07 Monday Oct 2019
Pen shows are a great way to catch up with people you may only know from Internet forums, catch up with old friends, traders you do business with, having an enjoyable time, oh and also maybe buy a pen or two or ten. This year there was also a big announcement. Continue reading
25 Wednesday Sep 2019
Tags
dream pen, fountain pen, indigraph, kickstarter, musings, namisu, namisu nova, pentitan, urushi, wancher, wancher dream pen, wancher urushi dream pen
Just to warn/advise, these are my personal views on Kickstarter, and the pens I’ve either bought through it, or have come about as a result of previous campaigns.
First, for those not aware. Kickstarter is not a shop. It is just a venture capital raising platform, which rapidly changed from campaigns promising financial returns to discounted end products instead. This can be beneficial to us, with some decent savings, but there is also the element of risk as campaigns may run late or even fail. With the latter any investment/payment is lost.
20 Friday Sep 2019
Posted in Pens
Having arrived early, this really has been a pop in style of meet. Even by 5 pm we were at four attendees, though two could only stay a while. By half past we’d gained another and the pen chat was flowing.
15 Sunday Sep 2019
Tags
I must admit I’ve tended to overlook Kaweco pens in the past and while I saw that the Sport and it’s derivatives were really just pocket pens, being (in my mind) too small for practical use even as a pocket/handbag pen. Who would have thought my near addiction to a French fizzy drink would result in my purchasing and using a limited edition version of one. Continue reading
05 Thursday Sep 2019
Posted in Pens
There seems to be three ways of discovering Ryan Krusac and his pens. Be at a US pen show he’s attending, from a fountain pen blog/vblog, or from social media, with the results that in Europe he is little known even amongst long term fountain pen enthusiasts. My introduction was through the videos of Mike ‘Inkdependence’ Matteson and David ‘Figboot’ Parker.
21 Sunday Jul 2019
Posted in Pens
Tags
The simple answer is no, but a rash of recent posted lists of sub £/$50 pens and also a chat with a long term unemployed fountain pen enthusiast, did make me wonder about covering this and even looking at some of my cheaper pens. I will also list at the end some other well respected pens which I do not own.
11 Thursday Jul 2019
Posted in Pens
Flex is cool, flex is fun, flex will win you the boy/girl/goat of your dreams. Flex is hyped yet many of us still buy pens with flex or semi-flex nibs and enjoy the experience. For me, it’s not the challenge of modern or classical styles of formal writing (such as Spencerian or Copper Plate), but the springy nature of the nibs, for in all honesty I’m one of the last people you want to come to for place setting cards or party invite creation.
Continue reading
04 Thursday Jul 2019
Tags
It’s been several months since my last daily carry post and my spring pen show purchases have now all been covered, so the Franklin-Christoph Penvelope 6 is once more the case being taken to work and the pens carried are actual regulars, and not those being used for upcoming reviews.
27 Thursday Jun 2019
Posted in Pens
Last week I posted about a number of pens which to me felt just right. Amongst them was the Pilot Custom 823. To some it is an over priced generically shaped pen with a less common filling system and seemingly mismatched materials, yet few owners regret the purchase and put them up for sale. A number I’ve seen on the second hand market have actually been spares where some one has got carried away and bought each of the different finishes to find they just use the one pen. Rarity partly helps as well as Pilot, for some reason, are only interested in selling the pen in Japan and the USA. Continue reading
20 Thursday Jun 2019
Posted in Pens
Tags
fountain pen, leonardo officiano italliana, momento zero, musings, onoto, Onoto Magna, Onoto Magna Classic, pilot, Pilot Custom 823, SCRIBO, SCRIBO Feel
We’ve all been there. We’ve held an item, a gadget, a widget, a tool, in our hands and it has just felt right, perfect for the task, comfortable and comforting. It may be cheap, it may be expensive. It may be bespoke, it may be off the shelf, there are no hard and fast rules, and like all emotive mysteries, it’s hard to explain just why it works so well for one person, yet may not for another. Continue reading
