The Worst Fountain Pen I Have Ever Reviewed 

Now this is what the internet is supposed to be about, watching someone go into insane detail about their niche hobby and explain it. God I love it.

Today I learned: Pen RU-vid exists. Putting the cap on the back of the pen is called posting. Neat!

“I just wish I had a fountain pen with 3 ink chambers so I can automatically create a brown ink in my pen.”, said nobody, ever.

Wow, these are worse than rookie missteps for this company. It’s bordering on risky and sketchy. You did the right thing to review this the way you did.

I thought it was a rotating pen like the multi-colour ball points. That apparently wasn't the case. It was a no colour pen, which, to be fair, is fairly innovative.

Fair review of a terrible pen. I’m amazed these people had the gall to turn up to a pen show and ask money for something that is a piece of junk.

Holy cow. The fact you remained so polite and professional and with a genuine desire for the end result to even be somewhat good is admirable. It seems like every possible way to mess this up, they did. I cannot believe they sent MEDICAL SHARPS. I don't know about USPS but there are definitely many countries where sharps are entirely prohibited in mail unless they are explicitly marked for medical use. I used to do medical injections and there were numerous occasions I fumbled a sharp and jabbed my finger in just the right place that caused excess bleeding. The fact they just casually sent those without warning is just a massive marker of an incredibly inept company.

Me, stumbling upon this and having no interest in owning an actual fountain pen in my life, though I think they're really cool regardless: Yeah, you tell 'em!!!

I received 5 of their pens for review from the D.C. show last year. 1 out of the 5 worked. They all had folded nibs, not tipped which immediately raised some concerns. Of the 4 that didn't work: 3 had splayed or misaligned nibs and the remaining nib was so scratchy it barely wrote without tearing the page. I received a solid titanium pocket pen that was still filled with the metal shavings inside the body and the cap was cut off center. Another one had a clip ring that was way too small for the cap so there was a huge gap in the cap. All had finishing issues where material was left over or not polished properly. I provided feedback to the company with suggestions on correcting these issues prior to bringing them to market and have never heard back. Needless to say, I never did the review.

I know you didn't mean for this to be a laugh riot or anything, but I found it VERY funny. The snipped-off medical syringe, with the resulting deformed opening, just did me in. 😆

The problem became obvious as soon as I saw the chambers. Anyone with a basic understanding of how pens work would not make this kind of mistake.

I'm so impressed with how badly a single pen could be messed up

They failed you, Figboot. You didn’t fail them. But it makes you wonder why they were eager for a review. They knew how many corners they were cutting.

I had thought that the worst thing a pen could do was not write well out of the box. I think this is arguably worse, which is fairly impressive in an unfortunate sort of way. I just have to ask what demand were they trying to meet with this design? If you wanted green you would just purchase a green ink, not use two random yellows and blues.

I'm not sure why youtube recommended this to me, but I love to watch things about more niche interests, so I thoroughly enjoyed it. Sadly the reason the algorithm is pushing it more is probably because it's a negative review. Controversy drives engagement and all that. To balance things out I'm going to go watch some of your other reviews about good pens.

I couldn't believe the syringes included with the pen... Then they sent you more, just snipped! Unbelievable

This is one of these channels that makes videos for a very specific niche but are actually interesting enough for people outside the community. Never thought fountain pens have a fandom!

Never in my life could I have imagined that I would be this fascinated about a pen review. But here we are. Love your passion

I admire your patience and diplomacy, Dave. You rarely see that nowadays. Personally, I use sharp syringes in aspirating ink from the bottle. Being a doctor, I have plenty of these. They’ve worked well thus far, gotten used to them, actually.

I know literally nothing about fountain pens but after watching this I sort of want to know everything about them? Great video!

Wow. Just…wow. Appreciate your honesty about this pen. You really did give them every chance to succeed.

Holy cow. Sounds like a nightmare. Thanks for the warning. A bad pen is one thing, a bad company is a whole different problem. You gave them every chance to give you a better pen. Heck, they could’ve hand picked one that had the best nib out of the bunch and they failed to even take advantage of that opportunity. I suppose we should be thankful for that.

I own a couple of Acriv pens. The nibs are made from sheet titanium, and have no tipping. They are 'butterfly nibs,' meaning the tip is made from flared portions that are folded in. The Acriv nib I got that was made that way was horrible. I ended up cutting it down to a stub. That being said, their stubs are unusual, and pretty great. As for this 'blender' pen, it looked to me that it would have exactly the problems you show in this video, so I resisted the urge to pick one up.

