It’s no secret that over the past year I have rediscovered my love of longhand writing. Slowly but surely, my fascination with fountain pens has grown, so when I spotted a chance to get my hands on a Waterman 512v I took it:

Forgive the terrible penmanship and focus on the inspiring quote instead.

I was really surprised at how light and small this pen was. Uncapped it comes in at under 4 inches, so I’ve found that I really need to have it posted to make it comfortable. If you don’t like posting your pens, I’m not sure it would be for you. I love the nib though, even if it is second hand and not quite as smooth as it could be. It feels loved.

It’s an old fashioned lever system refill, which isn’t as simple as my Sheaffer convertor, but I’ve only had one accident (and that was with some purple ink all over my fingers, lovely). The flow of ink isn’t too wet and it was surprisingly good as an everyday pen. I tried it for a week with my Field Notes and there was virtually no feathering or bleed through, despite the fact Field Notes paper is not particularly designed to be fountain pen friendly. Even scribbling away in a fast, bullet journal style way of writing didn’t cause any misses or scratches.

Sadly, I could find very little information out there on the interwebz about the Waterman 512v, so I thought I would do this little review just in case anyone else was considering purchasing one. If you don’t mind fiddling around with ink rather than cartridges, then I would say go for it. I’d happily shove it in my pocket and go.