Fountain pen review: 4th Kind Pens Lava (honey spoon)

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a corkscrew, it’s a… pen?!

Once upon a time during our March Orlando Pen Club meeting, I had the pleasure of meeting the crew of 4th Kind Pens, and although our opinions on good extraterrestrial movies vastly differs (Alien is just better), I quickly realized our taste in pens matches beautifully. I’m a simple person; usually, I pick pens based on looks, or shape, or make(r), or model. Until that day in March, to me, “shape” meant just those slight variations between flat top vs. cigar shape vs. torpedo vs. whatever. I certainly did not expect to see pens that look like… something out of this world¹.

You see, the pen I got from them was indeed not pen shaped, and before I laid my eyes on it, I also spied several other small objects scattered about on the cloth between us — none of which looked even remotely like any pen I’ve ever owned or wanted to own. From my understanding, some of their pens emulate Minecraft swords, and they’re pretty darn interesting to say the least. As someone who’s never been into Minecraft, I will say that I thought of something completely different when I saw them. You tell me what you think when you visit their page: pen in question.

Back to my probe! It was the combination of shape and color that drew me to this pen, and respectfully, I don’t see lava in it, but I do see a probe, or, at best, a honey spoon; as y’all know, I change my pens names regularly, so I present to you — the lava probe corkscrew honey spoon by 4th Kind Pens!

Corkscrew actually. Totally.

The pen is small and compact, but because of the shape, it doesn’t feel tiny. The grip is long enough with a circumference to match for me to enjoy holding it without fatigue or the need to post it. The back end of the pen sports threads so you can post it if you so desire, and I won’t say it back weighs the pen, but it could, depending on the size of your hands. Again, I cannot unsee probes or at least cartoon laser guns when I look at the pen, as it has a series of thicker rings on a slimmer body, which is not a bad thing, as that was indeed what drew me to it. As for colors, there’s black and white, and red and orange, and possibly more colors as that also changes depending on the light. The pen is made of acrylic and has a bit of a smell to it, which I am assuming is from turning (not a concern of mine either, as the smell is obviously not bad); the Jowo housing is supposed to screw in, but it appears that one can just push it in instead.

How it fits in yours truly’s hand.

My qualm is the fact it only takes small converters (like Kaweco) or cartridges. When I asked if it can be eyedroppered, I was told that wasn’t meant to be done, but I went ahead and did it regardless, as any insane individual would. The body of the pen actually holds water pretty well, but I am not sure I would love to go against what I was told and end up with ink in my pocket. All I’m saying is that it sealed well for me even without silicone grease and I observed no leaks for that short amount of time I did it.

I got to pick the nib for this pen, and I ended up selecting one with a stamp I’d never seen before (because yes, I collect pens with stamps). And then I proceeded to google whose² mark that was.

You guess. I’ll tell you at the end.

The nib writes superbly. It’s wet and responsive and even slightly soft (I refuse to call Jowo nibs with cutouts flex as they indeed do not flex flex). As I was still in the meeting when I accidentally found myself owning this pen, I inked it immediately with what was relatively accessible to me, which was Sailor Manyo Akebi, and you can say it doesn’t match perfectly, but I really like how it looks.

Writing sample on crappy office paper since I took this at work.

I’m enjoying this pen more than I should be, it seems. I want to say that the only thing I’m not super excited about is the feature that the neck of the nib gets slightly obscured by the grip; it reminds me of older Karas Kustoms pens, before they updated to their current V2 models. I’m also hoping to figure out why I am able to push the nib in instead of screwing it in. Apart from that though, this pen definitely is a conversation starter, and I couldn’t be happier to have it. I’m a sucker for small pens that are able to get a converter in, and I know what some of you may say, mini Kaweco converters suck, but I happen to prefer even a shoddy converter to refilling cartridges. Stupid cartridges. Converters, as a smart person once said, are for cool kids. Besides, I may end up being weird and eye dropper the pen.

All in all, the pen is a yes! Knowing me, this is also not going to be my last 4th Kind Pens. They have all sorts of goodies coming up, and I’m eyeing the… well, I’ll be nice and say “sword pen”. My imagination will continue to run wild. They don’t have a website as of right now, but they have an Etsy page and an Instagram page which you can see here: 4th Kind Pens (and definitely do, it’s super fun).

What about you, constant reader³? Are you also a sucker for weird looking pens?

1. Tee hee I crack myself up.

2. You ain’t gonna believe it but it’s Galen.

3. Please don’t sue me Stephen King.