I couldn't help chuckling a little while you were banging the pen on the paper. The pen is a hack job at best. This isn't a bad review, but an excellent review of a really bad pen. I do like the idea of mixing ink colors, but they made zero effort at providing a quality product. Thanks for calling them out. 👍👍

It's 3:30am and I have no idea what I'm doing here, but I'm incredibly glad that someone so knowledgeable about this specific of a topic has such a passionate following! I hope in the month since this video came out, the company fixed the issues you described, or at least acknowledged them.

Can you imagine traveling all the way from India, paying for a booth at a trade show and having a such a sub-par product? Maybe it's some kind of tax write-off company 🤷‍♀ .

This pen looks like it could be very close to some type of proof of concept or a prototype they might have had in the lab. Because there’s so much to fix in this pen, it makes me think that they’ve just outsourced their alpha testing to you. I hope they’ll make some radical changes to the core components of this pen and come up with a beta version for you to try out. Who knows, one day they may develop a functional product out of these early stage stumbles.

David, THANK YOU for not being a shill and just giving us the facts. The unfirtunate truth is not all companies deserve to succeed. Keep up the great work.

What an interesting niche I've stumbled upon thanks to my RU-vid recommended! I have no knowledge on fountain pens, but I still found your voice very soothing and your insight very interesting even for a layman! I hope this channel reaches even more success, you deserve it! There's a lot of passion very clearly put here. Cheers and best of luck!!

I didn't expect this to be as entertaining and informative as it was. My mouth dropped wide open when you pulled out the needles.. That's so wild AND SKETCHY AF.

Seems they had a fun idea, but unfortunately lacked in execution. A good example of why QA is important. Thanks for the review and intro to something new.

Oh my. That company didn't just shoot themselves in the foot in this instance -- they shot it, threw acid on it, hacked it up, and burned it to a crisp. Not every product a company makes turns out well; that's to be expected. But it's how the company responds to the failure that determines if customers give second chances.

"what the heck, why is youtube recommending me pen review videos" *7 minutes in* "Jesus Christ acriv you scammers, these are rookie mistakes, god what a horrible design, get his ass Figboot"

Ouch! They were definitely not ready for prime time. Thank you for saving the rest of us the hassle and fustration - you haven't steered us wrong yet.

This is my first time watching one of your reviews and I'm an instant subscriber. At the beginning of your video, when you showed the nib, even I saw the roughness of the nib barrel and the uneveness of the nib! I admire you giving the company a few chances to give a better example of their work. Your thoroughness and delivery are excellent and "write on".

Wow, thank you for this review. I’m sure it wasn’t easy but it saved me from a purchase that, after seeing its performance (or lack thereof), I’m convinced I would regret. Your positivity is commendable, but your honesty even more so because it saves folks time and cash in finding out the hard way. Thank you!

As someone with a couple pens that have surface tension problems, I can tell you that a FAR better way to overcome surface tension in the reservoir and get ink into the feed is to hold the pen as near the nib as you can, and then wiggle the pen back and forth, so that the back end swings freely while the nib end stays relatively stationary. This makes it far less likely that ink will splatter out of the feed, and actually works better at overcoming surface tension than banging the pen on the table.

The only way I could see this concept working, properly executed, would be to fill two chambers with colors you intend to mix and the third with a white or gray ink to lighten the final result. Or you could, you know, just mix them in a cup.

Well that's just sad! I was so looking forward to the review of this pen. You gave them more than enough chances to give you a good product, but clearly they just don't have good working products. Thank you for your always honest reviews, David, very much appreciated! 🙏

Wow, Thanks for going above and beyond in fairness and taking the time to do this review. Perhaps the company will learn from this though I doubt it.

Hi there! Thanks for the review. Living in India, I have never heard of this brand in any of the main fountain pen communities. Better to stay away from such fly-by-night operators. To improve your experience, try Camlin or Airmail pens. Happy writing!

Yowsers, Dave! Everything that could go wrong went wrong. This pen deserves a shelf all its own and it's not "the nice" shelf! Even the feed failed to align properly with the nib - it was set much too far from the tip of the nib leaving way too much slit without an ink supply. Not that that mattered though. Thanks for such an honest review AND for TRYING to give them many opportunities to succeed.

I just found your channel and I love that you are honest and try to give points in all aspects because people look for different things in a pen. You kind of remind me of “Project Farm” channel with the honest reviewing.

