Category: Fountain Pens

Ms. Fountain Pen Manners: How to Respond to Someone’s Vile New Pen You Absolutely Hate, And More

Laura24 Comments

It being Black Friday weekend, and the kickoff of the holiday buying season, there are a lot of new pens floating around social media. Pen makers and dealers are posting them, your friends are posting them, and every Instagram account or fountain pen forum has people posting them.

As this time is upon us, I shall now put on my “Ms. Fountain Pen Manners” hat. This is how a person with good manners responds to someone’s vile new pen they absolutely hate, or someone’s attractive new pen that comes in a box they don’t like, or whatever tricky situation arises.

1. A new pen arrives in dealers’ hands and hits Instagram. The color repels you; the material is garish. It’s awful. But your friends go gaga for it.

You want to say, “What’s wrong with you?! Are you high? That is molten aqua/orange/violet nightmare-fuel.”

Readers, that’s probably a tad harsh. Instead, try to dial it back, with the non-committal “Wow.” Or, the honest “Colorful!” Or, the trying-to-be-positive “I love the rhodium trim.” Or, if you think you can get away with it, “Bless its heart.” The latter is a favorite of Ms. Fountain Pen Manners, because Ms Fountain Pen Manners delights in throwing shade.

2. A company issues a pink pen, in a tacky box, targeted at women. You, being a person who hates pink, is of obviously superior intelligence and thus has appointed herself the Queen of What Every Other Person Should Like, object to the pink pen’s existence.

You feel you have to say, “This pen demeans and insults women. Why do companies think women like pink? It’s an outrage.”

Readers, this situation is one step more difficult. Because, first, you have to get your head out of your ass. Only then can you trot out the “Wow.” Or, “Colorful!” Or even, “Bless its heart.” Or, if you absolutely must register your objection to a pen that is pink, try something honest but respectful, like, “I’m not a fan of pink, myself, but it’s nice to see something different.”

See how easy that is.

3. Someone you know, perhaps Ms. Fountain Pen Manners herself, has bought two gorgeous pens, but both are white.

You want to say, “What’s wrong with you? You know they make pens in colors now, right? Why two white pens? Do you have two favorite white inks?”

Readers, this appears challenging, but it’s actually pretty easy. No, you can’t go with “wow” or “colorful” here. But try, “How refreshing.” Or, “You don’t see that every day.” Or, “So useful: that would work with any ink color.” Turn a negative into a positive; that’s the essence of good fountain pen manners.

4. Everyone you know hates the Lamy Safari, and loves saying so, over and over. Online, in blog comments, in personal emails, in texts, and right to your face in personal conversations.

You just want to say, “Oh shove it up your patootey.”

Well, readers, I’ve considered that fully, over the course of many long years. And I have finally reached a ruling. It is okay, in this one situation. Alternatively, you could go with, “You are wrong, and your taste is bad.” Either would be perfectly appropriate.

A Thanksgiving Story

Laura6 Comments

Gather round, folks, for a Thanksgiving story. It does not involve Pilgrims, or Native Americans or Abraham Lincoln. Nor does it directly involve fountain pens. But it relates to the latter, in a roundabout way. Also, it’s vegetarian, which is unusual for Thanksgiving.

I warn you, however: this is a dull story. But there is a wedding, some pie, and a happy ending. So I’d only need to tweak a few things to have a great screenplay. And if you soldier on to the end, I will play a completely unrelated song I like.

Today is Thanksgiving, and I’ve been planning and cooking much of the week, because there’s a lot of food to make, and it’s more enjoyable this way.  Also necessary. For instance, I happen to have a pie crust recipe that is fantastic but which takes two days to reach perfect flakiness. (While I am instantly flaky. Puzzling that a pie crust is more work than a person.)

As I was doing Thanksgiving things, I was reminded of last Thanksgiving. When a little plastic piece popped off my Cuisinart food processor, right in the midst of apple-slicing or cranberry chopping or some other crucial task. This was a little plastic tab that held the cover on the bowl of the Cuisinart. Without it, the Cuisinart would not work. So this was a dramatic development.

