(This pen was provided to me for review purposes by my friend, Steve, who is not affiliated with any company. The following review reflects my own opinions and mine alone.)
The Conklin Endura pen is a utilitarian acrylic acetate fountain pen. The pen was manufactured in three colors, black/white, maroon/taupe, and green/black. I was provided a black/white one for review.
The pen looks very attractive to me, with its complete acrylic construction and limited gold accents. The pen is made of an acrylic acetate and has a good amount of chatoyance (cat’s eye effect). The pen has two gold accent pieces, the clip and the cap ring. The pen is polished to a glossy finish. The complete acrylic body of this pen is definitely nice, but some may find it a bit cheap.
The pen feels quite well built and solid as long as it is inked. There is a small flaw, where the cap can wiggle around even though screwed in completely. It is only a minor annoyance. I’m not sure if just this pen had a problem or if every pen is like this. Since this is not my pen, I did not contact the manufacturer about this issue.
The pen’s clip itself is very springy but is not actually spring loaded. It is pivoting off a thin arc of metal in the center of the clip. I wouldn’t stress the clip too much, but it should stand quite a bit of a beating.
This pen comes in at 5.5” capped, and 6.7” posted. It is quite a long pen, so I normally would not post it. However, the balance remains acceptable when posted. It comes out to a total of 20g, so it is quite light. I actually find this size and weight to be very comfortable in my hands. Note that my hands are a bit above average size, so this will give you a feel of the pen.
This pen is offered in a Fine (F), Medium (M), and stub nib. I was sent an M nib. The nib was a tiny bit scratchy due to the tines being misaligned. I put realigned them and the pen was much smoother. It has a good amount of feedback, but not enough to be scratchy. It is also quite wet, using a normal ink. The nib has a little bit of spring to it, but I would not go very far, for fear of springing it.
Being a standard #6 sized nib, it can be easily swapped for other #6 jobs (except Noodler’s). The nib and feed are friction fit into a nib collar and pull straight out. The nib/feed collar is screwed into the section of the pen and can also be unscrewed, to swap the entire unit if necessary.
This pen fills with a standard international cartridge and converter. The pen includes a high quality screw-in type converter as opposed to the normal push-in type. This screw-in system prevents the converter for accidentally dislodging while inside the pen. I’ve had that happen quite a few times and I wish more manufactures would adopt the same types. This pen will fit both long and short standard international cartridges which push in directly.
MSRP for this pen is set at $125 for all three colors of the fountain pen. Personally, I find this price to be a bit high for a cartridge/converter pen, but it can probably be found for cheaper online. At full MSRP, you can get into some very decent piston filling pens and even some vacuum fillers. You may even run into some cheaper gold nibs. Compared to the Conklin Herringbone, I prefer the latter for its metal construction and solid feel.