WatermanAllure Fountain Pen, Fine Point, 0.5 mm, Camouflage Barrel, Blue Ink

Wow, the reviews on this pen are all over the place. Several people seem to have gotten something besides the pen described on this item page. Some people obviously unscrewed the pen barrel and section not realizing this has a snap on cap and thought they got a defective pen. (People like that really should avoid fountain pens, sorry.) Some people got a pen with a box marked "Made in China" and some did not.This pen was around $15 US when I bought it. I added a $6 Waterman ink converter. I'm reviewing this pen as a $20 +/- pen. I'm not reviewing it by comparing it to $100+ pens. You don't buy a Chevrolet and expect it to have the handling and performance features of an Aston Martin, Lamborghini or Ferrari. If you want that kind of thing you have to pay for it, the same goes for pens. The problem is that it seems the sort of pretentious pen snobbery you often see in pen reviews expects a $20 budget level fountain pen to live up to the ideals of a $1,000+ solid-gold-flex-nibbed luxury masterpiece of pen art. You should ignore that kind of person, they're only trying to cover up their inadequacies.I saw this Waterman pen in camouflage and had to have it, whether it wrote well or not at all. It just looked cool and being as it's a Waterman branded pen, I was already pretty certain it would at least write in a manner that any fountain pen should.My pen has no manufacturer's point of origin marking on it anywhere, I examined it very thoroughly and carefully with a jewelers loupe. I took the cap off and unscrewed the section so I could shine a light down both barrel and cap. It has a "W" Waterman logo at the top of the clip and it says "Waterman" on the steel cap band. The nib has two contour lines that follow the tine edges, a "W" Waterman logo, the word "Waterman" and an "F". That's it, no other markings at all.The box it came in was not marked "Made in China", it was not marked made in anywhere but it did have the usual "Waterman Paris" engraving on the top of the box. That doesn't mean the pen was made there, that's the home office of Waterman.The pen appears to be made of brass with plastic inserts and covered in either a baked enamel or paint in a camouflage pattern. So far there are no signs of chipping, scratches or wear of any sort. It is neither heavy nor particularly light for a fountain pen. Fountain pen weight, or heft, has little to nothing to do with quality so don't be fooled by people complaining a pen feels "light and cheap". Really expensive pens can be made of "precious resin" which is just a kind of plastic, and weigh almost nothing un-inked.It has a "fine" sized European nib line width and it looks like a #5 or so nib. A "fine" European nib is in the same ballpark as a Japanese "medium" nib width. Give or take a bit, because there really is no set standard for this sort of thing. The European sizes tend to run one larger than the same designation in a Japanese pen. I prefer a Japanese medium or a European fine so this is just dandy with me as far as line width goes. I find that size nib does a good job of "looking like it was written with a fountain pen" while not dumping so much ink that it bleeds through on cheap paper and thus can be used on pretty much anything.I bought a Waterman ink converter to go with it and tossed the pre-loaded cartridge it came with in a drawer where it has a lot of company with just about every sort of its brethren. I don't use cartridges as a rule, I have lots of bottled ink and just can't be bothered using up an included cartridge then cleaning out that ink so I can use a converter and bottled ink. If I ever need a cartridge due to a converter failure I have accumulated a bunch over the years.If I have to fly somewhere I usually toss a couple cartridges in my briefcase/luggage just as an emergency backup to my travel ink. Pro Tip: Don't carry a loaded fountain pen in your shirt pocket or purse when flying on an airplane and if you must do so, be sure that you have put every molecule of ink into the pen that it will take. If there's no air to expand in the cartridge, converter or reservoir and feed the pen won't spew ink everywhere as the aircraft climbs and the cabin pressure drops. Before you board the aircraft, expel any remaining air and be certain the feed and nib are loaded. Some pens this is not possible to do, like the Pilot Metro or Parker 51 with the stock converter that comes with them. Don't fly with those pens loaded or you are going to have a mess.I filled the pen up with Parker Blue Black Quink Permanent, cleared the excess ink and let 'er rip. I like Parker BB Permanent because I'm old school and want my ink to look like something that came out a fountain pen, not a fruit basket. I also like Waterman Serenity Blue, some of the more tasteful Pilot Iroshizukus, a couple of Noodler's Bullet Proof inks (not a huge fan of Noodler inks, with apologies to Nathan Tardif) and for archival applications I use the Rohrer & Klingner iron galls.The pen wrote immediately with no skipping, hard starting or any problems at all. That was about a couple months ago, I think. It has written as well as it did the first time every time I've