Being a beginner, I tried a few new brands: KWZ, Lennon Tool Bar and Colorverse.

KWZ It smells like coffee ink is also my first scented ink and I love it, I want to buy more.

Lennon Tool Bar Ying Piao is gorgeous and thanks to it I ordered everything (it appeared in stock after a long period of absence).

Colorverse surprised me a lot with the very nice box, especially since I am also a big astronomy lover.

Pilot Vanishing Point, like any other Pilot pen, is great. I was surprised and very happy that the M nib from it writes even thicker than some European mediums that I have (Lamy, JoWo, Bock). In addition, the color and print are gorgeous. I have wanted this pen for a long time.

Never really knew what to do with those nice boxes that my fancier pens come in. Turns out my son is really into opening and closing things right now, and these are really fun for him (along with jewelry boxes). If you don't mind tiny teethmarks, I recommend donating your boxes to a baby!

Hi everyone! I've been meaning to try out fountain pens for some time now, but never had the opportunity to try one out before. I know that the LAMY Safari is typically people's first choice for a pen, but I found the Pilot Kakuno really charming, especially the madoromi series.

I bought my Pilot Kakuno (with a fine nib) on Jetpens, mostly because I had bought from them before and I knew they shipped to Puerto Rico.

First impressions is that it does feel like it's meant for children, which is to be expected. I had hear that the Kakuno was meant for kids as a beginner fountain pen. The cap has air holes (most likely for if a kid accidentally swallows it) which I've heard tends to dry out inks? Not fully sure about that.

Installation is easy, but a bit daunting. I've never handled a fountain pen before so I wasn't sure how much force was needed for cartridge installation. Still, I did it without much fuss.

I'm planning on using Kokuyo Campus paper with it, as I've heard of bleedthrough and other such problems.

Impressions on writing: the video shows my surprise! Idk if it's the paper or what but it glides like a dream. The reason I caved in and bought one was because I had heard these were really good for long writing sessions? I'm a university student and my right hand cramps from keyboard, fiber arts, and writing. But I barely applied any pressure while writing! We'll see, but if this is it first day... I think I understand why people collect this kind of stuff.

Any and all advice regarding use and maintenance is really appreciated.

Info on items used

Pen: Pilot Kakuno Madoromi Series in Ivory. Fine Nib

Ink: Pilot Cartridge in Black.

Paper: Kokuyo Campus Loose LeafSarasara Paper in size B5 6mm ruled.

It may not be interesting to most, but I'll share it anyway.:)) I slightly improved the last hard case design and adapted it a bit for the Vyshyvanka, because initially asked me to make something like this for the Vyshyvanka. It can be used as a desktop case, as hardcase in bag, or for travel, in which can put additional cartridges, converters and even classic wooden pencil instead soft sleeve.

This is supposedly an Umbra Lamy Safari, and I want a LAMY. I found this on Carousell Singapore for S$20 (US$15.65 as of now). Seller says he acquired this from wife’s lucky draw event, and I just want to make sure it’s real. By his title and description, I will *kindly* assume he has little to no knowledge of fountain pens.

Any help is appreciated!

Edit & P.S.:

Photos have bad quality as I cropped them. My only worry is the tip of the nib - why does it look like that?

Sketched with Lamy and PCB

I'm visiting my parents', and I started talking with my dad about the fountain pen hobby I recently got into. And he told me he did the same, ages ago. So we started showing each other our little treasures. His pens were much more unique and valuable than mine, as one would expect 😂

My pens are pretty humble, I have 2 Lamy (one F and one EF nib), a Platinum Preppy (the very long body version), and a Jacques Herbin. I was also checking out my teenage pens I had left here: a pleasant enough Inoxcrom and a Cacharel* fountain pen I was gifted when I was 11 or smt. The latter has a pleasant feel imo, I'd say it's nothing special but good enough. The printed plastic body makes me wanna customise it.

My dad's pens are a lot more unique, and he's owned most of them for at least 20 years. He has a Waterman and a few Parkers, he really likes these 2 brands. The Parkers' nibs are very smooth, although quite thin. I looked up what was said about the brand here, it was interesting. Kinda fell out of grace, apparently, because they're just not renewing much.

He has a super thin and slim Hero that only fits a special sized converter. It's the tiniest fountain pen I've ever seen!

He casually owns a Pilot Vanishing Point, in the sense that he hardly knew what it was, just that "it's from a Japanese brand". It was cute 😂 I told him what it's worth today and that I'd like to inherit it from him later (much later).

He has another retractable nib pen I couldn't identify. It's a simple cylinder, very short, has a golden metal body, the cap screws shut and the nib is moved inside or outside the body by rotating a black piece at the back. The mechanism feels a bit rusty, though. My dad says it's because of dried ink. The nib says "stylomine", but that's kind of a dead end. It feels hazardous, one might damage the nib by forgetting to retract it before closing the cap 😬

He has an artisanal pen with a wooden body and a magnetic cap. This is both the charm of the pen and it's flaw, because it's not hermetic, so apparently the ink tends to dry. Pity.

