V126 Matte Black Vacuum Filling

This is an excellent pen though maybe too large for smaller hands. Asvine also make a smaller vacuum fill pen that is similar in size to one of the Pilot pens which would be better for smaller hands and it is equally good. The nib is large, attractive, smooth, and writes well. Ink flow is normal, neither wet nor dry. There is no color (clear, demo) and being a vacuum fill, there are of course no refills except for bottled ink. The ink capacity is huge, so if you have a favorite ink/color and do lots of writing, this pen is an excellent choice. If the size and more complex maintenance/cleaning of a vacuum fill system suits you, this is one great pen, and a great value besides. It comes with the tools to disassemble it for occasional deep cleaning if you are comfortable with doing so.

I’ve been looking for a better way to do the lettering on my cartoon work. Though dip pens produce reasonable lettering quality, they are a bit slow and result in varying letter thickness, as ink typically runs faster immediately after dipping the pen. I hoped that a fountain pen could be the solution to these difficulties, so that’s why I bought this particular pen. Sadly, you can’t run India ink through fountain pens, something I didn’t know prior to buying this pen; however, I discovered a reasonable substitute involving the use of Platinum Carbon Ink (black). Though this ink doesn’t stand up to erasing the way a good India ink would, if you are careful in your application of pencil that needs to be erased, the lettering ink work does not get significantly compromised. Finally, about this pen in particular, it puts down the ink in a wonderfully consistent manner. The ink flow is smooth and reliable. Its medium nib provides an excellent line weight, something that I especially need since my cartooning ends up getting photo-reduced prior to printing. What I truly appreciate about writing with this fountain pen is how it allows me to use my natural handwriting style, something that the nib pen simply can’t match because of the angle that you need to maintain in relationship to the paper surface. Several concluding remarks: it is nice to be able to fill the pen from a 60 mL bottle of ink rather than having to constantly purchase and dispose of cartridges, the pen body is solid and fits my hand well, and the weight of the pen is perfect for natural writing motions – not too heavy…not too light…just right (or should I say “just write”? Ha!).

This pen should check a lot of my boxes. Blue? Check. Matte finish? Check. Sturdy construction (mostly)? Check. It has a huge ink capacity and feels solid in the hand. It even posts decently. The problem - and it's a big one - is that it's just not a great writer. It's nice and smooth and wet when it wants to be, but then it will just have little stuttering hard-starts, missing the beginning of lines so much that I get frustrated trying to write with it. (And before you ask, yes, I write with the vacuum valve open, so there *should* be a good supply of ink getting to the nib.) So many people seem to swear by these, so you must stand a pretty good chance of getting a good one. I just didn't though. This was my first Asvine pen, and I'm not eager to try more if this is the writing experience I can expect. EDIT, 2025 So after basically writing this pen off, I did some work on it - I took the nib out, did some adjustments to bring the tines to a more reasonable level of separation (they were too far apart, if I remember right), then made sure everything was aligned properly. And now, after these adjustments, it's a pretty decent writer - very smooth, no more skips and hard-starts. While I added a 4th star, I can't give if 5 stars because I shouldn't have needed to do all this in order to have the thing write consistently.

