For those of you who like slim and light pens, I the Esprit is a very nice pen. And it happily fits your MTN Pen holder. The Esprit was released as the next avatar to the numbered models, rotring 400 in this case. It was a finite displacement for the haloed red-ring from the section of 400 to its cap end, apart from the flattened ends. The fountain pen comes with a standard steel nib. A corresponding rollerball, ballpoint and a mechanical pencil were also released. The smaller sized telescoping Esprit Mini series came later and became Parker Esprit, soon after acquisition. Lamy CP1 pen does bear some common characteristics with the Esprit.
DESIGN (5/6)
The Esprit comes in anodised aluminium make with steel or plastic fittings. Till now I have seen two finishes of this - Tourmaline Green and Black. The minis came with a lot more colour options.
The pen is a slender cylinder with a lovely red ring at the finial. Once you pull the cap, it does come off with an audible click, and you have a ribbed metallic section. The grip section has a tapered end, and there rests the rotring steel nib.
The cap is light with a snap-on mechanism. A tension fit clip starts with the trademarked red ring at the finial. The clip carries the rotring brand name.
FILLING SYSTEM (5/6)
It’s an international cartridge converter system. The construction is good with a steel insert inside the section and another runs the threads for the aluminium barrel.
A Schmidt/FCD or rotring converter will fit snugly into the section vis-a-vis other standard international converters like Waterman.
NIB - ALL THAT MATTERS (5/6)
The nib is made of stainless steel and comes in a standard rotring design. I came across only F & M widths for this pen. All these nibs have been wet and generally smooth.
A no-frills design of the nib sans any breather hole gives it a characteristic industrial look, besides the metallic make of the pen.
The branding and nib specifications are imprinted on either sides of the nib.
A standard black plastic feed sans any fins and a big feeder hole define its minimalism.
PHYSICS OF IT (4/6) – RELATIVELY SPEAKING
The pen is light and slim. You can post the pen as well and it does not feel any more heavier than 15g. The grip section tapers away from the barrel cross section as it becomes relatively thinner. I feel that I am used to thicker sections for quite some time now.
- Uncapped Length ~ 12.7 cm
- Posted Length ~ 17.3 cm
- Nib Leverage ~ 1.6 cm
Uncapped and posted pictures of the Esprit beside a ruler run below for your reference.
ECONOMIC VALUE(6/6)
I have no idea of its original retail price. I had bought the pen at a cost of USD 12 off ebay. Since it has been now discontinued, some stationery stores in Mumbai carry at least a few pieces of Esprit or a similar looking 400 model.
OVERALL (5/6)
This steel nib has a hint of feedback with a nice wet flow. The medium nib is stiff and does not have any line variation among horizontal and vertical strokes. These wet lines take almost 35 secs to dry a wet Diamine majestic blue on MD paper. And I find some of the fine nibs running as wide as the mediums.
Thank you for going through the review.
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