Noodler’s Boston Safety Pen in Black

Today’s review is of a new offering from the Noodler’s pen company. Noodler’s Pen is well known for their extensive variety of inks, offering a vast amount of colors, various water and cold resistance, politically inspired colors and logos, and the list goes on. They are also known for the variety of pens they offer, especially their flex nib pens. Some people love that they get to tinker and adjust their pen to fit their individual writing styles. Other people are not fans, since sometimes the pens need to be adjusted out of the box before they work well. My friend’s at Federalist Pen’s and Paper sent me the new Boston Safety Pen with a flex nib to try out to get my opinion. This pen will be given away after my review to one lucky reader. Please leave a comment with either a pen question or a comment about what you would like to see reviewed next and if you are on Instagram give me a follow @Pengeek13. Entries will close at 11:59 pm est on 4/27/18 and I will announce the winner on 4/28/18. Free shipping to the U.S. if the winner is located outside the U.S. I will pay the first $8.00 for shipping and ask you to help with the rest. Goodluck!!!!!

7/10 Packaging: The pen comes inside of a thin cardboard box with various drawings around the outside. I find this to be really entertaining. On one side there is the “Auspicious Catfish Dragon”, another side has a catfish on top of a whale with the saying “Whale of a catfish & whale of a pen!” The third side has a ying-yang symbol made out of catfish. The last side has the sayings: “Noodler’s Ink Writing instruments of the World”, “Free trade forever”, “Pens for all Noodler’s Inks… are pens with the greatest utility of any writing instruments” and lastly, “They sailed every sea, saw every shore, traded with all nations… from the Indus to the Cape, Amazon to the Arctic… the Yankee whaler was the first global citizen.” On one end there is a sticker with the model number 13001 and “Boston Safety Pen Black”. The pen is tucked away inside with an instruction sheet containing a brief explanation of the pen history, how to fill it and use it, and a link to a Youtube video explaining the maintenance and cleaning process as well as how to adjust the nib and feed.

 

8/10 First Thoughts: The pen looks like something you would find in an antique store or see in a Charlie Chaplin movie. It is reminiscent of the designs of the Waterman pens of the early 1900’s.

8/10 Design: The pen is made of ebonite with a unique body shape. It has a wide cap and similar diameter barrel end with a thin middle section and matching bottom finial. The cap and body have “Boston Safety Pen  Noodler’s Ink Company” engraved on them. The clip tapers down to a teardrop shaped end and is engraved with “Noodler’s Ink Co.” The clip on this pen is slightly bent to the left but I figure this may be due to shipping or just a miss when it was made. The barrel has the threads at the end of the grip section which is nice as they are out of the way and act as a finger stop. The nib retracts in and out of the body by holding the bottom wide part of the body and pushing up while rotating clockwise. The cap has a small rod the stops you from capping the pen with the nib extended as well.

 

8/10 Nib Performance: The nib, when retracted, sits back in the body in the ink so it stays wet and ready for use. I was excited to try out this nib, since it is the first flex nib I have had an extended period to put through its paces. The nib is surprisingly smooth and needed no adjustments out of the box. The feed keeps up well but lets you know when you have flexed too far as it railroads and skips. This is remedied by a simple tap or two of the nib on the page. The nib has “Noodler’s” on one tine and “Ink Co” on the other. I like that the engraving runs from the tip of the nib back towards the body, most nibs are engraved before the tines and this simple feature helps set the nib apart from other nibs.

6/10 Filling System: The pen is filled via eyedropper and holds about 1.5ml of ink. I initially filled the pen until the nib was covered, about 2ml, but this caused the pen to leak on a regular basis. I spoke to a few friends that have this pen and they all advised that if you only fill 1.5ml or just under the pen should not leak. I cleaned and refilled the pen and put just under 1.5ml and I was still getting a bit of leaking around the barrel threads and burping from carrying the pen in my pen case which was a bit of an inconvenience. This could be due to the ink used, but I think that if a small o-ring was added at the end of the threads at the barrel opening, it would make a better seal and keep the ink from leaking around the threads. The only other drawback is that there is no ink window so it is hard to tell how much ink there is left in the barrel. Cleaning and filling are simple and are both made easier with a pipette.

7/10 Value: MSRP is $68.00 but if you contact Federalist Pens and Paper they will give you their current sale price.

44/60 Overall: This is a really impressive tribute to an older pen style. It was fun to show it off at work and the flex nib added some nice flair to my daily writing and showed off all the shading and sheening my inks offered. There are a few drawbacks to this design but at the end of the day, this is a pen to enjoy and play with, maybe even get your fingers a bit inky. It might not be perfect for work, but I think it would be great for writing, journaling, or calligraphy practice due to its light weight, large ink supply, and flex nib.

Specs:

Name: Noodler’s Boston Safety Pen

Design: Retractable Nib Safety Pen

Length: 158.75 mm (6 ¼ in) capped and 133.35mm (5 ¼ in) uncapped nib extended

Posted: 171.45mm (6 ¾ in)

Diameter: 11mm (.43 in) at the thinnest and 13mm (.51 in)  at the widest

Weight: 18 grams filled

Nib: Stainless Steel flex

Filling System: Eyedropper

Pros: Great flexible nib, large ink supply, cool design

Cons: No ink window, potential burping and leaking issues, long body.

In the same price range:

Conklin Duragraph

Lamy Aion

Conklin Duraflex