I have reviewed a few Zebra's here at Good Pens in the past.
Here's the list and some have even made my top tens. So, I was pretty stoked when Shoplet.com sent over a pile of the little fellas for review. I was pretty familiar with this line of
office supplies and Zebras and I knew they had a gel version (G 301) but had never written with one. I like this line of pens, they look good in combination. Sort of how matching pens and pencils should look.
I see a lot of pen and pencil sets on eBay and on the pen forums from back in the day and I wish they would not have gone away. In fairness...these are not sold as a set-but if you get creative on your shopping and you can have a nice ballpoint or gel /
.5 mechanical "set" that looks nice. These Zebras are a little bit lighter than I remember mainly because they are not solid metal. There's enough plastic on the front and the back to lighten the load.
So here they are: being watched over by
Marty. It's pretty clear, Gel is Gel, BP is ballpoint and 0.5 is the pencil. What I did not know until I looked in the product guide that they also make a Fountain Pen. What? Why didn't I know this? (The search has commenced.)
Here's the business end of all three. I have bigger hands- so writing with these for a long time is a little strenuous. More-so with the ballpoint than with the gel. The plastic isn't rubbery at all, it's a harder plastic that doesn't give a ton of grip but still works because of the knurling.
Ooh, Gel, thank you...nicely done. The ink is thick and puts itself on the paper nicely. It's pretty close to a true .5 even on bad paper. Black and consistent= Exactly like I like my coffee. Just my opinion, but I prefer the gel over the bp for my writing.
Again, the ballpoint is a little odd for me, because except for reviews or in extreme emergencies, I rarely write with a normal ballpoint. Clicking the picture makes this larger and you get a better feel for the way the rubber meets the road.
The other thing I noticed about these pens (and pencils) is that they are really clicky. If I were in a conference room and someone was consistently clicking this thing unconsciously I might have to jump across the table and silence them, but in reality that means a solid working mechanism, so I won't argue. So, thanks Shoplet. They are also kicking off a contest that is
fun here.
I will get the winner of the August contest out and change the rules a little for September. The
Tumblr is getting some good stuff on it and there's always
Facebook if you like that sort of thing.
Seth
