Pen Review: Schneider iD Fountain Pen

I love Schneider pens. I have a huuuge stash of Schneider gel pens, fineliners, and rollerballs hoarded collected before I shifted to fountain pens. When I got my first Base pen, a black pen with smooth, wet medium nib, I was hooked. I found their simplicity charming and elegant. Through time, I have acquired more Schneider pens, mostly fountain pens: the colorful Zippis, the minimalist Base pens, and a Creativ calligraphy set. And last year, a new Schneider fountain pen caught my attention. I first saw the Schneider iD fountain pen at Cultpens, while ogling at the other Base models.

After reading about Schneider iD, I wanted one, being a Schneider fanatic and pen addict. But like so many pen and paper products, the pen isn't available in the Philippines. *Sigh.* So I did the expected, and months later, I received news that Schneider has kindly sent me an iD fountain pen to review. Hurray!

And here's my first fountain pen review: the Schneider iD fountain pen.

The Schneider iD came in two boxes, an outer box and an inner box. The outer box is made from black, thick, board paper. I like the simplicity of this box.

The inner box is made of transparent plastic with the Schneider logo on top, and the iD logo in the lower part of the box, near the bottom. Love the white artwork there. :)

A plastic pen holder keeps the iD in place inside the second box. A small brochure about the Schneider iD line of products is also included. The cover says "iD full of ideas". I like that. :)

The Schneider iD is a big pen, alright. It is huge, but not heavy. It is just right for my grip. It measures 5.75 inches when capped, and 5.25 inches uncapped. The cap does not allow posting the pen, which is just fine for me, because I rarely post my pens. It may be a problem for people who are used to posting their pens.

Here is the pen again, disassembled. On top is the cap, next line have section and barrel, bottom are feed and nib.

Did I say this pen is huge? I didn't? But it is! Look at that cap. It is huuuuuge! With a huuuuuge, oversized, wide shiny chrome clip and huuuuuge top cap.

This ring is on the top of the clip, near the top cap, and I assume this is meant for lanyards.

The Schneider logo is imprinted on the rubber material on the pen's cap. I am not so happy with this feature because the rubber is a monster lint and dirt magnet.

The iD logo is printed on the barrel, next to the wide metal ring. Because I got the chrome pen, the logo is imprinted in gray. The green and purple pens have matching logo color imprints.

Do you see the cartridge inside the barrel? The iD has a transluscent gray barrel, black plastic end cap, and the distinctive wide metal chrome ring. This photo gave me an idea about what I can do next with this pen. Read on, the surprise is at the end. :)

Like the cap, this pen's section comes with black, soft rubber that is ergonomically-designed to fit snugly to the pen user's fingers. This feature is excellent because it will help the user write comfortably even at longer periods of time.

Here is the Schneider iD's nib, which comes with a new feature: a breather hole. The breather hole is important as it promotes the exchange of air and ink in the pen's reservoir. The nibs of my Base pens do not have this feature, though.

The Schneider iD has a German (European) medium nib, which is bolder than other medium nibs. The day I got this pen, I was itching to ink it right away using the cartridge that came with it. But I waited until I got home because I wanted to use my current favorite ink: Diamine Majestic Blue. And the pen (and ink) did not disappoint. The iD wrote as soon as I inked it. The nib is softer than I thought it would be, writes smoothly, and Diamine Majestic Blue flows well on paper. (See photo of writing sample on Kokuyo paper below.)

The underside of the feed and nib shows the enormous iridium on the tip.

Schneider logo on the nib.

M is for medium. This is imprinted on the nib's left ear.

Feed and nib up close.

I have generously mentioned the Schneider Base pen in this post. I feel that I must write about it as well. But for now, I am happy to present the two pens here for comparison. Below are photos of the Schneider iD and Base nibs side by side, front and underside. Note that the Base nib does not have a breather hole and the ears (as I want to call them now - if there is a real name for these, kindly let me know) as seen on the right photo showing the feed's underside. The Base pen's feed's underside also appears to be flatter than that of the iD's.

I wrote my handwritten pen review on Kokuyo paper. The iD wrote so well on this paper, but also on a variety of papers as well, such as my Venzi journal and Rhodia Reverse notebook. If you read what I wrote below, you will know that I named this pen Kay. :)

For the large image, click here.

The Schneider iD fountain pen takes standard short or long international cartridges. In fact, my pen came with one short international cartridge. A converter may also be used, but it will have to be bought separately from independent pen sellers. Schneider surprisingly, does not make their own converters.

And here is the surprise. :)

The transluscent barrel of the Schneider iD gave me the idea that I could turn this c/c pen to an eyedropper (ED). I noticed, too, the long threaded part of the section where it joins the barrel. To test it, I filled both barrel and cap with water and observed it for a couple of hours, carefully watching it for leaks. And... no leaks! I then applied some silicone oil  to the section threads and my Schneider iD fountain pen is an instant ED-filled pen! Hurray!

Below are photos of the Schneider iD filled with J. Herbin Orange Indien.

For this writing test, I chose my Rhodia pad to match the orange ink. ;) The Orange Indien is a suggestion of my good friend and fellow blogger Tom Overfield.

For the large image, click here.

