Staedtler Maxum Gel Pens

While visiting a dollar type store one day I ran across these Staedtler Maxum Gel Pens. I'm not a fan of 0.8 mm pems but I wasn't expecting to see a Staedtler product in a dollar store so I was intrigued. Steadtler is a name that I have come to associate with fine drafting and drawing instruments, not gliter gel pens, so I bought a set.

Once I got them home I tried them out. Right off the bat I had trouble getting the Green pen to write! I was finally able to get it to write but when I looked at the refill I noticed that the ink had run up the refill and the refill was about 1/3 used up!


Not a condition that one wishes to find ones new pens in! Well, on the back of the package it states,"Guarantee: If your STAEDTLER product fails to perform to your satisfaction simply send it for replacement to:" and gives a mailing address. Well I didn't want to sent it to Staedtler so I just went on the Staedtler USA web site and contacted Customer Service and requested a Green refill. What I received were 3 Green pens! Five stars for Staedtler USA's Customer Service!

Once I had the replacement pen I did some sample writing to get a feel of the pens. The first thing I noticed was that the pens were very smooth! They flowed quite well leaving a bold line of glittering color! The rubber grip is soft without being squishy and is quite comfortable. The colors are bold and dry with a metallic glimmer to them. The ink did not appear to blob up at anytime not even in the tops and bottoms of loops! The pens are light weight and are quite comfortable to write with being slightly bottom heavy. The pens are made of transparent plastic in the color of the ink. The caps snap on as well as snapping onto the back of the pen when posted. I did find that 2 of the pens had problems with staying capped. Investigation showed that this was due to the cap being slightly oversized. I heated up the caps at the mouth and deformed them slightly and they snapped on just fine thereafter. Minus a star for fit but add back a 1/2 star for looks.

Now for the stats! The pens average 17 grams in weight. They are 150.6 mm long and have a balance point 86 mm from the rear of the pen, making them slightly bottom heavy, which is better in this reviewers mind than the opposite. The buldge in the grip is 11.3 mm in diameter with the flare being slightly greater. The pen body is 9.1 mm in diameter. Over all a nice size for a gel pen. The pens are refillable via access from the tip, which is chromed metal. The colors are bold and metallic and come in Green, Blue, Purple, Red, Pink, Bronze, Gold and Silver. My personal faves are the Blue and Red. The stated point size is 0.8 mm "Medium". Measuring a straight drawn line with my Peak 10x scale loup showed the written line to be 0.5 mm.



The writing test consisted of writing a line with each pen, a smear test and a waterproof teat. No bleed test was done as gels do not normally bleed due to the nature of the ink. The results were that altough the claim is that the ink is "smear-proof" and "quick drying", if I was quick I could smear the ink before it dried. After the ink dried it was pemanent, as claimed. The waterproof test confirmed this, but as the ink may be waterproof the glitter is not! When sprayed from a spray bottle to wet the paper, the glitter floated away! Minus a 1/2 star for the flighty glitter.

After all is said (written) and done the Staedtler USA Maxum Gel Pens are a very nice set of metallic gel pens that would be quite useful for any craft or design project. They would be perfect of use in greeting card making or simply signing greeting cards. They would also be great for leaving colorful notes for family and friends. They also make a great gift for the youngster who loves to draw in nice shimmering glitter colors. I'll give the Staedtler Maxum Gel Pens 4 out of 5 stars. Way to go Staedtler USA!