Laban Rosa Lilac Fountain Pen Review

(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Twitter. And check out her latest book, Out of Water, now available where books are sold!)

I have no previous experience with Laban Pens, but in my browsing to find specs for this beauty, I feel a strong need to become better acquainted with the brand. This Laban Rosa fountain pen certainly serves as an excellent ambassador to further enabling.

The Rosa has an acrylic body, this one in the Lilac colorway, with gold-toned furniture. The body tapers slightly and has gently pointed finials. There are narrow rings at each end, and then a wider cap band with the Laban name against a matte gold background. There is a shaped gold clip that is quite stiff, but holds a notebook cover or pen case very securely.

The cap screws off with two rotations and shows a grip section made of the same material as the body. It's a comfortable section that is very slightly flared at the end to prevent fingers from slipping toward the nib. The threads are smooth and the pen is light and balanced, so it's great for long writing sessions.

The nib is a two-toned steel with the Laban name on it with some pretty scrollwork. This one is a fine nib, and it writes like a true fine. The nib does have a bit of spring to it, but I wouldn't call it flexible. It has just enough give to not feel like a nail. It writes a decently wet line, but has a dry-feeling feedback. If you like feedback, but dislike dry nibs, this is a win.

It comes with a converter for filling, but would also take a standard cartridge. The converter has the Laban name printed on it. It holds a decent amount of ink, filled well, and has a good seal.

I've enjoyed writing with this pen for the past few weeks. It doesn't hurt that this material is my two favorite colors, so I was immediately stricken by its loveliness. There are a lot of these standard acrylic pens out there these days, but I can't get enough of them. This one is well-made with a particularly pretty material, and the price is better than most of the similar pens I've tried.

The Laban brand runs the gamut on price range for their pens, but this one retails for a very reasonable $140, and is currently available at Goldspot for $111.95. Other colors are available at the same price. I'm very glad to have been introduced to Laban with this pen and I've now got my eye on more of their lineup.

(Goldspot provided this product at a discount to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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Happy Birthday to Me!

(Kimberly (she/her) took the express train down the fountain pen/stationery rabbit hole and doesn't want to be rescued. She can be found on Instagram @allthehobbies because there really are many, many hobbies!.)

Another trip around the sun for me (my birthday was yesterday) and while I don’t have a birthday pen picked out (yet), I thought I’d take a moment to reflect on past birthday pens.

2017 - This was the first birthday I had after discovering fountain pens just a few months prior. I wanted to celebrate with something special but I didn’t know what. I had seen some pens by Mike Allen of Woodshed Pen Company I and messaged him to see if he could make something with blue and purple, my two favorite colors. He recently announced that he is no longer making fountain pens, which bums me out, but it also makes me extra thankful for the ones I own, including this one.

First birthday pen in Purplue Borealis by Woodshed Pen Company.

2018 - In the spring of 2018, I had put myself on the waiting list at Tokyo Pen Shop Quill for a Pilot Custom 823 in Clear with the FA nib. (Sadly they aren’t allowed to sell that outside of Japan anymore). It ended up being available right before my birthday, so this became my birthday pen. I really enjoyed working on my penmanship with that semiflex pen while watching the ink slosh around.

I love looking at the ink in my Pilot Custom 823, Clear!

Look how awesome Colorverse Chesapeake Bay looks from a flex nib!

2019 - By this point, I was a pretty big Pilot Vanishing Point fan. And when the Tropical Turquoise was launched in September that year, it was a no-brainer. Birthday pen! I still wish Pilot would make more of these cool colors/patterns and not so many black VPs, but that’s another story. I just used this one recently and yup, it still gives me all the feels.

Pilot, pretty please make more pretties like this, Pilot Tropic Turquoise Vanishing Point!

2020 - What can I say about 2020 that hasn’t already been said? For many, it was a crappy year, filled with fear, anxiety, sickness, death, lockdowns, masks, isolation, Zoom meetings/classes, etc. For me and my family, we had an additional upheaval due to a planned home renovation, which resulted in us moving to a small apartment (packing/moving sucks) and when birthday time came around, I needed something to lift my spirits. I ended up splurging on a pen that I had been in love with from the first moment I saw it at Pen Posse several years prior - the Platinum 3776 Chinkin Karakusa Blue. It wasn’t a “big birthday” or anything that “deserved” a significant purchase like this, but 2020 was a big kick in the rear reminder that life is short and not to wait for “some day” because who knows if or when that day will come.

The Platinum 3776 Chinkin Karakusa Blue is a stunning pen that I absolutely love looking at and writing with.

The detailed scrollwork is just amazing!

