Pocket Size Review 44: Opus 88 Fantasia, Colorverse Mars Curiosity

Once upon a time, when I used to leave my house every morning and go spend my day in an office building, I really enjoyed carry a pocket pen. One of my favorites, which was actually a fairly new acquisition of mine at the Philly show this past January (back when there were pen shows) was the Opus 88 Fantasia.

Pocket pens often suffer from limited ink capacity, which is why this model was on my shopping list at the show. Being an eyedropper, it holds much more ink than a similarly sized pen. The signature Opus 88 shut off valve is a great touch in a pocket pen as well, as it keeps the pen from burping ink in to the cap while being jostled in a pocket all day (and also makes for an ideal travel companion if you have to fly anywhere.)

As soon as I bought this pen I ran over the the Franklin-Christoph table to buy a new nib for it. The standard #5 Jowo nibs that come in these pens are great, but having the opportunity to swap in a Fine S.I.G. nib was something I couldn’t pass up, especially when I could pick it up and have it adjusted to my hand right on site. It’s hard to beat the customer experience of shopping with Franklin-Christoph at a pen show, even if all you’re buying is a loose nib.

The Colorverse Mars Curiosity ink that I have in this pen was one of the first Colorverse inks I bought, back at the Baltimore show in 2018. At the time I was enamored by the shape of the Colorverse bottles, but I was trying to avoid buying any inks that were too close in color to inks I already owned (I know, I know), so I chose this orange-leaning red because I thought it had an interesting look. Between the fine nib and this Field Notes paper you cant see the shading or sheen very well here, but what you can see is that it’s red without looking like it is marking up corrections. I think it pairs nicely with the orange-brown color of the pen.