Rotring Core Lysium Fountain Pen

A leading manufacturer of writing implements, Rotring has always offered superior quality products that are works of art in themselves. With the Core series of pens and pencils, they've outdone themselves by combining style with practicality in their design.

I first came across the Core series fountain pens last July while stalking the Golden Edition Parker Jotter. I decided to get one when I saw a set including the fountain pen, rollerball pen, mechanical pencil, and pushbutton ballpoint pen for under $30 on eBay. The pencil and ballpoint were great, but the fountain pen became my favorite.

The basic design sense of the series involves a rubberized coating over much of the pen body with contrast color "core" exposed for aesthetics in certain parts of the pen/cil body. For the fountain pen there are also holes along the pen body to keep tabs on your supply of ink.

The Core series has different color schemes that come in blues, black, red, orange, and grays. The Lysium line reflects the color scheme pictured above with sporty Tarheels light blue accenting metallic and matte gray cores. In comparison to the rest of my pen/cil collection, they really stand out and look cool.

The body of the fountain pen is entirely plastic, except for the nib, and really lightweight. I find the cap to be really heavy when posted on the body and it really throws the pen "off balance" for me. To me it's no problem to leave the cap on the table as it serves as a good place to rest the fountain briefly between uses, thanks to the fountain pen's narrower triangular cross-section. The same triangular grip also makes it comfortably impossible to not hold the pen the correct way.

The Core Lysium accepts standard Rotring/Waterman long and short cartridges (you can store two of the short cartridges in the pen body) as well as use an ink converter. I used the pen with an ink coverter and Parker blck Quink and found that the ink kind of accumulated in the plastic seams and crevices around the nib and really looked bad on the light blue plastic. So I would recommend a cartridge with the lighter colored Core fountains pens.

Core fountain pens go for around $20 - $25 shipped on eBay, but if you shop around you can get one for $15 shipped. Not bad for a pen that used to MSRP for $40 each. With so many color schemes to choose from, the coolness factor and the functionality of this pen make it fun pen you won't be afraid to use because of the price.