Lanbitou 3059 Review

Lanbitou 3059 Review (2024)

I picked up a Lanbitou 3059 from Ali Express because it was one of the rare budget Chinese fountain pens that came with a 1.5 stub nib. This was my first stub nib and I was excited to see how it would pair with shading inks like Noodler's Southwest Sunset. 

Build Quality 2/5

The pen is made of clear plastic with an opaque colored cap and piston filling nob. The piston for filling the pen is a bit loose and the nob rattles and rotates when moving the pen around. I didn't have any issues filling the pen but the rotating the nob felt a bit vague, like driving a car on ice in a video game.

The pen has a twist cap that can be posted on the back of pen. The fit of the posted twist cap is not very solid and the cap fell off all the time. The rear of the pencil has an o-ring that should fit snugly with the cap but it never really gripped the cap liked it was designed to. 

Comfort 3/5

The grip section of the pen has a flat sloping faces for your fingers, much like a Lamy Safari. This can be uncomfortable to me if the slope is too steep or the diamater too narrow but wasn't a problem here. I have a medium sized hands (I wear medium in Harbor Freight's Hardy Gloves), so these ergonomics won't apply to everyone. The pen isn't too heavy so drawing and writing with the pen was never unpleasant.

Writing 4/5

The stub nib is great and probably worth the price of the pen. The nib appears to be apart of the Jinhao family of Lamy like pen nibs they use in many of their pens like the Jinhao Shark. These are great nibs for the price and write smoothly without modification. The ink feed for the 3059 was able to keep up with the 1.5mm stub nib and I had to really try to get the pen to skip. This may be a great option if you're looking for a wet nib and pen combination.

Versatility 5/5 

A piston filler and Lamy compatible nibs make this a versatile pen. The pen has a large ink capacity and the piston filler makes filling and cleaning relatively easy. This leads to avoiding the need to keep track of cartridges and converters too.

With so many Jinhao/Lamy style nibs available you can get a wide variety of good nibs for a low price too. The nibs come off easily and you don't have to mess around with pulling feeds and readjusting nibs. This makes the 3059 a very budget and user friendly option to try out different inks and nibs.

Value 5/5

Even though this is not a perfect pen it has many great features for something less than $5. It's great pens this cheap can have so many features but there is also a lot of competition. Semi-disposable pens like the Platinum Preppy and Pilot Varsity have a longer history of providing great writing experiences at this price point. The 3059 though give you a unique filling mechanism and cheap entry point to other nib styles. 

Overall 4/5

The Lanbitou 3059 is a good budget pen with a piston filler and a large ink capacity. The build quality on the pen is not the best and there are multiple things that can be better. This is a good pen if you'd like to try a piston filler at a very low price. If you already have a TWSBI Eco or GO this will likely get lost in the shuffle otherwise it's a great place to start.