An inky accident in childhood left me with a lifelong phobia of using fountain pens. The inevitable stains on fingers fill me with dread, and seeing some designs being dipped head first into an inkwell is indescribably unpleasant. So it takes something special to make me want to buy a fountain pen. I first saw the ‘gravity.mobius’ by DareWorks on an X post and after viewing some demos of its features, including an option to convert the tip to a rollerball, I decided to take a risk.
The tin box that arrived is quite large at 8 x 6.5 x 2.5 inches. I think DareWorks probably learned from the watch industry to make the presentation feel like its worth the price of admission.
Lifting up the lid we are treated to the old ‘lots of empty space’ to give more weight to the product. In the center is the capped pen in matte black, and flanking it on 4 cutouts are alternate color plates in pearlescent white. Yes, you get ‘two for the price of one’.
Here’s the gravity.mobius out of the box. The name alludes to the sinuous curve that goes around the perimeter of the body, accented in metallic blue. The cap is held on magnetically but it doesn’t ‘auto align’ due to the presence of other magnets in the cap. A minor hinderance.
In fact the whole design is centred on a blue anodized chassis with magnetically attached outer panels. The chassis has strategically placed nubs and holes that align with counterparts on the 4 outer panels. No instructions are included but the distinctive shape of each piece is quite easy to figure out.
Here is the ‘full load out’ with all the panels detached, including the nib section, piston filler and optional rollerball section. The rollerball parts are sold separately and includes a steel sleeve that goes over your choice of refill… purely to preserve the glint of metal under the blue chassis. If you look closer at the factory supplied roller refill, you will see the original branding for DAMI WONKA (what a name!!).
In the hand, the pen feels great. Nicely balanced. However, I would not recommend posting the cap as it might damage the paint finish. Also, the organic shape makes it hard to align the cap for posting. I would treat this as a non-posting pen.
Here’s the changeover to the white panels. I think I like this scheme more. It is giving me strong 80s sci-fi vibes, like something that might exist in TRON. This is as much a writing tool as it is a tinkerer’s fidget pen.
A little bit more about the company DareWorks… Yes, it used to be called, drumroll… ‘DAMI WONKA’. The current brand story is that DareWorks is based in Japan and draws production expertise from a China-based OEM with decades of experience. To me it sounds like a cross-border joint venture, just like KAYOU+. If you dig deeper into DAMI WONKA you might come across its original website with a series of products and designs that look nothing like the gravity.mobius, and some products sold on Alibaba. Overall, I say: Good Rebrand! And please continue to invest in good designers!