Monteverde Impressa Gunmetal and Red in Box

The Monteverde Impressa Gunmetal and Red Fountain Pen with Broad nib is one very unique looking fountain pen with its dramatic color scheme.  The nice folks at Pen Chalet sent this one over free of charge for the purposes of this review. It goes without saying that our review of the Monteverde Impressa remains unbiased regardless of it being a freebie.   Heck, it might even get regifted to one of our lovely readers here for a giveaway, so keep an eye out for that.

Monteverde Impressa Gunmetal and Red Top Down Square Cap

Literally, from the top to the bottom the Monteverde Impressa is a very unique looking fountain pen.  Looking at it from the top, you can see that it has a square cap with rounded corners.  The “U” shape that you see on top of the cap is the spring loaded hinge that the clip sits on, giving it a nice firm grip on your pocket or notebook.

Monteverde Impressa Gunmetal and Red uncapped

Taking a look from another perspective, you can now see that the square top of the cap smoothly transitions to conform with the cylindrical shape of the rest of the pens body. To give some size perspective before we go much further, the Monteverde Impressa measures 5.5 inches when closed and 6 inches with the cap posted.

Monteverde Impressa Gunmetal and Red Components

Here is a good look at the Monteverde Impressa’s bold and unique color scheme.  The gunmetal and bright red are a dramatic contrast against one another that really makes this pen stand out.  You can also see here that the Impressa has a black steel nib which is always a good change of pace from the usual gold and silver tones.

Monteverde Impressa Gunmetal and Red Head On

The nib has the standard Monteverde logo on it with the dramatic mountain scape. The section is accented by a nice decorative red band as you can see above.  Surprisingly as I was photographing the pen for this review, I realized that it really doesn’t pick up as many smudges and fingerprints as I thought it would.

Monteverde Impressa Gunmetal and Red Converter

The pen takes international cartridges, but also comes with a converter.  I did run into one minor issue with the converter, which was that I somehow ended up with ink behind the plunger at one point.  It was easily fixed by taking the whole converter apart, and it only happened once out of the 4-5 times I’ve refilled this pen so far.

Monteverde Impressa Gunmetal Full Body Capped

Here is one more full body shot of the Monteverde Impressa, it’s really quite a pen to look at.  I’m actually torn on whether or not I actually like this color scheme, or if I’m just staring at it because it’s a bit loud and just demands attention.

Monteverde Impressa Broad Nib Writing Sample on Doane Paper

Monteverde Impressa Broad Nib Writing Sample on Doane Paper

Writing with the Impressa yielded some pretty good results.  The broad nib was really smooth and wrote consistently well when loaded with the Noodler’s Lexington Gray and Pelikan Edelstein Tanzinite.   For some reason though it didn’t like the Noodler’s Red Black in, and threw mini-fits of skipping here and there.   The nib stayed very clean with all three of these inks showing no visible nib creep throughout my writing experience with the pen.

Even though the grip is made of the same smooth metallic material as the body, it was easy to hold onto while writing and not slick as I had imagined it might be.  My only beef with the writing experience is that with the cap posted, the pen does become a bit top heavy.  I think this is due to the caps length and that it doesn’t post terribly low.   Obviously this problem is solved by just writing without posting the cap, which is just not my preferred method.

Overall this is a nice writing and solid performing mid level fountain pen.  If you like bold colors for your fountain pens, the Montverde Impressa is definitely for you. I’m curious to know what some of the rest of you think of the color scheme here?  Bold and unique, or garish and too much?

Thanks again to the folks at Pen Chalet for sending over this sample of the Monteverde Impressa to review.

©2017, Brian Greene. All rights reserved.