6 Jan 2021

a twsbi 580AL rose gold with an extra fine nib

Last year was the year of rose gold for TWSBI. Ever since they came out with the 580 mini in rose gold a few years ago, I've lusted after a rose gold TWSBI. I put off purchasing one a few years ago because of the reported quality issues but for the rose gold editions of 2020, they reassured customers that the problems had been fixed. So far so good!

Today, I'm going to introduce the 580AL in rose gold with an extra fine nib.


As always, the 580AL comes in their standard packaging. Within the box is a toolkit to disassemble the pen if you so wished. They've also included a small amount of grease if the piston requires a bit of a service.


I know that this caused a bit of a marmite moment with some of the fountain pen community with the semi-transparent black bodied sections but I personally love it. I also like the rose gold accenting all throughout the pen. It contrasts well with the smoky black sections (yes, that's what I'm now calling them).

The pen is weightier than the Eco but still light enough to hold for long writing sessions. The clear piston design allows you to see how much ink is left and trust me, this bad boy can hold a lot. I end up filling it up to about a third just so I can change inks regularly enough to keep me interested. If you're someone who writes a lot or hates refilling pens often, this will be the pen for you. It could be a workhorse work pen for me (especially on a busy run of shifts) but I don't dare take a pen of this price point or above into work. I'll stick to my Lamy Al-Stars/Safaris and my Faber Castell Essentio for now.


The first nib that came with this pen was a bit faulty and wrote much thicker than one extra fine line. I bought it from Pure Pens and when I sheepishly contacted customer services about this, they sent me a replacement which writes excellently. Smooth with little to no feedback and excellent ink flow. 

The build quality seems decent enough (I've taken the pen apart once so far and it seems sturdy). 

Overall, I'm pretty impressed with this pen. I like my fountain pens pretty and my nibs on the finer end because of my small handwriting and this one lives up to both of those requirements.