The Writing Experience of Conklin Mark Twain Crescent Filler Pen
The Conklin Crescent is available in a steel nib, sized Fine, Medium or 1.1mm Stub Nib. For this review, I had used the 1.1mm Stub, so we can talk about another important change for modern pen manufacturing.A buffet of nib size choices are seldom seen these days with most pen manufacturing. Most offer a standard fine or medium and call it a day. The Great Recession may have had something to do with it, as most companies wanted to run leaner on inventory and stick only with the best-selling nib choices.The modern Company also applied survival of the fittest to their nib selection, but found that the discontinued broad had lost out against the 1.1mm stub nib.Why?Thank the resurgence of fountain pen writing in general over the last 5 years and its proliferation online. Today's fountain penmen / penwomen LOVE line variation. Go search on instagram for #flexnibfriday and #stubnibsunday to see perfect examples of pen lovers showing off their specialty nibs.Conklin's 1.1mm stub gives excellent line variation, with a thick vertical stroke and a thin horizontal. I felt like it ran a bit on the dry side and certainly wasn't the smoothest steel nib, not by any stretch of the imagination. Now, that I've gotten more into tuning my pens, my mind immediately went to the thought that this pen could be absolutely perfect if I worked in opening up the flow a bit more and smoothing out the nib. However, for purposes of this review, my assumption is that the average reader does not have the experience or confidence to tackle such an adjustment, so I wouldn't make any recommendations to "void the warranty," so to speak.The Conklin Crescent Stub nib favors a slower, controlled pace of writing. The ink (Noodler's Golden Brown), could not keep up during faster writing samples and scribbles. Printing and adding serifs to the letters' ascenders and descenders looks great with the line variation that is achieved with the stub nib.Apart from the nib, the pen felt more controllable and less taxing on the hand when using it uncapped (5.57" closed, 6.5" cap posted). You can certainly post the cap on the backend securely, but the added weight to the backend felt a bit cumbersome. Also, the c-shaped locking ring around the barrel protrudes out from the rest of the pen body. For my hand, it rests exactly on the side of my index finger knuckle, which isn't that comfortable of a fit.Despite having an internal filling system, it felt like the did not hold a tremendous amount of ink like most other bottle-fill only pens would usually be able to carry. I gave it somewhat a pass, because I was using a stub nib that laid down more ink that a standard fine or medium point would. Word of advice on filling : be sure to do at least another 2-3 squeezes when the nib is submerged in ink to obtain the maximum amount of ink in your pen.