Starter fountain pens: let’s get into it. Everyone loves a “what starter fountain pen should I buy” question. I am no exception: I have a few suggestions. The problem is, I also have a few I really don’t suggest, even though they are commonly recommended for beginners.
My choices are based on my own preferences, my own experience and my own tastes. Feel free to disagree. Different opinions and experiences are part of the fun.
For a starter fountain pen, I want a pen with a fairly low price. That encourages people to take the chance. And if you don’t get the hang of writing with the fountain pen, or don’t like it, or you lose your pen, it’s not the end of the world. I only consider new pens, not vintage pens, for ease of purchase and ease of use.
But another requirement for me is that the pen be capable of providing lasting satisfaction. My ideal starter fountain pen can be used regularly even when you’ve moved past the starter stage. Because fountain pens don’t have to be expensive or precious, in my opinion.
So let’s jump in the pool.
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This is pretty cool. It’s for Jon.
And for dessert:
The blue-green and green-blue ink space may be stuffed to bursting, but, like my waistline, it seems to keep expanding anyway. In some ways, that makes it an ink fan’s playground. But also Waterloo. In the sense of, prepare for defeat. But also, in the I “couldn’t escape if I wanted to” sense — the good, disco sense.
I got sucked into the latest round of blue-green comparisons by happenstance. I’ve been using a lot of blue-green and green-blue inks lately. It started with some Robert Oster inks, like Fire and Ice and Deep Sea, and others not on the blog — Robert Oster makes a slew. Then came Papier Plume Lake Michigan Summer, another gorgeous green-blue. Followed by Robert Oster Tranquility, a blind buy at the Chicago Pen Show.
All during my dips into the blue-green pool, smarter-than-me readers (redundant, I know) kept bringing up other inks. So I’ve had this color on the brain.
Last night for some reason I decided to put Kaweco Paradise Blue in a Montblanc with broad nib. I already have it in a Lamy Al-Star with medium nib.
Kaweco Paradise Blue is an ink I really like. I’ve compared it to Caran d’Ache Caribbean Sea and Papier Plume Lake Michigan Summer, as well as just enjoyed how nice it looks with Pelikan Turquoise (another underrated ink). Paradise Blue is a blue-green that melds very nicely with other inks in that color space, and that looks bluer or greener depending on the inks you use around it.
At the same time, I decided to give Robert Oster Tranquility another shot. I’d first put it in a Franklin-Christoph, which is an excellent pen, but a poor match for Tranquility (for me), because both pen and ink are wet. I decided to try Tranquility in one of my favorite pens, a Montblanc Virginia Woolf with fine nib.
I quickly wrote with both of my newly inked Montblancs in a notebook. I looked several times at the page, wondering, Did I ink up both pens with Tranquility? I couldn’t believe how similar these two inks now looked. It did appear that Kaweco Paradise Blue was slightly bluer, and Tranquility slightly greener. But still so similar.
But it was night, and electric light can be deceptive. I would wait till morning and write with them under natural light. I also filled an Al-Star with a medium nib with Tranquility, to compare it to Paradise Blue in the other Al-Star….
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J. Herbin Bleu Myosotis. This ink. It’s strange. On most paper, its color seems to fade after a day or so. The final color ends up a pale periwinkle, after it fades from a darker, fresher blue. It’s a nice enough color, either way, but I can’t work out whether the fading is a bug or a feature. This ink confuses me.
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Pelikan Edelstein Smoky Quartz. Pelikan’s 2017 Edelstein “Ink of the Year” is Smoky Quartz, an earthy brown that’s dark and legible. It strikes me as a darker version of J. Herbin Lie de Thé.
Like all Pelikan Edelstein inks I’ve used, Smoky Quartz has excellent lubrication and flow. I don’t get much shading, except on Tomoe River paper. The ink color looks different on different papers, which I usually like, but if you’ve ever changed a baby’s diapers, choose your paper wisely here.
Apparently the color was picked by internet voters to be the Ink of the Year. And apparently it’s popular.
Is this an everyday ink? If it’s your kind of color, then yes. Pelikan makes well-behaved and dependable inks, and Smoky Quartz is no exception.
Here is a comparison of Papier Plume Lake Michigan Summer and Kaweco Paradise Blue, both in Lamy Al-Stars with medium nibs.
Lake Michigan Summer is greener, wetter and has more shading. Kaweco Paradise Blue is, as the name would imply, bluer. These lines were written with Lake Michigan Summer first, and Paradise Blue second.
On cream-colored Tomoe River paper.
On white Clairefontaine Triomphe paper.
I love both inks, frankly, and the differences are enough to justify both for myself. (I consider my excessive interest in fountain pen inks to be a little silly, so it’s lovely to be able to use the word “justify” here. Any port in the storm.)
About Lake Michigan Summer, it was one of the two inks made for the recent Chicago Pen Show. But per Instagram, Papier Plume is making another batch of Lake Michigan Summer and Ivy 108, to be released on Thursday, June 15. I have more photos of, and information about, both inks in the posts at those links. For myself, I like them both so much I have kept refilling my own pens since April.
Thanks to blog reader Nicole for the question that prompted me to compare Lake Michigan Summer to Kaweco Paradise Blue. This was also just the excuse I needed to ink up my Pacific Blue Al-Star, Lamy’s 2017 annual Al-Star. The Pacific Blue, in my opinion, may be the absolute best Lamy pen color in recent years — and I mean across the entire Lamy fountain pen line. If you’re on the fence, buy one.
Fountain Pen Follies 