This is a nice pen. For $39, I think it's a bargain.
Waterman Hemisphere Lux Bronze Chrome Trim Fountain Pen $39 Pick up in Store @ Peter's of Kensington
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citybargainhunter on 09/06/2018 - 18:17 petersofkensington.com.au (935 clicks)
Last edited 09/06/2018 - 18:22 by 1 other user
Last edited 09/06/2018 - 18:22 by 1 other user
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To buy bread and milk?
Not many people remember how to handwrite these days.
Handwriting is less practical for the majority of people. Handwriting properly with a fountain pen even less so. It's less about "dumbing down" and more about using better, more efficient technology.
I say this as someone who handwrites a lot and has a $1k+ collection of FPs.
Nice! Their inks seems to be on sale on their ebay store
Good deal! Not a huge fan of their entry-level nibs due to the level of feedback. You really have to pair this with a very wet ink such as a Pilot Iroshizuku or Noodler's. Waterman's own gives an OK result, but you can do better. Steer clear of drier inks from brands like Pelikan, Atrementis et al for this pen.
I prefer Herbin La Perle des Encres… Have you tried it?
Try Montblanc Toffee Brown. Rich brown, very wet with great shading. Easily obtainable and cheaper per ML than Iroshizuku
Just so that everyone is aware, Peter's sells counterfeit pens. This is why ALL of their pens are Heavily discounted from RRP. More than 50%, even the newer models.
I've purchased during this year and the quality is subpar.
If you happen to not believe me and purchase anyway, when accessing the cartridge of the pen, you'll notice that when trying to twist the pen it will be awfully tight, grinding top and bottom portions of the pen with a lot of friction and squeaky noise. This will not happen with an authentic pen, drop by David Jones and compare.Also, tapping their counterfeit pens create a hollow sound, somewhat like if you tapped your pencil against the table.
And another obvious giveaway, try rubbing the pen against some A4 paper, it will sound rough. Legitimate pens are more refined and glide smoothly across the surface.
I'd love to see pics of a fake Hemisphere.
Hmm if it could be a fake it might be best to price match at David Jones
that's a bold accusation without any solid evidence to back it up.
Just so that everyone is aware, Peter's sells counterfeit pens.
Do you have any proof of that claim? I would love to know more. As, I'm sure, would VPens, TelegramCo and Pallaton (the three biggest distributors in Australia). I've pinged them, plus PoK with a link to this thread to see if they have a comment.
I've bought more than a dozen of the fountain pens in my collection from PoK over the years - including a number of my Visconti, Porsche Design and Duponts. Each is the real deal.
This is why ALL of their pens are Heavily discounted from RRP
Causal Fallacy 101. High volume, low margin is part and parcel of their business model. And there is PLENTY of margin in fountain pens. Even at 50% off RRP they can make as much gross margin on one pen as they do on a set of dinnerware thanks to the very generous distributor rebates. And that pen occupies sod-all shop/warehouse space and needs equally insignificant handling effort (compared to a mixer, dinnerware set or a suitcase).
try rubbing the pen against some A4 paper, it will sound rough. Legitimate pens are more refined and glide smoothly across the surface
FFS. ALL fountain pens have some level of feedback. And, per my earlier comment on this thread, the Waterman nibs are very high on feedback. Only exception are the Waterman units which come from their Nantes (Paris) factory. There, each nib is tuned prior to dispatch by the team of nibsmiths - but the feedback is still higher than a Delta, Visconti or Montblanc.
Nibsmiths, wow. Never considered that sort of profession. I'm sure the French ones are very good!
The prize pen in my collection, a Platinum maki-e PIZ-600000 "Waterfall" was purchased from a shop called Itoya in Tokyo.
There, you can actually sit down with the nibsmith and drink some tea as you write with the pen you're about to purchase. He then walks over to his workbench to adjust the tines and nib to suit your exact writing style. One of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences for me.
You should change your handle to "PenNerd" and post some excellent fountain pen bargains, like WatchNerd does with watches (and PJC too). I'd love to have an inexpensive but decent fountain pen. My father had one when I was a boy and it was lovely to write with. I bought one from China some years ago and, of course, if was awful. Still have the hankering, though. This discussion is very interesting!
