August 5, 2025

Pens from China - Asvine

These pens are a notch up from Jinhao both in quality and price. Jinhao aims for the lowest possible price ($3 to $15). Asvine pens sell for $30 to $60 with nicer materials (often JoWo nibs) and are often piston fillers.

Asvine J16

I picked up an Asvine J16 in solid titanium for $55. It has a Jowo EF nib. It is a piston filler. Compare this to the TWSBI from Taiwan for $40.

At one time the J16 was available in Ebonite, which looks very nice, but right now (early August, 2026) there are none on Amazon. The word is that there will be more available in a few months.

My J16 is an extremely wet writer, and I'm looking to tame it down a bit. I cleaned it out, and yanked the nib and feed. I have a 0.05mm (0.002 inch) brass shim. It is tight when passed through the nib slit, so it would not seem that the nib itself needs to be squeezed tighter.

Using some other nicely working pens I have as a guide, I set the nib on the feed and push it back into the pen.

Asvine V800

I see this pen on Amazon for $36. It is a Vac filler (as per the "V" in the model number). It is a big pen, another MB 149 class pen with a #8 nib. It is available with an EF nib.

The body is acrylic (not molded plastic). They take acrylic rods and machine the pen parts.

It is sort of a bigger version of their V126. The V126 uses a #6 nib.

It "blows more expensive pens out of the water". You can get a 1.1 stub. The ink capacity is large (3.0 ml)

I couldn't resist and bought an EF demonstrator and (something new) a stub in brown swirl.

Asvine C2000

An $80 pen! Black ebonite. A cartridge/converter pen (they include the converter) with a #8 nib. They call it "German Cumberland Ebonite". I also see a blue stabilized wood version for $39.
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Tom's Pen Info / tom@mmto.org