BENU Talisman Firefly Stone Review | Pen Boutique 20th Anniversary Exclusive
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- Опубліковано 6 лип 2024
- Hey everyone! I'm so excited to share my review of this beautiful Pen Boutique Exclusive BENU Talisman - The Firefly Stone (Fine Nib). Please use the timestamps if you just want to see specific parts of the video or if you want to come back to a certain part to re-watch! As always, thank you for watching! Enjoy!
Purchase this pen here (Use code KENCHANKRAFTS1 for 5% off):
www.penboutique.com/products/...
People mentioned:
@PenboutiquePlus
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Intro
02:44 Box Contents
03:44 Pen Specs
08:46 Measurements
10:23 Pen Comparisons
12:57 Writing Sample
14:23 Scratchy Nib Discussion
19:00 Nib Comparisons
26:00 Close-up of Nib Comparisons
27:52 Pros & Cons
35:40 Final Thoughts
36:39 Outtro
#fountainpen #newpenday #benu
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This may be my first Beni pen! The writing samples are super helpful - thanks Lao!
Glad to be of help, Anita! :D This is such a beautiful pen in the sunlight! ♥
Your new Benu is so vibrant and gorgeous! Thank you for the great review.
I don’t currently own any Benu pens but they are on my wishlist. Talisman may be my favourite line but I can’t yet decide between Edelweiss and Mandrake. Edelweiss is the most beautiful colourway in my opinion but mandrakes have more personal meaning to me.
I do love the Goulet exclusive Matcha Latté you mentioned in another comment and it may just be the first Benu pen I’ll buy when it comes back in stock. I’ve been enjoying the Goulet Pencast for free for months and I’m so thrilled to have an opportunity to support the company.
Shout out also to Pen Boutique’s For Your Penjoyment podcast, which I’ve been loving too 🥰.
Talisman is my favorite line, too, but in terms of build quality, I think the Euphorias are pretty sturdy and heavy duty haha. They feel more luxurious, but they also are bigger and have a different faceted shape. I would definitely get the Matcha if it doesn't sell out haha! It's not a pen that I MUST have before it sells out, so I will let it linger a bit - but for sure, I will go for a Fine on that Matcha and pair it with beautiful mossy green inks! OH! I do have MATCHA from Lennon Tool Bar and it is gorgeous. I suppose that Euphoria is calling my name. But we shall see. I love watching the Goulet Pencast and Pen Boutique's podcast when I'm on my 40 min drive to see a client xD they're super fun to just make time fly.
And about your Mandrake vs Edelweiss...that is such a difficult dilemma! I would say get the one that means more to you at the higher current price (use my code to make Mandrake $158 lol!) and then buy the Edelweiss during a Fountain Pen Day sale or a huge sale. I got my Edelweiss for $99 on Black Friday from Atlas. It's a great time to shop then for non-exclusives. (Or get them both during the big sales LOL)
@@KenchanKrafts Ohhh thank you for that comparison note! They look quite similar from afar so it’s good to be aware so I won’t be disappointed in a Talisman down the line. I’m definitely a fan of matching inks with pens and didn’t know there was one out there named after matcha! I also have a few full bottles of greens from J. Herbin that would be a lovely match(a) 😄.
I think that’s a terrific idea about Mandrake and Edelweiss. I’ve fallen in the trap before of romanticising a pen design before I’ve even used one and then being disappointed in the feel or the weight. I think it’s wise to try one out and if I love it, it’ll be easier to make the decision to add other colourways to my collection 🙂.
So pretty! I saw this featured on Benu’s IG before it was released and spent about 30 minutes trying to figure out what it was and where to get it! 😄 I love that you asked her to pick out a pen for you! She did a great job.
Haha, I wonder why the IG page didn’t share that it was from Pen Boutique. But yes Leila did such an amazing job. I told her they all probably will look very similar and beautiful regardless, but I wanted the one she picks XD it’s more special and even more beautiful that way!
I just ordered mine yesterday! The last time I was this excited about ordering a pen was the First Snow! As you know I love purple so I couldn’t order it fast enough! I ordered a broad nib because I always use shimmer inks in my Benus!
YAY!! We have two beautiful pens in common ^_^ It's amazing that these Benu Fines work splendidly with shimmers, too! I hope you're still loving your First Snow as much as it excited you when first ordering it!
So sorry if you tried using my video and it didn’t work as they just changed it recently and I was unaware. But hopefully you got some discount off yours! Hope yours is just how you want it or just as beautiful!