Found your channel from this! excited to see more of your videos! Ive always loved fountain pens, and wanna get back into using them for drawing!

Your review was far more than fair, and it was a great public service. I, too, was incredulous at this pen’s dysfunction. Pens like this certainly heighten one’s appreciation of well-made fountain pens. Even a disposable Varsity fountain pen is an excellent investment vs spending any amount on a pen like this one.

Excellent review, fair and balanced, describing a solution looking for a problem (and not a very good solution at that). If I wanted to perform ink mixing then I'd just do it with a sample vial and syringe, shake, monitor for any obvious issues such as sediment or sludge, and then put the resulting pre-mixed ink into my pen of choice using whatever filling mechanism that pen uses. In the case of your review pen, the nib looks ugly and tarnished, and the pen is reminiscent of those multi refill ballpens popular in the 70s. When you filled the reservoirs of your example, that similarity was just reinforced. It looked like a transparent pen with three ballpoint refills inside, and not very high quality ones at that.

This was a good quality video, I too have never heard the term "posting" before. Also, quick tip, you may want to shrink the size of the text document you're reading or push your monitor farther back on your desk (or just increase the margins), because I kept noticing your eyes darting back every time you started a new line of your script. Wouldn't've even noticed you were reading a script otherwise.

I’ve followed you for quite a while. I could feel your pain in posting this video. Thanks for the work you do. Honesty and kindness together.

I don’t know who you are, never seen any of your reviews before, but having this recommended to me and hearing you tear into a poor pathetic pen has been a complete and utter joy.

as someone who did not even know fountain pens could *have* mistakes, you very wonderfully pointed out each and every flaw, which makes anyone be able to see how this would just be unusable. very good video!

This is the 4am content i apparently needed to see. I'm loving it.

First time viewer and I genuinely love your tone and feel as though I've learned a lot! Subscribed and can't wait for more!

Wow. I never thought that I would see a fountain pen that failed at being a pen. I'm wondering if they even tested it before selling it. It was a great review though, I'm even thinking how to fix it and it doesn't sound that difficult.

David, I loved your review. I haven’t laughed so hard I’m quite a while. Thanks for a bit of hysterical laughter. The poor chaps who are trying to make this pen and sell it have a lot to learn, but I think it will take a few knocks on the head for them to learn it

David, I would really like to commend you on the way you review not just this pen but all pens. I've always found your reviews to be presented fairly. As you say something you may not personally like could be something another loves. You did a great job in presenting this pen warts and all. It's a warning to all that this pen can't ever write. Great review thank you.

This has just been recommended to me and I have to say: Your tone, pacing and structure is exceptional! Keep up the good work, I was very pleasantly surprised!

if they wannt to improve the design, they should add lateral grooves in the ink chambers to help ink flow and better allow air and ink to pass each other, and add a restrictor plate with holes spaced around it in the body right above the ink chambers, make the plate an octagon or higher order polygon and cut the spot it sits in to be a slightly larger almost polygon with one more side than the plate and the sides slightly convex so it will move and stop unpredictably, resulting in a varying blend of inks going to the feed rather than getting the same muddy blend the whole time.

Quite a situation. I’m glad you did explain everything you went through.

Another enjoyable presentation, as usual !! Keep up this great quality work ! RS. Canada

Thank you for your truthful, as kind as you could be, review. I love the concept and wish they could have pulled this off for those who may have needed a pen like this. I mix my inks before I ever put them into my converter so I can be at peace knowing that I don't need to buy a pen that does it for me. You were awesome!

Beginning a review with a one minute explanation and almost apology for why it is going to be a negative one is the mindset for which I love the fountain pen community. We really want to like the pens and have fun with them. However, you really treated this small company in a fair manor and maybe they can improve in the near future, which I hope. Oh, and by the way, 12:23 was like the most physical action I have seen in one of your reviews so far. I would have liked to see you do that with the Aztecs pen of the year ;-)

It’s seems the algorithm is pushing this video again, great work sir! This isn’t a topic I know a lot of about but it’s extremely interesting to learn from someone with passion and knowledge of a topic :)

Very fair review, David, and I appreciate your honesty as always! Some pen reviewers seem to gloss over problems with pens for whatever reason, but that's not your style. Thanks for steering us in the right direction!

P.s. Thank you for your honest review. It's important to ferret out people trying to take advantage. I can't imagine this could be anything else.