picked it up since. This is one of the marks of a well made pen. A pen is for writing, it should write when you put it to paper, if it doesn't write and you have to fiddle with it that's not a good thing. You have every right to expect a pen with the name Waterman on it to write when it touches paper. This pen is in no way disappointing in that department.Conversely, few to no pens can sit unused with ink in them for long periods (months or years) and still write when you pick them up. The ink dries out in the feed and nib no matter how good the cap seal is. Then you have to clean the pen. If you're not going to use a pen for a long period of time it's best to dump its ink (back in the bottle is fine) and clean it thoroughly. There are videos all over the 'net on how to clean a fountain pen. That way when you want to use it again it's ready to be inked up and put to work.At first the nib was just a little bit more "toothy" than I really like. That soon smoothed out, say about 20 paragraphs or so. This is not unusual in any pen no matter what it costs. I've got a 14k gold nib pen that cost 10x as much as this one and even after using it for years it's still got noticeable tooth.When people say a nib is "scratchy" that can be caused by a lot of different, or combination of, factors. It could be that the nib just needs breaking in, it could be the ink, it could be the paper, it could be the way it's held or it could be all of the above. You have to use a pen for a while to give it a chance to show you what it can do. Fountain pens are not like ballpoint pens and they're picky about the angle of the nib to the paper. A slightly different grind on the tine balls can make a good pen feel scratchy because the angle is different than you're used to with your "buttery smooth" favorite pen. Those little tips on the tines are called the "ball" and sometimes they just have to wear in to your style of writing before they'll feel smooth. People that use different fountain pens a lot know this. When you see someone say they took it out of the box and it was "scratchy" so they hated and returned it, you're reading the words of someone who doesn't know as much about fountain pens as they would have you believe.Or the pen was grossly defective. If that's the case, say the tines are misaligned or the ball broken etc., then they should say that so we all know what was physically wrong with the pen.Once broken in, the tine ball spreads ink evenly across its surface through capillary action. Then ink lubricates the contact point between ball and paper and it stops wearing, or wearing is greatly reduced for a long period of time. It will wear fairly rapidly until it's broken in then stop wearing significantly at all. At that point your pen has reached peak performance and now you're in a position to truly evaluate the pen.This pen started out writing good and once broken in it writes great.This Waterman is comparable to the various Pilot Metros and Preras, Lama Safaris, TWSBI Ecos, and other pens I have in this class that cost between $15 and $35. It holds it's own against any of the lower cost but quality pens. It writes as well as any of them and better than some of them, though some have other desirable features (like the huge ink reservoir on the TWSBIs). It is reliable as any of them and "sexier" than many or most. It's a better pen than my Parker Jotters and Frontiers.Is it made in France? I don't know and I don't care. I want a pen that writes and does so well, I don't care about where it was made and frankly, France is no peach when it comes to manufacturing quality these days. Unless you're trying to make a political statement there's not much difference from something made in Socialist France or Communist China. Last time I checked neither nation is a particularly good friend to my country so I'm not making any political statements with the nation of origin of my pens. Neither France nor China are going to achieve global domination with the money I spend on pens made there.This pen is now my favorite Every Day Carry (EDC) pen. It goes in my pocket every morning. Remember the expensive pen I referred to earlier? I have several pens in that class and this one writes as well as any of them. It does not have the feel of a $100+ pen, but as a tool it writes as well as one. I'm very happy with it and I do not have to put an expensive pen in peril of the whims of the world to have a nice fountain pen in my pocket. I think the camouflage color is a hoot, it goes well with my informal every day clothes.This is a good pen, at least the one I got is good. Looking at the reviews at this moment 86% are in the combined four and five star rank. That's a lot of people that really like this pen.

Very nice though ink capacity is limited by thin barrel

I like to write with a fountain pen, but most cheap ones are not smooth flowing. This one is!

Surprisingly good writer for Waterman's bottom of the line fountain pen. Smooth and ink is free flowing without hesitation or skips. Writes as well or better than many more expensive pens. I prefer a wider barrel, but this will suit most. Takes Waterman long cartridges. Recommended.

You can look at my previous positive reviews and recommendations.