That is a truly gorgeous pen!!! I may have to break my budget 🤩
Haha!! 🙂🥰 it’s worth it! Only if you need another pen. Lololl which I didn’t but I needed this specific pen. 😂😅
That's a lovely pen! I may eventually get one myself, though I'd prefer a darker shade of green than I've seen in most pictures.
My Día de los Muertos Minima is a fine, and I haven't had any issues with it being scratchy. My other two BENU pens are medium and broad (the new Astrogems Klio and the Hanukkah Talisman, respectively), and they're both very smooth. I have two more which will be shipped next month (one a pre-order I just had to have when I saw the gorgeous red, and the other a very limited edition), and they'll be fine and medium. I love their fun designs and how they're one of those companies with something guaranteed to appeal to everyone. If you don't jive with one of their colorways, patterns, or designs, they'll eventually make some that do speak to you.
Hi Ursula! Thanks for watching :D I know how much you love BENU and you have so many! I agree, Benu is like Leonardo where there will be one that will speak to you even if you don't like their main line of pens. I am happy to hear that none of your Fines and other nibs gave you trouble, that's awesome. I have emailed Pen Boutique to see what my options are, but I will get a nice Fine Nib someday soon! XD Looks like you got the Bloody Mary - that is such a huge pop of red that isn't usually made by any company, even BENU. Such a very cool red color! :D Excited for you!
I like the medium Schmidt nibs better than the fine ones, they do indeed tend to feel a bit scratchy. By the way, you actually can get an EF nib on the models with the smaller nibs - like the Hexagon or Briolette. I had one on my Hexagon F and didn’t like it at all, so I swapped it for a medium. I love Benu pens, their customer service is outstanding - I just ordered my 2nd Ambrosia model directly from them, it‘s the Blue Lotus. 🥰
Ooh, I didn’t know that about the briolettes, but those pens don’t get much visibility at US retailers. I always wondered why the options were so limited with these euphorias and talismans. The blue lotus sounds beautiful! I’ll need to reach out to BENU and see what they can do about this nib for me. If it’s going to cost shipping and such, I’ll just save it for when I go to the pen show lol. Even though it’s slightly scratchy, I really love the line of the Schmidt Fine. But I will agree I think the mediums are just so lovely and smooth right out of the box. They definitely know how to tune the mediums better lol
Hello Lao, again another very very pretty Benu! There were too many in the last couple of days (all the pink ones…).
Thank you for all the nib size comparisons, very helpful!
I went for the Euphoria Bourbon and - my nib came broken. It wrote and looked like a stub but had so many skipping and hard starts, no matter what ink I tried and how many times I flushed the pen.
The customer service from Stiloestile is almost out of this world (in Europe we aren’t spoiled with companies like Goulet etc, so this was special!) and sent a new nib asap.
Well, it’s ok. Not my most fav fine nib. It’s smooth, has a bit of feedback but mostly I need to drag the pen over the paper too much even with a very wet ink- I hope you understand? Because I don’t 😅 The nib is not too dry…
As much as I like the design and it makes me happy- the grip is not comfy for me and after longer writing it hurts. I think the section diameter is too small, like on my little very pretty Sailor PGSlim.
When I’m very honest… And this is hard, but these two were the two pens I almost didn’t reach for the last weeks. I will keep them for now.
This shouldn’t sound negative! It’s just my experience and my heart is broken that I can’t use them like I want.
Oh don't worry about this being negative, it is not at all! :D I really appreciate you sharing your experiences with BENU, whether it was a great one or a disappointing one. I, too, was disappointed with the grip sections of both models of BENU pens that I have. They feel very plasticky and they retain hand oils on them, so my fingers slip around the grip over time. They're not my favorite grips - so I understand and feel your frustration with these pens. 10mm is on the edge of being too thin of a grip for sure - luckily for me, my thumb is so short LOL that I have to hold part of the barrel, which adds to comfort for me of this pen. (I also don't reach for my BENUs when I had them inked up in currently inked months, so there's no shame at all in those choices!)
