Refillable Rollerball and "Inkball" Pens: Do They Work?

One product category that we are seeing more and more is the refillable rollerball (sometimes referred to as the "inkball") pen. These first went mainstream several years ago with an inexpensive version released by ink maker Herbin, followed by TRAVELER'S Company releasing a version of their Brass Fountain Pen with a refillable rollerball tip. Recently, another pen garnering a lot of attention is Kakimori's "Frost" pen, which is available in both a fountain pen and rollerball format. We've had a lot of questions recently about the rollerball/inkball functionality, so I thought I'd take the opportunity and do a bit of an overview of how these work and how they perform. The Kakimori Frost pen ships with a twist converter, while the TRAVELER’S Company brass pen is advertised as cartridge only. However, it will take the Kaweco Mini Converter if you absolutely insist on using bottled ink. How they work: This one's pretty easy. These refillable rollerballs all use a fountain pen-style nib…