If there’s something I love more than a good pen, it’s a good pen at a good price. This is one of those cases. I would feel a bit guilty about this, but it’s the free market my good people and the free market is a wonderful thing. This review is about the Aurora 88 fountain pen, which is a really interesting pen, and I was able to score it for £90 at the London Pen Show in October 2019. If you want to score some pens, check out my for sale page.

Design

This is a classic design, but what I love about it is there are so many combinations. There is the standard gloss black, rose gold designs, black & gold cap (this one), demonstrators, satin black ones and Aurora do special editions – such as the Nebulosa and Black Mamba. There is a reason why Aurora gives these pens so much attention: it’s an amazing pen and fantastic design. There is something about it that differs quite a bit from classic cigar shaped pens, such as the Montblanc 149, which is the obvious competition at this price point (the RRP, not the sumgai price). I think that it’s something to do with a profile that tapers towards the bottom and a really nice clip; it’s not a standard clip – there’s some character to it, and I really like it.

Part of the reason why I think this pen may have been a bit cheaper for me (at least why I haggled from £100 to £90, because I’m an opportunist) is because there is a dent in the cap. Real small ding. And ykno what, I think they’re cool. Yeah, I’d be a bit annoyed if I bought it like this new and it had dings out the box, but it’s preowned. So what?

Nib

This is where the pen comes to life. There is a uniqueness to Platinum and Aurora nibs in that they provide quite a bit of feedback when writing with them. I adore this in a pen, and part of what will probably ensure this is not the last Aurora that I own. It gives the pen and writing experience real personality.

The nib design is also really nice.

Filling

The 88 is a piston filled pen. Aurora have made their piston fillers to work in a way that ink gets trapped (with purpose) in the piston plunger thing so that when you’re running out on ink you can.. Flick it or something so you get an extra drop of ink in case you run out at a bad time. Which is a cool idea, but not something that is a make or break for me. If Aurora were to sell two pens one with this function and another with a standard piston I’d buy the other pen. But they’re never going to do this – the price elasticity of demand is pretty low for the price cut they’d be giving and it wouldn’t really be much benefit. But hey, I’m not about to advise Aurora on their markets. But if you want, hmu bby. Just pay me in Aurora Nebulosa pens.

How It Feels

This is a pen that would be great as a workhorse, and the feeling should reflect that – which it undoubtedly does. It isn’t too heavy, but not too light. The size is perfect, fitting well in the hand. Here’s a size comparison:

Would I Buy It?

Now this is a difficult question. I mentioned price elasticity of demand earlier (the percentage change in consumers buying a good by a percentage change of price; if there is a small price cut and more people buy then there is a high price elasticity of demand, for example) and if these pens were priced similarly to the M800 I would buy so damn many of them. But they’re about £400-500 a pop. Yeah, they do special editions and the M800 demonstrator isn’t the same as an M800 blue stripe, so there’s some leeway. Aurora are clearly attempting to approach the Montblanc 149 market rather than the Pelikan M800 one. I don’t know if this will be the same for everyone, whether they’d buy more Auroras at a lower price (well, they would, but whether the percentage increase would be greater than the percentage decrease in price). I think Aurora would do better selling this pen at said price point and moving the limited editions to the price bracket that they’re selling these ones at now. So, uh, would I buy it? Well.. I’m very on the fence – for £90 it’s a no brainer because it is definitely worth that much (though, to someone outside of the hobby it would probably be a no brainer because iT’S jUsT a PeN (and it is)) and I’d go as high as £300, which is what I was looking for at the pen show.

If Not This, Then What?

Montblancs are an option. I wouldn’t recommend it, but they’re an option. Other Aurora 88s are also an option, though you could see the price increase if you’re looking at the LEs. Personally, I’d suggest the M800 for reasons I’ve already mentioned earlier. With the M800 you get a different design (though more limited in said design) that may fit you better, it’s cheaper and has the same filling mechanism (as well as more gold content in the nib if I am not mistaken). Or you could buy 14.2 TWSBI Ecos. Whatever floats your boat.