Fountain Pens

Magna Carta Mag 1000 Review: A Number 10 Nib Fountain Pen

The Magna Carta Mag 1000 pairs a huge in-house steel number 10 nib with an ebonite body and feed. Here is how it writes, what works, and what to check before buying.

Published: 9/30/2026 Updated: 9/30/2026

Large glossy black ebonite fountain pen with oversized steel nib beside its box on concrete

Introduction

The Magna Carta Mag 1000 is not a subtle pen. It is big, glossy, ebonite-bodied, and carries one of the largest nibs you can buy on a production fountain pen: an in-house steel number 10. At $410 it is not cheap, but for anyone curious about oversized nibs, it sits in a price bracket with very little competition.

The pen was played with extensively before this write-up, including draining a converter in a couple of days simply because writing with it was enjoyable. Here is the full breakdown of the parts, the writing experience, and the trade-offs.

Design and Build: A Genuine Big Pen

The Mag 1000 arrives in a cardboard outer sleeve with a simple, tasteful Magna Carta logo on the box. Inside you get the pen, a protective sleeve, and a warranty card. It is a fairly no-frills presentation, which some may find a touch austere for the price, though the pen itself makes up for it visually.

This is a vintage-styled pen: shiny premium ebonite body, 24 karat PVD gold plated trim, a tight clip with a ball end, and a center band carrying the Magna Carta name. The barrel is straight for most of its length and tapers toward the back end. The overall look leans classic rather than modern.

Large glossy black ebonite fountain pen unboxed with its packaging and warranty card

Size is the headline. Next to a slim everyday pen, the Mag 1000 is a giant, and the nib dominates the silhouette. It is girthy, unfun to post (it can sort of post thanks to the tapered back end, but it is not secure and there is little point), and clearly aimed at people who enjoy large pens.

The Number 10 Nib and Ebonite Feed

The nib is the reason this pen exists. Magna Carta makes it in-house in India, in steel, available in fine and medium. For scale: a standard number 6 nib looks small beside it, and even a number 8 nib is noticeably smaller. The Namiki Emperor’s massive number 50 nib is one of the few that dwarfs it, and that comparison alone tells you how far up the size ladder this sits.

The nib features the Magna Carta logo, the marking 1215, the word India, and a heart-shaped breather hole, a charming vintage touch found on many older nibs.

Oversized steel fountain pen nib close-up showing heart-shaped breather hole and large ebonite feed

The ebonite feed is enormous and, critically, performs well. The ink flow is steady and consistent, with no dry starts, no skipping in normal use, and no running dry during testing. The nib collar is also ebonite. The trims throughout are 24 karat PVD gold plated.

Filling is via the included Schmidt converter, and the pen also takes short and long standard international cartridges. The large barrel makes eyedropper conversion a tempting future experiment.

Writing Performance

On paper, the medium steel nib is a pleasant, round writer. It is not the wettest nib out of the box; a couple of skips appeared under pressure and more appeared when writing fast with no pressure at all, which reads as dryness rather than a tipping or manufacturing fault. A slightly wetter flow would suit personal preference, though the pen was reviewed as supplied.

A few honest caveats:

Fountain pen writing flowing red ink on lined notepad paper

This is not a flex nib. Unlike its smaller sibling, the Mag 600 with its gold flex nib, the number 10 here stays round. That said, careful pressure can squeeze out some line variation, so it responds a bit rather than flexing properly.
Reverse writing runs very dry. It is not the scratchiest reverse writer around, but it is noticeably dry in that mode.
Even the medium is not particularly wide. If you want finer lines, the fine version is worth considering instead.

Things to Consider Before Buying

The most common criticism of this pen is a pragmatic one: the nib is so large and protrudes so far that some writers, particularly those with smaller hands, cannot hit the paper at a comfortable angle. Hold the pen too far back and the geometry stops working. For most hands it is comfortable, but it is right at the edge, and it should not be any bigger.

The size of the pen itself is the other filter. If smaller hands or lighter pens are your preference, the Mag 600 is the smaller model in the lineup, though it has a completely different gold flex nib and is a different sort of pen entirely.

Price is the final consideration. $410 is a lot. The closest nib-size comparison, the Namiki Emperor, currently runs about $2,100, and other oversized-nib makers price above even that. Within this lineup, the Mag 1000 is effectively the most affordable way to get a genuine number 10 nib on a pen.

Buying Advice

If you love big pens, big nibs, and a steady ebonite-fed ink flow, the Mag 1000 delivers a combination that is genuinely hard to find elsewhere at this price. Availability is limited: in the US it can be found at Goulet Pens, and in Europe Appelboom carries it, which also avoids US import duties for European buyers.

Hand-sized comparison of a large fountain pen against a smaller pen on a desk

If the nib size intimidates you, wait. This is a specialist tool, and it works best for people who already know they enjoy oversized pens.

Conclusion

The Magna Carta Mag 1000 is a bold, well-built ebonite pen with an in-house steel number 10 nib, a huge and reliable ebonite feed, and a pleasant round writing feel. The dry-leaning flow, the dry reverse writing, and the sheer scale of the nib are the main caveats. For the right buyer, it is one of the few affordable routes to a nib this size, and it earns its place on the desk.

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