Review: Franklin-Christoph "Christoph" Music Nib @1901FC

What's under the caaaaaap...

EPIC. I have been itching to try this nib ever since I saw everyone else posting about it since they were fortunate enough to attend the DC Supershow 2014. Thank you Franklin-Christoph for this stellar nib.

Yep, Sailor Jentle Apricot. 

ABOUT

Nib material: Steel
Price: $35.00USD
Where to buy: Franklin-Christoph

PACKAGING

I love the way this nib was packaged - it comes in a small hard plastic tube with two rubber caps on each end, containing the nib and feed unit safely. I love it because it's versatile and can be used to store whatever #6 nib I swap out from any existing pen to put this nib in (in this case, my Franklin-Christoph Model 02 Intrinsic Smoke & Ice).

APPEARANCE

The Franklin-Christoph "Christoph" music nib is a 1.9 mm steel nib without tipping. The nib has two slits and three tines. The nib comes with its own feed in a nib collar, because the slits draw ink from both the feed channel and the comb as well. The nib is stamped with an Old English capital C, and instead of the FC logo, there are four diamonds engraved in the nib. It's quite pretty and looks rather magical. This is a whopper of a wide nib.

PERFORMANCE

I fitted the nib into my Franklin-Christoph Model 02 Intrinsic fountain pen. The nib is a #6 and fits into pens that accommodate #6 nibs. This includes Franklin-Christoph Models 02, 03, 19, 33, 40 Panther, and 66 Stabilis, with more to come. I picked one of my favourite inks: Sailor Jentle Apricot (also because some of my other music nibs were inked with this).

The Christoph Music nib offers wide downstrokes and thinner horizontal lines, offering lovely line variation, but also allows for writing music! As described by Franklin-Christoph, the nibs are not iridium tipped, but they start as a wide piece of steel, and are then smoothed and polished. They say the tips will not last forever as iridium will but you can expect a couple decades of constant use.

With all this in mind, I took the nib for a test run. ... WOW. WOW. LOVE. Fell in love instantly. This 1.9 mm bad boy is crazy smooth and is a sweet, amazing wet writer. Holy smokes. Usually broad stub nibs like this (often 1.5 mm and up) run dry - something I experience with my TWSBI 1.5 mm stub - but this one? No way. The flow keeps up easily and so well, but it doesn't blob ink onto the page, leaving you with excessive bleed through or unexpected feathering. In fact, it's just a smooth application of ink onto the page, wherever the nib makes contact with the paper. The nib is very firm though, so while it's very lovely, wet, and smooth, it has no spring to it.

In the Model 02 Intrinsic, it's just perfect, because the pen has a great shape and wonderful weight and balance, so together, it's a dreamy combination.

Now, another thing to note is, because the nib delivers a completely consistent flow across the entire tip, it changes the way inks shade. I have to write a little slower to allow the ink some more time to pool in order to achieve pronounced shading. That doesn't mean the nib prevents shading - it just changes the way the ink is put on the paper so I have to adjust to that.

Sailor Jentle Apricot.

PROS & CONS

OVERALL

No brainer, without a doubt, this is a nib you must try. It's a pleasure to use and so much fun to practice calligraphy with. Lovely, wet, and at $35USD, I think it's fairly priced and affordable. Of course, you need a pen that will accommodate the nib. If you don't have one, you may as well pick up a Franklin-Christoph Model 02 Intrinsic while you're at it. Smoke & Ice model.