I bought this Narwhal pen in November 2021. The company then called Narwhal, but changed it to Nahvalur in the summer of 2022. Now it turns out that Narwhal’s Icelandic pronunciation is simply ‘Narwhal’. There must be a reason why they did this, but I don’t know it. But it is actually quite strange that a young company still opts for a name change, this must have an impact on the commercial stability of this company. Anyway for this review I stick to Narwhal because I bought it as a Narwhal.
The Narwhal Key West fountain pen is available in two liveries: the golden sparkling Islamorada and the blue sparkling Largo. These together represent the beach: Islamorada is the sand and the Largo is the sky. I went for the Largo with medium nib. I bought the pen for 55 Euro at Scrittura Elegante.
The pen comes in a beautiful black cardboard box with Narwhal logo. Enclosed is a handy leathery pouch in which the pen is located. The pen itself is packed in a plastic bag.
What immediately catches the eye is the sparkling look of the cigar shaped body. A converter is included. The shimmers that are incorporated into the plastic layer are very attractive. The plastic finish also feels very high-quality, this promises to be a sparkling fairy tale.
The cap is a screw-on cap with a good clip. You need almost 2 turns to unscrew the cap, this is a bit too much. On the cap is a silver ring with some kind of ‘pacman’-pattern. This ring strengthens the cap so that hardly any cracks can occur. It is noteworthy that the brand name is nowhere on the pen, with the exception of the logo on the nib.
Posting the pen is not done because the cap is not tight and secure enough on the barrel, and also there is a risk that the cap will leave marks on it.
The section screw in the barrel with metal threads. Same as with the cap, no change of cracks on the barrel here, so design-wise they did a good job. Nothing special about the barrel to mention.
The section has the same sparkling finish as the body. The section feels hard and has a small step towards the nib. There is some distance between the section and the tip of the nib due to the large nib. For me this is not a problem, but I can imagine that with smaller hands you tend to hold the pen closer to the paper and than this small could be getting in the way and for me it started hurting my fingers.
The steel medium nib looks nice with some attractive curls engraved. The inkflow is good and the pen writes not too wet. Let’s say the medium is a big medium, somewhat between medium and broad. The nib offers some line variation but not to behave like a flex nib. For me, this nib gave me way too many false starts that bothered me while sketching. For writing with it and when the ink flow is going on, the false starts were less. For me the fine steel nib of the Narwhal Merman felt better. Although the broken piston of the Merman gave me other problems. The Narwhal nibs are made in house but I think they need some tuning.
Concerning the medium nib: because my Merman cannot be fixed anymore, I decided to swap it with the Key West. So now the Key West hast the fine nib, and I can tell you its writing performance is spot-on.
Some details:
- Total weight: 24,70 gr.
- Capless weight: 14,10 gr.
- Capless length: 12,60 cm.
- Posted length: 16,40 cm.
- Body width: 1,3 cm.
Out of a total score of 30, I would give this pen a 25. This pen loses points because the cardboard box looks cheap and there is no warranty or instructions. The pen is not a limited edition, posting is unsecure, no gold nib and a disturbing edge between grip and nib.
Peacock pens 