My Pagoda arrived today! It's a nice enough pen that I thought that I'd write a review. I haven't found any online; that may be because it looks like a relatively new pen.
I became interested in Delta pens from Goulet Pens' advertisements when the orange celluloid Unica came out. I didn't buy on of those (or the red acrylic Unica from Anderson Pens), but eventually bought a blue acrylic Unica as I have been looking for a thick-sectioned pen with a fine or extra fine nib in a nice acrylic. I enjoyed the blue Unica enough to look for an orange celluloid or red Unica, and found an orange Unica on the 'bay which I won. I was looking for the red one and ended up finding a variety of models on eBay, including this one.
My understanding is that the Delta Pagoda is the first of Delta's "Asia Collection" line. It comes with a red acrylic cap in gold trim, or a blue acrylic cap in rhodium trim. You can get a rollerball, fusion nib, or gold nib. For cost reasons, I went with the fusion nib. It's a #6, according to MarteModena's descriptions on eBay. I am not certain if it disassembles, however. I hope so, because you can get a wide variety of #6 nibs (and I have heard of the gold plate on the fusion nib becoming unglued).
One comment about pricing - they were initially sold as $1 bids, and sold for a variety of prices (lowest winning bid was $30 for the red model). MarteModena then started selling them at a base of over $100, and it looks like none of those sold. I was kicking myself for not bidding on one when they were cheaper. Then they started relisting them at $1, and I won mine for the grand total of $36. Keep in mind that the shipping & handling is about $50, so you are paying a lot for that! It reached me in about 2-3 days; I forget when it shipped, exactly. I then paid in extra $20 for an EF nib (EF or broad are $20 extra, stub is $50 extra, and fine/medium are at no additional cost).
I also don't know what MarteModena's relationship with Delta is, as you can get their pens for surprisingly low prices at times. I've heard that they sell Delta's seconds - the pen I received looked fine and without any defects or blemishes, FYI.
Pictures are at the end.
First impressions - the box is cool. It has a pagoda design on plastic, and comes off when you unscrew 2 knobs on either side of the box. Sadly, the interior is designed to hold a pen and doesn't have room to repurpose the box for anything else. That box was contained inside another box, padded with peanuts, and the whole thing was inside a DHL plastic shipping bag.
Pen - it's a little heavy, and feels like a very solid pen. There is no "rotating ring" like on the Unica. The red acrylic cap is beautiful, and has a lot of depth and reflectivity that isn't captured by the pictures. There's a ring of similar acrylic on the body as well. The clip looks really cool (I love Asian architecture), and the cap also seems to be airtight (I couldn't blow air through the cap so it shouldn't dry out like some of my pens). There's a gold design ring on the body as well.
The section width (see last photo) is quite wide, and is concave so it feels very secure.
It uses a cartridge/converter, with something that I can't quite figure out. It says that it is a piston filler/converter. The converter has a long metal handle that you can access by unscrewing the end cap (see below). I don't understand how to covert the pen into a piston filler, however. If so, that's a nice feature.
It writes with some feedback (EF nib), but without problems. It's a nice nib, feeling similar to my Lamy EF nib. I used J. Herbin's Rouge Hematite in the Pagoda.
All in all, it feels like a very expensive pen; I would say that it's probably worth $100-200 list. The quality feels like a step up from the Unica. The nib itself is nice, although if it is replaceable then you can get a ton of different #6 nibs out there for relatively little money.
I hope that this was helpful; I'm quite pleased with the pen.
I became interested in Delta pens from Goulet Pens' advertisements when the orange celluloid Unica came out. I didn't buy on of those (or the red acrylic Unica from Anderson Pens), but eventually bought a blue acrylic Unica as I have been looking for a thick-sectioned pen with a fine or extra fine nib in a nice acrylic. I enjoyed the blue Unica enough to look for an orange celluloid or red Unica, and found an orange Unica on the 'bay which I won. I was looking for the red one and ended up finding a variety of models on eBay, including this one.
My understanding is that the Delta Pagoda is the first of Delta's "Asia Collection" line. It comes with a red acrylic cap in gold trim, or a blue acrylic cap in rhodium trim. You can get a rollerball, fusion nib, or gold nib. For cost reasons, I went with the fusion nib. It's a #6, according to MarteModena's descriptions on eBay. I am not certain if it disassembles, however. I hope so, because you can get a wide variety of #6 nibs (and I have heard of the gold plate on the fusion nib becoming unglued).
One comment about pricing - they were initially sold as $1 bids, and sold for a variety of prices (lowest winning bid was $30 for the red model). MarteModena then started selling them at a base of over $100, and it looks like none of those sold. I was kicking myself for not bidding on one when they were cheaper. Then they started relisting them at $1, and I won mine for the grand total of $36. Keep in mind that the shipping & handling is about $50, so you are paying a lot for that! It reached me in about 2-3 days; I forget when it shipped, exactly. I then paid in extra $20 for an EF nib (EF or broad are $20 extra, stub is $50 extra, and fine/medium are at no additional cost).
I also don't know what MarteModena's relationship with Delta is, as you can get their pens for surprisingly low prices at times. I've heard that they sell Delta's seconds - the pen I received looked fine and without any defects or blemishes, FYI.
Pictures are at the end.
First impressions - the box is cool. It has a pagoda design on plastic, and comes off when you unscrew 2 knobs on either side of the box. Sadly, the interior is designed to hold a pen and doesn't have room to repurpose the box for anything else. That box was contained inside another box, padded with peanuts, and the whole thing was inside a DHL plastic shipping bag.
Pen - it's a little heavy, and feels like a very solid pen. There is no "rotating ring" like on the Unica. The red acrylic cap is beautiful, and has a lot of depth and reflectivity that isn't captured by the pictures. There's a ring of similar acrylic on the body as well. The clip looks really cool (I love Asian architecture), and the cap also seems to be airtight (I couldn't blow air through the cap so it shouldn't dry out like some of my pens). There's a gold design ring on the body as well.
The section width (see last photo) is quite wide, and is concave so it feels very secure.
It uses a cartridge/converter, with something that I can't quite figure out. It says that it is a piston filler/converter. The converter has a long metal handle that you can access by unscrewing the end cap (see below). I don't understand how to covert the pen into a piston filler, however. If so, that's a nice feature.
It writes with some feedback (EF nib), but without problems. It's a nice nib, feeling similar to my Lamy EF nib. I used J. Herbin's Rouge Hematite in the Pagoda.
All in all, it feels like a very expensive pen; I would say that it's probably worth $100-200 list. The quality feels like a step up from the Unica. The nib itself is nice, although if it is replaceable then you can get a ton of different #6 nibs out there for relatively little money.
I hope that this was helpful; I'm quite pleased with the pen.
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