To negotiate the best possible price for our customers, we agree to hide prices prior to logging in.
889 requests
Product Description
The Franklin-Christoph Model 31 fountain pen is substantial in size (5.5 inches capped) but feels light in the hand, with an acrylic resin body in a swirled chocolate brown finish. It features a screw-on cap with a chrome pocket clip and the company’s traditional beveled finial Read More
I wonder if the pen shown here has been damaged in some way. The clip looks distorted / bent downwards. It should be more like the one pictured on F-C website.
GeoDesignerI was wondering the same and thought maybe it's just the angle it was shot from with some unique glare in the pictures. Both appear to have the new FC clip (as they should, since the 31 came out after the new clip design iirc)
Why do you list the nibs as being from Faber Castell? Good, very old company, but Franklin Christoph to my knowledge get their nibs from another German supplier..custom marked with the big "C" of Franklin Christoph.
on the subject of a lot of the nib remaining unsee, I agree, on my Model 31, I have a No 6
18K 1.1mm stub, and the 18K and 1.1 markings are fully hidden by the finger grip.
Ken Bowes
Dear F-C, why did you hide that beautiful #6 nib under the section. I believe that when someone puts a #6 nib on a pen, they want to show it off in all it's glory. There is absolutely no advantage here (other than getting a slightly longer section). They could've just put a #5 nib instead and achieved the same. The overall design is nice but the section just killed it for me.
For sure, YMMV, just like any other maker. I actually have two 19s, and while they are a bit thicker than some of my other pens, I wouldn't call them large at all. (The regular 66, which is a desk pen, is much larger, roughly similar to a Nakaya Decapod, and I carry one of those around in my pocket some times.)
I mostly quite like the F-Cs I have, but thus far the 66 desk pen (which I leave at work) and the two 19s get the most use in rotation (along with some rotation of nibs). I'm not a big fan of clips in general (I can't really use them, so the most they do is stop pens from rolling around and maybe catch on things in my pocket), but those on the F-Cs are fine. The 20 Marietta is really my biggest disappointment—I really only like screw-tops, and the slip top actually does such a good job staying put that it's quite difficult to remove. (It also doesn't have that satisfying *click* you get with some snap cap pens, so it's not as easy to judge when it's on well enough, which I think can encourage you to push it on harder than you need to.)
SeemseaOh… I should maybe add that I got into fountain pens by way of technical pens. I used a Koh-I-Noor Rapidograph 000 (0.25mm) and later a Staedtler-Mars 00 (0.30mm) technical pen as my daily driver throughout high school and college. Later, I tried a Rotring Art Pen, then one of their funkier and cheaper late-90s fountain pens, and then after I had a job bought a variety of others. I'm not sure I have _a_ favorite, but I've generally tended towards finer nibs until recently, when I've been getting new pens mostly for interesting new nib grinds or for interesting filling mechanisms.
Is there any chance that F-C could do a drop with the Eclipse 25? Ideally featuring the old style clip which has so much more character than the new reworked clip on the current 25.
renzeroIn the description they talk about 30 units coco pearl, which should be still available with 7 units sold, so I that not even the 30 units are available. I would jave taken one of them right away. But I dislike the brown one, so thanks, but no thanks.
I flat out don't understand why this pen costs so much, especially with such obvious casting lines on the body and cap. I sincerely looked at teaser pic in the email and said "That is the ugliest $20 pen I've ever seen", only to click through and discover that this pen costs $154.99?? What?? What am I missing here?
That's gonna be a no fer me, dawg.
And if that's the case, then well, the price is more or less in line then. Other resin pens cost in this neighborhood, but they don't have any obvious flaws either. As an example, I recently acquired a nice resin Edison Nouveau for a little less money. They reeeeaaaalllyyy need to redo that shot, so as to remove that line.
KnifeGuyThe Massdrop photos also make it look like the clip has been mashed down almost flat. [Franklin-Christoph's page for the 31](http://www.franklin-christoph.com/model-31-omnis.html) has different photos, although they're not perfect, either—it's just really difficult to photograph these pens, maybe especially against a dark background.
I have the purple 31 from F-C's page; it's really pretty. (I also have an 03 Iterum in the coco and creme material Massdrop is offering, and it's also very nice looking.)
I've ended up with quite a few F-C pens—they're well made, generally nice looking, and have a nice range of nib options, plus they're all swappable, so it's easy to compare a stock nib vs. a Masuyama grind vs. their own "stub-italic gradient" nibs (which I didn't like initially, but have come around on). And you can also use their nib units in Edison pens.
Compared to Edisons, I'd say that the F-Cs feel a lot more solid. They're more conservative design-wise than Edison pens, and they're much more boring when it comes to filling mechanisms (a piston converter is as sophisticated as it gets). But I'm a lot less worried about something bad happening if I drop one, and I still like the way the ones I have look and feel in hand. (I don't love my 20 Marietta, but that's mostly about the slip-on cap: the rest have been great.)