So we own various pens that might be considered, depending on your specific criteria, competitors - PenBBS 355, various Opus 88 models like the mini and demonstrator, basic Nahvalurs , Jaipur V2, Kanwrite Heritage, Conklin, etc. And at this point these are my preferred pocket pen. (Note that I don't consider many of the previous pocket pens: pretty much anything that doesn't allow for closure of the ink chamber like Opus 88 models, the 355, and this pen do, doesn't really count as a proper pocket pen in my view, and even then some pens are too big for the pocket.) That said, of the above pens what I find is that the Kanwrite Heritage is an excellent host for desk usage involving nib unit changes or flex nibs, while Asvine 126 pens are great for daily pocket usage. These are good nib hosts. I have a Franklin Christoph SIG Fine nib on the stock Asvine feed + unit. I've not had this particular nib behave well in the Opus or PenBBS despite trying different feeds and units. it's been prone to random blotting and other inkflow issues. For the 355 I also had to sand down the finial thread for fit. On this pen, it just writes, with reasonable and safe ink flow. I do regard the factory "extra fine" as more of a fine-plus than an extra fine, but that's pretty much the case on most stock extra fine nibs in my view - they're often barely different than factory fine, and often mean factory fine is closer to medium. It's fine for writing with so long as you don't prefer writing extremely small. It write perfectly well, and perhaps slightly on the wetter side of things. I have noticed that once in a while the feed will stop for a moment for no clear reason (NOT skipping) - I think this happens when I forget to open the main chamber until after I've written extensively with it closed or have pocketed it cap-up without closing the main chamber. I assume that means both behaviors somehow lead to an occasional air pocket interacting with the feed. That said, it's not a frequent issue *at all* and solves itself in a couple seconds most of the time. A blip because I forgot to open or close the main chamber is much preferable to blotting or variable ink flow, so I don't mind this at all. I hate fountain pens that use ink cartridges - ink cartridges always leak, break, dry out, or otherwise cause problems, so IMO this is far and away preferable to anything that uses cartridges. I also tend to view regular piston fill pens as too prone to leaking for pocket use. Which makes this easily the best pen for regular everyday use under $100 IMO. It does post, though a bit loosely. I find the size to be slightly shorter than I care for unposted, and slightly taller than I care for posted, but that's not bad by any means - it's a more comfortable size than the Opus pens all round, though I think the length of the 355 unposted is slightly preferable compared to the Asvine V126. Have two of these and may get one more just to have another nib available for pocket use. Do wish they cam in more colors, especially more non-gold metal finishes.

Wonderful looking for the money. Writes great, love the teal color and you can see the ink in the body. I like that you can fill the pen in the front instead of Vacuum filling saves alot of hassle without getting ink on you if you make a mistake with the plunger and want to get a full fill. It's like eye-droppering. The size is very nice it is not large like the C-80. This is easy to clean so far. The nib is a regular medium nib, not the large #8 nib. The weight is real nice as expected. Not sure of the durability yet. The pen wrote right out of the box, I put some shimmer ink in it and it handled it well. I might buy another one in the near future.

Edit: Oof - one of the caps shattered. I don't even know how... never taken apart the finale on the cap. Only had it for a few months and i have never dropped it. Disappointing. I have one in every single color. They are extremely well made, easy to modify because both the bluedew and flexible nib factory zebra g nib units work in them. Easy to clean because they can be disassembled without any fuss. Huge capacity. The weight and balance is perfect. I'm not a big fan of the original nib. It's smooth and all of them work well enough, but they are also hard as a nail. The hardness just fatigues my hand very quickly. The asvine stock nibs can also be rather inconsistent - some write nice and fine, others are too wet. My fav nib is the zebra G nib so I was super happy to find out that the moonman #6 housing from the flexible nib factory is a perfect fit. The nibs from bluedew also work, but is a tighter fit and because there is no o ring at the bottom, ink will leak into the section. I don't really mind it. I use flex nibs as my daily writer (and I do a lot of long hand writing) and this set up is just perfect for me. The modifications cost me an extra 20 - 40 bucks per pen but still way cheaper and better flex than the other vintage and modern flex options out there. FPR has great flex but it writes too wet for me and I don't get nice hairlines. Vintage pens are too expensive or a bit of a crapshoot. Haven't tried the pilot falcon, but honestly don't feel the need to after I found this set up. Writing with flex nibs is also very ink intensive, so the huge capacity here is amazing. I hardly ever use the vacuum filling mechanism to be honest, because I don't find it very effective and I prefer to just syringe fill it since the section can be easily unscrewed. Much cleaner and easier process. Just wanted to share in case it helps someone else looking for a flexible nib set up and is frustrated with the options out there.

The thing about fountain pens is that it’s impossible to make every pen perfect. Some manufacturers are better at it than others. I have some more expensive pens like a Montblanc that I have never been able to get to write well. Even had the nib worked on twice by nib meisters. Needless to say it’s sitting in my drawer. There are usually some bad reviews of a pen like this and sure the quality control probably isn’t perfect. But the pen I received is amazing. The nib is very nice and writes smoothly. It wrote perfect out of the box and didn’t need any tweaking or tuning (both of which I am somewhat capable of doing as needed). The pen is not too dry and the ink flow is very good. I’ve tried a number of pens of different makes and ended up giving most of them away. I am down to four pens these days. A vintage Parker 51 and a Parker 45, a Kaweco Sport for every day at work, and now this pen. I was very surprised at how much I liked it because of how picky I seem to be. The medium nib is just right. I sort of wish it came in broad but I guess I can’t have everything, at least not for $30. The vacuum fill is pretty neat. I journal a lot so the ink capacity is nice. The size, weight, and balance is great. I really don’t have anything to complain about. Overall I’d say this pen is definitely worth a shot. Purchasing any fountain pen is a bit of a risk because you can never be absolutely certain of what you’ll get. For $30 this writes as well as pens that cost $100-200, at least for me. I don’t think there is such a thing as a perfect fountain pen. There are pens that sit in your drawer because you just don’t love them. And there are pens that you write with every day because all in all they feel just right to you. For me this pen falls into the latter category. I don’t think it will find its way into my drawer anytime soon.

I am amazed at the writing experience of this pen every single I pick it up. I purchased the pen with an EF nib and it writes pretty close to a true Japanese EF. This is the only sub-$200 pen where an EF nib is both this fine and this smooth when writing. A few comparisons to the Pilot 823 (which is a clear design inspiration for this pen): - the V126 has very similar mechanics and functionality - the V126 feels a little "cheaper" and slightly lower quality Compared to many of the "budget" brands, however, this feels like a premium pen. I would strongly recommend it for someone getting in to fountain pens over some of the standard recommendations in this price bracket. My one gripe is the threads on the cap. Nearly every time I recap the pen I find the threads getting crossed and have to fuss with it a few times before it screws on correctly. (Pictured with Robert Oster's Turquoise ink.)

Beautiful fountain pen, smooth writing experience with <EF> nib. Extremely comfortable either posted or unposted. Paired it with Pelikan 4001 "Violet" ink. I highly recommend it. If you are new with the vacuum filling method it can be a little weird in order to fill it in the very first time. There's a user guide leaflet inside the box, but YouTube videos can be easier to get it going. It's basically a very good replica of the much more expensive Pilot Custom 823 <F> nib, therefore I've chosen a color that doesn't give you that strange feeling of using a costly wannabe. The dark trim and steel nib totally make a difference from the "original". It's my second Asvine fountain pen that I purchase (the other one is a N7 Peacock Blue <EF>, you can check my review) and both of them are awesome and very good writers.

I have a few Asine fountain pens. This is by far my favorite. In fact it is in my top 3 fountain pens that I have. Just holding this pen, I want to write. I am just sad I don't have more to write down. The frosted black demonstrator body looks and feels great. The black nib and accents looks fantastic. The pen holds a lot of ink. The ef nib writes great. Smooth with a bit of feedback. Feels nice in the hand, some weight which sits between the fingers and crook of the hand. I can recommend this pen.

Envío rapidísimo. Buena relación calidad-precio. Escribe muy suave con un punto medio-fino. Es fluida, lo que es magnífico, y es capaz de escribir con el plumín invertido con un punto extra fino. Su capacidad de tinta es enorme, sobre todo si conoces el truco para conseguir una carga completa. Los acabados son muy buenos y es cómoda. Postea bien. No merece la pena gastar más dinero, hay plumas que cuadriplican su precio sin ofrecer más. El plumín es rígido, yo preferiría un plumín más blando. Faltan opciones de plumín grueso y "stub" o itálico, ese es su único punto negativo. Resumiendo, es un excelente producto y muy bien construido por su precio. Existen muy contadas opciones ligeramente más baratas con este sistema de carga pero no tienen su calidad de construcción.

It's a amazing fountain pen that works well, feel smooth and looks beautiful. The first one I got didn't flow very nice so I had to exchange it. The new one is perfect. But for this reason -1 star. I don't think this will be a common issue and I would buy this pen again. Be aware that the fine is still almost like a medium. If your looking for real fine writing for for the EF.

Increíble Pluma, preciosa, llego justo a tiempo, nada mas que desear, recomendada al 100%