Pocket Size Review 32: rOtring Core, Pelikan Edelstein Ruby
Hello pen friends! We took a little break from the pocket size reviews in order to participate in Inktober 2019, and then we took a little break from Inktober because real life got a little busy, but now we are back to break on through everything with a very special review of what is actually my original “grail pen”.
That’s right, you can have your Visconti Homosapiens and your Montblanc 149s and even your custom order raden urushi maki-e masterpieces with 3 carat diamond roll-stops. The rOtring Core fountain pen in the above colorway, which is called Rubidium, is the reason why I got in to fountain pens in the first place, because I was looking for one on eBay one day and decided to buy something cheaper to give it a shot (a rOting Skynn in red).
I carried a rollerball rOtring Core (Technor colorway) in my pocket through much of high school and college. I have had a couple of ballpoints and pencils from that line join my collection over the years as well. There’s just something about the Core line-up that speaks to me, in that it is unabashedly going for what it is with a neat little futuristic-industrial style. The pens read to me as pens for people who aren’t ashamed to like what they like. Years back, when I discovered the gorgeous red and black Rubidium colorway I hunted down a rollerball, and that was the pen I later signed my mortgage paperwork with when I bought my house.
About six months after buying said house I started thinking about how as much as I love that pen, wouldn’t it be cool if it were a fountain pen. I knew that fountain pens existed in the Core line-up; I’d always avoided them and other fountain pens because of concerns about getting my hands inky (at least I got that part right...) but I decided it was time to set aside childish worries, and embrace my dreams. So I went to eBay and started hunting. By the time I got the Rubidium Core pictured above I already had quite a fountain pen collection, and it wasn’t even my first rOtring Core fountain pen at that, but it’s still the one that started off my whole journey as an object of desire.
The pen itself is fairly simple, behind its looks. It’s a steel nib that comes in either XS (Fine) or XL (Medium/Broad). The barrel is long enough that the pen can fit a long international cartridge, in addition to short carts and adapaters, which is a nice bonus. The barrel is fairly light weight and the cap is solid with a bit of heft, but it is absolutely designed to post securely, as long as you don’t mind the weight distribution. The clip is a heavy duty “wire” style clip, like a Lamy Safari clip on steroids.
I took advantage of the length of this barrel to put in a Pelikan Edelstein international long cartridge, in this case Ruby to match the Rubidium. It’s a very nice shade of red which I’m sure is getting overshadows by this years ink of the year Star Ruby at the moment, but Ruby deserves its own recognition too.
This review also marks the first time we are using the Franklin-Christoph 5.3” notebook refill for a Pocket Size Review. It’s a nice little notebook, with signature cropped corners and and bolder dots at the top and bottom margins of the page. I swear it has a slightly purple tint to the paper too, but maybe that’s just me. I’ve actually had it in my pocket since July, so you’ll get a better idea of how it wears in future installments.
But back to grail pen itself, I finally got ahold of it last October, and I couldn’t be happier. It barely fits in most pen cases (I keep it in an oversized Musubi case) and its definitely not my daily writer, but it is still one of the absolute gems of my collection.