If I genuinely believed there'd be enough interest, I'd give it a go but I accept that it's a very niche interest. I think the last time I weighed-in with a pen bargain it was met with "I can buy 250+ Bics from Officeworks for that!".
Related: Lamy Imporium Fountain pen for $409.00 at Dymocks Sydney CBD right now (50% off RRP). So very tempting.
@OzDJ_:
You could try posting under this nick to see if there’s interest. I’d follow having just recently started getting in to pens myself. Although now it’s on the cheaper side. I love my Lamy joys.The Imporium is a really overrated pen in my opinion. It doesn't write $400 worth, considering you can get a Pelikan M800/M1000 from CultPens for a tiny bit more.
Generally speaking, metal pens are not a writer. Heavy pens with slip caps are meant for signatures or a jotter in a pinch.
Waterman wise (not Newell Rubbermaid "Waterman") that'd be the Edson, Le Man 100, which I've got a few. Similarly, Platinum has the sterling models, YOLs, GvFC POTYs and so on so forth..
It seems that LAMY had borrowed lot from the old Pelikan Majesty in designing the Imporium into modern style but sans the cap threads. So it has its own merit for the intended purpose at a relatively low price.
@smileymiwo: I haven't written with one, but the nib design and build materials/aesthetic are appealing to me.
Agree on the Pelikans. I have a Souverän M805 and it's a delight to write with.
You have lots of nice pens, and came across as eager to show off :)
Do you have a blog or Instagram we can look at?
It's been quite a while since I've blogged on my pen habit, but here are a few random posts:
https://www.instagram.com/p/9RoHkGh88F/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BLPYB5UD0Jk/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BBqWZcRh8xm/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BEVUsR6h89e/
https://www.instagram.com/p/-SRrVeh8yR/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BFkKjP_h8-B/
https://www.instagram.com/p/7e3ga3h82H/
https://www.instagram.com/p/9c1VEyB8zK/
https://www.instagram.com/p/9J41Yjh85k/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BDSGfTPh88e/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BG-QwWOh84C/
https://www.instagram.com/p/_k8PlFB8y4/
https://www.instagram.com/p/8upIU2h8yT/
https://www.instagram.com/p/-pYW81B83C/
https://www.instagram.com/p/8B0-2CB84X/Nice! Thanks for the eye candy. I'm not really into modern pens, but I certainly appreciate the thinking behind that lineup.
I've been out of the hobby for a while. So it's good to know what people are into these days.
I have no doubts in the illegitimacy of pens I've received. If you believe you got what you paid for then that's fine.
I think I didn't clearly clarify myself enough.
I mean the exterior quality of the pen, the barrel specifically. Not writing feedback.I've pinged them, plus PoK with a link to this thread to see if they have a comment.
Wonderful, I would love to see what they have to say.
If PoK is knowingly selling counterfeit items then the police and Australian Customs should be notified. It is a criminal offence and penalties include up to five years imprisonment and fines of up to $99 000.
But if your allegation is false, then you may already have defamed PoK and you and OzBargain (as the content publisher) may be sued for defamation.
Defences for defamation:
Justification is where the defamatory material is substantially true. Not if your allegation is false.
Consent is where the defamed person agreed to the material being communicated. No consent here from PoK.
Honest opinion: You must show that your statement is genuinely an opinion rather than a statement of fact. You have presented your statements as facts and not opinions.
Qualified privilege: If you make a defamatory statement to someone who has a legitimate interest in the information, e.g. if you report someone to the police. However you will not be protected if you repeat the allegation to other people.
Triviality is where the defamatory material is unlikely to cause the defamed person any harm. We can see plenty of harm being done to PoK's reputation here.
Unless you have strong evidence to back up your allegation, I suggest you retract your comment before the lawyers come calling.
After reading @FIVEDOLLAR's post about PoK selling counterfeit pens, it all made sense.
Just to give some background, I am a long time lurker of OzBargain, and just decided to create an account to post about this issue.
I just entered the world of fountain pens 2 years ago, and I started out with the usual such as a Lamy Safari and a Pilot Metropolitan. Those pens felt extremely good to write with. So when I saw Parker Fountain Pens on sale (https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/340301), I was extremely excited to get my hands on an upgrade, but when I got the pens, it felt very underwhelming.
