Conklin Duragraph Fountain Pens Reviews

This is a beautiful pen and I am sure for the right person this pen would be great but for me it was a mixed bag. I bought the version fitted with the Omniflex nib after seeing a review on youtube. Apparently the nib unit I was sent was the "old" nib. It flexes like my grandmother's hips, which is to say: Not very much. It requires enough pressure to tear through a piece of Tomoe River laying on a glass to get anything close to what other flexible nib options offer.
This isn't to say I don't love the pen.. I do! I just wish I would have ordered a fine nib instead. My issues stem completely from the nib.

The Duragraph is a great pen at this price point. The resin is deep and rich looking, the section is comfortable to write with, and the nibs have improved over the years. I have several Duragraph pens, and the early ones were hit and miss on performance, with hard starts and skipping. But these issues seem to have been addressed as none of the recent pens have had these problems. Kudos to Conklin for recognizing the issue and addressing it.
The one issue I have is posting the pen, which is my preference. This pen does post, but the cap rests so high on the barrel that it is unwieldy and back heavy. It bottoms out on the chrome trim ring on the blind cap on the end of the pen. If it just posted a bit further down the barrel it would be ideal! But that is nit-picking as that is the design of the pen. Not a great posting design in my humble opinion, but that's just personal preference speaking.

This was a pen that I didn't really expect a whole lot from and, moreover,it was an impulse buy-I'm guilty! Well, my expectations were way off because this pen is stunning! The amber resin may as well be precious, the depth and richness of the color, coupled with the semi-transparency is something I would expect to see in pens costing 10 times what this pen sells for. After a little tuning the nib has been exquisite.

Love my new pen. It writes perfectly, the nib carries the right amount of ink. Great quality.

Really great fountain pen for the price.

I absolutely love the look of this pen, it looks like a much more expensive pen. The lower price really doesn't show until you start using it. The end that the nib screws into is a little sharp for my tastes, and uncomfortable writing for more than a few lines. The nib is ok, but tends to railroad during fast writing and signatures.

Nib that I ordered was the omniflex- and despite hearing some decent reviews I found it to be practically unusable. It is so fat of a line to begin with that I thought they sent me a broad at first but no, the order was 100% fine. The issue is the amount of pressure needed to flex the times is absolutely insane- even if you foreground the tip to a finer point it would do you no good as you would more than likely tear through card stock trying to flex the tines.

So as not to gush I'll keep it simple. The color and material is very nice, rich, sparkly and slightly translucent. There have been complaints about the nib in other reviews but I found it very smooth non-flex and very usable and wet when flexed. Nib is a larger fine--->1.1 flexed. Clip has plenty of spring but is stiff.The size is comparable to a TWSBI 580 capped (girth). Medium hands may like it non posted. Posted the pen is a good size for medium to large hands small hands could find it a little wand like. Something to note, because this is a flex nib the feed and nib are a little longer so the pen has extra length in front of where your fingers hold it. If you hold it up high on the pen where you are "supposed" to (the black area for my pen) there is a good ~1in forward of your fingers. I found no issue with it but it did make a difference when writing (I liked it).

Wow. I really like my Conklin (Durograph) pen. I ordered the ice frosty blue pen. Then I filled it with the oxford blue ink from Diamine. I am always so excited when I get to write with it. I am always looking for something to write. I am still getting used to a screw type pen. My others seem to just lift off. I think I will look for a simmer pen in the future. I have not ventured outside of the entry level pens.

i love this pen