Conklin Duragraph Review 

It’s always “childish” when someone stops doing and gets over what others do.

Thank you!

Gracias amigo. Acabo de comprar la versión Black Matte/ Rose Gold Limited Edition en Goulet Pens y aproveché de comprar la pera de goma que me recomendaste. Saludos

I bought one of those, a Conklin Heritage Sleeve Filler, this week. Received it on Thursday March 2. A lovely pen but...It started out a wet writer, then stopped working almost immediately. I drained the ink (Waterman Serenity) , flushed the pen, and refilled it with Parker Quink. It still would not write. Then I removed the nib and feed and cleaned them with a water/ammonia solution. Still no luck...The thing would produce a line occasionally but more often then not railroad or make no mark at all. I emailed Conklin about the problem. According to them, I can either make arrangements to return the pen to the seller or ship it to Conklin at my expense for examination and repair. While debating my options, I remembered a tip I had read or seen somewhere: I removed the nib and feed again. Instead of returning the two as a pair, I pushed the feed in first (it only goes one way due to shape of hole in grip section) then followed with the nib, taking care to not seat it fully in the section but pushing only to where it fit securely. The idea being that too tight a fit impedes ink flow. The pen is now filled with J. Herbin Perle Noire and works pretty well if not what I would call perfectly. In my uncultured opinion, this is too damned much work to have to go through to get a $200 MSRP pen to write correctly, let alone write at all. It should work perfectly right out of the box. My wife had received a Bexley Stalwart the day before I got my Conklin in the mail. The Stalwart is a beautiful pen that works perfectly. On the other hand, my wife also owns two Monteverde pens, an Artista Crystal and a Prima, (from Yafa, Conklin's parent company) and their performance leaves a lot to be desired. SBRE Brown gave high marks to the Artista Crystal. It was his review that decided the purchase for my wife. Both Monteverdes suffer scratchy nibs, poor ink flow...Not reliable everyday writers. Her experience with those pens made me shy away from Conklin for a long time but I ran into a price on the sleeve filler I couldn't resist. I should have gone with the much more expensive Bexley sleeve filler to satisfy my irrational desire to own such a beast. As far as other manufacturers go, I recently had to mess with a Nemosine Singularity (another pen which has gotten good reviews from RU-vid reviewers) for a day before I could get it to write and the Karas Kustoms Fountain K caused me a great deal of frustration (with both a medium and stub nib) after I received it as a Christmas gift two months back. Repeated cleanings seem to have solved the Nemosine problem. I never have figured out why the Karas Kustoms suddenly started working after a month of frustrating tinkering. My Platinum Preppy and TWSBI ECO pens have never failed me yet...Maybe I should just have stuck with them instead of acquiring a pen habit.

I don't expect it to be a problem, but you never know, of course.

Thank you Mr. Brown!

Michael Tran I can't speak for this pen, as it is still shipping to me, but the clip on my Monteverde Regatta Rose Gold and Carbon Fiber Limited Edition did Crack the barrel on that pen. Monteverde Replaced it with a new pen, but the nib on the new one is atrocious. Alternatively, on my Invincia Carbon Fiber Deluxe, the nib is quite possibly the best writer I have. (Can't decide if that or my Kaweco Sport writes better.) Ok, sorry about the tangent I went off on. Got a little long in the nib there. Haha pen puns.

Charles J Gartner No, it doesn't.

oh ok... from the video it looks like everything is butted up against eachother.

Charles J Gartner Of course, you're entitled to have an opinion - as am I.

I thought the owner of Yafa was also the owner of Monteverde, so I think you're right. I'm also glad my aesthetic self is up to scratch :-).

+sbrebrown So, is the new Conklin owned by Yafa?

+lesslighter Thanks!

Sounds like a problem with air replacement.

Thanks for the response, I had thought that it was forming a vacuum in the converter as the ink flowed out since I never saw an air bubble build up inside; any suggestions that won't void the warranty?

Exactly the same happens to me. I love my Conklin Duragraph 1.1 stub in green, usually a nice wet writer, then all of a sudden it will just stop writing, with no warning, and I have to force ink down it.

Ian Howlett replaced my Conklin nib with a Goulet- cleared these issues right up. Over heard of some people actually seeking out alternative feeds as well, but for mine the nib was the only issue.

I'm so happy to have found these comments. I've only recently purchased my Conklin Victoria in the Cinnamon color and I really like it overall, but I'm having the exact same issue. As Ian Howlett stated in a reply to this comment (a year ago) that it's usually a fairly wet writer but then all of a sudden the flow dries up and I have to open the pen up and twist the plunger a few times until I see a bead of ink well up on the feed, then I twist it back the other way and it's all fine again...until the next time it happens. I guess I can live with it if it's a common experience. I just wasn't sure if this was out of the ordinary for this pen or not. Thanks to all who responded to CountdownToShow's comment.

