Uniball Vision Eye Fine

The Uniball Vision Eye is probably one of the mid range pens that you’ll find in your stationery store at the office – this is certainly where I first came across this pen. It’s a reasonably priced rollerball offering from Uniball and I’ve always found it to be an acceptable, albeit standard offering.

I’ve never overly enjoyed using this pen, its scratchy and the ball tip seems a bit stiff compared to its higher end counterparts, but one day I tried it on Rhodia. I can’t quite remember what made me do this – I typically reserve higher end papers for exclusive use with Fountain pens, so I had not tried this pen and paper combination before. The experience was completely different compared to the el cheapo photocopy papers I had previously used this pen on.

I have found Rhodia to be too slick for Fountain pens (its so smooth I think its hard for pens to lay down ink) and I have found the Uniball to be too scratchy on other papers, but together, the two seemed to compensate for the other’s flaws.

It just goes to show how important it is to try out different combinations of paper/pen/ink (if you’re using fountain pens). If your first choice doesn’t work, mix up your combinations and you’ll probably find something that will work out for you. There are limitations of course and you might not want to keep buying new pens/inks/papers to suit something (or maybe you do), but if you have something on hand, its definitely worth a go – you might just find something that will pleasantly surprise you.