This is a review of the Visconti Aida limited edition that I picked up at the auction in Paris. It has a medium gold nib, and the handwritten review is using Pelikan 4001 ink.

Since I wrote this I have learned (i) nibs.com have a pre-owned Aida for sale for $430, and (ii) Aida was written by Verdi, and I currently have it inked with Rohrer & Klinger Verdigris. Spooky.

Looks

First of all - the looks. This is a stunning pen. A green grey candy stripe celluloid, it is just beautiful to look at, with great depth. The candy stripe patter means that there is always some part of it that is catching the light. It can distract from the writing! I would put this up with the Nakaya Kuro-tamenuri as the most attractive pen in the collection.

The other things of note are the nicely patterned two tone nib - ornate, but not overly so (Visconti can overdo these things). The section is also made of the same celluloid, which is a lovely effect when in use.

Nib

I was initially disappointed that this pen did not have the palladium Dreamtouch nib that most Viscontis today do. I needn’t have worried - the gold nib is superbly smooth, with just a little tooth on Rhodia paper. I actually prefer it to the Dreamtouch, which can seem unnaturally smooth. Fortunately the flow on this nib is perfect, and the medium width just right. I have another Visconti pen that is unusable due to the amount of ink it lays down, but this is right in the “Goldilocks” zone.

The reason I didn’t know about the nib beforehand is that this is one of the two pens I bought at auction (see One Night in Paris for more details). It also came in a nice box with a crystal inkwell, but that is packed away right not, so I cannot comment further.

Body

The pen itself is on the larger side - around the Montblanc 146 size at 14.6cm. The body shape is from the “squaring the circle” Opera line of Visconti pen, i.e., the barrel is round with four flattened pieces. It is an unusual shape, but comfortable to hold, and the facets bring out the look of the pen nicely.

The end of the barrel has a thin silver ring, which looks as though it might be a blind cap or a plunger, but it is just a (grey) herring. The pen is actually a cartridge converter, which was a bit of surprise given that the Opera family tends to be made up of standard size cartridge converters, and limited edition oversized “power” fillers such as the Wall Street or Opera Master. I should add though that it is a pretty spectacular converter as these things go.

Cap

The screw on cap is unusual for Visconti - rather than abour 8mm worth of threads on the barrel, they have gone for a single turn, single thread metal ring. I can only assume this was an attempt to avoid a common problem of the Opera series, the flats of the “squared circle” on the barrel do not line up with the cap. I am guessing the metal threads could be adjusted at the factory. Certainly it is not a problem on this pen, but it is on my Wall Street and Opera Club. Ultimately they have fixed it with the unique “hook and twist” design on the Homo Sapiens.

The cap itself is perfectly nice, with a broad silver ring marked “Aida” on one side, and the limited edition number on the reverse. There were 1,871 made. This is not a pen for posting - it puts the balance too far back, and the lightweight barrel and filling mechanism can’t provide enough of a counter balance. The Visconti clip is what it is. It polarises people - either you like it or don’t, but I have grown to love it. The only comment I will add is to pick up a point made in the FP Geeks Awesome Review of the Homo Sapiens, which complained that the clip looked cantilevered but wasn’t (true) and that it needed two hands to clip to anything. I have actually found it quite easy to use the clip one handed by pinching the middle of the clip between thumb and index finger and then squeezing, which pushes the cap away from the clip.

Overall? I love it. It is an unusual, eye catching pen yet remains conservative enough to use in the office and draw admiration rather than ridicule. It is the best writing of my four Visconti pens, and shows that when done right, limited editions can be truly beautiful¹. I feel very fortunate to have stumbled across it at auction.

¹ Although my opinion is not generally so favourable - see upcoming post... ↩

I recently stumbled across a whole new world in the acquisition of writing instruments. I was actually searching for an antique specimen cabinet to use as a display case (but that is the subject of a whole other post), and found a site called Invaluable. They are essentially an aggregator of antique auctions across the globe - generally estate sales of furniture and the like. On a whim, I searched for fountain pens. I found one seller with a marbled Pelikan 100¹ that I will review when it arrives, but then it all went a bit weird.