+Feanaaro I have the Cracked Ice finish and think it's lovely

I have the green one. Was given to me by my boss as a promotion gift. It's very classy!

I really like the orange version.

I've been eyeing the cracked ice one for a while.

Reminds them of the Mont Blanc Hemingway I suppose

Interesting point: it does.

+sbrebrown Finally I bought a Conklin Duragraph 1.1 stub too and mine is very wet and doesn't railroad that much. Reviews are always useful but when you buy the fountain pen, you can have a good or a bad experience with exactly the same fountain pen as in the review. Fountain pens are that unpredictable.

Gordon Nguyen It's really good, but I like the Duragraph better because it uses #6 nibs, which are easier to replace. I also like the look of the Duragraph better. However the Loom would have better nibs. Which means that for someone who doesn't know how to tune a nib, and will rely on how the pen comes with, the Loom may be a better choice. For a guy that knows how to tune nibs, and/or may want to try different nibs on the pen, the Duragraph is better.

SLAPSTICK2011🙌🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

absolutely agree 100%.

I blame the USA for still using imperial measurements (feet and inches) instead of using metric. Metric is so much more precise and accurate in the modern era where tolerances are needed. It's also interesting that all the leading manufacturers (Germany, Italy & Japan) of writing instruments use metric.

I know what you mean!

+Rob P. I understand.. seems you want it to be the US version of .. company X pick a great Italian name and place here... I get the great company that is not what it was Pyrex etc... Could you make a suggestion to a company that you do like?

+Matthew White My gripe is actually based more on what the current owners try to pass the brand off as rather than what they produce. On the box it says Conklin Pens 1898, and it is true that in 1898 a wonderful pen US pen manufacturer called Conklin began producing some exquisite works of craftsmanship. That company invented a number of new and interesting filling systems and offered some pens hand crafted made out of truly incredible materials. That company closed down around 1948. In 2000, a conglomerate bought the name. The current Conklin pens are fine -- they seem to write relatively well, they look nice enough, and they are priced fairly. But, at the end of the day, they are mass produced pens using standard blanks you can find anywhere online and fitted with outsourced steel nibs that have been known for suffering some qc issues. Now, the new owner has every legal right to do what he's doing -- I just find it very sad. The pen in this video is not, at least in my view, something that deserves to be called a Conklin. In terms of companies I do like. If we are talking about US pen brands, I would say Franklin Christoph and Edison Pens. Both companies have blazed a unique path, offer quality products made to last a lifetime, and run their companies with integrity. I'll also add Noodler's into the mix, not because I particularly like the quality of their merchandise (quite spotty quality control), but because Nathan doesn't parce words when it comes to his pens. They are cheap, they have a flex nib, they require work, they are the best value he can offer. I can't argue with that and they have certainly revolutionized the industry, especially for artists. If we are talking outside the US -- Omas, Visconti, Pelikan, Faber Castell, Nakaya, Sailor, even Pilot -- some of these may not be the most innovative pen designers but they all do something inventive and make high quality products.

Hell yes.

I picked one up in a sale here in the U.K. and was able to try it out in the store with a dip test. It was a lovely, fine writer. Took it home and primed it with ink. Deeply disappointing. I’ve never had a pen with such awful flow. Constantly failing to deliver ink altogether, skipping, and even when delivering ink is an unusually dry writer. Nothing nice about it at all. Worse than a 5 quid Chinese pen or a kiddy’s school pen. But dipped it’s great. It’s all about poor flow. I did manage to get more flow by reseating the converter a few times and screwing down on the wheel a bit after filling. But I feel that, considering I have old Waterman pens from the 40s with lever-fill mechanisms that work fine I shouldn’t have to mess with a £50 pen in 2019. I could work on the nib but there seems little reason given that it works great dipped. It’s a shame as it looks exactly how I like my fountain pens. Maybe I’ll play with it some more to see if I can do anything to improve it.

+Matthew White "Cheap?" People consider the Jinhao X450 & X750 as cheap, yet both of them write very well. I would not consider this $45 pen to be 'cheap', unless you are use to writing with $1,000 pens. I have the green Duragraph with a 1.1 stub, and I have had no nib problems whatsoever. I also did not have the tolerance issue that Stephen experienced in this video, nor any 'bumps' on my cap. I have to agree with Geoffrey Wascher, that this was probably a QC issue and not a design issue. I do agree that the clip is extremely tight on my pen, however, I do not clip my pen to a shirt of pant's pocket.

perspective

Matthew White Cheap implies: Not of good quality or without value. I would not say the Conklin Duragraph fits in that category.

ok.. for me, cheap means inexpensive and thats a good thing.. just a difference of meaning, cheap is good.. less money and lower quality.. ie not gold nib... but not BAD... remember especially with Engwish we find meaning in context.. for your definition then I would agree, not cheap, greeat value and low cost

Matthew White I guess mine was more of a dictionary meaning vs. a cultural contextual meaning.