Duke Sapphire Fude Pen Calligraphy Fountain Pen Fine to Broad Size for Signature and Art Drawing

I got this today and was very pleasantly surprised of the quality, fit and finish given the pen’s price. The engraving on the cap and the details are fantastic. It’s absolutely beautiful! I loaded it up with Sailor black pigment ink and it writes very well. It’s so easy to vary the width of your lines because of the fude nib. Writing looks very nice and formal. Even when writing notes it gives you sense of substance. It starts easy and flows smoothly. The included ink reservoir is easy to fill. I’m sure you could a cartridge but I like filling my pens from bottle ink. Don’t hesitate to buy, especially at this price!

This review is for the fude nib. What a satisfying nub to use! Ink lays down smooth and bold! I’m so surprised by its performance! Pen has a Robust build, great weight and decent balance when cap is posted. I have small hands so prefer to write/draw without it. There is a learning curve with this nib style, but am excited to write, doodle and draw with it. I am able to get XXF lines for detail drawing and cross hatching by reverse writing on the nib. So far I’ve not experienced any hard starts, or starvation skips! I might even say it performs as good as some of my more expensive and highly coveted pens. Recommend for the great value and performance!

Overall a great pen, but I am not sure I should have gone with the fude nib. Details: The body of this pen and the build quality are surprisingly excellent. This pen has a nice heft and neither looks nor feels like an inexpensive pen. The metal work in particular is surprisingly nice with a lot of little details that make this feel like something upscale. Filling the pen via the included converter was a typical process. This revealed the only slight thing I'll ding the pen for, which is that the converter "snaps" in rather than screws in. That's not quite as satisfying as it could be and I am not left with the utmost in confidence that it won't pop out at some point. The pen is comfortable in the hand and everything is just about perfect. I bought this pen so that I could try out a fude nib. I've been practicing kanji and I thought it would be cool for that. But after several weeks I've found that I much prefer writing kanji with my other pens, and for line variation I prefer using a brush pen. (I have not yet had a chance to try a flix fountain pen nib.) The fude nib is interesting and you can do a lot with it -- everything from very fine lines to very thick lines -- but I'm sorry to say, it's a bit of a pain. Getting the line variation requires a change in hand angle and means that you have be very careful and very deliberate. Many letters that I might write with a single fluid stroke of a brush pen require two or even three strokes with the fude nib as I need to change angle at various points. In addition to the above, the writing experience is either soaking wet (when doing thick lines), or a bit on the dry and scratchy side (when doing fine lines). There might be a tiny bit of sweet spot in the middle, but it's tough to find. And when writing "normal" stuff in that sweet spot, you need to be very careful to maintain hand angle lest you slip into the thick zone and your letters become illegible ink blots. That's a lot about the nib, but it's information I wish I'd had upfront. This is a fun toy for me at this point but not something I'll really reach for. Overall, high quality and excellent value. The nib is what it is. I definitely recommend this model of pen and I look forward to a lot of writing with it once I change out the nib.

Some of the pens in this posting have pen bodies that are straight and some have bodies that have curves. I think the ones with jewels in their name are the straight-bodied pens - the Ruby, the Sapphire, etc., while the curved bodied pens are called calligraphic (I think the manufacturer calls the curved-bodied pens the Duke 600, and I don't know why this seller isn't using the manufacturer's name for their product because it makes this pen harder to find.) Both pen bodies post, but post differently. The one with the curves posts the most securely, and fit my hands the best with great balance. The grip on these pens is also different. The pens with straight bodies have a feed and a nib, the ones with curved bodies have a feed, nib, and super feed that delivers more ink more reliably in each stroke. I have purchased 4 pens with curved bodies, and one of them had a removeable feed, nib, and super feed to make cleaning easier, while the other three curved-body pens did not. I purchased one pen with a straight body (I think the Ruby) and returned it - it didn't work as well for me, and I hadn't realized before purchasing it that it would write differently because it didn't have the super feed. I love the ones with curved bodies/?Duke 600? - they are GREAT for doing pen and ink drawings. The angle of the fude nib is excellent and comfortable along with the great ergonomics of the curved pen body and textured grip. If you are looking for a writing pen - you might prefer the straight bodied pen without the super feed because it will probably be a 'drier' writer less prone to smearing. Whatever you are looking for - be aware that this posting contains two very different pens, and choose accordingly. Please see my attached photos highlighting some of the differences in these two pens.

I bought several pens with fude nib and this one is my favorite. Small but very comfortable posted. Easy to put in handbag for urban sketching or on the go daily. Writes smooth with no skipping and line variation is very good. Also writes up side down. You can't beat the price and the pen really looks expensive in the matt black with the silver and gold accents. It's my favorite of all the fude pens I bought including the Sailor M.

I have many fountain pens, many of them are very expensive like Visconti Homo Sapiens, Sailor 1911, etc, but none of them can be used to write Chinese calligraphy better than this humble pen. This is an excellent pen in fude nibs for writing Chinese calligraphy.

Emploi pour dessiner.

Tenía muchas ilusiones de utilizar esta pluma por su diseño de punta doblada que podría utilizar para generar líneas tanto gruesas como finas, sin embargo el flujo de tinta es muy inconsistente. Da la impresión que la punta está defectuosa. No la recomiendo.

arrived on time, high quality and reasonable price

Der Füllhalter ist von guter Qualität und sieht sehr elegant aus. Ich nutze ihn zum Sketchen und bin sehr zufrieden mit der Feder. Kein Kratzen, ein schönes Schriftbild ... sehr zu emphehlen

Sadly the pen has some sort of blockage as I was unable to draw ink into the pen a big problem for an ink pen!