GW Pens Gem Pen “Rose Quartz” Review

Pens and inks are my passion, but I am totally of the opinion that gems are also a girl’s best friend ^_^.  So when John Greco of GW Pens asked me to testdrive his new Gem Pen, available now on Kickstarter, I jumped at the chance!

There are seven color choices available when pledging:

It goes without saying that all of the pens are set with a corresponding genuine gem.

Being a lover of pink, the one that intrigued me the most was the Rose Quartz version.  As soon as I saw it I knew I wanted to use it as an eyedropper.  For the purposes of this review I have tried it with the provided converter and as an ED.

If you are familiar with custom pens, you’ll feel right at home with the Gem Pen.

Disassembled:

What struck me the most about this pen is the ethereal feel of it.  At first glance it is a soft pink with light pink/whiteish swirls, however as I took a closer look I saw that the ghostly clouds were actually a light shimmer throughout the body!

This is hard to capture in photos, but the effect is quite dazzling on a mostly sheer pen.

But how does it write?

The pens will be available with JoWo #6 Polished Steel or Black Oxide nibs in the following sizes:

• Extra Fine
• Fine
• Medium
• Bold
• 1.1 Italic
• 1.5 Italic

I opted for a 1.5 Italic for this review.  John tunes the nibs, and I requested a smooth, juicy line which is exactly what I got.  It is worth noting that I have two other pens from him, both from his Alpha Collection, and both are excellent writers.

Here is the pen setup as an ED.  I like the look a lot more this way ^_^.

Size wise this pen is very similar to a few familiar faces.  Here is a photo of it against a Lamy Al-Star and TWSBI 580, unposted.

I wasn’t much of a fan of the pen posted, but I’m usually not so that did not take much away for me.

A few notes about the prototype:

• The gem will align perfectly with the nib for the production, on the prototype it is slightly off.
• The cap-to-body threading of the pen will be more polished, although I can’t imagine them being more perfect!  The ED fill is holding like a charm with a dab of silicone.

One of the most valuable things about this Kickstarter is the wonderful service that GW Pens provides.  I can be a bit of a stickler for details, and John has always put my mind at ease and tried to accomodate all of my endless requests.  If you haven’t tried a GW Pen, now is a great time.  The “Rock Bottom” pledge price is $175.00 which is less than what his pens go for without the gem.

At the time of this posting the project is more than halfway funded at $3,226/$5000 pledged with 20 days to go!

It warms my heart to see more pen related Kickstarters.  Hippo Noto was such a great campaign, and I hope this one is successful as well ^_^.