I bought an Italian fountain pen, the most expensive pen I’ve ever bought. When it arrived, in super speedy time I was pleased to begin with. It was beautifully made and wrote very nicely for the first half a dozen lines then it dried up and wouldn’t write, it felt dry and scratchy and unusable. I tried cleaning it and flushing it through with clean water but it was still no good. I reached out to Akkerman via email asking for help but received no reply. On asking for help from the online fountain pen community I had a range of suggestions from further cleaning, to using nib cleaning solution to disassemble it, to adjusting the tines with brass, to returning it. After several rounds of cleaning it warm soapy water, bathing it in nib cleaning solution and changing the ink, I finally managed to work out the dirt in the nib causing the blockage. The pen works well now. But spending £200 on a pen, I did not expect this experience or the lack of help from Akkerman.
Reply P.W. Akkerman:
Dear customer,
Thank you for your feedback. We are very sorry to read that the delayed response has affected your experience, but I do hope that the following explains why the response was indeed delayed:
We have literally sent over 350 e-mails in the week that you received your order, and I didn't want to rush my answer to you specifically. I wanted to take the time to look into this matter and give you an accurate reply. I was going to grab a fountain pen like yours from our stock to see if you would indeed be able to pull it apart, because we have never done that with this specific brand fountain pen before.
Most important: I'm glad to read that you have managed to get it sorted, and that you are now enjoying writing with your new fountain pen!