May continues with nice treats. This Conway Stewart Dandy Demonstrator with a F nib is one of them. Bought in excellent/mint condition for a very reasonable price – I’ve liked this pattern since I first saw it and couldn’t resist getting one for a good price. Even so I must get a grip on my self and decide which pens to keep and which to sell. Since I’ve already written a pretty thorough review of my toffee coloured Dandy, this is more of an overview.
This pattern is very cool. Black, grey, blue and translucent. I’m not into regular demos, but this one is more like an originally patterned pen. What I’m not particularly fond of, though, is the black, plastic gripping section. It looks – contrasted to the original and cool demo pattern – slightly cheap in a way that I don’t think suits this pen. It had also been even more cool with a gripping section of this material. The only other demo I have is the Lamy Vista and I like see the ink in its feeder.
Maybe this could be improved by adding a little silver ring between the barrel and the section to make it more stylish. I was a little unsure if I should change the nib on this pen. Conway Stewart offers a very good nib swapping service. New/only tried nibs can be exchanged by CS for a low fee – £10 (shipping and handling) and the turnaround time is very fast. But this fine nib was so smooth and nice to write with that I will keep it as is.
The main difference – except for the pattern – compared with the toffee Dandy is that this is a cartridge/converter filler. A lever adds something to the design, but I like the easiness of the converter filler and the possibility to check the ink level. In all this is a very smart pen with an original pattern. Unfortunately Conway Stewart doesn’t manufacture them anymore, which is a pity, since this is a real classic and the different patterns makes them quite special.
lady dandelion 