Pilot Plumix Refillable Fountain Pens Set - 12 Purple Barrel Pens with Medium Nib & 12 Blue Ink Cartridges (90041) | Ideal for Calligraphy, Journaling, Office Work & School Writing

While these might be billed as "beginner" pens, they write better some of the more expensive pens out there. The plastic of the pens is tough, the nibs are high quality, and they are light weight. I have two sets of these pens and have enjoyed using them all to test ink colors and journal.Edited review to give back another star - because this pen is mechanically super simple and is easy to take apart and clean fully. But caveat remains that these Plumix pens are more for calligraphy and less for daily writing, and they don't appear to have a more traditional style nib available. And and, Pilot doesn't sell aftermarket nibs for these pens though they are cross compatible with other pens like the Metropolitan. (end of edit).I do like this pen, and it was inexpensive. It looks great in light blue. It's not what I would consider a normal writing pen though, the nib is flat and wide like a calligraphy or italic nib. Normal pilot nibs for writing have a ball shape at the end. This is OK, but it means it tends to snag the paper or not lay down ink fast enough if one writes too as quickly so it's not well suited for fast writing. But if you write slowly it's ok. I will continue to use this pen, but less frequently than my other pens. I will also play around with adjusting the nib to see if that improves ink flow a bit.The blue that comes with the pen is a great hue and is inexpensive, and I think it would be possible to use this pen with a dropper (dropper the ink straight into the barrel) if one used a bit of silicon grease on the barrel threads. And it apparently works with a pilot converter if one wanted to go that route. So, this is a versatile pen, and may be best suited for folks looking to do fancy calligraphy style writing.On a side note, the nib is not removable because when I pulled it out it took the whole ink mechanism with it, but it doesn't look broken. Also, when I first loaded it with an ink cart I thought perhaps it broke as it is plastic, and it was hard to get it to pierce the cart, and when it did there was ink spreading within the pen between its internal parts. However, it did not leak, and both the cap and the barrel are sealed, which makes a leak much less likely. I am soaking the pen in water to clean it now, and the ink stuck between the internal parts does not come out. This is more cosmetic than anything, but beware if you have a light barrel color and you use black ink at some point.I started out using a traditional calligraphy kit with a dip pen and everything, but I found that (for me) running out of ink quickly and constantly having to re-dip the pen was too much of a hassle, which drove me to look for a fountain pen that gave me similar results to more traditional looking calligraphy but wouldn't run out of ink quickly.After watching several YouTube reviews and reading a few articles, this led me to purchase the Pilot Metropolitan with the fine nib. While it wrote very well with zero problems, the fine nib couldn't give me the line variation I was looking for that comes from a more traditional style calligraphy.After further research, I decided to try a medium italic/stub nib to see if it would give me the line variation I was looking for but with the affordable and convenient fountain pen experience. Thus I bought the Pilot Plumix.My niche is LOTR / Hobbit style writing, sort of a union between italic and uncial, but small enough to be handwriting as opposed to large lettered calligraphy. As you can see in the pictures, despite my poor lettering skills and all-over-the-place letter sizing, this medium italic/stub nib from the Pilot Plumix performed perfectly for what I was looking for!Because the Pilot Metropolitan and Pilot Plumix use the exact same nibs, I was able to take the medium italic/stub nib from the Plumix and use it on the Pilot Metropolitan pen (as you can see in the picture). It's a perfect replacement, though I did find better writing results when using the ink feed that came with the Plumix rather than the ink feed that came with the Metropolitan.The medium italic/stub nib on the Plumix gave me the precise results I was looking for. It writes smoothly, isn't scratchy (though I'm not writing fast at all), doesn't require large amounts of pressure, and provides me with just enough line variation in the letters while still retaining that "hand written" feel.If you're looking for that extra bump in line variation while still using a fountain pen, but also don't want to break the bank, you can't go wrong with the Pilot Plumix. And if you spend a little bit more for the Pilot Metropolitan as well, you get the nicer looking Metropolitan pen and refillable ink converter, plus you can use either the fine nib from the Metropolitan (if you just want a smooth quick writer for note taking) or you can swap in the Pilot Plumix medium italic/stub nib and give your writing a bit of flair. It's really a great combination and I would highly recommend both pens.This is one of my favorite stub nibs for any fountain pen. It performs better than every other stock stub I've used (not serviced by a nibmeister). It has great quality and the whole pen costs less than just the nib (or nib unit) for most pens.If you don't like the body (it's easy to hold but isn't very professional looking), you can remove the nib and feed together and swap it into a Pilot Metropolitan or a Pilot Explorer, for example.Great performance and quality.Caneta excelente, com um "grip" muito confortável. O único ponto a se considerar, que já conhecia antes de adquiri-la, é a pena, que, embora excelente, não é realmente uma pena média (como as encontradas na Metropoltan ou na Kakuno), mas modelo que, em outras canetas, a Pilot denomina "CM", ou "calligraphy medium", que é uma pena itálica, do tipo "stub" ou caligráfica, de mais ou menos 1.0mm; a mesma pena da versão européia, e diferente da versão Chinesa/Japonesa/Indiana. Usa, diferente da irmã européia, cartucho proprietário da Pilot (ou conversor do tipo con-20, con-40 ou con-50; o con-70 não é compatível). A escrita se diferencia um pouco das penas normais, por conta do formato da extremidade da pena, que confere variações na espessura da linha, conforme a direção tomada. No geral, uma ótima compra.The nib on the pen sent to me was the equivalent of a stub nib. Rather than a simply rounded, omni-directional tip, it is squared off, making for a broad down stroke and a narrow lateral stroke. While this gives some line variation (which can be an attractive feature in a more finely manufactured pen), the cross strokes scratch and dig into the paper. I don't know what this would be like of lefties. I can't imagine this was the intention of the manufacturer but rather that it is flaw in the production. Perhaps this was just a one-off, but the item I received is useless as an inexpensive, go-to pen.I had bought this to take it apart for the feed to use in a different Pilot pen that had broken but for reasons I didn't do that. I hadn't intended to use the pen as is, but it's fun to play with the italic nib and practice writing. Smooth flow and I actually like the feel of it enough I'll probably change the nib to a fine and continue to use the pen.This pen came in great condition and is good for either a beginner to calligraphy or for casual use. The body and tip are sturdy and the ink runs smoothly. The only issue that arose was that the thickness of the lines did not change with increased pressure on the tip as they should when using a traditional calligraphy pen. The tip seems to be just too stiff. Instead, to achieve a calligraphy style look with this pen as shown in my photo, you can easily just layer the ink up where you want your lines to be darker, or go back and thicken them quite easily. Will definitely be repurchasing a few more of these for school.La pluma es de buena calidad en su relación al costo, en lo personal no se me hace una escritura muy suave se siente rasposa al escribir tal vez con el uso esto mejore sin embargo me gustó su grosor, si es cómoda para escribir y viene con un cartucho de repuesto negro.