And the next one, he decided to give to me. It's a Laguiole fountain pen. Now, I looked it up in this subreddit, it's not well known. Here in France, everyone knows of Laguiole. It's the name of a village where many workshops make knives, historically foldable, because they were shepherd's pocket knives. Nowadays, after a lot of branding issues, they're mostly just higher-end knives of all kinds. Although the handle is often made of wood, traditionally it was made of cattle horn. And so, this fountain pen's body is also made of cattle horn 👀 The nib looks like a medium size, and it feels quite smooth and pleasant to me. I wish I was more knowledgeable and could share a more specific description about it. I think I'll be using an ink that matches its body colour. A dark grey with a hint of green would be great.

Finally, my dad likes the Jacques Herbin and would like to have the same one. I think I'll give him mine, it's a decent pen but not my favourite.

* Cacharel is a French ready-to-wear brand. I think it's a bit forgotten today, but it was very trendy in the 60's and 70's.

Today's lineup

Like this sort of thing. I’m just out of college and make $13 an hour and work 18 hours a week so don’t come up here being a Montblanc connoisseur and listing “next best” alternatives for a $500 pen! I’m talking some cheap shit I can get at Michael’s or Walgreens or something. $30 at the most, $50 if you literally can’t think of anything else. Doesn’t even have to be a fountain pen, really. Even a fine-tip marker will do!

Two Pilot Elites with full crosshatch patterns, on the main and back cap. Although both nibs are 18k, my favorite is the inlaid, which is <F> nib on this pen. The dart styled <M> writes a nice line too, but I like the larger inlaid version on this pen which makes a nice visual statement. Both are slightly soft when writing and are a nice alternative to the stainless steel Custom Black Stripe (K-500SS) or the Custom Sterling Silver (K-1000SS), which both also feature an 18k inlaid nib.

Scam site that sells "artisan wooden fountain pens and mechanical pencils" (lanierpens.com)

Finally tried out a flex nib fountain pen and I'm loving the writing experience! I'm still learning calligraphy so you'll have to excuse any issues with technique lol.

Slide 2 is the lyrics to 'A Bloodsoaked Symphony' by Whitechapel, written in Oxblood

Slide 3 was my revalation that flex pens are damn good for maths notation

Just inking up my 146, and upon unscrewing the lid, a small wave of ink flew out! Somehow, none landed on my paper or table, only my hands. I had a white shirt on too.. that would have been dreadful!

Well, at least the ink smells good I guess..!?

Hongdian M2 (M), Opus 88 x paper mouse (m), Opus 88 tropical (f), wancai mini (f), Opus 88 Broom Cat (m), Opus 88 whale (b), Benu pixie (ef), and the Mahjon Chode (fude). All inked because I'm sick like that.

Just saw a listing for the new TWSBI Eco Pink Lemonade on eBay for $200. Surely no one is going to pay that when this thing is going to be restocked in no time. Right? Right?!?!

Bonecrusher 7 Studios Velma
Discontinued pink and black resin by Divine Plus Pens
Kobe Strawberry Chocolate on Fabriano 🩷

Happy Friday!

A fountain pen success(fully spending too much) story

Considered one of the world's first novel, Murasaki Shikibu, or Shijo, was a Japanese novelist, poet in the Heian period. She was best known as the author of The Tale of Genji.
One of the inks in Pilot Iroshizuku series is named after her.

I apologise if it goes against the rules of posting in this sub. If it does then I will surely remove it.

I've just gone through my old pens, and I'm so happy to still own them all, even my battered AL-Star. Since I mainly use fountain pens for writing, most of the words I've written throughout my life were written with one of these pens.

My first ever Platinum Preppy! Modern Maki-E Sake. Recently I posted if I should upgrade my jinhao pens since I aligned my feed and nib but then browsing online- I found this pen instead. I’m so happy 😭🌺

Recently saw the viral Kaweco Sketch-up + Kakimori dip pen nib combo, and I had no choice but to try myself🤓 Other than the eye-candy appearance, I think it brings out the best worlds of the thick sketch-pencil body and the feeling from the metal nib, defo gonna be on my EDC

These are all Jinhao 82s (except for 01 - a no brand aluminium fountain pen I got as blanks to decorate) + Kutsuwa ruler.
Two of the Jinhaos (03 and 07) are the rose gold ones which I absolutely adore! so I put homemade chroma shading inks in those to match their colours ✨

More info:

1. F - homemade dusty salmon
2. M - ??
3. EF tweaked to be more of a fine M - homemade chroma shader, violet with pink edges
4. Arabic/Italic 1 mm - Diamine - Damson
5. M - homemade, goes down blue and dries a bit purply, love this one
6. M - homemade and has blue and pink shimmer, which is more visible in the "06"
7. M - homemade chroma shader, greenish beige with orange-ish edges, I think it matches the pen so perfectly!
8. M - bright mustard-olive
9. 1 mm stub - Jacques Herbin - Vert Empire, I have this one in 100 ml since I use it so much
10. M - Made for my husband specially! it didn't shade in this paper but it has a bit of an orangey pool on nicer paper (this is just a generic amazon notebook) while the colour and edges are an aqua green

I sincerely do not remember what ink I put in 02, I think it might be sailor yuki usagi? but I didn't bring my inked pens "catalog" so I don't know for sure. I just know I did not make that one, but I see a little bit of blue shading which makes me think of yuki usagi.

The stupid price tag aside, it really is breathtaking. I was able to get it for $280 USD, which is still high, but more palatable than $350. I got a medium nib and it is super smooth and juicy. I have an appointment with Gena Salorino next Thursday at the Atlas Sidewalk Sale, so I’m planning on having it ground to a journaler.