I am thoroughly enjoying the Pelikan Jazz Ballpoint pen. That shouldn’t come as a surprise given that I enjoy ballpoint pens, and Pelikan makes great products. It should be good! But, what I realized with the Jazz is not only that it’s good, but it’s good enough to make me think I’ve been missing out.
Ballpoint pens are continually underrated. Why is that? The problem with ballpoints is that we have all used terrible ones. Scratchy, skippy, dry, messy, sticky. There are some bad adjectives to describe some of these pens we have used in the past.
But modern ballpoints, using superior refill technology, are fantastic. Even great.
The Pelikan Jazz is a new pen to me, and reasonably new to Pelikan’s lineup as a whole. It has classic Pelikan design elements, like the clip, but comes in fun, modern colors like this Orange model. There is even a full pastel lineup, which is what make me take a second look at these pens to begin with.
This is a twist-to-deploy pen, but it keeps tricking me into thinking it uses a knock-type mechanism. The barrel “cap” overlaps the lower barrel, and when I see a design like that, I want to push the cap down to engage and retract the refill. It’s not a problem whatsoever, but that hasn’t stopped me from continuously trying to click it.
The twist takes about half a turn to let loose the Pelikan 337 refill. It ships with a medium (1.0 mm) blue cartridge, in the Parker-style (or international G2) shape, so you can swap it to your hearts content. But I’m not sure you would want to.
This refill is excellent. I expect 1.0 mm ballpoint refills to be smooth, and this one delivered. The lines were solid, and the color was rich. There was little tip residue to be found, although as with many good ballpoint refills, it did pop up from time to time. I never had to wipe it off.
After all of this praise, this must be an expensive pen, right? Well, compared to a Bic Stic, yes. But at $12, compared to other pens in this category, it is priced perfectly. It’s an upgrade to the basic ballpoints in your desk drawer, with enough style and quality to justify the price point.
If you couldn’t tell, I’m kind of enamored with it. I like having it around to pick up and use on a whim for just about any task. It may be worth grabbing another simply because I’m having so much fun with this one.
(Goldspot provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)
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