Chinese fountain pens have gained slowly recognition as affordable and decent writers. The dupes of highly sought after pens and famous hacks like the Jinhao/G nib flex frankenpen are reviewed all over. Here, I’ll be reviewing the LingMo Lorelei. LingMo is not a household name with Chinese fountain pens, and I was excited to give it a try.
Appearance
The Lorelei appears to be a dupe of the Sailor Procolor 500. Mine is a clear demonstrator with silver trim and the clear feed displays inks quite nicely. The brand name”LingMo” is engraved on the trim of the cap in a similar manner found on the Sailor Procolor. Even the font used is similar to Sailors and the similarities don’t end there.
Filling System
The pen came with a piston converter which, knowing Chinese brands, could be a duplicate of the Sailor converter though I do not have a Sailor pen to try it out with. The converter looks similar to the Sailor converter but has a small metal object inside to break surface tension of the ink and works fine, fitting securely into the section. So well in fact, that for a moment I thought it was not removable when I first tried to remove it ! I noticed that the section came with an O-ring which gave me hope that it could be converted into an eyedropper to further show off the ink inside and it’s demonstrator body. Those hopes were dashed, however, as the barrel isn’t a single piece of plastic but two pieces. A tiny little plug at the end of the barrel closes it off and will leak. I was devastated.
Functionality
The clip on the cap is sturdy but quite hard and probably will not clip onto thick fabrics without doing damage. The cap is a threaded cap which screws on securely, though I’d be careful about over-tightening and cracking it. The cap posts by friction, no rattling or anything, and the pen is light & comfortable to write with posted or unposted. The nib and feed are friction fit, making for easily disassembly and cleaning.
Write-ability
The F nib produces a 0.5 line. It is a hard nib that produces little line variation with quite a bit of force. Straight out of the box, the pen wrote well with normal ink flow. There were no hard starts or any fiddling necessary to get it writing. The line produced appears the same as a Platinum Preppy F though the nib on my Lorelei was somewhat scratchier than both the tester in the shop and my Platinum Preppy F, feeling more like my Preppy EF nib. The pen I have was also wetter than the one tested in the store which already had decent flow.
Personally, I find the LingMo Lorelei aesthetically pleasing (more so than the Wing Sung 659), and it has worked very well for me with no leaks or ink flow issues. As much as I enjoy this pen, I will also give a word of caution as the affordability of some Chinese fountain pens come with the price of lower quality control, what with mine being wetter but scratchier than the one tested in store. However, that could be said of ANY fountain pen and my Lorelei has been much less frustrating that some more expensive pens I own. I may be slightly biased as my Preppys gave me a few problems when I first used them so having the Lorelei F nib not skip at all out of the box was a nice surprise. I found it disappointing that the fully plastic body cannot be made into an eyedropper, but this should not be a problem for those of us who prefer cartridges/converters. Overall, a nice and affordable beginner’s fountain pen with a classic look.
The Pscrybe Reviews 