JINHAO 35 Metal Fountain Pen Ink Pen (Black, Extra Fine Nib 0.38mm)

For an extra fine nib, this writes surprisingly smoothly. The pen looks minimalistic, with the only flair being the tapered end of the barrel. I was hoping for the unadorned nib shown in the product photo, but ended up with what must be a new batch of nibs showing the horses and chariot logo and brand name. Nothing else seems to be different.The overall quality of the metal barrel and cap is good. The clip on mine is slightly loose, with a tiny curl of the residual black coating protruding. It's easily scrapped off, but then the steel beneath starts to peek out, confirming a review i saw elsewhere that the black coating can be damaged by sctaches eventually. Doesn't bother me, though.The pen came with a cartridge converter that is the antithesis of luxury - it's all plastic. I had some Lamy and Parker cartridges lying around so decided to use them instead. The first Lamy one I tried fit in with no problem. Ink promptly saturated the feed and the pen wrote well. Parker cartridges are very similar in diameter so i guess they will fit, too.The pen seems apparently Lamy-inspired. Indeed my Lamy Italic nib fits on this pen perfectly but I haven't tried the other way round. The cartridge converter, however, doesn't fit in Lamy pens. The notch of the converter is too short (and the internal diameter must be just a little too wide) and will not stay in place in the lamy pens I have tried.This Jinhao should prove a reliabe writing companion, and can happily take those spare Lamy nibs you might have, all for a very reasonable price.Update: fitting the Jinhao nib on a Lamy feed was a bad idea: it was an extraordinarily tight fit although the resulting cross still wrote well. I had to use pliers to get the nib off afterwards, and doing so sent the nib flying across the room, never to be found again. Had I been less careful, I would certainly have damaged the Lamy feed, too. Consequently, the new Jinhao has to bear the 1.1 mm italic nib from Lamy for the foreseeable future. May this be a warning to all who might consider similar attempts!

I got the pen October '23. I didn't have any issues with the converter being stuck or glued in.The metal has a nice feel to it, lid snaps on tightly, body unscrews easily to access the converter, the nib does look a bit scuffed like it wasn't finished properly (photo uploaded). I've noticed that sometimes when I un-cap the pen some ink will splatter up onto the grip, possibly from the snap of the seal? Nothing some tissue won't clean up easily though.I flushed the pen with clean water to clear out the manufacturer's test ink before I loaded up my own. Filled it with diamine jet black but it was writing quite grey/ desaturated (photo compared to my TWSBI Eco with the same ink). Tried flushing the pen with ink to fix but no major improvements.I emptied the ink out, filled a cup with water and a smidge of soap and flushed it with that a couple times, rinsed it with clean water to remove any soap and bubbles, inked it back up, and the ink was coming out properly black after :)The nib was too tight imo. I was having constant issues of the pen hard starting or drying up if I stopped writing for more than 30 seconds. I don't have a shim so I went in with the corner of a post it note (no I'm not proud of this) and widened the tines. Too much. So now I have to try to tighten them back up again haha!Once you get the pen started it's lovely to write with, but the rapid drying out and hard starts have lost it a star. For a pen that cost me £8, I don't mind!

Build quality is very impressive. Supplied ink suction thing works great, does not leak.My pen has fine nib, it writes very smooth and doesn’t leave gaps when I write fancy fast swirly letters. For £8, what a brilliant beautiful pen. Obviously expensive pens you’re paying for the name. They compare to this equally well. Recommend and will buy another if I drop it on its nib !

I bought this pen after reading many positive reviews as I wanted a cheap fountain pen to take to work and not worry much about losing it. The moment I first used it, I could see why people enjoyed writing with it. I loved it!I have been using it for almost a month now.Unfortunately, within a couple of days, the little cap at the end of the pen became unstable and then came completely off. Yes, you can put it back but it doesn't stay in place which is really annoying.Within less than two weeks I started noticing a small cap between the pen cap and the body of the pen whe cover it (please check the photos). I couldn't tell what was wrong until a few days ago the inside of the cap came out when I opened the pen to use! I can see now it a plastic thing that is screwed inside, yet again didn't expect it to be this flimsy or sure how to put back.The other thing is now I can see ink drops on the tip when I open the pen and things can get messy because of them.I wish it could have lasted longer. The extreme fine tip feels great to write with. However, I would advise the pay a little more and get something else. I got the parker IM which is double the price (yet still under £20) and its fine nib feels great. Was skeptical about it as I wanted an extra fine one, but I am loving it. I have moved to it now and will see how long it will last.