Kaweco Denim Pouch Giveaway

Not content to sit back and just review cool goods, I'm here to give them away as well! I have one of each of the Blue Denim and Black Denim Kaweco Sport Pouches to give away to readers. Here is how you can get one of your own:

1. Leave one comment on this post anytime between now, and Saturday night at 11:59 PM Eastern Time. You are limited to one entry. This contest is open to US and international residents.

2. For this contest, I will pick two winners at random from the comments section of this post. The comments will be numbered in the order they are received, i.e. the first comment is #1, the second #2, and so on. The Random Integer Generator at random.org will be used to pick the number of the winners.

3. The contest winners will be posted on Sunday, May 1st. The winner will have one week to email me via the Contact link at the top of the page.

Thanks and good luck!

Kaweco Denim Pouch Review

Kaweco has a mortal lock on the pocket fountain pen market, so it is nice to see them expanding their product lineup with related accessories like the Kaweco Denim Pouch.

They have released several cases for their pocket fountain pens in the past, such as leather sleeves for the Sport and Lilliput lineups, and leather box-style cases for the Sports, and even their full-sized models. The Denim pouches are a departure in style, and one I can completely get behind. Kaweco has been experimenting a lot recently in fact, which is nice to see from a brand rooted in German fountain pen history.

These selvedge denim pouches fit up to two Kaweco Sport pens, be it the Classic, AL, Brass, or others. It’s a tight fit, which is nice because you don’t want these pens getting away in your pocket or bag. I imagine they will loosen up nicely with use, just like a pair of your favorite jeans. A single Sport with a clip fits fine as well, as do a couple of Liliputs, but they tend to get buried below the opening too deeply for me.

From a pricing perspective they are expensive. $38 for what many will see as something they can make from their own jeans - and make it more personal as well - seems high. But none of Kaweco’s products are exactly great value in comparison to other products. The thing is, there is no true competition for Kaweco, so I am willing to pay the price for the quality and coolness they bring to the table.

I thought for sure I would prefer the blue denim with the red stitch edge marker, but the black denim seems to work better with my primarily silver and black sports. I bet it would look good with the Brass too. I should get on that.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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Kaweco Mini Fountain Pen Converter Review

Image via JetPens.com

There was an attempt.

Those are my thoughts in a nutshell on the Kaweco Mini Fountain Pen Converter. This isn’t a bad product, but it’s not a good one either. Let’s dig in.

Converters for Kaweco fountain pens have always been sought after. The small barrels in the Sport and Liliput lines don’t take traditional converters - the barrels are too short. But people love their Kaweco’s - myself included - so news of any converter that fits is always met with excitement.

The previous attempt was the Kaweco Squeeze Converter, and it was a failure. Good idea, but it didn’t work. You could barely pull in enough ink to get you through the day, which made trying to use it a frustrating experience.

The new Mini Converter is a piston style converter that does pull in more ink than the Squeeze, but it is only slightly less frustrating to use.

Liliput for scale. If it doesn't fit, you must acquit.

First of all, it only fits the Sport models, not the Liliput. I didn’t realize this initially, thinking the piston rod would somehow remain flush with the end of the converter when filled. That’s not how this converter works. You attach it to the nib unit, dip the nib into the bottle, pull the piston back to fill, and leave it in that position. That added length doesn’t fit inside of the Liliput, as I found out the hard way when screwing the barrel back together. #InkyFingers

Once I realized the mistake I made, I grabbed an AL Sport and started over. The second issue, which you will see in the video below, is that it is a two handed operation to fill. That’s not abnormal, but due to the small size I had to stick my left thumb and index finger practically inside the top of the ink bottle to pull back the piston properly. There isn’t a lot of room to work with. And this bottle is 90% full. I imagine you will have an even harder time with ink bottles under 50% full.

Filling the new Kaweco Sport piston converter. #Kaweco #fountainpen

A video posted by Brad Dowdy (@penaddict) on Mar 27, 2016 at 6:23am PDT

When I went to screw the AL Sport back together, the fully extended piston still hit the back end of the barrel. This caused ink to once again to come out of the nib as I tightened everything back up. In the end it fit, but it wasn’t a smooth process.

Kaweco converters add frustration to what should be a simple process. Including this one, they are 0-for-2 in making a functional product. I would love to be able to recommend one of these to you, but they just aren’t worth the headache.

This leaves you two options: Use short international cartridges or syringe fill empty cartridges from your ink bottles. Fortunately, we are seeing more short international options hit the market, including great colors from Waterman, Diamine, and Caran d’Ache. Waterman Mysterious Blue has been my go-to short cartridge recently, and works well with all of my Kaweco’s.

Time to move on to other ideas Kaweco.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)