It was the first pen I bought that costs above the $100 mark and it had remained by far my favorite writer.Thank you for doing such a lovely review that does it justice. And you're absolutely right, it is a writers pen indeed.
The Excellence A2 is the only Diplomat pen (I own two) I ever really liked enough to want to buy. I prefer them to the much more popular Diplomat Aero. I have A2s in the Emerald w/gold trim ( 14k B) and Black Waves guilloche (steel F). Really nice feel in hand, consistent, reliable and enjoyable writers. Both the A2s will always remain in my collection. edit: this was one of your best pen review videos in a while. Thanks!
I bought my Excellence A2 almost on impulse (I hadn't seen any reviews). I agree with all your pros and to be honest your cons don't really bother me. Maybe the squeaky thread on the barrel gets me, but as someone here has suggested, that should be easy to overcome. Can't think why you should sell the evergreen one. I love it!
I have considered this pen. I like Diplomat pens a lot. But, I have been looking at the Nexus. The engineering and design is incredible. Have you seen this pen?
I have a couple of these myself. They are a a well made,high quality made pen with an excellent steel nib. However, I will try to add a gold nib to add a little more excitement to the writing experience.
Apply some silicone grease to the threads and they will quiet down. The A2 magically improves my writing. I love it. I want the Black Guilloche, but it’s too expensive.
The thing about writing inflight is that the pen needs to perform air-ink interchange in the cabin, and the cabin pressure is significantly different than the air pressure on the surface. Basically, if you fill the pen before takeoff, it's going to be prone to burping when writing at altitude. You can somewhat mitigate this by using a pen with a shutoff valve, but your ink capacity is going to be limited to what’s available without opening the valve. Theoretically, any pen that you fill while at altitude should be able to write without pressure/burping issues while you maintain that altitude… but there can be cabin pressure fluctuations on a plane while flying so this isn’t foolproof. It’s also possible that if you let the pens equalize pressure nib-up at altitude, then they should be able to write without burping, again regardless of pen or filling type. You would actually need to open up your shutoff valves in this scenario to equalize the whole chambers pressure. In practice, I have not found this to work well, and ended up with burps. I personally recommend investing in a high-quality ballpoint or gel pen for use while flying, and storing your fountain pens nib-up in your bag until you land. This has been the best approach for me.
Monteverde’s a good brand for people who have picked up a Jinhao and said “I wish I paid $50 for this” and Diplomat is a good brand for people who picked up the same pen and said “I wish I paid $200 for this”. See also: modern Esterbrook.
