REVIEW – The Kaweco Sport pen has a good history. It was created in 1911 as a pocket pen for sportsmen. It is made of durable resin plastic and has no pocket clip. To me it’s a perfect pen for pants or jacket pockets. But if a fountain pen writes poorly or leaks ink, those are dealbreakers. Come see how the Kaweco Sport performed.
⬇︎ Jump to summary (pros/cons)
Price: $20-$220 depending on material ($34 as reviewed)
Where to buy: Goldspot Pens
What is it?
The Kaweco Sport fountain pen is a German-made pen that accepts pre-filled ink cartridges or a plunger-style ink converter to allow filling with bottled inks.
What’s included?
- Kaweco Sport pen, with Fine nib (various nib sizes available)
- One Kaweco Royal Blue standard international ink cartridge (ships loose, inside pen)
- Ink converter (sold separately)
- Instruction sheet and 2 brand stickers
Tech specs
Nib sizes: Extra-fine, fine, medium, broad, double-broad
Nib material: Stainless steel. Gold or silver color finish.
Body material: Plastic resin. Also available in aluminum, brass, and bronze
Body colors: Over thirty plastic resin colors
Cap style: Screw-on, ‘postable’
Length closed: 4.17”
Length with cap off: 3.94”
Length with cap posted: 5.27”
Weight: .3 oz
Grip diameter: .35”
Cap diameter: .51”
Design and features
The Kaweco Sport fountain pen is constructed of resin and is available in over thirty colors. The Sport is also made in a few metals of various finishes. While a pocket clip is available for sale separately, the Sport is traditionally a pocketable pen.
The screw-on cap can be ‘posted’ or placed on the end of the pen which gives the pen added length and balance for comfortable writing.
While the Sport is made to operate with standard international cartridges or an ink converter, it can also operate with the entire body filled with ink if you’re adventurous, and apply silicone grease to the screw threads to help avoid leakage.
Setup
Some fountain pen users do a cleaning procedure before using a new pen. I filled the converter with ink and started writing with it, just as it came from Goldspot Pens.
Performance
After the first filling of the ink converter this Sport ‘burped’ ink from the pen nib section within the first ten words I wrote. It was a nickel coin-shaped pool of ink. Luckily I was writing on plain printer paper in a setting where the ink didn’t bleed through to anything important. It burped out a similar quantity of ink while writing, three more times over my first 10 days with the pen. The final straw was when I was taking notes in church. That isn’t a great setting to encounter and clean up an ink spill. Luckily a tissue was within reach and no ink got on my clothes or any upholstery. Pew! I mean, whew!
I wondered if the converter might somehow be at fault. I first filled the cartridge to about 80% and the pen had not been dropped or jarred during use or carry, nor had it been in any altitude changes. Overfilling cartridges, poor converter fit, rough handling of pens, and temperature or altitude changes can make a pen leak ink. I haven’t had a leaker among the 15 or so fountain pens I’ve used over 25 years, and nearly all of them had converters.
So I cleaned the pen with filtered water and installed the one, pre-filled ink cartridge that came with the pen. (Purists would say to clean fountain pens with only distilled water but I’m not a purist. Filtered water has worked for me for years.) If you use the same ink in a pen, and use the pen regularly, you theoretically may never need to clean the pen. We ink changers need to clean our fountain pens prior to changing to a different ink. This avoids mixing dissimilar inks, which can cause problems with the pen internals.
This Kaweco Sport never leaked ink after installing the cartridge. I liked the almost purple hue of the Kaweco Royal Blue ink so I ordered some of those cartridges and will probably give the converter a pass.
The Kaweco Royal Blue ink has some water resistance to it which was a pleasant surprise. I wouldn’t trust it for check writing or for signing legal documents but if you spill a drink on it, you’ll be able to read what you wrote in time to copy it elsewhere.
Cartridges can be removed, rinsed and refilled with your choice of ink using a blunt-tip craft syringe a few times before they’ll need to be discarded. The Kaweco Sport uses ‘international standard’ size cartridges and they are sold at many online or physical retailers.
So, how did this Kaweco Sport pen write, right? I found the Fine nib to write smoothly on a variety of paper, ranging from printer paper to sticky notes to very ‘fountain pen friendly’ paper. The ink you choose and the paper on which you write can make the line coming from a fountain pen thinner or broader. Some inks have a ‘dry’ quality and the nib may seem scratchy on some paper. Some inks are ‘wet’ and flow well, or even too much from some nibs.
It takes some experimentation to find your favorite combinations of pen, nib, ink and paper. Ink reviews help but you really have to experiment on your own. The world of fountain pens, ink and papers is one really deep cavern you can explore.
My current stable of fountain pens. The Sport is the green stubby pen near the middle. My black Pilot Metro missed the pic. I’ve had half a dozen other fountain pens I either gave to friends or discarded.
A note about paper here: Standard, common, ‘composition book’ notebooks made in Vietnam or Egypt usually contain paper that is great with fountain pens. My favorite is grid ruled paper in these notebooks.
At this point I have to mention the nice participants and excellent moderators at the Fountain Pen Network forum. If you’re a newbie into fountain pens, that’s a great place to camp out, read, and ask questions. I’m ‘crossstick’ over there. Hope to meet you sometime.
Regarding converters and leaks, ‘Dillo’ at the Fountain Pen Network Forum posted this helpful input: “I use both the Kaweco mini converter and the folding mini converter regularly, and they should not have any issues. When you fill the pen, drip out three drops, then flip the nib point up and slowly pull the converter plunger back all the way. This clears the feed of excess ink so that it does not drip.”
I’ve never done that with a dozen pens containing converters but I’ll give those steps a try.
Final thoughts
In my testing, the Kaweco Sport fountain pen was a smooth writing, very reliable pen when using the Kaweco ink cartridge. I’ll probably experiment with the converter a bit more someday, but for now, at a dollar per cartridge, those will work well for me. It’s very nice to have a fountain pen intended for ‘down in the pocket’ carry. At the $28 to $34 price point, the resin Kaweco Sport is a nice example of German pen craftsmanship that almost any writer can experience.
What I like about the Kaweco Sport fountain pen
- Smooth writing
- A lightweight, easy to carry pocket pen
- Economical international standard size cartridges are available in many colors
- The included Royal Blue ink has some water resistance
What needs to be improved?
- Including one ink refill seems chincy. Kaweco should consider including three cartridges of three different colors. That would be a classy change.
- Maybe it was a fluke but a burping converter makes no friends.
Price: $20-$220 depending on material ($34 as reviewed)
Where to buy: Goldspot Pens
Source: The sample of this product was provided for free by Goldspot Pens. The company did not have a final say on the review and did not preview the review before it was published.
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