This is an engineering puzzle, each time I get to enjoy it, I keep finding small stuff that often is overlooked like the fact that those pins can also agitate the ink if you have a more exotic shimmering ink, you can use the twisting motion of the piston to agitate with those pins like a propeller the ink inside … brilliant though behind this one. My voice often pulls these stunts … I’m already feeling better today

This pen it’s just a small part of what there is to come from Gravitas and oh boy I’m I excited to be part of this 🙌🏻🙌🏻

With some which are alike to a conid, like the overall principle but beside this, the construction and the use of materials is completely different

Much appreciated Scot! I hope you are well :D Well my voice is doing better now .. not perfect but still ok :D

Hey there my dear 🙌🏻 although I’m back … my voice is yet to be back :))

Couldn’t be more better described - I only knew of the EF to BB range, is the italic in gold ? Ground into a stub ? Or how?

@@pen.venture yes, the italic is gold, ground from a B nib and it's glorious. Ben had them in his members area!

:)) I have yet to gain access to that treasure vault of a member area :))

Enjoy it :D its a wonderful writer

@@pen.venture Got it. Amazing nib & pen - can highly recommend it!

It is. Period.

I wouldn't use the word "leak"to describe the dripping ink, rather it's a normal part of the filling sequence when having one of these types of a filling system. Dont know why one would pay for a complicated filling system like this one on a pen and then not use it how is meant to be used but yet the rod comes out separate.

Yup :D It fits a Monty nib unit :D ... yup, my voice seen better days but ill come back to its normal days soon

I assume, that they are white O-rings stained blue from the ink previous used? There is a white O-ring used on the section that threads the nib onto the body. Is there a difference between the white and black O-rings used if this is the case?

:D there is no difference, the pen I demonstrated this on is belonging to Ben Walsh and its one that was lent to me for video purposes and I just forgot to notice it had different color o rings - not stained but blue blue color. The white o ring used on the section is much smaller and different to the one used for the piston (black one)

Conid did not invent this system. It's a much older design.

Conid still makes the bulkfiller. They just do drop now. There was one yesterday actually.

Conid didnt invented the system, they have, patent on a particular link in between some parts of the system (if im not mistaking it has to do with the use of threads to link the piston head to the rod)

the overwhelming number of orders and short staff combined with problems that are rather personal to Ben - resulted in such a scattered and segmented process, what I can tell you is that there is a big change set in motion and soon order by order all these will be settled and the new way of operating at Gravitas will be at the level of what we consider a standard at Pen Venture - 24h fulfilment with shipping for orders/customer support/emails answered 24h max 26h - availability and openness to each customer and each order. Ben will be focusing on creating and QC more and more in this new operating plan, the rest of the team will be focusing on the online operations - I cant share more but at a point it will come and an official announcement

@@pen.venture Thank you for the good news and encouragement. That's as good as the news that the first order of 3 Gravitas fountain pens from pen venture started shipping yesterday. I also look forward to seeing the Torque - Red ordered from Gravitas soon.

​@@pen.ventureI wonder, isn't the Gravitas pen site now a ghost selling site? There are many complaints that the people who bought it 4 months ago have not contacted me about anything... I haven't done anything about it even after a month. I still haven't heard anything about it soon. I feel like I've been swindled. I think we should seriously check with the credit card company to see if the cancellation request is accepted. I don't know what the problem is, but it's really too irresponsible and I don't think it's a reliable Gravitas pen even if we reopen it.

I agree, when having this system is about making one full barrel and enjoying the huge amount of ink you get to enjoy. System while it works on the same principle as the conid it has some things that are different : it is using latches and pins to capture the piston, the piston head is made in metal with 2 o rings while the conid is made in plastic, the rod and base plate is much thicker and allows for extra strength to be applied without risk of failure and a few more. I think even conid followed the same patent from 18 something century patent for a threaded piston

