18 Friday Sep 2020
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What no Parker?! – I know readers were expecting me to cover the pen that moved me on from that one manufacturer and kindled the start of my collecting, however as previously mentioned I had bought a Lamy as a second pen to use with red ink a few years before (and strictly speaking I had previously owned some cheap Reynolds pens bought from hypermarkets in France).
Continue reading21 Friday Aug 2020
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As a kid I have memories of my father, an architect, trying to clean out and get ink to flow from his Rotring Isograph pens. The issue was the need to use a dark permanent ink, traditionally in the UK Indian Ink (known as India Ink in the USA). This would quickly dry in the pen, clogging it. I have no clue if capillary/tube nibbed pens are easier to clean than more traditional fountain pens but it always seemed to be messy and a cause of frustration.
Continue reading14 Friday Aug 2020
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In some respects this was a key pen for me. This was the first fountain pen I bought with my own money (as opposed to being a present or using holiday money, the latter being used a few times on cheap French hypermarket sourced pens). Based on where I was working at the time it will have been around 2003-2005, though where I bought it from I no longer remember.
Continue reading03 Monday Aug 2020
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It’s been four months since my last update, since when I went from working from home to being put on furlough, so the pens in use have been those at my PC not in my daily carry case.
Continue reading26 Sunday Jul 2020
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While I don’t think this was my first pen, the Parker 25 set certainly saw me through much of my teen school days. I’m certain at one point I had most, if not all the pens in the range, though alas at present I can not find the fibre tip or roller ball. Thus below you’ll be able to see two of my two fountain pens, plus the propelling pencil and ballpoint.
Continue reading17 Friday Jul 2020
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If you’re a follower of the big pen blogs or a regular at US pen shows then it is hard to miss Yoshi Nakama’s pens sold under the 18111 brand. Each unique, made by laser engraving acrylic then filling in the pattern with gold, silver, and coloured dusts, before lacquering over and polishing. Almost a modern version of the Japanese Maki-e art. In addition the pens come with roll stops, each of which is made by making a 3-D printed template, creating a mould, then casting in brass.
Continue reading11 Saturday Jul 2020
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Quite possible the seminal Parker fountain pen. First produced in 1941, introducing the concept of the hooded nib and with a production run in multiple countries which lasted for just over 30 years, this must be one of the best known modern day writing implements. Too young to have received a 51 before they stopped production, I came in to possession of mine after my paternal grand father died in the late 1970s/early 1980s (think I was 10-12 at the time).
Continue reading06 Monday Jul 2020
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Mid 1982 and I received a present from either relations or friends of the family. A Parker 45 Harlequin fountain pen and ball point set, complete in a brown and beige hinged box. The latter in hindsight was appropriate to a young teenager for the Flighter, as the Parker 45 was also known, looked distinctly dated compared to the modern and edgy 25s I was using at school.
Continue reading26 Friday Jun 2020
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I must have been around 10 or 11, maybe slightly younger, when I bought a Platignum fountain pen with my pocket money. I don’t think it was my first and I doubt I would have been allowed to use it at school as they provided free pencils, plus dip pen shaped ballpoints to those in the final year who had passed the writing test (so everybody by the final term in theory). This calligraphy set will have come later, but I suspect I still bought it before I was 14 or 15, which in some respects was odd as I hated writing and my calligraphy (from mandatory art classes) was poor at best.
Continue reading25 Thursday Jun 2020
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Just a quick note before today/tomorrow’s regular post. While I know quite a few of you are looking forwards to my present views on my Parker 25, at present it (and the 45) are being used as dailies to remind me what they are like and what I think of them now. As a result the probable order will be:
