Leonardo MomentoZero Blue Abyss Celluloid Fountain Pen Review

32 thoughts on “Leonardo MomentoZero Blue Abyss Celluloid Fountain Pen Review”

1. well and also it seems that the patterns don't match all the time. would be nice if they do.

2. Your enthusiasm for this celluloid model, and my very pleasant experience with a red resin pen purchased from a doctoral candidate on eBay, I bought ebonite #18 from the Casa. Shipping to PA was fantastic, as was the service Marco gave me. I chose to go with ebonite in part because I have never had an ebonite barrel pen (and I do own a celluloid Eversharp Doric II which was my grandfather's). I am blown away: the pen is beautiful, the gold accents contrast with the rosewood color to give a rich look, and the medium nib gives a great line and smooth flow right out of the box. I delayed my pursuit of an OMAS Paragon in order to get this pen, and I am not disappointed. In fact, I may need to re-delay the Paragon in order to get the celluloid Med blue while they are still available. All of this is thanks to your review. I hope both Salvatore and Marco take note of my great experience.

3. are all these pens people send for you to keep?

4. "…celuloid shavings which… the thing with that it's that is useless"… not really, you can use those shavings for fixing your pen if the barrel cracks

5. Delightful review, Stephen. It is a handsome enough piece; what really attracts me, is that it's hand-made; the celluloid shavings too, are a nice touch, altho' superfluous – but a smart adjunct to the pen's provenance – a quirky extra, if you will. That nib (to me) resembles more of an EF, & it doesn't matter what quality of parchment you employ, there's always going to be a degree of feedback. I'd elect a medium in this case, but sure, it is what it is…
   The cap & barrel ends seem redolent of early Parkers, & I like the minimalist imprinting upon the barrel body; the colour too, is very pleasing on the eye.
   As for the hard starts & skips, that's an individual production scenario – you cannot blame that on mass-produced quality control, but Q-C, it remains, which, whilst hand-crafted – in this case, limited to 100, I'd expect no issues, whatsoever. The fact that John Blackburn has encountered such, does leave me with slight reservations – but on the positive side, both Fontoplumo & Leonardo seem to be right on top of the concerns, mentioned; one would trust that the pen is made good & no such mechanical errors recur. I'd like to see what transpires with John's pen, because, whichever way you write it, this is a luxury implement, & so the expectation is (unsurprisingly) high – not only in terms of the prestige it engenders, but also, fiscally.
   Good stuff, Dr. Brown 😀

6. Please review some indian pens

7. Thanks for the review. I am very interested to see how the steel and gold nibs compare in writing.

8. @sbrebrow what I do with my non transparent position and c/c pens is I place them onto a gram scale that can measure hundredths to “estimate” the remaining ink. Water is 1g=1ml. Ink is close enough to water to guess how much you have left. You have to either measure the pen dry to know the empty level or measure full and do some subtraction.

9. Hi Stephen. This is an incredibly nice pen. I have ordered it today from Fontoplumo (NL) for a price of € 570.- excl. VAT. Thank you very much for reviewing this pen.

10. Erm, okay…this is the side of fountain pens I don't get. Pragmatically, it's a nice pen with an okay-ish nib. Are there wizened Italian artisans translating a lifetime of experience into unique art pieces with superlative writing characteristics, or are they turned out on computer/mechanically-guided lathes with unremarkable 3rd party nibs? It's the latter, but they're charging for the former. Sure, it's an investment piece more than a pen, but do nice pens with premium price tags go up much in value? Seriously, I'm curious.
    (Even the conical ends scream 'I couldn't be bothered.' )

11. To see comparison with 146 or 149 for the size reference would be great.

12. The pen is beautiful but I think it is over priced for what it is. I think it should be around $400 as opposed to $895.

13. First thought: any pens with that many words in its name has to be expensive.

14. Nice review Stephen. Thank you for sharing. Awesome color with even some cool swirls by the grip.

15. Thanks Stephen, pretty nice pen. Good thoughtful review, and I appreciate now know that Salvatore likely crafted my Positano Decoband from the new Wahl Eversharp.. that is a beauty of a pen as well, with the same Chilton pneumatic filling system as your Arco ASC Bologna Extra. It's a little baseball bat but is great in hand and a superb writer.. Syd Saperstein is also a great guy to work with. Be well!
    Frank from Boulder, Colorado

16. you can use the celluloid shavings to start a fire in case of emergencies…

17. Stephen very nice pen indeed like the box also. If the name is named after the Da Vinci Leonardo then that's a plus also. Thank you for another excellent review.