As for having to drag the pen over paper just to write - I think I know what you're saying - since fountain pens are supposed to just release ink effortlessly as you LIGHTLY touch the pen onto the paper. My talisman F writes under its own weight with the ink I paired it with haha. That's strange about yours. I have a heavy hand when writing (from all the years of writing very hard with a pencil), so dragging the pen along the paper is very natural for me, but I didn't find that I had to really drag it to write. As beautiful as BENU pens are, they aren't always my go-to pens right away, but I can appreciate having them in my collection. I don't use my Edelweiss much, but my heart of heart knows I would never sell it haha! XD
@@KenchanKrafts thank you for your kind words. Since I grew up with fountain pens I don’t press down the pen at all. I see in a lot of videos people using some pressure and then most nibs also write better.
Since I’m not doing that, it happens that the pen skips etc if the nib is not very good tuned. ☺️
Good looking indeed! Nice lines in that writing. Fine nib!
:D Thanks! It is very nice ^_^ It might write a bit broader with a wetter non-shimmer ink.
Such a gorgeous pen!🔥
🔥Thank you! ❤🔥
wow, love this
🥰🥰🥰
One of my talisman's I received from Goulet Pens had a misaligned nib, and they fixed it with no issues. They were wonderful - LOVE my Benu pens. I have several and only one had that issue. They write so smoothly and they are gorgeous to look at.
Darn yeah I probably should have messaged Pen Boutique first, but I think I’ll ask anyways! The scratchiness can become annoying over time even if it’s ok for now. I will have a perfectly writing Benu Fine! 😁
Right there with you; I have two BENU Euphorias, and I indeed had to do a little smoothing on both the Fine nibs. I purchased a broad from someone else and that one was really great off jump.
Yeah it seems to be the pattern then! Benu is not so great at tuning their Fine nibs lol with it probably having a 2% bad nib rate too like 1% for their mediums and broad.
@KenchanKrafts Not to throw water on the theory, but I do have at least three fine #6 Benus that were perfect out of the box. One #5 that I bought secondhand was extremely dry. The tines were so, so tight that it took me forever to even get a brass shim between them.
@@nlamproplos the plot THICKENS! 🤔👏🏽😅
@@nlamproplos No, that is very hopeful. I love water, KEEP THROWING IT! XD I will one day have a perfect Benu Fine because this line width is perfect for me.
@@julia-here Hahaha, Indeed!!! This is very exciting!
Hello! I have a dreamy Edelweiss as well! M Schmidt nib writes beautifully. It is currently inked with Bleu Austral.
What a gorgeous ink to pair with your Edelweiss! I love that flower so it’s wonderful that the pen has some sense of it inside the resin! And yes it’s the dreamiest pen - it reminds me of the sun glistening against the snow in the winter ❄️
It’s beautiful!💙
Thank you, it is!! 😍😌
Rats! I'd talked myself out of the Firefly until I saw this! Beautiful! 😅
Haha! Sorry for penabling you if you bought it. But you will love it if you enjoy greens and purples. I hope my clip seeing it in natural light helped to show its true beauty!
I have a Euphoria with a fine nib, and I would say it has feedback, but I wouldn’t call it scratchy. Maybe a little less feedback than my 21K medium fine Sailor pro gear
That's great to hear! ♥ I love a good feedback on a fine nib with no scratchiness lol. That's what I was hoping from this Benu Fine, which I got, but it also came with some scratching - which thankfully is not a very big issue. I can get it tuned in SF if I can't manage to fix it or if Pen Boutique is unable to assist. Thanks for sharing your Benu Fine experience ^_^
Eeeeppp it's so beautiful 😍
Yassss 😋🥰 it doesn’t seem to glow though, but it glows in the sunlight 😂 lol
@KenchanKrafts I loved the clip you showed in the sunlight. Perfection. I feel you have plenty of forest themed pens now. Lolz, when you get a chance, I would love to see a video on the forest pens :)
@@stareenafraser YESSS! All my Forest Themed Fountain Pens deserve a spotlight ^_^ I love them all!
I have two Benu Euphorias, one is buttery smooth, the other has that scratchy feedback you're experiencing. I can't see anything wrong when I look at it under a loupe, so I'm not sure what to do at this point.
Aww darn! Sorry about your experience, Caleb. Yeah, if it has this scratchy sound - this is not just feedback LOL it's literal scratching on specific strokes. If it scratches slightly on every stroke, then it probably is feedback. But I'm sure we both have a scratchy problem here. Will need a nib master at the SF Pen Show to show me what they see with my benu nib so I know what to look for when I self-diagnose.