2021 - What roller coaster year! Things got better, got worse, then vaccines (yay!) and pen shows were back! I was so relieved (and also a bit nervous) to be able to go to the DC pen show and then a few weeks later to the SF show which is always a couple weeks before my birthday. I definitely bought #allthethings because I was so happy to see vendor friends again and wanted to support them. I didn’t know what I was going to get but I knew I was going to get something as a birthday pen. I didn’t really know about the Waldmann Grandeur, but when I saw it in person at the show, the decision was made for me. And because it’s always birthday season for me at the SF Pen Show, I upgraded to the gold nib. No regrets!

I love the classic styling and beautiful guilloche of the Waldmann Grandeur, even if it is red ;-)

2022 - This has been a crazy year for me, but in a good way! Lots of pen shows, traveling, seeing family and friends again, kid’s team won their Little League division, so many good things! Heading into the SF show, I was on the lookout for something special (Pen? Pen box? Musubi notebook?) but nothing screamed “birthday present”. If you saw my SF Pen Show haul, that didn’t stop me from buying #allthethings, but I knew that I’d eventually find something. As of this writing, I haven’t found it yet, but I trust that the universe will help me find the right present. Until then, I’ll be sitting over here eating some cake, playing with my birthday pens and refreshing my emails hoping for good pen news (if you know, you know, wink).

What will the birthday pen be this year?

The best part of birthday pens isn’t just the pens, but being able to share them with you! So thank you for indulging me in a little trip down the birthday memory lane! Happy Birthday to me and to all the other September babies out there!

Behold, Something New! The Harmonic Nib, from Opus Cineris

The Harmonic Nib. Image via Opus Cineris.

(This is a guest post by Andrew Coon. You can find more of Andrew’s fountain pen favorites on Instagram.)

Whenever a pen of note arrives, something interesting, I hand it to my wife. I play with pens, she knits. I appreciate the yarn she finds, and she appreciates the pens that show up. Over the years, many such pens have arrived and we have found a pattern.

She takes the pen, and writes the following:

A Harmonic BB nib, with Diamine Aurora Borealis on a Nock a5 Cahier.

And then she asks what makes it special. I have handed her a Pilot Emperor, a Pilot Custom Urushi, Jowo 6's, Bock 8's, King of Pens, stacked nibs of all different types, and many more.

This time, she said "this could be my favorite."

My wife has good taste.

What she wrote with is already one of my favorites - both for who made it as well as for what it is.

Anabelle Hiller, first being trained as a musician, then made the jump to metal working. A trained jeweler, she has focused on a particular piece of metal that anyone reading this holds dear - the nib of a fountain pen. After creating her own nib for her masterpiece she experimented with a batch of silver nibs. After a few truly lucky people tested them out at length, she moved on to make a batch of ten nibs in 14k gold.

I was lucky enough to obtain one of these, and I would like to tell you about it because there will be more of her creations. They will be worth finding and cherishing.

The Harmonic Nib, in Silver. Image via Opus Cineris.

What is immediately striking about this nib is the double layer of metal that frames the entire nib. I don't know how this is done - but I can see what it makes possible. On these, this edge has a hammered finish that is very striking. On Anabelle's second set of nibs, a set of 8 made in silver, this edge was engraved in a leaf border, complementing the scrolls down the center of the nib.

Matched with an ebonite feed from FPnibs.com, these nibs can be customized with any grind. What I have is a round BB, tuned for showing off the sheening and shading properties of any ink. And, it is perfect. Responsive and well behaved, I can only wish that all my nibs wrote like this one. I have used multiple brands of ink with it, multiple types of paper, and the performance has been consistent and superb.

The Harmonic Nib, with Giants' Pens ebonite barrel. Image via Opus Cineris.

The pen this nib came in was made by Teun and Joep of Giants' Pens, and is elegant and clean. The material is a black and grey ebonite, that is almost impossible to photograph. The tolerances are tight - and the quickest way to tell is with the threading. This threading is smooth and exact. Matched with the immaculate polish, the pen is a stunner. Its shape is that of a Nakaya Naka-ai, and that is what it reminded me of. Light, nimble, a pen that I reach for multiple times a day.

It is not often that something truly new comes along in the pen community. This is one of those moments.

Anabelle makes nibs sing upon request, for any pens purchased from Appelboom. In addition to employing her, Appelboom also allowed Anabelle to use their website for the sale. This is very cool - It is always good to see those who are well established in the field support those who are starting.

I look forward to following along with what happens next. Engraving, gem setting, overlays? I don't know. But it will be great.

I invite you to join me in following Anabelle at Opus Cineris and on Instagram @opuscineris

(This nib was purchased by Andrew Coon at the 2022 Washington DC Pen Show, directly from Anabelle Hiller. Opus Cineris images provided for this post with permission.)