Daughter of pioneers that I am, I duct-taped that sucker together and sped onward to culinary triumph and gustatory delight. But after Thanksgiving, I had to figure out what to do.

Our Cuisinart was a classic. Literally: the Cuisinart Classic. It was a much-appreciated wedding present, and has proved itself a stalwart machine and faithful kitchen helper. We’d named it (“the Cuisi”). And it never cut off anyone’s fingers. Last Thanksgiving was the first problem we’d had with it in more than 23 years.

My attachment to the Cuisi is, therefore, equal parts practical and sentimental. It didn’t cut off my fingers, and it had been a wedding present. We’d used it a lot. We’d moved with it into three homes. It was older than our kids. We’d grown accustomed to its face.

Also, I have the typical old person’s conviction that anything from my time is just better than anything available today. (Rationally, this is irrational. But it’s something everyone comes to believe.) “Sure this PS4 is snazzy, but back when I was a kid, we had Pong and then Atari, and those were really something. We didn’t need fancy graphics. We used our imaginations.”

Still, even putting delusions of the good old days aside, this was an objectively excellent food processor, and I did not want to replace it. So I looked at the Cuisinart website for a replacement bowl. I wasn’t sure what would fit. I wasn’t sure if I could get by with just the bowl or needed to spring for the whole bowl-cover-sleeve setup, at which point, maybe it would be cheaper to just buy a new Cuisinart. So I called Cuisinart to ask.

And first, how great for a company, in this day and age, to have a customer service number you can call, with people on staff to answer questions?

I talked to a very nice person who understood exactly what had happened to the little tab. She told me they did have a new bowl that would fit, but she added, “But your current cover and pusher sleeve won’t fit on that, because we’ve redesigned the whole thing for safety.”

Ugh. I began to silently rue my fate: safety always means expense. But I didn’t even have time to venture anything like, “I can make do. I’m not that attached to my hands.” No, she continued, it was okay. They would send me the new cover and pusher sleeve for free. It was Cuisinart that had redesigned these parts, so that was their policy.

And how great is that?

She took my order for the bowl, added the cover and pusher sleeve, and had it mailed to me immediately. At which point I had a mostly new Cuisi for Christmas cooking and all the days of our lives, once again. Which I remember happily every time I use the Cuisi. Including right now, as I cook Thanksgiving and carefully watch my fingers — which I don’t even need to worry about any more, probably, because of the enhanced safety of that excellent new bowl.

And ever since, when I have had to buy a new small appliance, I buy a Cuisinart. New coffee maker. New hand blender slash new-finger-chopper. All Cuisinart. And I will continue. Not just because they make very good machines. But because you can call a person, get help, and buy replacement parts — even for a machine that’s more than two decades old. Because they provide excellent customer service. Because they build things to last.

And that’s where fountain pens come in, in a roundabout way.

We are all different, with different budgets and needs, and we all occasionally succumb to impulse purchases. But I’ll tell you an adage we old people have learned the hard way: buy quality, buy once; buy cheap, buy twice. In the long run, that’s good for your budget and probably for the planet.

So along those lines, here is my personal opinions of four pen brands that in my experience have excellent quality, but also have provided me with the very best service and response if there’s ever been an issue with a pen. Edison, Lamy, Montblanc and Pelikan.

Now, thank you for listening to my Thanksgiving story, and for reading this entire year. Happy Thanksgiving, America. Here is something good:

Pen of the Day: Pelikan M605 White Transparent with Papier Plume Bayou Nightfall

Laura10 Comments

Pelikan M605 White Transparent with Papier Plume Bayou Nightfall

Pelikan M605 White Transparent with medium nib. My new pen and my almost new ink. A winter white pen with a blueish gray ink.

This M605 has palladium trim and a rhodinized nib. The ink has beautiful shading and a quiet, lovely, almost zen-garden, feeling.

Pelikan M605 White Transparent with Papier Plume Bayou Nightfall

The pen barrel is made of transparent clear plastic with translucent white stripes. The stripes are both a fig leaf and a nod to Pelikan traditional design, but except for the stripes, the ink is fully visible in the transparent barrel.

