The Ultimate Pen Showdown - Ballpoint Hybrids

  Introduction Tramol is a company that started off making inks in China. I never tried the inks but they seem reasonably popular. The company introduced a frosted eyedropper pen that looked very similar to an Opus 88 a few years ago, but continued to focus on the inks. After finding out that they just released a vac filler, I was interested. Quick Review I'm going to do this review in quick bullet points based on first impressions. The good: Feels like very high quality construction and materials Nice springy clip Good looks Smooth vac fill (one pump fills it halfway) Bock nib has an interesting finish (something between black and chrome) $35 price tag (plus shipping) Comfortable to old The rest: Cap doesn't post 2.5+ turns to unscrew the cap Nib is mediocre (but the #6 size should be easy to replace), has a dull feel Generic plastic feed In conclusion I don't have any regrets buying it. The pen is good value - they've managed to make a quality product at an affordable

Introduction to the Artis This is a pen that had been on my mind for a couple years, but was released (and subsequently discontinued) some years before that. The exact history of the Uni Artis is a mystery, but it was only ever available in Japan. The particular model number of the ballpoint version in my review is the SS1400AS-P07 and the colour variant of this one is the 1P.26. At the time this caught my interest, it was because I was looking at the Uni pens with the pressurized refills (of which there are only a handful) to test out. Uni made a couple types of pressurized refills which I've written about before. One type is a plastic refill encased in a pressurized suit, and the other is a pressurized metal refill (like a Fisher). All of the pressurized refill pens were from a series called the "Power Tank", of which there were several grades, from their basic SN series, to their metal bodied pen with metal refill, fittingly called the "High Grade". Outside o