Seems like the kind of idea someone has trying to come up with an innovation within a 10 minute time limit. I feel like the inherent design issues should have been caught at some point during the design process. Like the fact you mentioned that mixing three inks together will only ever really give a dark mess. A two colour system might have been more functional, and possibly made it easier to execute a functional model (more room to have the chambers wider). But there's also just the fundamental question of "why?" What problem does this product aim to solve? If mixing ink colours is all you want, then you might as well just do that in a tube before inking up whatever pen of choice you have. But if it's about having 2 inks on display before they intermingle in the feed to give a new combination, or possibly even a varying new combination (this could be cool, getting some sort of completely unique sheening effect with 2 different inks?), they would have had to put considerably more thought into the mechanical design of the pen. In my opinion, the biggest failure of the pen seems to be simply the fact that it isn't actually three different chambers, but a single one that happens to split in three directions. The nib seems an odd choice as well. It seems odd to be so focused on producing your own nibs, when they're so clearly of subpar quality. Especially when they're clearly not the focus of the product at all.

you are a very patient person. I had to chuckle as you told the tale of your struggle to help them onto the back of the horse, and their refusal to take the hints

I have loved pens, notebooks, stationary items since I was a child. Seeing that someone is reviewing pens is a wonderful surprise to me. Thank you for your hardwork! I subbed.

I have never watched a pen video before, I have never desired to watch a pen video before, but if this is what pen youtube is putting out I need to start getting into it. I should look at more pen reviews considering how much I write and sketch, and even if I didn't have a personal use how could I not watch something so unexpectedly entertaining!

I suspect the makers of this pen are not users of fountain pens at all. You gave them every chance to succeed. You did a commendable and fair review. Thank you.

Google decided I would like this video, so here I am. Pens are not a hobby of mine, but I do have Hobbies, so I can very much appreciate the passion behind the creation of this channel. Thanks for making videos about things you love.

This was a very informative video! Thank you for sharing your hobby with the world, it's fantastic!

They gave you sharp syringes lol. Al seriousness thank you for the review.

Real bummer. I had some hopes for a test write with that nib but as you said, it would have been tragic.

This was a very fair and honest review. I really enjoyed it. I hope the company that gave out this pen, will do better in the future.

I have never thought about pens more than buying a pack of Bic pens for school but now I want to binge your videos

The syringe thing is seriously crazy. It's honestly funny until you realise it's not made up.

Even looking at the close-up pictures, I could tell this was going to be an epic fail. The threads are simply not fine or precise enough to be properly airtight, and neither are they greased to ensure they are. Look at the Noodlers Charlie for example; threads with a very fine pitch with silicone grease. Pens with larger thread pitches like the Preppy need grease and o-rings to be airtight for eye-dropper conversions. The cap being so tight to screw on indicates they probably also machined the cap with a too small internal diameter. Now let's come to the elephant in the room: the ink chambers. The ink chambers look like they're machined with a matte surface on the inside. They couldn't be bothered with actually polishing the inside of the ink chambers. The rough surface means the surface tension of the ink is never broken, and it will never flow. This is why many converters ands cartridges have the metal agitators or ball bearings inside them, as they break the surface tension in the ink to facilitate it flowing. In this pen the ink chambers are so narrow that capillary action will prevent downwards flow. Two rough walls encapsulating a high surface tension liquid in such a narrow aperture will never let ink flow. There's simply not enough fluid that is free from adhesive force with the wall that its weight can pull it down. Then there's the other issue: You can't expect the pen to mix inks consistently. Each ink has a different viscosity and surface tension because each ink has different dyes, surfactants and solvents in it to get the desired colour. You will likely always end up with a situation where one ink flows in preference to the others. You gave them more than a fair chance.

RU-vid recommended me this video and I'm glad. You striving for the most accurate and fair review reminds me of Gamers Nexus (just watched a video by them today, too) and your style of just giving facts so each person can make their own informed decision reminds me of Paul Harrell. Two excellent RU-vidrs, too. Instant sub and like.* Great video!

I don’t know why I’m here but thank you algorithm. Your voice is really nice and I feel like I can trust you if I ever do get into fountain pens. Perfect about of honesty and information. Even I’m starting to feel passionate about how wild this pen is.

You know, the idea of a "silly straw" ink chamber kinda sounds fun now, because the aesthetic of the 3 chambers suspended in the barrel is actually kinda cool. It probably wouldnt work for a myriad of reasons, least of all cleaning, but I can dream.

