You can get a really nice calligraphy/fountain pen for $4-5 with some Amazon retailers---this is not one of them.

Reallyyyyyy shake the ink in the nib before assembling the pen the rest of the way and shake before getting started, not just before getting started with your assembled pen or the ink will not flow well at all - at least in my set

After 2 brief uses, half the pens cracked up the side and started leaking all over

daughter loves the pens

There are cheaper calligraphy pens that actually work and work well!

Love the pens.

but the pen leaked all over

A beginner needs a GOOD PEN not a cheap,frustrating, cranky, piece of junk

A good inexpensive pen set.

Well, it might not be the pens, it could be the ink that doesn't flow nicely

The first pen and nib I used, worked perfectly

I am a beginner with calligraphy and found these pens a little harder to use than I originally expected

Fairly easy to use, excellent pens

My Husband has donebeautiful work for close to 50 years now, and is so picky abouthis pens

For the price, this is a great pen and ink set.**I've noticed over time that these pens have to be treated a little delicately

These pens are a WASTE OF MONEY!

Beautiful pens

These pens were difficult to use and did not work well and frequently ran out of ink.

My wife is an artist and she loves these pens.

The nibs, different points for the pens did work.

I love each pen and how beautiful they look

So you might enjoy calligraphy itself, but calligraphy with poorly made pens is no fun at all

Sadly, it's just not worth to spend the money on these cheap pens.

Pen and nibs attractive for a starter set.

Of course the pens are relatively poor -- one of mine stops writing after 30 seconds of sitting uncapped -- but you'll learn maintenance and that will just make you love your next pen even more.

I had high hopes for this set, but these pens were troublesome to use.

They can't be used properly because you can't put enough pressure to open the channel for the ink to get in or the pen to widen

Most pens do clog up even if left overnight, but these were no worse than more expensive ones, and the colors were fun

This is a fundamental component of calligraphy, and - in my experience - these pens make it impossible to practice

The pens work wonderfully and the ink is smooth and so vibrant I absolutely love this set!

The pens look and feel cheap; but the set does work.

This is a really nice pen set, my daughter loves it.

Well the pens did not have any ink problem laying the whole thing on it's back

The pen works well, ink wise

Beautiful packaging to keep pens and nibs safe...

Waste of money, save your time and keep shopping for a pen set that works.

I love the colors and the pens but the ink is way to hard to get out which in the end made it not worth it considering I'd spend an hour trying to get it

After setting it up first time had reasonable results, after that the pens are useless after cleaning, coaxing, and trying any other fix

Staedtler makes nice pens and pencils, so I trusted that their calligraphy set would have a certain minimum quality

Will probably stick to other portable calligraphy pens and dip pens rather than this set

Worst pens I ever bought

My two main complaints are these:First, the pens don't not vary line thickness with pressure in the slightest, and even dragging the pen side to side, on the finer tips, doesn't vary line thickness at all

You'll need to shake the pens to get ink flowing on a regular basis, and other tricks.

The pens themselves are cheap and really not worth it

The pens either leak everywhere or won’t write at all

I purchased a Pilot Parallel 2.4mm pen and had good results but needed a smaller nib, so I went hunting for an affordable pen with a nib smaller than the 1.5mm offered by Pilot.... and found these

beautiful pens...

Loved these pens!

I don't know what I expected for $20, but these pens are terrible

My granddaughter loved these pens - she had opened them and was using them within an hour after receiving them!

Read the instructions to see what angle to hold then pens so that they work consistently!

I ordered these pens because I decided to try calligraphy and these pens are awful!

They dont work like they are suppose to and u have to shake the pens vigorously to get them to write for like maybe one word then ur back to shaking

But the pens and ink themselves is terrible

The box is pretty and the pens look nice but don’t work very well

I followed the installation instructions...the pens just keep leaking.

Great nibs of all sizes and four pens to choose from, also has a great assortment of ink and the plunger for ink well.

When it came in the mail one pen was missing along with the booklets to be provided, ink and pens seemed to be of cheaper quality as well

They seem to be good entry level pens that get the job done

😑 Best to spend a little more on a nice pen.

Great pens!

so I worked with them and got them working...and am now okay with my purchase; the pens and the resulting calligraphy are fine now and are what I wanted - 4 different point sizes

The packaging is very pretty and and the pens are easy to use

I think even as a beginner having a good pen is important if you are practicing your writing, trying to learn different styles, and mastering flourishes, etc

What I didnt think about was how difficult it would be to re-learn calligraphy with very poor quality pens

so instead I bought myself some really nice jihao pens.

Comes with super books bold medium fine and ultra fine pen tips

Had to return mine because I didn't like the quality and the pens felt very badly made

pretty good pens for their

The pens feel cheap and are made of plastic which I could live with, but the ink is TERRIBLE

It took a long time, but this set (along with the Manuscript Beginners Calligraphy Set) are the best pens I've ever had.

These pens are horrible

The pens in this set leak so bad that I found them completely unuseable.

No matter what your skill level, these pens are frustrating and not fun to use.

Even the finer pens leave big, thick messy lines

Horrible pen set, I bought it for my daughter for

Worst pen set ever, very cheap ,ink leaks out all over the place!

These pens are cheap and waited too long to be able to return them.

This is really the worst fountain pen I've ever experienced

Invest in a better quality pen and you will get better results

Every single pen has leaked horribly, the ink flow is scratchy at best leading to ruined character formation and the grips on the pen itself slipped off

Not to mention the fact that ink never flows without having to tap (bang & shake actually) the pens

I love these calligraphy pens, the only reason I didn't give it five stars is because the ink flows a little too freely making it hard to do some of the lettering I wanted to do.

