Montblanc LeGrand Platinum with fine nib. Sometimes when you’re using a lot of colorful, new or exciting inks, you just need to decompress and pick up an old reliable. I went for my LeGrand with platinum trim and fine nib, and Rohrer & Klingner Blau Permanent ink.
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Pelikan M600 Pink with fine nib. Okay, I’ve talked about this pen before, and again, and again, but it hasn’t actually been pen of the day. So, good excuse!
Also, Fountain Pen Follies is neither so foolish, nor so loaded, as to be able to buy two new pens a week.
Am I the only one who not only doesn’t mind seeing a little ink on the nib, but likes it? Because I do. Ink drips, no, but a hint of ink, yes.
I’m using Pelikan Edelstein Ruby this time, which is a softer red that I adore and that I think really works with the raspberry color of the Pink Pelikan.
TWSBI Eco with 1.1 mm stub nib. I picked this up recently because it’s reasonably priced and should be fine for ink testing. Mostly because it’s a demonstrator, and I can watch the ink slosh around. Cheap thrills.
This one has the 1.1 mm stub, which has nice line variation. The ink is a mixture of two green inks. Seeing the ink in the section? Sweet.
Pelikan 300 with OBB nib. This is one of my few not-so-common fountain pens, a black-striped Pelikan 300. Pelikan made the 300 in green or black stripes, for export only. It’s the size of a 400 but the cap and barrel ends have the lovely curved shape of the 140.
A real 300 will say so, both on the end of the barrel and on the cap ring.
This 300 has an OBB nib, which lays down plenty of ink. Today it’s inked with the beautiful Pelikan Edelstein Mandarin.
Aurora Optima 365 with medium nib. Yes, this was Pen of the Day two weeks ago, too. It’s so worth the repeat.
But it has a new ink this time. My friend sent me a sample of Conway Stewart Kingsand, which I think is a really lovely ink, perfect for the pen and for the time of year.
Conway Stewart is out of business, unfortunately, but a number of stores still have the inks in stock. Moreover, Conway Stewart inks were made by Diamine, and to me, Kingsand looks very much like Diamine Ochre. I hope to put on my ink detective hat and investigate it. That hat? It’s a deerstalker. Of course.
My friend Chris just bought a pen that I also have, and adore: the Aurora Optima in Nero Perla. Don’t look now, but I think that makes us pen twins.
I couldn’t resist inking my Nero Perla at the same time. And the Nero Perla is the perfect pen for me right now. After having tested so many colorful inks recently, I was ready for a black ink. The choice was Stipula Ebony Black, a lighter black with nice shading that is one of my favorite black inks.
Chris chose Diamine Vivaldi, from the Music Set, which is a great gray purple and an inspired choice. I have a feeling I will shamelessly copy the same combination very soon.
Pelikan 400 Tortoise with oblique medium nib. This is a vintage Pelikan. The oblique medium nib offers line variation with a fairly narrow nib, since a vintage Pelikan medium is close to the width of a modern Pelikan fine nib.
I think the tortoise binde looks beautiful against the brown cap and piston knob.
The ink is Waterman Absolute Brown, formerly known as Havana Brown. It’s a reddish brown with nice shading.
Parker Duofold Centennial with medium stub. You might have guessed by now that I am a Parker fan. This is the gorgeous Black and Pearl Duofold Centennial, which is about the size of the original Big Red.
I just recently got this back from the nibmeister. I was never perfectly happy with how it wrote, so I asked Dan Smith to decrease its over-enthusiastic ink flow and make the stub smoother. Thanks to Dan, it finally writes as beautifully as it looks.
It’s inked with Caran d’Ache Saffron, my all-time favorite orange ink.
Lamy 2000 with fine nib. You know how sometimes you have a pen that just fits you perfectly? You might overlook it for flashier pens, but whenever you use it, you think, I could have this as my only pen. The Lamy 2000 with fine nib is that pen for me, combining gorgeous modern style with a nib I love to use.
And I don’t know if this ever happens to anyone else, but I found such a perfect-for-me ink match that more than half the time I use this pen with one particular ink — J. Herbin Vert Empire.
Vert Empire is my favorite green ink, and since I just got a new bottle yesterday, I pulled out the Lamy 2000. Vert Empire shades beautifully. The gray-green color is soft and sophisticated, but still easy to read. It is a special ink. I am so happy to have it back, and back in this pen.
Fountain Pen Follies 