Pen Review: Goldspot x Narwhal Fountain Pen in Poseidon Blue

It’s been months since I’ve written a pen review! Before I start, I would like to say thank you to Goldspot, who provided this pen free of charge for review purposes.

Frankly, I’ve heard of Narwhal pens but figured it would be similar to PenBBS or other pens. The Narwhal Pen comes in several different colors; I was provided with Poseidon Blue. In terms of price, the Narwhal is between the TWSBI Eco ($30 USD) and TWSBI AL ($60 USD at $45 USD.

Unboxing: The pen arrived in a white box with a narwhal emblem on top. NARWHAL is printed on the sides in a pleasant rainbow gradient. You are also provided a TWSBI-style wrench for future disassembly purposes.

Design (5/5): The pen is well-balanced when unposted. Posted, it is a bit unwieldy. The diameter is 11 mm (my grail section size) and is around 5.24”. It weighs around 0.7 oz or 19.8 g uninked. When inked, I find that the pen is similar in weight to my TWSBI Prussian Blue. The piston filler is smooth and did not require greasing out of the box (which happens sometimes to my TWSBIS).

Color (5/5): This pen had amazing chatoyance and depth. The acrylic and swirls are a gorgeous deep blue. The color definitely has more of a wow factor in person than in photos.

Nib (5/5): Narwhal makes their nibs in-house. I believe the pens are offered only in F; my pen wrote closer to a Jowo M vs a Jowo true F. The nib is personalized with a cute narwhal engraving. In terms of writing, I gave this category a 5/5. I tested the pen out over the course of a week and did not experience any hard starts or skipping. This is one of the smoothest steel nibs I’ve had the pleasure of trying (rivaling Otto Hutt’s impeccable quality). A slight drawback is that it is only available in Fine. Other piston fillers, like TWSBI, are available in a range of nib sizes from XF to Stubs.

Ink Capacity (5/5): This pen is a piston filler which means..hurray ink capacity! It holds 1.5 mL which is a decent amount (TWSBI holds 2.5 mL). This means that it’s a great pen for taking exams!

Overall (5/5): In my opinion, this pen deserved a 5/5 rating. In terms of performance, the pen fell squarely between the TWSBI Eco and TWSBI AL. I was very pleasantly surprised by the build quality, balance, and writing performance. I especially liked that it wrote extremely smoothly, held a lot of ink, and did not dry out/have hard starts. This is a pen worthy of trying out at a future pen show or adding to your collection! (Which I will do ASAP if Narwhal comes out with a bright orange version…)

If you’re interested in purchasing this model, here is the link to Goldspot!

Written on Tomoe River Paper A5 and Taccia Ao-Guro Blue-Black