Franklin Christoph 45

Unlike many of my reviews on this site, I purchased this pen as soon as it came out. I was going through a Franklin Christoph phase and I may have subconsciously been trying to get to 50 to get my free pen.

Anyway, the Pocket 45 I have is actually the IPO edition (initial product offering) in a red demonstrator. Honestly, it could not be more up my alley if it tried – Franklin Christoph, Red, Demonstrator, no wonder I jumped on this so quickly.

The 45 is a pocket sized pen, so it only takes a short international cartridges, but like many Franklin Christophs, it can be eyedroppered if you’re inclined, although I’m never quite brave enough to do this. For me, I don’t mind the lack of a converter, but I do find not having a way to push ink through to the nib a bit of a pain, as I’ll explain later.

The 45 uses a #5 Jowo nib and Franklin Christoph has since brought out a similar looking pen called the 46 which uses a #6 Jowo nib, which I much prefer. I’ve never had any luck with #5 Jowo nibs, I find them a bit less consistent in performance than the #6 – I’ve found all of my #5 came with baby’s bottom (I have 4 nibs) and they also run dry. In fact for many of my #5 nibs, I only use a select number of inks with these inks – typically Diamine or De Atramentis which I’ve found run wetter or are more lubricated.

This particular broad suffers from dryness, which you can probably tell with the writing sample below. The top of the review is much darker than the bottom. At the end of the page, the nib was struggling to get enough ink and I suspect with an additional one or two lines of writing, it may have run completely dry. With this issue in mind, only having an eyedropper or cartridge option means that I can’t force ink into the nib when it runs dry.

The aesthetics of the pen are nice, I like that it’s a demonstrator and the material that its made with, but the flatness of the top and bottom finial is something that I’m not super fond of. Although, the flatness is helpful when I want to sit the pen upside down to help get the ink flow going. The pen only comes clipless, which I prefer, but of all the clipless pens I own, this is probably the rolliest one I have experienced. This pen has rolled off every single surface I’ve put it on!

Franklin Christoph now make a 46 which takes a #6 nib and can fit a converter, as well as a 45L which uses the #5 nib and takes a converter. For me, based on the nib performance alone, this is probably a pen I’ll move on, which is a shame, because it’s a really nice pocket sized pen.