I’m at a loss for words. You were as fair as you could be. Great review as always David.

Good job on a challenging review. Your fairness should be appreciated by the company as I'm sure it is by your viewers. One always has high hopes for new pens, and when they fail, is very disappointing.

Great review! And yes, you were very fair. I am surprised that a company would even show up at a pen show with this kind of pen. It would have been better if they had sent prototypes to an assortment of fountain pen users to "de-bug" their concept. But, alas, they probably sold quite a number to unsuspecting buyers and likely turned off some to fountain pens all together. Sad . . .

Thanks for the honest review! Not quite sure what Acriv were going for with 3 ink chambers (with no way to proportionately control the flow from each). Basic color-science tells us; cyan + magenta + yellow (in equal proportions) = black. The only reason an inkjet printer is able to print a wide variety of colors (using only cyan, magenta, yellow, and black inks) is VERY fine control over how much of each color is applied to the paper). It's as if the folks at this company read about 3 primary colors (cyan, magenta and yellow), but didn't fully understand color science.

Hopefully they will learn from their mistakes. They need to hire someone with pen making expertise and a marketing expert. Obviously, they don’t have either. Thanks for a very objective and thoughtful review. 👍👍👍

OMFFFFFFFFFG thank you for your honesty. I’ve watched several videos of yours so I know you’ve never been mean to manufactures. This information is so beneficial 😊

It's cool stumbling upon hobbies/passions I never knew existed. Solid review, will look for other pens.

To bad, it sounded like a good idea, but somehow it just didn't come together for that manufacturer, great review, thanks for your honesty. I like watching your reviews, they are always informative and interesting for me an amateur pen enthusiast.

Not related to the video, but I like the padres city connect hat in the background. As a giants fan I am indebted to the padres for beading the dodgers in the division series and will be rooting them on in the NLCS, haha!

ah, i love the all seeing eye of google. I start telling my other half about the store downtown that has an awesome fountain pen selection and next thing i know i discover your channel to help decide what the next purchase should be.

I own exactly one fountain pen, I know very little about pens. This channel is lit though and I’m excited to learn more about pens!

This was a great review of a terrible pen, but it is *also* a masterclass in how pen design works! Seeing the many ways it fails, especially with the chambering, has taught me how a few pens in the past failed me and what I'd have to think about if I wanted to make a very basic one. It's even helped me understand my dip pens a little better.

Well that's unfortunate. I would love a multi-color concept pen to come to the fountain pen world. I still love my bic clic stic multi-color pens from my youth even tho they write terribly. Maybe version 2.0 will be better.

Medical tip pens are legal in most states. In fact, most farm stores sell them. The blunt tip are filter needles. I have them for when I use a certain med in a glass vial. What a crazy idea they had. If I wanted to mix colors I would do so in a converter. Mixing colors isn't a bad idea for someone on a budget. Provided they had a good concept of color theory. I appreciate your character, you always give honest reviews. God bless

I am not particularly interested in fountain pens, but this guy gives off adorable uncle vibes. Subscribed.

i didn't know i needed fountain pen reviews until just now. this is what im spending the rest of my day on!

This is a fascinating concept. I hope this or another company will improve on it. Maybe two larger chambers?

you came across my recommended and reminded me I used to be almost obsessed with fountain pens

A fascinating review, thank you for making this and being honest! The company doesn’t even seem to know what they’re doing… what an awful product. And genuinely hazardous too, if they are providing every customer with sharp medical grade needles!! Wtf!! That’s a new one for me. These are probably so dirt cheap to make that it’s not even worth it for them to actually try to listen to customers and change their product.

Thank you for the review. I had visited the same table at the DC Pen Show and was excited by the pens on display. I was very excited by the idea of a pen with an ebonite feed and a titanium nib at that price and was tempted to purchase one of their pens. In the past I have worked with people from Mumbai many time and while I liked them as people I came to realize what they considered acceptable and what I considered acceptable were significantly different. I examined several pens displayed at the table and spend more time there than most other tables, I really wanted to buy something from them. In the end I didn’t buy anything because every pen I looked at had multiple quality problems. As much as I wanted to find something good about one of the pens to justify buying, in the end the consistently bad quality made me give up. My bottom line about the company is: great concepts, terrible execution. I would love to buy some of their pens IF they can get their quality to an acceptable level. Again thanks for a great review that will hopefully serve as a wake-up call for the company to improve.