The world famous Visconti Homo Sapiens

 Visconti Homo Sapiens

Since the Visconti Homo Sapiens release around 2 years ago, its become one of the top selling premium pens in the world, justifiably in our view.

The first thing you notice about the Homo Sapiens when you pick it up is that there’s a good deal of substance to the pen, a good weight which feels great in the hand. The main body of the pen is made from pumice collected from mount etna, you notice that body is quite dry to the touch. This is because the material is slightly hydroscopic, meaning that it will absorb small amounts of moisture. 

The appointments are all made to a very high standard, and fashioned from bronze. Which, admittedly, isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, for the simple reason that it will over time develop a patina, meaning that it won’t stay bright and shiny throughout all of its life.

Some people like the way that it gradually develops a unique patina, and makes the pen much more unique to it owner.

Now, the nib is 23kt palladium Dreamtouch, Visconti say ‘It puts nothing between you and your dreams reaching the paper”, which is a metal that until fairly recently hasn’t really been used in a nib. The benefits of palladium include that whilst remaining at 23kt, so very pure, it is also slightly denser than gold. This means that it is slightly more durable than gold.

Hidden away inside is the ink chamber, which is made of platinum – which is highly resistant to any sort of acid/ alkaline, so it will survive any ink extraordinarily well. 

Another thing nice feature is the way that the cap locks, using the Visconti hook lock/ safe lock system, which is amazingly effective. 

The filling system is the Visconti Power Filling System – which is a piston filling system. One of the criticisms of the Homo Sapiens is that it’s impossible to tell how much ink is left in it, there are no glasses or windows like you get on Mont Blanc etc. So our recommendation is to fill it fairly regularly, that way you’ll get a good sense for how much ink you’re using and get a rough idea of how much you need to fill it from there on. 

A tip when filling it is to make sure that you wipe off the grip area of any excess ink, being slightly hydroscopic it will absorb a tiny bit of the ink. Even if you find that your grip has become stained then professional cleaning will remove it, but with all these sorts of things, it’s best not to get to that point in the first place and wipe it off thoroughly.  

So how does it write? We think absolutely wonderfully, it’s hard to remember a pen that we’ve come across that we’ve enjoyed so much.