I have a talisman edelweiss too. I love the look of the pen but I find it very uncomfortable for longer sessions. I started with a medium nib but I wanted to use it with a specific journal, so I bought a Twsbi mini EF replacement nib and the nib unit can screw right in to the pen, even though it’s a smaller size nib. It can swap.i learned this on another video and also on Reddit. lol. So when ink runs out, I will see about swapping to the medium to see if that helps the comfort. Maybe more flow will help, but it seems like my finger goes right on a hard spot of the plastic. It is my most expensive pen, and it’s kind of disappointing.
Thanks for your videos, good details!
Aww oh no, I’m sorry the talisman doesn’t fit well for you in longer writing sessions. As I’ve started doing longer writing sessions recently, I have refined my understanding of what pen grips and weights work for me specifically (18-22g total weight, 11mm grips). Even though I prefer a weightier pen in general, those don’t do well for me in longer sessions. So it sounds like the plastic grip section of the talisman isn’t right for you, there’s not a lot to fix that, but hopefully it will feel better once you try out the medium. Thank you for watching! I appreciate it 🥰
@@KenchanKrafts I hope so, but I don't have much hope....but it's still a nice pen to use in general. I know my tastes have changed over the years, my Platinum plaisir used to be very annoying to write with, but I got used to it. So you never know. The Benu's are soooo pretty. But I guess it's good that I don't love them, as my wallet would not be so happy.
@@bluebobbin2803 Indeed, our pen tastes do change over time. Our wallets will love us if we can choose to not love some pens xD but that decision is easier when the pen doesn't vibe well with our writing style, too.
@@KenchanKrafts oops I’m sorry I replied with my other UA-cam account. I keep different accounts for different videos genres! Sorry for the confusion!
@@dtmama haha no worries!! I figured it was you 😆 that’s why I just continued the conversation! 🥰
My first (and currently only) Benu is a fine nib and I have the same issue with scratching. I'm wondering if that just that nib... might have to get a custom nib grind for it as it's beautiful and I just don't reach for it much as is...
Thanks for sharing your experiences on Benu Fines. A good amount of folks have mentioned that their Fines write perfectly fine xD so I do think the percentage of bad Benu Fines are a lot higher than normal. Which Benu do you have? :) The new Sandalwood is just beautiful. I cannot justify it at the moment, but I love how it looks!
@KenchanKrafts I have a briolette in luminous blue. I think I'm just not quite a fine nib person... I'm currently eyeing the euphoria in earl grey from goulet and the astrogem in Klio currently. So many beautiful pens, so little time!!
Gorgeous chunky pen…….. but yes…. I think I would choose Edelweiss 👍
Yes!!! 😍 Edelweiss for the win 🥰
The Benu that i bought recently doesn't seem to be scratchy. It actually has a very slight bounce/softness to it....for a steel nib. I love it! I used your Atlas affiliate link for that Christmas Twinkle :) And I just bought two more Benu yesterday with your Atlas link as well. They are having half off their Last Chance section so I couldn't pass up the Atlas exclusives :P Two pens for the price of one
Thank you for sharing this new pen day...the colors are so pleasing to look at. I have yet to try a Talisman model. I have mostly Euphoria models. I feel like I never really see a Talisman that I want to try for their higher price...but I'm sure one day will speak to me enough (or the price will be right for my budget :P )
Aww yay! Thank you for shopping through my link!! A Two-fer is always so awesome!! Especially exclusives! You won't find anything quite like it anywhere else. The great thing about the Talisman and Euphoria are that they are different enough to cater to a wider audience of writers, so that's great. I also find it interesting that the Talisman costs more because they have a piece of the name inside them...but yet, Goulet is getting these Euphoria's that ALSO HAVE essence of the name inside the resin now (like matcha inside the matcha Euphoria...which I'm resisting so hard because I love that pen's theme/design) and you are still paying less than a Talisman. They should just reduce the price of Talismans at this point haha! Do you have all of Goulet's Euphoria drink series pens? I forget if you posted them in Seemonay's server xD I think the Matcha and Earl Grey are probably my favorites of the whole series.
@@KenchanKrafts Ya, I always wondered if the reason the Talisman was slightly more was because they include a piece of their name....but then, like you said, the latest Goulet Euphorias have the matcha and rose in them. When the matcha comes back in stock, I am SO getting one :P I have the Goulet exclusive Sangria. I LOVE sangria as a drink so I had to get that one!
What size is the new pen? Fine?
Yep! I bought a Fine this time because I already have a medium and broad, so now my Trinity is complete!