18. Had been looking forward to another review of this pen and the steel nib version. Thanks so much.

19. Wow! Beautiful! I’ll get one ☝️ to sign my Divorce.

20. Pretty interesting. Hadn’t heard of this brand. Certainly attractive with a nice set of features. It’s funny. I gulped when you mentioned the price, yet I’ve purchased pens at a considerably higher cost. I guess it’s all in what’s valuable to YOU.

21. …cut to the chase? Who are you, Joe Hollywood? [I cound't help myself] –; nice review, as always. I don't know why, but, I find celluloid so aesthetic pleasing; I would live in a house made of celluloid (is that feasible?).

22. Stephen thanks once again for a great review. I had seen the pens at Fontoplumo, and was looking forward to the review.

    Thank you also for the "history" lesson, I guess Leonardo (or Salvatore) works like some watch companies where the label belongs to a company but the people doing the work are others, but I digress.

    Here is a question, how can I tell visually when a pen has an ebonite feed vs plastic, just curious.

23. Hey Stephen, I had the exact same skipping and hard start issues as you did on 2x Leonardo MomentoZero pens, they were the resin ones with steel nibs not the 14kt gold nibs you have there on the celluloid version. The nibs would dry out very quickly when uncapped for 10-20 secs, and hard start and skip a lot on Rhodia and Tomoe River, just like you said on smoother paper, cheap/copy paper not an issue. I have 2x Broads and both had very bad babies bottom on them, I managed to improve it by using 8000 grit to unsmooth the nib and the hard starts reduced about 80%, take it back to 12000 grit and they'd hard start and skip again. I do hope Salvatore can fix these nibs moving forward, I do think they are too over polished, nice if you like a glassy smooth writer but there's a smooth writer and then there's skipping and hard starting which are less acceptable. I do like the look of both the resin and the celluloid but the writing experience I think does need to be improved out of the box. If Salvatore can do that, then I think they will have a great pen!

24. Does posting damage the pens shaft?

25. I would be interested in one of those rambling videos of yours about bock/jowo vs in-house made nibs. I would personally never pay 900 EUR for a Bock nib. Thank you for the video.

26. Thanks again for your time. Does the steel nib write smoothly? Is the broad nib very broad? What is the cost ofnthe steel nib because I am certain I cannot afford the gold nib…I have three Deltas and love them.

27. I just bought the Mediterranean Blue celluloid piston filler from Fontoplumo, and had a problem with the piston, sent an email to Frank at Fontoplumo who sent me a return label, and I returned it to Fontoplumo, which has sent on to Leonardo for repair, and I shall report back the result of the repair when the pen comes back to me. The problem I experienced was (1) a very stiff piston (the stiffest of severl piston-filling pens I own, including a couple of Noodler's Konrads, just to give an idea of the extent of the stiffness, and (2) an ink capacity of .8 ml (checked by several refills and measurements)… Frank told me in an email that the ink capacity was supposed to be 1.2 ml, and that Leonardo would check that, too. So far, I'm satisfied with Fontoplumo's responsiveness. I contacted Fontoplumo by email the day after I received the pen and discovered the piston problem, and Frank emailed me minutes later (it was early morning in the Netherlands) that if the problem continued, he would send a shipping label for sending the pen back to Fontoplumo, and he would send it on to Leonardo for repair. I kept refilling the pen for over a week, and then sent an email to Frank last Thursday stating the problem continued. Frank responded minutes later with the shipping label. I sent it from Ohio the next day, Friday. Fontoplumo received the pen the following Monday, which was three days after shipping it. When I asked Frank by email on Tuesday if he had received the pen, Frank responded immediately, saying that he had and received it, and it was on its way to Leonardo. As I said, I'll report back about the responsiveness of Leonardo to the piston problem, when I get the pen back. I think your review is fair, although I wish you would report on how well a piston filler's piston operates. With regard to the nib, mine is a fine point nib as well, and it wrote perfectly, no skipping. I agree with everything else you said in your review. The price from Fontoplumo included the10% SBRE Brown discount, excluded the VAT, and qualified for free shipping, all of which helped lower the price, which while high, is lower than comparable new celluloid pens being sold, as you said in your review. I hope this additional information is helpful to others, and I shall follow-up this reply with the rest of this story when the pen is returned.

28. Thank you for the review. Now I'm waiting for your thoughts on the acrylic as that's the one I purchased. 🙂

29. Thanks for the review. I was waiting for this one (and acrylic version too)!

30. Thank you Stephen. Very nice indeed.

31. Haha!! You need to do a double finger point Test Fire prior to filming to make sure you’re locked and loaded.

32. Really looking forward to try one of those.

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