Then and Now: In Which Dr. Inkenstein Re-Views The World's Worst Pen

Of course, the Zebra V-301 isn't REALLY the world's worst fountain pen.  No, that honor belongs to a completely nameless, cheap plastic, turquoise fountain pen Dr. Inkenstein owned briefly back in the, well, another decade.

Owned it, that is, until it savagely leaked all over Dr. Inkenstein's then-pristine fingers.

But people on one fountain pen forum or another (and you know who you are!) have time and again enthusiastically voted the poor Zebra V-pen the dubious honor of World's Worst.

Dr. Inkenstein did not feel that way when first encountering the Z-pen.  Look, I'll prove it:

 

Now, once the little blue fountain pen got writing (and we freely admit this took multiple dips and a couple pages of writing), it did not quit until drained of its ink.  And Dr. Inkenstein would carelessly leave the pen neglected for days, even weeks, on end, uncap it, and it wrote every time.

The same still holds true.  The V-pen still needs multiple dips to coax it into writing (this time, in black, because Dr. Inkenstein wanted a Daily Sketch Pen That I Would Not Care About Losing).  And may I say that I would indeed not Mind Losing This, in case it should accidentally slip from my grasp and oh, get stepped on or something.

I think.  Maybe.

The nature of the V-pen's hard starting capabilities may be linked to its unusual feed, which is said to be more like that of a felt-tip.

Excuses, excuses.

This newer model has, if anything, a more annoying, more slippery section.  And the test sample below reads green not black, because the pen did not write black for pages and pages.

So in honor of all those fountain pen forum-goers, I post this Zebra Redux.   I now dislike the pen almost as much as you do!

 

 

 

But you know...yesterday Dr. Inkenstein had a Horrible Ink-ccident involving a black cart from a brand which Will Not Be Named and a pen that Will Not Be Named Either, and needed to write in black, and because my beloved red Safari Black Ink Workhorse with its wonderful F-nib and Lamy Black ink was getting a well-deserved bath----Dr. Inkenstein ended up grabbing the V-pen.


It's sort of growing on me.  Go figure.