Jinhao
I Ching

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Need bottled ink or refills?

I Ching Gold fountain pen    $20.00    Sold out

I Ching Bronze fountain pen    $20.00

I Ching Silver fountain pen    $20.00

Here's a pen design that clearly embodies its Chinese heritage! A full-sized pen at 5-3/8" capped and 6-1/4" posted, this brass-bodied beauty has a nice heft to it, but is well-balanced for extended writing sessions with or without its cap posted.

The barrel and cap of the I Ching are made up of 13 'sides' or panels (the number 13 is not considered an unlucky one in China ), which smoothes out the hard edges that can sometimes be felt with the more common hexagonal shape (now, aren't most 'hexes' considered unlucky?).

It's cap top is adorned with symbols from the ancient (close to 5,000 years) text of I Ching, often referred to as the Book of Changes. The center is shows the Taijitu symbol, more familiar in the west as the yin-yang symbol, which broadly translated indicates the dynamic balance of complementary opposites. This is surrounded by the eight Bagua or trigrams of Taoist cosmology, (the solid line represents yang, the creative principle, while the open line represents yin, the receptive principle.). Each, or trigram symbol has a name, nature, season, personality, family, direction and meaning...so you can see that there's a bit of complexity developed over 5000 years. If you want to learn more about this fascinating subject, just click on any of the underlined links above.

Now it would be hard to find anything that more represents ancient China -- or modern for that matter -- than the dragon. Here we have one well represented, as it is the clip! From the highly textured scales of its back, to the gleaming red eyes resting behind its snout (I think we can safely assume that they're not rubies at this price), this is a clip that means business. 

Removing the slip cap reveals the two-toned steel nib, which employs the attractive ovals pattern seen on many of Jinhao's nibs -- such as the Flames -- and the company name is engraved upon it in script. I would rate the nibs as a light-medium, meaning it lays down a line somewhere between a typical western fine and medium nib. Smooth, and not as stiff a nib as those found on many Chinese pens.

Unscrewing the section from the barrel, one finds the included piston converter for bottled ink. The converter includes a little agitator ball to help prevent adherence of the ink to the plastic walls of the cylinder, but it's still recommended to run a dilute solution of dishwashing soap (two or three drops to a small bowl of water) through a new converter a few times (outside of the pen!), followed by water only. Step one is effective at removing manufacturing oils that can tend to make the ink less than enthusiastic in heading from the converter to the nib, and step two removes the traces of the detergent you've used...which tends to have the opposite, diuretic effect.

The pen will also fit international-style ink cartridges, such as those from Private Reserve.

All-in-all, and attractive and representative import from China.

                   
                    New Bronze next to Gold                                                        Gold above, Bronze below

There's a fairly subtle distinction between the Gold and the new Bronze versions. The Bronze is a bit darker and has an aged, two-toned look to it. The Gold is uniformly gold, and a bit brighter in appearance.

IMPORTANT SERVICE NOTE: Every nib that ships from His Nibs is closely examined under high magnification and tuned or adjusted if needed. About 85% of modern nibs need some adjustment out-of-the-box from the manufacturer for an optimal writing experience. Most commonly, the tines of the nib are misaligned -- which would cause scratchiness at the minimum; the slit between the tines is partially or fully closed -- which would starve the nib of ink and at best cause skipping; or the slit between the tines is too wide -- which will either again cause skipping, or conversely, flooding. There are other factors  -- such as separation of the nib from the feed -- that are inspected and repaired before any pen leaves the Palace.

The only 100% guarantee of course comes when the pen is actually filled with ink and written with for the first time, but our pre-shipping inspections and tunings have eliminated 99.99999 (my finger is getting tired) of the frustrations that a customer experiences when first using a new fountain pen. Although this can be time-consuming on occasion, it affords our customers a much more pleasant experience when receiving a fountain pen from His Nibs -- and saves us the frustration of dealing with returns!

Ordering Procedures & Returns

International customers, please note, we will not falsify shipping documents

Credit cards, for the quickest fulfillment of your order, are accepted through PayPal, a secure site allowing you to use your credit card without us even seeing the information. If you'd like to make use of this credit card service, please let us know when you email your order and address, and we'll email you the appropriate Request for Payment, and instructions for the simple payment procedure (you don't need to join PayPal to use it).

If you would like us process your credit card directly instead, then please email us:

1. Card # (dividing this number in two, between two emails, will ensure security)
2. Expiration date
3. Name on card
4. Address for billing statement
5. Card verification # (3-digit number printed on the back of your card. It appears after and to the right of your card number, or 4-digit number on the front of your AMEX card).
 

If you'd rather pay by money order or check, kindly make payable to:

His Nibs.com
  2540 W. Union Street
  Allentown, PA 18104

We ship via insured Priority Mail
(email for cost)

Please send your order and shipping address (along with any questions) to:

orders@hisnibs.com
(on PayPal transactions, the email address may also display as stonebri@sprynet.com -- both are valid)

We will email you back with your order total (PA residents please add 6% sales tax)

Warranties and returns

If an item proves to be defective, in most cases the manufacturer's warranty will apply. However, please email us first so that we can determine the easiest way to resolve the problem to your satisfaction. In the case of fountain pens -- which are a bit more individualistic than other writing instruments -- what may at first appear to be a defect (hard starting or poor flow for example), can in almost all cases be resolved with a few simple 'tweaks' to the nib, which we'll be happy to guide you through or perhaps suggest returning to us for adjustment.

Should you wish to return a non-defective item within 3 days of receipt because it doesn't suit you for some reason, again please email us and we'll arrange an exchange, credit or refund (minus any shipping/insurance charges), if the item is returned in an 'as new' condition. If you've dipped a fountain pen to try its writing characteristics, kindly clean off any ink residue prior to shipping -- to save us both a nasty surprise .

We want you to be happy with your purchase from His Nibs.com and hope to have you join the ranks of our many long-term, repeat customers!

Revised: July 3rd, 2009

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