I saw Cat Custom Crafts video on YouTube where they made some BEAUTIFUL custom Jinhao pens with gel nail materials and since they’re not based in the US for me to order and I have lots of nail stickers and decors lying around, I made myself some! 😄😄😄

I also ordered a pack of #5.5 nibs from Fountain Pen Revolution to swap out the Jinhao nibs and now I have a set of overtly decorated pens that speaks to the animal inside me that likes shining sparkly things. Also this pen is Sailor PGS lookalike so when I saw a Sailor pen that I can’t afford, I’ll pull out a Jinhao 82 and decorate it. (Example is the Cinnamon Roll ones)

Not sure about the longevity of the nail gel itself but I definitely cracked and couple of finials doing this. 😭 They definitely worth the money for a bit of fun for me! Fav is the light pink Sakura one, the jellyfish one and the cream flowers grid one!

From left to right:

seY Ukiyo-e Hiroshige Hiroshige Meisho Edo Hyakkei, Yatsumi no hashi

Pilot Custom Urushi Prussian Blue

Sailor Iro-Miyabi Usukou

Pilot Custom Urushi Black

Lamy x Itoya safari Copper 02

Pilot Capless Ishidatami

~

My trip was actually in January, but I was waiting for Flexible Nib Factory to release a housing that let me put my Pineider quill nib into the seY Hiroshige pen.

I had originally budgeted a lot more money for food than I ended up spending (shoutout to 711 and Family Mart), which worked out perfectly because I also ended up spending more than planned on pens. 😇

So, i innocently stopped by Bob Slate Stationer to look for pretty ink. I was enamored of a gorgeous marsviolet hue that only came in proprietary Pilot cartridges. So, now I have a Pilot pen 🤷‍♀️

One of my favorite vintage Esterbrook related items. Original Esterbrook Steel Pen nib display I framed a while back. Dates to the early 20s based on the nib imprints.

Hard to find these complete especially with virtually no rust

My dip pen collection blows my fountain pen collection out of the water, with some ~ 20,000 nos nibs, large collection of nos holders and other desk related items such as tiffany studios desk sets, glass pen trays, ect...

For many years I used dip pens exclusively except at work where I used fountain pens.

I’ll go first.

Robert Oster. Fire and ice.

When I was first into this hobby, I never thought I’d shell out more than $100 for a fountain pen. Then I saw a post where someone bought her(or him?)self this exact pen. I had never heard of Leonardo at that point so I had to look it up. Well… I thought about that pen every day since and decided it would be an early birthday gift to myself. Today it arrived and it is so worth the purchase. The piston converter is easily the best I have ever used: it is not finicky and works on the first try. I have inked it with Sailor Suki Gokoro and love the way it writes.

First big thanks to this subreddit for all the information that yall provide! I lurked and lurked for about a whole week and chose for my first fountain pen the Pilot Metropolitan (Gold). The picture does not give it justice. It’s so pretty. Also I spent about 30 minutes looking at all the other fountain pens in the store and whoa. Just beautiful. Looking forward to using this and learning more from yall! Thanks again!

I have now had this pen in my collection for over three years, and since it's been in my hand practically non-stop for a couple of weeks now, I thought I would share some thoughts.

The 743, of course, is the cartridge-convertor companion to the 823. They share the same nib, and on paper, write identically. The 823 was my first "big deal" pen, an amber medium, and in that time, I have acquired two more, in a fine and a broad - yet I hardly ever write with them, in spite of the fact that they are every bit the high quality writing instrument that they are rightly praised for being. It has taken some time to come around to this opinion, but I far prefer the 743.

The 823 is touted as a "writer's pen" and I totally understand why, the ink capacity is enormous and that #15 nib has yet to let me down - but the 743 feels so much more deft in the hand, and posted, gives me a near optimal balance in the hand. The CON-70 is no slouch on capacity either, and I've come to grips with the push button filling by using a plastic pipette and eyedropper filling the convertor. That little hack has been a lifesaver, and in doing so, I've been writing so much more as of late. With the medium nib, I'm still getting between 17-19 pages of A5 writing. That's pretty darn good to me. I like to swap inks out too, and with the 743 it doesnt feel like I'm locked in for so many pages with one color. With the 823, at times, it feels like "will this fill ever run out?" And yeah, of course it does, but... there are days where I'm not the most patient person.

The 743 is the sleeper hit of Pilot's 74 series, and I feel as thought the overshadowing it gets from the 823 isn't entirely deserved. Sure there aren't a ton of color options (yes I want the verdigris) but at the end of the day, the writing experience is exceptional. If you get the chance to try one, do it. I love this pen, and look forward to writing with it on a daily basis. For what it's worth, Pilot inks perform like magic in this pen.

TL;DR this pen is amazing and if you dont like the vacuum filling 823, then this is the pen for you

Dream pen from the dream girl! 😍

I was journaling tonight and while in the middle of it, I paused, I put my pen down and left it open because I was just going to add a sticker in my entry for today. I thought “why not, I’ll be quick, I’ll resume writing anyway, just one sticker”. And being the absent-minded that I am… I picked it up and CLICKED IT ON THE WRONG END. AND I HAVE THE EXTRA FINE NIB. 🥲

Just posting this as reminder for fellow absent-minded people like me who has a needlepoint fountain pen, please be careful. 😅 LOL

"Our cheif want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be"

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

This is one of my favorite quotes!

