen, it feels a little top-heavy with that cap posted. I think I would use it without posting it.

Ink for this product

and their weight in the cap, which is suddenly much more substantial than I’m used to from a Homo Sapiens. Barrel options: same barrel but available with bronze trim (‘Bronze Age’) or steel trim (‘Steel Age’) The churlish reason is the laser-engraved clip and band with their mismatched fonts and mismatched colour across the trim and nib. For this price I expect consistency. I expect deep and luxurious machine engraving, like on a Dupont, a Graf or Yard o Led. Laser is naff. Used since ancient times for flooring and decorative objects, lava stone has always been appreciated for its great malleability and resistance to temperature changes . Thanks to its porosity and hygroscopic properties, this natural material is highly resistant to water, humidity, scratches and limescale, and is also easy to clean. Note: Product images may still show a 23kt palladium nib, however, Visconti changed the nib and pens now come fitted with an oversized 18kt gold nib.

The pen filled well with a nice smooth action, although there’s no ink window so you’re flying blind about how much ink you actually take up, or how much you have left. I found that out today when I came to write my final notes for this review after a few days and discovered the pen bone dry. Although I’ve not had the kind of regular hard-starting that would lead me to believe this pen suffers from a big evaporation problem, the last time I used it it was writing fine, and yet today, zip, zilch, nada. So something is going on. The Visconti Homo Sapiens Midi fountain pen is made from a revolutionary material created from real basaltic volcanic lava mixed with a patented resin for a virtually unbreakable compound. This lava material makes the pen dense at touch and absorbent to pull moisture from your hand. The collection can be personalized using the well-known Visconti patent- My Pen System – with the instant application of the initials, the zodiac sign or the semi-precious stone preferred by the fortunate future owner of a Visconti pen. The My Pen System applications can be found in our webstore. Although I am a fan of Visconti, the Sailor was a looker, light but with enough weight and thus stability while writing,has a perfect size and the nib is just… something else! A juicy, smooth, 21 carat gold nib laying down a wet line without being a gusher. No hard stops or drying out during long writing sessions. And the Sailor can be used as an eyedropper out of the box: the thread of the grip section is long and fine and the grip has a rubber o-ring incorporated. There is a prominent double bubble on the tip, like two scoops of ice cream on a cone. If the second scoop also had visible baby’s bottom. But now I’m mixing my metaphors.Visconti conceived the Homo Sapiens fountain pen for real writers, for those to whom the pen continues to represent a travelling mate, a daily friend to share with the same civilization that writing contributed to create. The branding on the side of the clip and around the body band is not engraved or cast then filled, but laser-etched. The body band, which reads HOMO SAPIENS, uses a very stately serif font that clashes horribly with the new-style extralight sans serif Visconti wordmark on the clip, and also happens to be different from the Courier-style typewriter font used on my Florence and London.

I change my mind too often to have a true grail pen but a posh Visconti of some kind has been consistently on my wish list. None of them are cheap and I had to sell quite a few pens to be able to afford this one. Despite having gathered the funds by selling other pens, I still had some sleepless nights about spending this much on a writing implement. Am I glad I bought it? Read on! Each Visconti Homo Sapiens fountain pen comes with a power filler mechanism and an 18kt nib. Buy your Visconti Homo Sapiens Maxi fountain pen today! The Homo Sapiens really has become the [pen] industry’s ‘grail pen,’ the ‘perfect writing instrument,’ and I think the key reason for its success is here we have a pen with real innovation that delivers the complete luxury writing experience, especially for the everyday write,” explains Cole.It depends on the pen's filling mechanism, which you can find in the Technical Specs section above. Replacement Visconti fountain pen nibs are available in extra fine, fine, medium, broad, double broad and stub/italic. See the nib chart for the finishes available and nib grades for your Visconti pen. Model The monochromatic Lava Dark Age collection was inspired by the intense dark grey colour of lava stone. The Visconti logo engraving on the polished metal clip and the ruthenium-finished gold nib are discreet, refined and elegant.

The material in this pen is as antique as the world: lava from the Etna volcano. Visconti lava is: Virtually unbreakable, it has a high degree of resilience. Flameproof, Visconti lava has a resistance to heat of over 100°C. Slightly hygroscopic, allowing to absorb hand sweat during use. Eyedropper - A pen that utilizes the entire barrel as a reservoir for ink. Ink is directly filled into the barrel, allowing for a high ink capacity. Here's a video on how to do it! Inside is Visconti’s power filler, a vac-filling mechanism with a single chamber and no seal at the nib end — you can write indefinitely without having to unscrew the filling knob. At least the gorgeous moon-shaped breather hole remains, although it’s not quite so sharp-ended as I’m used to. The interior's a nice soft leather, the Visconti logo there on the underside of the lid. And of course we have the Visconti Homo Sapiens Midi Fountain Pen. This happens to be the steel version of the pen, it is also available in a bronze version. Chrome colored accents on the pen.

Visconti Homo Sapiens Midi Video Script

The writing experience won’t set the world on fire, judging by the sample I received (ironic perhaps for a pen made from lava and named after ashes), but there’s plenty else going for this pen. It’s a welcome addition to the Homo Sapiens range. Inspiration was drawn from the Bronze Age for all metallic parts. The Bronze Age, almost contemporary to the invention of writing, marked the eve of human civilization. The clip, the rings and the metal accessories -with the exception of the piston only- are all in bronze: natural bronze like the antique formula, that does not require plating or protection treatments which alter its original almost pink colour and which can be easily polished with special products. The Visconti Homo Sapiens Maxi fountain pen is made from volcanic lava from Mount Etna mixed with a patented resin formula creating a virtually unbreakable material. This unique material makes the pen flameproof, warm to the touch and it also absorbs moisture from your hand. Although that original Steel Age pen, with its beautifully smooth and expressive Fine nib, is long gone from my collection, I have owned many other Viscontis since. A Wall Street, three Van Goghs, an Opera Master, a Medici, and two other Homo Sapiens, the London Fog and Midnight in Florence.