{"id":621,"date":"2010-02-16T01:44:18","date_gmt":"2010-02-15T14:44:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scheong.wordpress.com\/?p=621"},"modified":"2010-02-16T01:44:18","modified_gmt":"2010-02-15T14:44:18","slug":"pen-review-visconti-ragtime-le","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.throughouthistory.com\/?p=621","title":{"rendered":"Pen Review: Visconti Ragtime LE"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For reasons that are unnecessary to elaborate on, I recently came into lawful posession of a Visconti &#8216;Ragtime&#8217; limited edition fountain pen. It&#8217;s #1592 of a total of 1988 pieces (1988 being the year that Visconti was established). <\/p>\n<p>When I decided I was going to get a Visconti, I never thought I&#8217;d seriously be getting a Limited Edition Ragtime, but I have to say that I wasn&#8217;t disappointed one bit, in the purchase that I finally made. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Presentation:<\/strong> <\/p>\n<p>The pen comes in a handsome, rectangular, red leather box with its own bottle of Visconti-brand fountain pen ink. The box is neatly lined with soft cloth and there&#8217;s a small drawer underneath the pen-tray, where the information-booklet slips in neatly, discreetly and out of the way. The box-lid is spring-loaded and it all closes up with a very satisfying &#8216;snap!&#8217;. This is the kind of box that you could open up and put on your desk with the pen nestling snugly and securely inside it, between the sufficiently-padded jaws of the pen-rest. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Appearance:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The pen is very handsome and looks like a real modern classic. It sports fine, marbled-pattern plastic barrel and cap, with neat, gold bands around both; one band around the bottom of the barrel, two bands around the bottom of the cap. The cap has a pretty little gold &#8216;Jewel&#8217; on the top, with &#8216;VISCONTI&#8217; on it. The clip-band has the pen&#8217;s limited-edition number clearly marked on it, so that you know which pen in the lineup of 1988, you have in your hands. <\/p>\n<p>The section is beautifully-polished gold, the nib is a firm, 14kt gold and writes a solid, fine line. All in all, the pen is a real piece of eyecandy, if it&#8217;s nothing else. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Filling-System:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The pen is a piston-filler, which is refreshingly different in this world of modern fountain pens which almost invariably take cartridges or screw or push-in converters. The piston-knob is accessible through the blind-cap at the end of the barrel. The knob is also gold, with little &#8216;V&#8217;s all around it. The pen fills smoothly and effortlessly and the blind-cap screws on with no troubles at all. The pen&#8217;s construction allows you to see the piston moving up and down inside the pen (if you hold it up to a strong-enough light-source), so that you can tell if the pen&#8217;s filling up or emptying out. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Weight and Balance:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This pen is delightfully light and comfortable to use for long, long stretches of writing. Posting the cap doesn&#8217;t seem to alter the pen&#8217;s balance in your hand at all, unlike some other pens, where the caps seem to be heavier than the rest of the pen, just on their own! <\/p>\n<p><strong>Writing Comfort:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The pen&#8217;s light, plastic body and the slippery, smooth nib make this pen a joy to write with. I could easily power through several pages of script before tiring out. Those who use fountain pens purely for those &#8216;special occasions&#8217; instead of using them for daily writing, have no idea what kind of joy they&#8217;re missing out on&#8230;especially with a pen as comfortable as this! <\/p>\n<p><strong>Conclusion:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Stylish, classic, easy-to-use, light, comfortable and well-presented, this pen scores a 10\/10 from me. The Visconti Ragtime LE is, in my opinion, a fountain pen user&#8217;s dream. Several people whom I&#8217;ve spoken to, have said that Visconti produce the best nibs, and I have to say that, having now experienced one for myself, they were right on the money with that assertion. The nib is smoother than a lubricated ice-cube on a nonstick frying-pan. I could write forever with this pen. Well worth the money, I reckon. Those considering this pen will not be disappointed. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For reasons that are unnecessary to elaborate on, I recently came into lawful posession of a Visconti &#8216;Ragtime&#8217; limited edition fountain pen. It&#8217;s #1592 of a total of 1988 pieces (1988 being the year that Visconti was established). When I decided I was going to get a Visconti, I never thought I&#8217;d seriously be getting [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fountain-pens-and-typewriters"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p72J5O-a1","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.throughouthistory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.throughouthistory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.throughouthistory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.throughouthistory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.throughouthistory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.throughouthistory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.throughouthistory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.throughouthistory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.throughouthistory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}