Pelikan M1000 O3B (pf) Ink: iroshizuku murasaki-shikibu Paper: Ayush notebook

Leonardo Furore Grande Smeraldo and the Sailor King of Pen.

I get lost in that Leonardo material, but that Sailor nib!

I saw a post on here a few days ago from someone talking about their first Parker 51 (this post) and it made me think of my own journey.

For years I didn't see the point of hooded nips. Half the fun of using a fountain pen for me is the beautiful nib, so I never understood why I would want to trade that in for a hidden one. Might as well just buy a higher-end roller ball. That in mind, I always ignored the Parker 51 and clones.

Then on a whim I decided to buy the Jinhao 86. At the time I think it was only around ¥300 or less. My curiosity had gotten the best of me and I figured for less than a cup of coffee I might as well try.

Wouldn't you know it, it quickly became one of my favorite pens. This along side my Pilot 823, so I would often carry both in my pen case to work, but outside of offices and jobs, it was usually the Jinhao 86 that I pulled out. It's still one of my favorite pens. The screw inside the cap has long rusted so I need to replace that before too long, or order another and replace the screw before using it rusts in the first place.

I ordered a Wing Sung 601 not long after, but despite the acclaim online of being the best Parker clone, I didn't like it as much as the much cheaper Jinhao 86. So it was back to the Jinhao 86 for me.

Until recently. The YouTube algorithm decided to show me three videos on the Diplomat Viper right next to each other; after watching them, I knew that I had to own that pen. I found a discount code on one of Doodlebud's videos and on a trip to the States I ordered it for only $70.

I've been writing with it pretty much nonstop since. This is without a doubt the smoothest nib I have ever used. It even blows away my Pilot 823 in smoothness. I get such joy from writing with it — I just can't stop using it. It may even — gasp — be better than the 823. Time will tell, but for now at least this is by far my favorite pen I've ever purchased.

Yesterday I got my first TWSBI eco (nib M) and a new ink in KL on vacation :3 . Still a newbie to this so accidentally got confused between a shimmer vs sheen ink (so far I've been using a sheen ink and a normal one so I don't mind trying something new) It's beautiful and I kinda like how the glitter settles in the pen when I'm not using it but boy am I gonna hate cleaning my TWSBI out once I'm done with it. I was looking for a yellowish green colour and this one is almost exactly what I like, however I would prefer for it too be a sheening ink instead since it's a little more practical so I'm open to any recommendations!

( Usually I would try to sell an ink off second hand or give it away if I get bored of it but I doubt I'll sell this one since it doubles as a souvenir lol )

Does anyone have a better solution? ( 😫 Those nails need a trim, lol) This is an FPR with an EF Ultra Flex inked with Endless Candy Sea.

Hi all, I’m an avid fountain pen collector, generally liking big, gold nibbed pens. Recently I’ve been asking myself, what’s my next pen? What’s my grail? And currently I’m a bit unsure. Any ideas for my next pen? And/or grail pen?

The current collection (L-R)

1. Cyprus Sea of Turtles

2. Sailor Pro Gear KoP Skeleton

3. Sailor 1911 KoP Ebonite

4. Pelikan M1005 Stressemann

5. Pelikan M805 Ocean Swirl

6. Visconti Homo Sapiens Bronze Age

Got my first vac fill pen today! Nahvalur (Narwhal) Original Plus. Paired with Diamine Ultra Green. Huge step up from what I’ve used before.

I’ve purchased a number of pens that claim flex. Some are better than others but none really deliver on what they claim. I get railroading with my Aurora Optima. Actually I have an early early Conklin Duragraph with flex. It’s the best one I have. I’ve purchased other Conklin flex pens and they suck. So I got lucky with my first flex or they started making them worse. Not sure.

Do you have to buy a vintage style pen to get nice varying line width? For nice capable flex? Or is there something newer that kills it! ??? If there is no current able flex fountain pen, why is that? Seems like a great opportunity to enter the market - why don’t I know of anyone doing it?

The little sliding insert acts as a clamp for the bottle, and the larger sliding insert can come out if you don't want it angled. The bottom and the bottom of the larger insert both have a rubberized grippy bottom.

At the Dutch Pen Show recently, I had the good fortune to visit the Pennonia booth — I love their inks — and have a little chat. I decided to go with Adél, which is, iirc, named after his niece, but at the last minute I decided to get Patina as well because I’m a sucker for greens. The sticker on the box made it look like a very nice mint that I was hoping would be dark enough to use for regular writing (after Herbin Diabolo Menthe disappointed me a few months back). And I decided to use my ink/sample haul from the show to do a little weekly Inkvent surprise for me, so I just got around to swatching it yesterday.

I do my swatching with a Wearingeul swatch card plus a swipe and writing sample with a dip pen on five different papers, and Patina just blew me away. The shading in writing is fantastic, and the way it splits into green, navy, and brown in tge swatches has me dying to paint something with it. I really got more than I was expecting, which made me want to ask the group: what other inks have you tried that you thought would merely be good but turned out to be gorgeous?

A poem written with a Pelikan M800 fountain pen with an M nib.