@@pen.venture There is a misunderstanding about the Conid patent here Emy, because a bunch of people who clearly never read either the old patent or the Conid patent spread this "information" when PenBBS copied Conid with their second version of the PenBBS 355 and Conid objected to this; you'll notice the first version of the 355 did not infringe on Conid's patent, and Conid did not complain about the first version, because the first 355 used a clicking mechanism instead of a reverse lock to affix the piston to the back of the barrel. Let me explain. The old patent describes a fountain pen with a piston that has threads in the front, and a rod that has threads which can screw into the piston, just like the bulkfiller. What this patent does not mention is how the piston attaches to the back of the barrel with a reverse thread, so there is no mechanism that stops the piston from just spinning around inside the barrel when you try to unthread the rod from the piston(the first version of the 355 shows why this is important). This is what Conid patented. Their patent describes a reverse lock(it doesn't specifically say "thread", so hooks are also covered under the patent) that resists the piston while the rod is being detached from the piston. So it's not the threaded piston+rod combination that they patented(this was patented in the old patent), it's the reverse locking mechanism at the back of the barrel that stops the piston from spinning. I don't think making the mechanism out of different materials really counts, it's still the same mechanism. You can have a brass piston filler or a plastic piston filler, but it's still a piston filler.

@@osirisgolad as corect and on point this is - I want just naming the difference in between them, not counting them as definitive points where the patent is or not infringed - these things are way more better described by you, I just corroborated what I’ve hear while all these years in the hobby

@@osirisgoladThanks for this great explanation!

@@pen.venture Of course, none of this is criticism directed towards anything you said; the mechanisms obviously have their differences and people who watch the video want to know about them, even if they are irrelevant when it comes to the patent in particular. I only explained the situation with the patent because you mentioned this story you have heard around the community(I believe it first popped up in a Fountain Pen Network thread), so I thought you would want to know the real story. You did a great job with the video, taking the time to zoom in on the mechanism so people can actually see with their own eyes how the mechanism operates in detail. It's kind of irrelevant now anyway because the patent is about to expire or has already expired, but I don't like that this narrative exists in the fountain pen community that Conid's patent is invalid and they are just patent trolls. Francis Goossens(Fountainbel) invented something and now a lot of people are pretending that he just copied an old patent. I think people were irritated because they couldn't buy a bulkfiller since Conid couldn't produce enough of them, so when PenBBS made a bulkfiller that people could actually get their hands on(even though it infringed on Conid's patent), people wanted to believe this story without checking if it was actually true. It was wishful thinking, in a way; people believe what they want to be true, not what is actually true. I just think this isn't fair to Conid and Fountainbel, so it would be nice if we could all stop repeating this misinformation about someone who contributed a really cool invention to the fountain pen world, which is extremely rare these days; especially when it comes to filling mechanisms.

Well this is not a review it’s a demonstration how to use it how to operate it - as stated in the beginning. Wen there will be an video regarding its overall shape / proportions / handwriting sample / nib testing - I’ll be called an review and it will state those facts

@@pen.venture quote 'navigate through its features' - I consider the dimensions of a pen to be features!

Well when there will be a review you’ll know - pretty sure it’s easy to find these facts online everywhere. The point of the demonstration is to understand how it works and not to convince someone to make a purchase or not, it’s pure function and that we’ve delivered

@@pen.venture Funny! I looked around and found no sizes anywhere... until I looked at your own website, and there it was. For those who find this is important information prior to considering a purchase, the pen is 133mm open, 175mm posted (doesn't say how well it posts), and 144mm closed.

:)) then you looked exactly where they should be - anyway I’m preparing a full blown video based on shape / size / side by side comparison / writing sample / at the end some peritoneal opinions and reflections after owning one for some time - I made the more practical guide first because including this bit would make that video too long, while trying to not have people damage pens while not knowing how to operate the system (yes I had video calls just to show this pen and how it’s working) I took the decision to make a more practical guide with its operations and then we will have a proper review based on what there is to know ahead of a purchase. PS while it’s posting - it’s not going to be viable because it makes it back heavy, since it’s not a super long pen I would say in small and mid size hands would be perfect - large hands will demand posting and in posting it wouldn’t feel as great

Should be a problem if the pen was yours, but as far as I see and use it, looks good and is smooth as butter 😄