[Pen Review] BIC Biro Fine Point – Orange Barrel
The official review – I think I did a random post on it before…
To promote my fiction writing, I work several regional science fiction conventions. During SoonerCon (I believe) in June, I noticed fellow author, Lou Antonelli had a pen I hadn’t seen in probably DECADES. The BIC Biro Fine Point pen with the yellow (or orange – depending on who you ask – like BIC) barrel. I don’t remember WHEN these went off the US market, but they’ve been gone a while.
Several of us commented on Lou’s fine point BIC. Like others point out, this is not a sexy pen. But it’s a good, hardworking, functional pen. BIC has been a standard since the 1950s. They’re known for good quality, sturdy, functional pens. This pen is high quality plastic in the standard hexagonal faceted body. But the ballpoint nib is a .07mm or less point. You can even find where they say online that the nib may be .07mm but the ballpoint actually writes narrower – such as Amazon UK’s description of 0.8mm tip 0.2mm line. LOVE THIS. But I’m a “finer is better” point person.
And that’s been bugging me for a while now is that the points – across the board with rollerball and ballpoint – this “thicker is better”. Even the standard BIC Cristal pens that you get dirt cheap every Back-to-School sale has been “sizing up”. They may have been a 0.7mm at one point – now they’re 1.6mm. That’s TOO THICK! At least for me. Which is why I was so jazzed to see Lou with one of these pens.
What isn’t as happy-making is the fact these pens – the BIC fine points are NOT available in the US any longer. They’re only available overseas. Lou had his sent to him from Japan, I think, and then found a way to order more. He gifted me this black one at ApolloCon in Houston. And for an inexpensive pen – it’ll be much like my Lamy or my TWSBI – never far from my sight.
The BIC Biro fine points come in four colors – black, blue, red, and green. The green is the hardest to find. It’s only available in certain areas of the world. The rest of the colors are more widely available – just not here in the US. The online places I’m finding are mostly UK. So I have to take what I can get. I would LOVE to play with the other colors, I really would – but finding them all without prohibitive shipping, that’s going to be the kicker – because JetPens.com doesn’t carry them either…
For rating – I do have to take off for difficulty in ordering (and the fact BicWorld.com was down today while writing this), but this is a good, solid workhorse of a cheap pen. I give it a rock solid 4.