Back to when I saw @FIVEDOLLAR's post. It all started to make sense. I started looking online for resources, hoping that my Parker Fountain Pen was not a fake, but all the evidence proved otherwise.
Some of the sources I used were:
http://azfp.blogspot.com/2007/07/fake-sonnets.html
http://www.penhero.com/PenGallery/Parker/ParkerSonnetClones.…After reading these, I had a good idea that my Parker Sonnet was a fake, but deep down, I wanted it to be a genuine Pen as I was so proud of it (owning my first Parker was kind of a big deal for me). After searching around a bit longer, I found a video to compare my Sonnet with (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Jg8xg_gRtk). This video's Parker Pen was extremely similar to mine, as in it is a Parker Sonnet SS FP, and it is fully stainless steel with a chrome tip.
Watching the video, all the signs were there. The print around my pen is faint and barely visible. As for the "date" on my pen, it is just a "t", and from looking it up, a "t" for Parker meant the pen was printed during 1995 (https://parkerpens.net/codekey.html), which was quite unlikely for a brand new purchase, but I am going to give it the benefit of the doubt. My pen also came in an extremely different case, but that may just be a localization thing. The thing that tripped me off the most was the fact that everything on my pen is so faintly printed. In the video, on the nib of the pen, all the print is clear and there was a Parker symbol imprinted onto the nib, but my pen's print was faint and there was no sign of the Parker print anywhere. (https://prnt.sc/jsyhjw)
At this point, I think it is too late for me to do anything since I purchased this pen in November of last year, but as the Parker pen was my only purchase with PoK, I would be skeptical of purchasing anything else from them in the future.
The appropriate action is to report your suspicion to the police and customs. See point 4 in the defamation defence. It is dicey to accuse anyone of committing a criminal offence in a public forum in the way that FIVEDOLLAR has done. And PoK probably has a deeper pocket than you when it comes to hiring lawyers.
@alvian:
Thanks for the heads up but I'll take my chances.Suing me for defamation? What are they going to sue me for? They best they can do is claim for damages. Unless I am a very influential person in writing instruments, it is unlikely that you can claim for a considerable loss, with the expense of hiring lawyers.
Posting on a forum with such anonymity, call up their lawyers to get a court order to track down my IP address? Ha. And then going to court so they can sue me for how much with what chances of winning in the first place?
I would love to see a fake Visconti Homosapiens with a fake Palladium nib and a fake vacuum power filling system made of fake basaltic lava.
Hehe! My Homosapiens 'Bronze Age' came from PoK. Had to get sent to VPens (importer/distributor) for sprung nib repair. They certainly didn't consider my pen a counterfeit - replacing the nib and feeder at no charge… almost three years after I purchased it.
This is a nice pen. For $39, I think it's a bargain.
Made in India, by Luxor.
http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/331698-waterma…
this pen has no such labelling so I would dare say it's made in France.
it says in the description Made in Paris, France. so ill assume it is, rather than India.
For $39 there are better pens to buy:
On the well known brands side
- Faber Castell Loom (smoothest stock steel nib)
- Pilot Metropolitan
- Lamy Safari or AL-StarOn the cheap chinese side:
- Jinhao x750 or 159
- Moonman M2
- A lot of Hero pens i.e. Hero 366, Hero 616I would even say a Platinum Preppy and Pilot Varsity are better writers than this Waterman. I've had pretty neh experiences with the Hemisphere, 3 different nibs had really dry flow and were not tuned well
I'm surprised the Jinhao x750 hasn't become the "OzBargain Fountain Pen of Choice".
Insanely cheap, lovely to write with and a good range of styles available. Quality control isn't the greatest, but if you buy a box of 10 and have to throw out a couple (or tear them down for spares) you are still on a winner.
Or you can buy a #6 sized nib from Goulet or somewhere like Pensive Pens and replace the nib with a great writer.
Thank you for sharing.
I am just starting to get into fountain pens so admittedly I don't know much about the choices available. However, I did a google search on the aforementioned pens in your post and would dare say that this Waterman pen is at least better in terms of aesthetics.
Very tempting, yet those colour options… eughhh
I was a bit hesitant as well when I first saw it online, but the picture doesn't do it justice, the bronze colour actually looks very elegant in person.
Why in the world would you shop anywhere else