People will have different feelings about that. I’m a demonstrator fan, and I would rush to buy an M605 clear demonstrator pen, should one ever be produced. But many people don’t like Pelikan demonstrators because ink will get trapped in places usually hidden under the section.

This M605 White Transparent is a nice compromise: you only see the ink in the barrel, which will come clean when you flush the pen.

But you do see the ink in the barrel.

And if you really, really love white, that may bother you. If so, a white converter pen is a better idea.

Pelikan M605 White Transparent with Papier Plume Bayou Nightfall

I don’t love white, so I’m good with it.

But you know what I really do love? Look at that photo, at the part of the barrel that’s filled with ink. You can see an oval that looks golden, in the upper part, near the section. That’s the sun, glinting through a tiny bubble where there’s no ink.

Pelikan M605 White Transparent: Winter is Here

Laura15 Comments

Pelikan M605 White Transparent

It took a while, but my new Pelikan M605 White Transparent finally arrived, and it’s gorgeous. If you’ve been hesitating, it’s safe to come out now. Maybe not safe for your wallet, however.

I had been very unsure about ordering this one. Why? Mostly because it was white. But then, even after I took a chance and pre-ordered it, I was nervous: I saw some Instagram posts of the pen that didn’t wow me, honestly.

But, in person, it’s a total “wow.” The transparent part with white stripes looks neat, and the rhodinized trim cools off the warmer white plastic used on the rest of the pen. The combination of warm and cool materials keeps the pen from looking either syrupy or stark. It’s really kind of dazzling.

The cap, section and piston knob are made of the same off-white as on the M605 Pink and the M600 and M400 White Tortoise models, but the effect is different with the different color trim. Here are all three of mine, the two M600-size pens and the M400 White Tortoise.

Pelikan M605 White Transparent, M605 Pink and M405 White Tortoise

I love them all, but I prefer silver-color trim, and so the M605 White Transparent is icily perfect for me. It’s also the only one of the three that looks sleek. Even, perhaps, a little contemporary.

All of the trim is palladium-coated, and the nib is rhodinized, like the M605 Marine Blue.

Pelikan M605 White Transparent

The internals are white, which means, as you can see from these photos, that the piston mechanism is nicely unobtrusive. But because the ink chamber/pen body is transparent, when you ink up the pen, you will see the ink inside. Here’s the obligatory “before” closeup.

Pelikan M605 White Transparent

I inked up the M605 White right afterwards. I’ll post some photos of the pen filled with ink tomorrow.

Wahl-Eversharp Doric Second Generation in Black with Center Barrel Ink View

Laura10 Comments

Wahl-Eversharp Doric black with center barrel ink view

For posterity, and future pen detectives, as well as for your viewing pleasure, here are some photographs of a stunning vintage pen: an oversize Wahl-Eversharp second generation Doric plunger filler in black celluloid, with a central ink view area in clear, black and brown celluloid.

Another shot of the whole pen.

Wahl-Eversharp Doric black with center barrel ink view

Below is a photograph of the barrel: the ink view region is approximately in the center of the pen. You can see where the pen body goes from black celluloid, to the mottled clear part, to black celluloid again.

Wahl-Eversharp Doric black with center barrel ink view

Now, a closeup of the ink view area. That’s the metal plunger rod inside.

Wahl-Eversharp Doric black center barrel ink view closeup

Another closeup, this time from another side. I think of this as a tortoise pattern.

Wahl-Eversharp Doric black center barrel ink view closeup

This Doric is probably about 80 years old, but luckily it has escaped most of the ravages of time, and you can see that the clear celluloid is still remarkably clear.

The Doric design is similar to the original Paragon from the Italian company Omas. And this particular Doric reminded me of my vintage-style Paragon Extra Lucens. Here are both together. They are about the same length, but the Omas is slightly thicker.

Wahl-Eversharp Doric black with center barrel ink view + Omas Vintage Paragon Extra Lucens

Here are the cap ends, showing the facets of both pens.

Omas Vintage Paragon and Wahl-Eversharp Doric caps

This Doric is from an estate that we at Chicago Pen Show are handling. There are more photos of it and some other Wahl-Eversharp fountain pens here. We’re bringing these and more to the Ohio Pen Show in a few weeks. