Pen Review
Around August 2022 Esterbrook released three premium versions of their Camden fountain pen. I’ve reviewed Esterbrook’s Estie three times with different nibs and pens sizes. In between I also reviewed the JR Pocket Pen. The only pen model left for me to review now is the Phaeton 300! The Camden sits somewhat in between the JR Pocket Pen and the Estie.
A big thank you to Esterbrook for sending this in for review!
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The Esterbrook JR Pocket Pen is part of the modern Esterbrook’s revival of the brand with the pen being a call back to one of vintage Esterbrook’s most popular pens, the Esterbrook J. The modern Esterbrook JR has come in a few colours, Red (‘Carmine’), Black, (‘Tuxedo’), and Blue (‘Capri’) but Esterbrook recently released the Paradise Set of three brightly coloured pens. These new colours have some slight design changes and come in Yellow (‘Lemon Twist’), Blue (‘Blue Breeze’) and Orange (‘Orange Sunset’). This review features the full Paradise Set, and the standard Tuxedo wit comparisons with two vintage Esterbrook J pens.
Thanks to Esterbrook for sending in the Paradise Set and to Desk Bandit for sending in the Tuxedo for review!
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Esterbrook is a company with a lot of renowned early history until 1971 and a bit of a hiccuped relaunch of the brand since 2014. The 2018 relaunch by the folks at Kenro Industries, Inc. has been a much more confidence inspiring relaunch with the company releasing multiple pens and cases as well as integrating with vintage nibs and custom ground nibs. There’s a bit going on and it’s all quite interesting!
Esterbrook, wanting to expand into the Australian market organised a virtual pen meet of sorts for the Australian fountain pen community where they discussed the brand, its early history, and what they are doing with it now. Afterwards we got in contact with each other and they organised a care package with a Honeycomb Etsie, some accessories and a 6 pen Nook case to give away (see the bottom of this review for details)!
I was surprised by how much I liked the pen so after receiving the review pen I bought the Cobalt Blue Etsie from Desk Bandit who just recently started stocking Esterbrook.
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A bit of a different review this time! This review is of a pen that is many hundreds of dollars or even over a thousand dollars less than some pens I’ve reviewed. This pen is cheaper than any of my inks! The Pilot V-Pen/Varsity is a single-use (by design) fountain pen that retails for less than US$4. How does it stack up? A friend generously gave me this pen as a gift! Thanks!
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