Graf von Faber Castell Tamitio

Graf von Faber Castell is the luxury line of writing instruments and products from Faber Castell, based in Stein, Germany. The company was founded in 1761 by Kaspar Faber and amazingly, the company is still lead by members if the Faber family, to this day. The thing I found most memorable when looking into this company was the Count Faber Castell drinking their ink to prove the safety of their products. Hilarious!

Faber Castell and Graf von Faber Castell make some of my very favourite pens in my collection and I’ve talked previously about my thoughts on the Faber Castell fountain pens being amongst the very best for the price. 

I purchased the Graf von Faber Castell Tamitio after a self imposed “no-buy” period in my pen journey, at a significant discount. At the time, I wasn’t aware that the Tamitio had a steel nib so I thought I was getting a super bargain for a gold nib, but that’s my mistake, for the price I got it at, I should have known better and given the performance of the nib, I was pretty happy, despite the nib material. Hand on my heart, this is the best steel nib I own, it performs so well, it reminds me of the tuned Nakaya’s I own.

You would probably assume that the Graf von Faber Castell steel nib is the same as the Faber Castell steel nib and to be honest, you are probably correct. The nibs certainly look the same (with the exception of the decorative aspects – the Faber Castells are very simple, whilst the Graf von Faber Castell nib is much more impressive with what I think is the Graf von Faber Castell coat of arms). However, as I understand it, the Graf von Faber Castell nibs are tuned before sale, so to me the steel nib feels like the perfect steel nib. It’s difficult to explain.   

What attracted me to this pen in particular, is that the style is like the baby version of the much more expensive Intuition Platino which is also on my wishlist. The Intuition Platino has a gold nib, a much girthier body and is about 3-4 times more expensive. The black Tamitio looks much more similar to the Intuition Platino, if you were keen on a more similar replica.

In my experience, though, the Tamitio is better suited as a desk pen, rather than being transported around. The pen lid is not well thought out (in my opinion) and instead of click in place mechanism, or even a friction fitting, it is held in place magnetically. I have nothing against magnets, but this one is quite weak, so I’ve had the lid flung off the pen when walking around with the pen. I’ve also had the pen itself flung across the room, when the pen was new and I wasn’t aware of how weak the magnet was. I also typically use a Penvelope for my pen carry case and had the pen stuck in the pen slots while the pen lid has come off by itself. A bit annoying. As I mentioned though, I now use this pen only as a desk pen, so it no longer becomes an issue for me.

I’m not sure that I would have paid full price for this pen, but I really enjoy using it and it has the best steel nib I’ve ever used, so I have no regrets making this purchase.