I noticed a Mont Blanc special edition listed for about $5,000. That held about as much interest as a UK bank account since 2008. But in the corner, in tiny writing, was the auction it was part of: “Stilos”. An outfit called Artcurial was holding an auction devoted entirely to pens with 400 lots the following day in Paris. This was intriguing, and so further down the rabbit hole I went.

First of all I went through the catalogue. Ho hum, ten thousand euro limited editions covered in as much gold as Mr. T.² I think about 100 pens were Mont Blanc alone. But wait. What’s this? Two Danitrio Genkais? Interesting… a Nakaya piccolo? a Pilot Myu? A Tibaldi Impero? And good lord, is that the Visconti Wall Street LE I have been looking for? Gulp. I wonder how I can bid?

A few frantic emails to France, bank details, IBAN numbers etc and I was in! The only thing was, the auction kicked off at 2pm Paris time, or 10pm Sydney time. I had a long night ahead of me… What made things worse was that they went in alphabetical order by brand, so the Viscontis were right at the end in the 370s.

When the hour arrived, I clicked on to the “Join Now” button, and my jaw dropped. Sometimes it is easy to forget just how much we take technology for granted when it has changed so much, so fast. It came home all the more given that this was a triply old fashioned setting. Pens? Check. Auction house? Check. Paris? Check. And yet there I was, in bed in Sydney, watching a live feed of the auctioneer running the show. In French, obviously, but auctioneers gabble so fast it made little difference. On my screen was an “interested” button. Click this and the gentlemen and ladies in Paris would pay attention to you for that particular lot. After that, it was game on. Bids would flash up on the screen, your big red bid button would show in big letters the amount you needed to bid, and each lot was over in approximately 30 seconds. It was exciting.

I just watched for a while, seeing if the lots were going for around the guide price, which they generally were. That was a relief - it would have been pretty frustrating to pore over the catalogue thinking “150 Euros - ooh!” only for them to all go for double. So I waited through all the Auroras, and Bexleys, and Caran D’Ache. But when the Ds came around the Danitrios (in beautiful purple urushi) blew past theirs (and my) limits. The same with the Nakaya piccolo - it went for about $30 less than the cost of a new one! As for the rest of my targets? The Tibaldi was heartbreaking. There was only one person bidding - get in quick! And… my screen froze. I was hammering away at the bid button, but by the time it unfroze, we were on to the next lot. Grr.

In the end, I stuck it out until 2am, and picked up the Visconti Wall Street LE, and a Visconti Aida for pretty good prices (I’ll update when they arrive). It was worth it for that, but it would have been worth it even if I had bought nothing. It was an exhilarating experience just to be part of the live auction virtually³.

Highly recommended, would buy again⁴.

¹ Bizarrely from the auction houses 10 minutes down the road from where I grew up south of Manchester in the UK, who I had never heard of until 4 weeks ago when they handled my grandmother's estate sale. Or should I say my grandmother's estate's sale? Because she can't be selling... you know what, never mind. ↩

² I have trouble with making up to date references. I'm a lot like Bob Hope in that regard. (c) Tim Vine ↩

³ I have only attended one live auction, where I bought my wife's engagement ring. Obviously she wasn't my wife at the time. It is *scary*. I got into a bidding war with a telephone bidder, and if you think you can get swept up in an eBay auction, this was light years worse/better depending if you stress or thrive on the adrenaline rush. ↩

⁴ A word of caution. Buying at auction costs you an extra 25% of the hammer price as commission to the auction house⁵, and 5% more VAT if staying in the EU. What I did was convert 130 Euros into Australian dollars, and then use that figure as what I was actually spending for each 100 Euros I bid. Also, I noticed a couple of pens make their way to eBay located in Paris within two days or so at significantly higher prices. ↩

⁵ Guess who didn't know *that* when buying an engagement ring? ↩