Thegoodblue Reviews 7

I bought an R615 with a 'Flex' nib after reading several, albeit old, reviews on the web and some content on Youtube. I'd suggest that most of these 'influencers' probably got their pen for free, or on the strength of a positive review, because my experience of this pen is far from satisfactory. It's super heavy, not that well balanced, the flex nib is scratchy, and even the best quality ink doesn't flow well - if you do actually get some to flow then the nib railroads on the majority of strokes. I've now given up with this pen and consigned it to the stationary pot to sit with the barely used Lamy collection. If I ever do choose to recommission the R615, then it'll be with a new nib #6 unit, not the awful one it came with.

I have bought several nibs from The Good Blue and they have been excellent. Flex nibs and gold nibs. Sunil can be a little hard to get hold of at first but with so many platforms for contact and pens shows going on all year he's very busy. But I have found the customer service 10/10

I ordered and paid for a R615 flex pen,which apparently was shipped immediately at the end of Jan 2025. Two months later, in March, I inquired about the shipment because the supplied tracking number never returned a result. I was told that the package had mistakenly been sent to the wrong country - South Korea instead of South Africa - and would be re-routed. At the end of April I inquired again for an update on the shipment and got no reply. I followed up again mid May and this time received a reply offering either a refund or a replacement pen. I opted for a replacement pen. This was the last time The Good Blue has replied to my mails. I have since sent four more mails to follow up on the progress which have all been unanswered.

In my last mail to them on 5th June 2025 I made it clear that I will now write this purchase off and consider it a scam. This mail also remains unanswered.

Here are some red flags that indicate to me that this might be a scam:
1. No replies to most emails and the ones that did get replied were friendly but filled with excuses of issues out of their control.
2. A tracking number that never returned a result and likely never existed.
3. Initial avoidance to make use of renowned courier services such as Fedex, UPS, etc. and my request for the replacement to be sent via Fedex resulted in radio silence.
4. No physical address on their website.
5. No contact information on their website other than an email hidden away at the very bottom of their terms of service page.
6. Lastly they have my money and I don't have a pen.

I highly urge anyone to be careful when ordering anything from this website.

I bought an L130 fountain pen by mail order. It looks great but the pen weighs a ton - too heavy for extensive and continuous use - and the zoom nib wasn't as smooth as I'd hoped. I've emailed them twice to arrange a return and a refund under UK mail order legislation but total silence from them.....
Best avoided.

I wasn't happy with my R615 fountain pen so I emailed 31 August 2024 to request a return, as per the instructions on the site. No reply, so I sent a reminder 12 September. No reply to that either. So the returns policy of this company is to ignore requests for returns.

Will try to be as objective as possible about my experience, given the circumstances.

A bit of the context for my perspective:
- it may be that my expectations were set too high by 2 youtube videos out there on good blue fountain pens, hence the bitter taste that may come out of this review
- I own around 50-60 fountain pens, 3 of them having flex nibs (1 of which is vintage)
- I don't own a wet noodle
- I'm at the beginning in my calligraphy venture
- the review below is a bit about the company and more about their Good Blue fountain pen R615, with polymer feed and stainless steel nib
- I've bought the pen online from a different company, which have been tremendously helpful and supportive, with very short response times

The pen construction is properly and very precisely engineered, with low tolerances. Whilst the pen feels good in the hand, weight and length wise, there's still a feeling I have, that the pen is incomplete, probably because of the industrial look (this is just a personal preference though).
The nib looks nice, as well as the engraving "for the love of flex"... if it would only hold true.. I would have also considered doing those letters somehow more pronounced or using a different engineering process, as you can barely read them.

Now to get to the "bad blue" (as I'm calling it now) bad parts.
Even if one would consider a view around flex nibs being pretty subjective, the prime function of the pen (which is to write) was simply the worst part in my case, and wasn't usable even in normal circumstances...
The nib was so sharp that it was constantly digging into the paper. I have a sharp italic nib and a needlepoint, which can be called exceptionally smooth, by comparison. That was the moment when I've started asking for a replacement nib to the shop I bought it from, which have forwarded my ask to the manufacturer. I was assuming the quality assurance wasn't properly done on this particular piece and it is not the case for other nibs.
In the mean time, I've got my thickest paper out (to give the pen a chance), in order to "feel the flex". Oh man... that's where reality kicked in, and disappointment overflowed. Initially I was afraid to press much on it, as I was feeling the nib would simply bend. I forgot to mention that the nib had a very slight inwards curve between the tip and the breather whole, which even if it was barely visible, I don't believe that's part of the design, but rather a flaw.
Since I haven't been contacted by the manufacturer for about a week and I was stubborn enough to still push for meeting my expectations, I said screw the warranty.
Got the tools out and disassembled the pen (that's actually a nice feature, that you can easily disassemble it). Inspected the nib with 30x magnifying glass and it turned out that:
a) the was no tine misalignment to cause the aforementioned behavior
b) but the bottom part of the nib was so damn sharp, no wonder it was ripping the paper off
Inspecting the distance between the tines wasn't looking much better either, as those tines were so tight, that if you would have got the tines out of alignment (which I did for testing) the tines ended up one on top of the other. This felt very strange (given the minimum I know about the capillary flow and nibs in general). Using a precision feeler gauge, I've tested the space between the tines at the highest point (closer to were the nib meets the pen, further from the tip) and I could barely get a 0.05mm in. I was on the other hand thinking that this may be a "feature" so the tines can snap back quickly once flexed... I don't have the engineering knowledge to say something authoritative here, but it doesn't feel right.
Anyway, I won't bore you with the tunning details, but in the end I managed to get a pen that can be used for normal writing.
Be very very careful with this nib, not sure what alloy it's created from, but it's very very soft. In my try to make it flex, I did bent it a few times. I may not be a person that can pretend to know how to write with a flex nib, but I have been doing a bit of practicing with my other flex pens and they are simply from a different world (a better one).
Make sure you buy good blue pens from an authorized, trusted reseller, that's willing to take the pens back if you are not satisfied.

Writing this review made me think there's one of two reasons for why the manufacturer hasn't reached out for a week and a bit now:
- either their team went on holidays exactly during this period
- there's really no better nib that could be sent and my expectations have been wrong

I bought a pen from them at the pen show which developed a problem over a year later and they sorted it out straight away with no argument. Fantastic interaction through email. They make pens with flex nibs and solid construction at a good price point for what you get.
Their commitment to their product, insures great after sales service. Rock on The Good Blue. 👍