It's a Retro 1951 party!
In this article, I'll be reviewing two of Retro 1951's ballpoint pens - Operation Kindness, Edition IV. I loved them as soon as I saw them, especially the cat one because I like to donate knitted and crocheted toys to Cats Protection.
I am also a crazy cat lady!
If you have read my review of the Tornado fountain pens, you will already know that Retro 1951 go above and beyond when packaging their pens. They were swaddled in bubble wrap, and the pens themselves came in thick cardboard tubes, which double as pen stands.
All the cartoon cats and dogs that decorate the tubes are just adorable, and the bright colours are eye-catching as well as fun! Another thing I really love about this company is the solid metal construction of their products. They have a pleasant weight in the hand, but aren't too heavy to write with. They feel well-made, which is always a good thing!
I would like to address a complaint that I came across online when reading another pen blog (sorry, I can't recall the name of the site now!)
The lady who runs the blog said that her Tornado ballpoint has a ridge right at the top of the nose cone, and as a result it did not sit flush with the barrel. It made an otherwise perfect pen somewhat uncomfortable to use and it didn't look great either.
I think this was posted a while back, and I'm not sure if Retro 1951 saw that review but either way they seem to have fixed the flaw. I'm glad of this since a ridge such as the one described would definitely annoy me.
The knurled top, by the way, is easy to grip and turns smoothly. Efficient mechanisms are important!
Though I'm not the biggest fan of dogs, the dog pen is cute and I tried it first. It wrote beautifully to start with. The ballpoint flew across the page with ease, and I say this as somebody who refuses to use anything but a Parker pen and Quink refills.
Then something not so good happened. It started to skip. I write fast, so I slowed down and tried again, but it carried on skipping anyway. I decided to consult the manual that came with it - unfortunately it didn't give me any instruction beyond advising me to replace the ballpoint refill, but it did provide me with a valuable piece of information. Any Parker style refill will fit in the pen.
The nose cone unscrewed anti-clockwise very easily, and I pulled out the dodgy refill. I then grabbed a Parker Quink one from my desk drawer, placed the spring from the old refill on to it, and screwed everything back together.
After that, I tested out the quick fix. No skipping, just a pleasant writing experience. The perfect size for me to grip, good mechanism at the top, and a happy design.
But if all the Retro 1951 refills skip, then that means you would have to buy new refills for all your Retro pens for them to work when you first recieve them, which is Not Good!
So I decided that I must write a page of with the cat pen (the other pen started skipping after one page). If that started skipping too, the refills must be unreliable and need better quality control or a complete redesign.
However, the refill in the cat pen has only skipped once after writing over four very full pages at my normal writing speed. It has given me a consistent line and it glides over the paper.
Take from this what you will - I would need to test more refills to conclusively declare them all defective, but there seems to be a chance of occasionally getting a bad one. This goes for most refills, to be fair, I've even had bad Parker ones before.
One thing that made me trust Retro 1951 after this hiccup was the fact that they have designed the pen to take other brands of refill. If they were solely focused on profit, they would have made it so you can only use their own refills, but you are pretty much free to use any you want. This is especially useful if you can just pick them up in your local supermarket.
Ballpoints can be hit or miss with me, but I think I will regularly use these ones because they are so pleasant to write with. They don't give me wrist pain or blisters like disposable pens, and they are the perfect width for my hands. Even though I don't use pen clips very much, the clips on these are springy and will be easy to use if I ever need to.
Also, proceeds from the sale of these pens go to Operation Kindness, who 'care for homeless cats and dogs in a no-kill environment until each is adopted into responsible homes.' They are a '501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and we recieve no government funding. All of our income comes from donations from individuals and businesses, adoptions, and fundraising events.'
If you want a good, solid ballpoint pen that also helps furry friends in need, this could be the perfect choice for you! It would also make a great gift for any animal lovers in your life.
Disclaimer: Retro 1951 provided these products for reviewing. All opinions expressed in my reviews are my own.
Well tested and well stated. Thanks!