Reviewed on this page:

Avantime    Pericles

I bought my Avantime from PenBid for $30, half of the list price. The pen is much prettier in person, in the red-orange finish, which is actually a shimmery rust, the perfect fall pen. The matte finish seems like it could get nicked up pretty easily, so I must be careful when near a hard floor. The cap clicks onto the body and posts easily. This pen is much bigger than my usual vintages, at 14cm capped and *17*cm with the cap posted. Think of a long slim cigar with a flat end. It is medium in weight and not unwieldy however. I prefer white metal trim, which contrasts beautifully with the matte rust color. I also like the look of the ribbed clip, though it's not very user-friendly for clipping to things.

The clear section is a nifty feature. I enjoy seeing how the nib fits into it. This pen is cart/converter of course. The Visconti box is nice, but the pen came with converter only and no carts. I was hoping to try some Visconti ink, but maybe it doesn't come in carts. The pen takes international carts, so it immediately received a drink of Pelikan red-orange.

The nib is, alas, nothing special, white-gold-plated and stiff though very smooth. The Visconti etching on it is pretty though. The feed is very flat and flush with the nib, more like the shape of many vintage feeds. (I guess I am used to the big old Eversharp Symphony feeds lately.) The width of the fine nib size is satisfactory to me, akin to a Sheaffer fine, with a medium and reliable, even flow. I prefer XF but haven't been able to find out if Visconti offers a switch, but I wouldn't look forward to sending it overseas for that. The pen's feel in hand reminds me a bit of the Levenger True Writer, a reliable but non-exciting writer.

Buy this pen for the sleek mod look and pretty finish, but not for creating stylish handwriting and not for full price.

For more on the Avantime, visit the Beginner's Guide section of the site.

Visconti Pericles 2000 reviewed by John

I bought this pen a couple of years ago as a kind of entry level into the world of Italian pens. I owned no Italians up to that point and I thought this might be an amusing way into this segment of the market. It seemed to offer an outstanding value for the price with its celluloid body. Italian celluloids typically sell for much more than the $50 I paid.  The body of the pen is quite attractive with swirls of color that catch the light when you move the pen around.

Despite this "luxury" feature, the stainless steel nib was a definite reminder that the Pericles is intended as an entry level model of pen. Still, the nib had a nice swirling design inscribed on it unlike most other stainless nibs, which tend to be quite plain.

After living with the pen for a while, I cannot recommend the pen at all. Indeed, I wonder what Visconti was thinking when they designed this pen. First, quality control for this pen left a lot to be desired. I had to send the pen back twice because the pen would pretty much not write at all. The third try produced a pen that did write, but not smoothly or well (this is with a fine nib).

The design of the pen itself is also quite bad. The cap is insanely top heavy making the pen very poorly balanced with the cap posted. Not that you would actually want to do this. The cap posts via friction on the body of the pen, but there's apparently not enough friction since the cap would routinely fall off the end of the pen while I was using it.

The silver trim on the pen (and on the section) looks nice,  but gets fingerprinted and tarnished quite easily. Further, on cold days, the cold of the metal section on one's fingertips makes the pen positively unpleasant to use.

Bottom line: Avoid this pen.

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