Conklin Duragraph Fountain Pen Orange Nights - Stub Nib, Premium Writing Tool for Calligraphy & Signatures

Abolone Nights Omniflex is a gorgeous pen. I love the weight and performance of this pen. The flex nib took a while before it relaxed and opened easily. There was no railroading, skipping or irregular ink flow. It is important to condition the nib before installing the ink. I wipe the front and back of the nib with an alcohol wipe to remove protective coatings. Some of the reviewers who reported problems with ink flow may have failed to do this step. I believe the pen handles as well as some more expensive pens, so I give this price points.

Not everybody is satisfied with everything.I’m really satisfied with this pen. The ‘abalone’ reminds me of things I like to remember and mine writes like I expected: Great.If you receive a pen that doesn’t satisfy you, return it.This one has become my primary.

I purchased this pen with the stub nib to replace my other stub nib pen which I gave to a friend. The nib it came with was extremely scratchy and dry, to the point that I assumed it was a factory defect. I reached out to Conklin support and got them to send me another stub nib, which--lo and behold--was exactly the same. I was able to open up the nib to get it decently wet but it was still quite scratchy. I think it may have had some burrs or something since it did smooth out slighting after using the pen for some time. I eventually bought a Goulet medium nib for it and have been enjoying it much more since. The quality of the plastics and everything is quite good, and I like the feel in the hand. The cap seal is excellent (though I've heard it can be hit-or-miss). My one major gripe with the pen (now that I've resolved the nib situation) is that the pocket clip is way too stiff to be easily usable.

Doesn’t start well Pen is beautiful. Has nice weight and balance. Ink flow is dodgey. Dry starts if left for even 1 minute uncapped while not writing. Dry start when not used for even a few hours when capped. Does write very wet and more like a broad without much line variation despite being a “flex nib”

Are all Conklin Duragraphs good? Can't say. But this one I have in front of me is superb. It has problems. Still—superb.Lemme establish parameters. My field of comparison is as follows:• 5 Pilot Metropolitans: 3 <F> and 2 <M>• 4 Lamy Safaris, all <M>• 2 TWSBI Ecos, both <B>• 2 Monteverde Monzas, one <M>, one <flex>• 2 Kaweco Sports, one <B> and one <BB>• 1 Pilot Prera <M>• 1 Parker Urban Premium <M>• 1 Conklin Herringbone w/a Bock #6 nib• 1 Pelikan Jazz <M>• 1 Monteverde Regatta Sport <B>• 1 Jinhao 159, we'll call it a <M>• 1 Waterman Expert <M>• 1 Faber Castell Loom <M>• 1 Levenger L-Tech 3 <F>Twenty-four pens in all, fourteen different "makes." Most of the instruments cost less than $25; only three were sixty. The item under review is a Conklin Duragraph, <EF>, "Cracked Ice"—roughly $46. It may be worth mentioning I have it inked with Diamine Oxford Blue, an extremely easy-peasy ink that never causes issues.GOOD• Looks every bit as nice in the hand as it did "in the bush." If anything, the pix on Amazon don't do the pen justice. Meanwhile, the "cracked ice" effect is hard to find on a $46 pen. (The other pen I have my eye on that has this is the Esterbrook "Blueberry"—$156, a little more than 3X as expensive as the Conklin.)• The nib is among the best I've ever used. Right up there with Faber Castell and Levenger (the two nibs that are proverbs in this household, meaning "Actually Good," not just OK). Juicy and smooth, with a little bounce.• The grip section is the kind I much prefer: flared a little, right before the plinth of the nib. Waterman Experts are like this. I think of this shape as a "classic old-school grip section," and I wish it were more common.BAD• The cap will not post in anything like a satisfying way. The YouTube reviews all complain about this. I hereby add my voice to the choir.• The threads on mine are not really done right. You can easily insert the pen in the cap in such a way that it gets caught wrong in the threads, and jams. Consequently, you have to insert with rather more care than you're accustomed to having to use.• One slight amendment to the first point under "GOOD." The nib in the Amazon photo has a yellow oval. Mine has the oval but no yellow. And I should've liked it to be yellow.NEUTRAL• The size is good *for me*, but I am a 6'1" male with big hands.• The weight is good *for me*, but I don't really care about weight. I like heavy, light, anything. I would say this pen, unposted, is a little bit heavier than an unposted TWSBI.One further note. My friend Catie bought a Conklin Duragraph, same week as I bought mine, and hers is a very different piece of goods. Her threads are just fine, her nib seemed finicky and "unforgiving" at first, and her oval is yellow. I conclude from this that the Conklin people are a shady operation. But, actually, isn't this kinda true of all pen manufacturers? One Lamy <M> is not necessarily like another. I have four, no two alike. And my Metropolitans are subtly different too. So I don't know what to think.Next move: Conklin "Orange Nights," with an ominflex nib, and pray it's a good one.Bottom line: I am very satisfied with my purchase and warmly recommend this pen to anyone who wants to see how far $46 can take ’em.

UPDATE: it didn't get better with more use. I still have to open the pen up when I want it to use it, give the adapter a twist to start the ink flowing, then repeat those steps when it stops writing, even though the adapter is completely full. The pen is pretty. That's the only good thing I can say about it. Functionally, it's a piece of garbage. There aren't enough anti-superlatives in the English language to properly describe what a complete piece of junk this is. For the price, that's disappointing. Maybe the other 1k reviewers got the good pens and I got the dud of the batch, but I'm beyond disappointed in this. Never buying another Conklin pen (or anything else from their rwo-bit umbrella company, for that matter) ever again.Superficially, this pen is absolutely beautiful. It feels rock solid in the hand. The craftsmanship that went into it is outstanding when looking at it.The problem, however, has been the fine nib. Out of the box, I could not fill the adaptor with ink by dipping the nib into the ink bottle. I had to directly put the adaptor into the ink and fill it that way. Hooking it up to the pen, it barely put ink to paper.On that basis alone, I would've given a 2-3 star review, but the customer service has been outstanding. I emailed Conklin, and they got back to me within 24 hours. They recommended fixes that, unfortunately, did not work. They sent me a replacement nib, no questions asked, based on the reports of issues I had. Unfortunately, when I hooked it up to the pen, it still would not fill by putting the nib into the ink. The nib is long compared to what I'm used to, so I don't know if that plays into the problem at all or not. I'm hoping it just needs to be broken in through continued use, but until that, it feels scratchy on paper and the ink deposition on the page is inconsistent at best. Hopefully it gets better with more use.