Poor qualityWhen filled with ink the pen will start leaking

Even though I did not expect the nibs to be what my expensive pens are I did expect they would at least properly draw the ink into the nib for use.

The pens work on and off even with a new ink cartridge in them

WORST fountain pens I have ever used

wellCONS:-Ink cartridges were dried out (or otherwise didn't work)-Plastic pens feel a little cheap, but not horribly so-Converter didn't stay well in the nibsI really like the set of nibs

absolutely dreadful pens must have cracked on the first use

The colorful pen covers are beautiful.

The pens were nice though.

bought it out of curiosity... had been looking for a cool fountain pen to sign documents at work, however I'm really disappointed!!

These pens make it easy to make perfect letters!

The pens are great except that even when they are kept upright they leak

The pens did not work

I enjoy using calligraphy pens for day to day tasks and use them as the sole writing instrument for my work, so I've grown accustomed to writing with good and bad calligraphy pens.

build up that just makes using the pen even worse.

Love the pen and nibs.

Go buy a good pen and nibs

Each pen has little weight or heft and each pen looks like it would break easily if dropped

The cheap pens and watery ink are of such poor quality that I couldn't get any variation in the thickness of lines, which is an essential part of calligraphy

This is a BEGINNERS SET, the pens do make mistakes but you as a beginner will mess up more than the pens

The box is pretty and the pens look nice but don’t work very well

Great pens, nibs and colors

Because I like to use many colors of ink, I have a lot of cheapy cranky pens that require babying

Wonderful pen set

so you have to constanly shake the pen to get the ink to flow

These pens did not work

On the picture the pens looked great, but they were cheap plastic material and ink blurs

these pens write like normal pens

The pens look really nice however the ink doesn't work well at all.

The instructions are not clear and the pens were difficult to use

The product looks nice and comes with a variety of colors, the pens are plastic and might break easily but its hard to tell

The pens look nice however when you go to use them they don't write smooth at all

The pens would randomly stop working and require shaking and coaxing in order to get the ink flowing again.

The pens look really nice however the ink doesn't work well at all.

I used to like this company, but these pens were so cheap that they snapped in half the minute I tried to put the ink cartridge in

When I first received the set, the pen worked wonderfully

Good starter calligraphy pens.

works great not very sturdy pens but its not meant to be anything special

These pens don't work well for beginning calligraphy

I used the pens on this paper and the ink did not bleed through to the following page but was visible from the back side of the same page

works great not very sturdy pens but its not meant to be anything special

Love the pens, nibs and colors of ink

The pens work good

These pens are a huge disappointment

At first, I didn't like the pens

After a day of using them, I have to vigorously shake the pen for ink to come out.

Worst pen set ever, very cheap ,ink leaks out all over the place!

The pens do not work.

The inks are solid, but the pens themselves are hit or miss.

The pens never worked with any of the different nibs

This is probably due to the low cost of this product, making it a good choice for a starter, but the pens can't tolerate much abuse.

That pen was wonderful

This is cheap pen set don't buy

Comes just as shown-Lovely pen color choices-Other brands of ink cartridges and converters

This is a horrible pen set

Love this pen set

I loved the colorfully colored pens, as well as several options for the ink colors.

I love these pens

It took me FOREVER to clean my hands up, and the pen was completely useless

The pens are beautiful and comes with a wonderful array of different color inks

I only payed $15 for this and i know good fountain pens are rarely cheap

Place the pen back into the case, taking the nibs apart, I went ahead and made a little sleeve of tissue or paper towel around the nib to rest assured that all the ink and moister is out of the nibsC: I found when your using the nib while writing and the ink flow stops, shake the pen a few times

I understand this was a cheap set but the pens did not work

Great pens, but one of the tips was broken when I used it.

The pen casings work well enough and are made of a cheap plastic that could easily be broken if mistreated

As I read the reviews I was very skeptical about purchasing these pens, but I made a GREAT choice, of course they are not the best pens out

The delivery time was great, and the artist who received them loves the pens!

Nice pens and the colored ink is nice to complete some projects.

Seems to be a nice calligraphy pen set

I want to like these pens because I love my other Staedtler products

The quality is really poor, plastic pen, so disappointed

These pens clog and are of poor quality

I don't know how anyone got these pens to work

Not a nice pen for writing.

I think there are better beginner pens like Shaeffer

The pen set is terrible, the main pen will not write for more than one or two strokes at a time without vigourously shaking, and even this may not work every time (although it does succeed in expelling ink anywhere other than where you want it on the page

Every single pen leaked.

I liked the variety of colors that were available as well as several pens

So, I don't know why their cracked but other than that their pretty nice pens.

The price offers the idea that you can have decent quality pens but, don't get your hopes up

I love these pens I can't stop writing with them.

Half the time I am shaking the pen to try and get the ink to flow and the other half of the time the ink is flowing out of the pen body and not the tip staining my fingers.

The pens are really attractive to look at

The nibs just do not carry the ink well and as a result I spend more time shaking the pen than using them

Really nice pen set.

The pen also leaks when not using it

Love using the new pens!

Decent pens for starting

These are the worst pens I've have used to date

The pens were hard to use, I struggled with getting the ink out

I think it is a nice price and nice idea, wish they worked as calligraphy pens and not just fountain pens.

If they push too hard or misuse these pens, they won't hold up

These pens don't work well for beginning calligraphy

Spend the money on a better quality pen and some ink instead