I have a rollerball fountain pen so I can carry it around to fill out forms and stuff. I’ve talked about it at length here. I usually use my J. Herbin as an Everywhere Pen, it’s not for creative works, per se, but it’s for signing documents, writing notes, anything that suits the “do you have a pen?” question. I can’t sign a bank document in scented canary yellow with gold shimmer.

The Herbin is great as a pen, no real functional complaints. It’s not pricy so someone curious about getting a rollerball fountain pen wouldn’t break the bank getting one*, it’s a good starter rollerball fountain pen. The line is just too wide for me, it’s a fairly medium line (about 0.07mm). I prefer narrow, thin lines, 0.05mm or thinner. So, it’s just preference to me.

I have been looking casually for a different rollerball fountain pen, mainly to keep an eye on seeing if there is a fine line rollerball out.

And it finally happened, as the Kakimori. I saw it on JetPens and got it. It’s pricy af ;v; so you better not lose it and you better be sure you want to use it.

Herbin (Left), Kakimori (Right)

Since I got the Kakimori, it’s an amazing pen. It’s the thin line that I want, it comes with a twist style converter that holds three times more ink than the Monteverde converter. The Monteverde holds about .4ml (.5ml, it feels to me) ink, the Kakimori converter holds 1.5ml of ink, so that’s great for me, more capacity. It’s basically at half capacity of my TWSBI Vac700R, which holds roughly 3ml of ink. That’s wonderful for me. I have never ran out of ink in the middle of writing with my Herbin and I basically refilled it once or twice a year, if even that. The cap posts (it can be put on the back of the pen) on the Kakimori and it twists open, instead of pull open, which is what Herbin does. Getting used to how to open the pen will take a little bit of time but it’s a remarkably small hurdle to hop that’s a non-issue for me.

It’s brilliant, in short.

Just needs a roll stop.

The Herbin comes with a pen clip, the Kakimori comes with nothing so it will sprint off of a table top no problem.

A roll stop is, well, exactly that, a decorative thing that prevents the pen from rolling away. It stops rolling. ‘Das it. ¯\(°_o)/¯

There are some pricy roll stops out there but I already spent a lot of money on the pen itself so that’s out of the question completely.

Annnnnnnnd you can just use anything small as a roll stop so I opted for nail art cabochons. They’re small, designed for curved surfaces (the nail), can take a bit of a beating, etc. I settled on the Vivienne Westwood Saturn orb, because I like Westwood (I’m part of Gothic Lolita fashion so there’s that). I got a small bag of them for five bucks and glued one on with UV glue. Now it has a roll stop and one that looks like it came with the pen.

Glitzy, no?

I filled the Kakimori with Platinum’s Chou Kuro. It is an ink that has special cleaning instructions, it’s finicky. My Herbin was filled with Caran d’Ache’s Cosmic Black. The Chou Kuro is nice but it stains my pipette, doesn’t have any sheen (Cosmic Black has a little bit of it) and is a finicky one. It creates a dark line, that’s wonderful and exactly what I want, but I prefer a black ink that’s not going to make me feel like a scientist to prep, clean and use. I have a 3ml sample of it but a full 60ml bottle is $60 a pop. I’m certainly going to use all my Chou Kuro because I really do love the dark line (and it is more waterproof than Cosmic Black, which can look like smeared soot when water touches it) but once it is up, I’m getting a bottle of Cosmic Black. The bottle is interesting, it’s tilted so easier to fill.

The bottle is tilted, I love it. I really like unique ink bottles

Right now I have a sample vial of both. I’m not even bothering to use my sample vial of Waterman’s Intense Black, it is not intense at all. I will keep it around as a just in case I run out of Cosmic Black and I have nothing to replace it with.

I’m still in the “convince me” stage, however. If I get a bottle of Chou Kuro, I won’t need a pipette at all. If I get a bottle of Cosmic Black, it’s a good black ink that I’m already pretty happy with but water is not its friend.

Back to pens, the J. Herbin I have isn’t broken, it just wasn’t for me. However, I’m not big on mass consumerism and throwing perfectly good items away so I’m giving it away to my friend who seemed to super like using the pen for his book event and it’s fitting for his signature. He’s not into fountain pens so the fact its a rollerball and not a traditional nib should make it easier to use, even for a novice. And it won’t be heart-stopping if it drops because there are no tines to bust. If there is one thing that is important to me for dropping the money I do for a rollerball pen that I have to also buy ink for separately, it needs to be durable and reliable. Otherwise, I might as well get a Bic yinked from the post office and call it a day.

Here’s a brief show of the lines of the different pens:

See how, for my small handwriting, the Herbin looks blobby in comparison? As if I’m using a marker? At the time, the Kakimori was inked with a drip of Dominant Industry’s Duftrausch Rose ink (which is scented). I had gotten the ink along with the pen so it was all I had on hand. Now it has Chou Kuro until I run out of the sample completely, which probably won’t be a while.

I super like the Kakimori, it’s really great and I don’t have the lingering afterthought of “I wish the line was smaller” like I would with the Herbin. Instead, it’s a breeze to use and now I don’t have to worry about throwing away a disposable pen, because it sucks to have a pen that is really great – and then it runs out of ink so now you just have empty plastic in your hands.

*nota bene: I’m American. This post is coming out April 6, 2025. It is currently $13 to get a Herbin rollerball pen and $8 to get a Monteverde converter (because the Herbin doesn’t come with one)