CultPens currently describes the Schneider iD products as weird and wonderful. I understand that not all fountain pen enthusiasts will like the form, but I am sure that many will agree with me that this pen's performance is more than excellent. It won't win 1st Prize in the 2009 ISPA and Innovation Award for nothing, right? I love it and I will definitely get another pen or two when it becomes available locally. In the Philippines, Schneider pens are available at all Office Warehouse branches.

The Schneider iD fountain pen in this review is from Germany, courtesy of Schneider. It is part of the series that include two more pens: a ballpoint and a rotary pencil. All three pens are available in green, purple, and black, which is my pen's color. Right now, it is filled with Orange Indien and writes like a dream. :)

Ink Review: J. Herbin Orange Indien

"Her nakedness was not absolute, behind her ear she had a poisonous flower with orange petals."

– Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Memories of My Melancholy Whores

Yes, it's an orange ink this time. There are no naked people or poisonous flowers in this review though.

Orange Indien. An ink color I wanted to have for so long. An ink color that has been the topic of a lot of discussions about non-black and non-blue inks. This ink, together with the bottle of Larmes de Cassis was sent to me by Exaclair's VP Karen Doherty last year as another addition to the orange stuff in my Happy Halloween post. The box did not make it for the Halloween, and came much, much later. But it's here and so I'm writing a review.

This ink reminds me of yummy sapin-sapin*, fragrant Clementines (Mandarin orange), The Body Shop's Satsuma soap bars and warm summer sunsets...

I love the fact that the makers of J. Herbin inks truly pay attention to details in their product packaging and presentation. J. Herbin ink boxes are elegantly designed, with a separate icon for each ink color. Orange Indien has an elephant icon and I love it! :)

The Herbin ink bottles are also very unique - each bottle has an integrated pen rest, but it's too small to hold even medium-sized pens. Here, my copper Esterbrook SJ barely fits into the pen rest. Despite that, the boxes and bottles are always easy to store in a box or cabinet because they are compact.

Orange Indien is another excellent ink from J. Herbin. I am very eager to try it when I received it, and I wasn't disappointed. I wrote a full page journal entry using it and the color did not hurt my eyes. Yes, the color jumps off the page at first, because of its bright color, but it's not so intensely bright that it will be difficult to read. It has excellent flow, as all Herbin inks are, and significant shading is seen when used to write with broad or italic nibs. There is even minor shading in the lines I wrote using the Parker Jotter. It may not be very visible in the photos, though.

The ink looks darker in white (Rhodia) paper than in the off-white, ivory (Scribe) paper. It is even darker in the lines I wrote using the Parker Jotter pen than the Manuscript Calligraphy pen. Shading can be seen in the lines of text written with the Manuscript pen.

On the ivory-colored paper, Orange Indien looked a bit pale, and it showed traces of yellow in the orange. The lines written with the Parker Jotter are thicker, but not darker than the Manuscipt-written text. There is more uniformity in color here, between the Manuscript (broad and italic nib) and Parker (round, medium nib)written text, but I'm not sure if that can be attributed to the paper color, or the fact that Scribe paper absorbed more ink, which explains the feathering and extensive bleed in the Scribe paper.

Orange Indien on Scribe notebook...

...and on Rhodia pad.

Here is the back page of Scribe paper with significant bleed when I used the medium-nibbed Parker Jotter. There is no feathering and bleed on the Rhodia paper, though.

Since I got another orange ink on my stash I thought of doing a comparison. Orange Indien and Caran d'Ache Saffron are two brightly-colored inks that will never fail to lift the mood of any note, letter, or card written with them. The two inks differ in their brightness and tones, as Orange Indien has more yellow to show, compared to the CdA Saffron which has more red.

Lastly, to complete this review, I tested the Orange Indien's drying time, against two slow-drying inks on medium-nibbed Parkers. I have not done this test before but I felt like doing it, so here it is. In case the text tags I added is not legible, the orange lines belong to Orange Indien, which on Rhodia paper took more than 30 seconds to dry. Next to Orange Indien, the lines belong to Diamine Burnt Sienna, written using a Parker Rialto. This ink dried in less than 25 seconds. The third set of lines belong to Private Reserve Copper Burst on a Parker 25 pen. It took almost a minute for Copper Burst to dry.

The other test I should have done but didn't is the water soak test. Perhaps I'll do one in my future reviews, but I held on for now. I don't think I need to do that yet, as my notebooks, journals and such are not that vulnerable to water and anything wet. :) I think the premise here is that if it's my Journal, or my "Notes" notebook, or my Starbucks daily planner, I am sure to take very good care of them, especially what's written inside. In a country like the Philippines where it rains for more than half of the year, I have learned how to think of ways to protect my stuff (read: laptop, notebooks, pens) from water. :) But I'll do watersoak tests in my future ink reviews.

A 30ml bottle of J. Herbin Orange Indien sells for US$10 at The Goulet Pen Company and PhP475 at Scribe Writing Essentials. (I have no affiliation with both companies, though.)


* From Wikipedia: Sapin-sapin is a layered glutinous rice and coconut dessert in Filipino cuisine. It is made from rice flour, coconut milk, sugar, water, and coloring with coconut flakes sprinkled on top. Sapin-sapin means "layers" and the dessert is recognizable for its layers, each colored separately. It has been referred to as "a blancmange of several colored layers, sweetened and flavored with coconut milk".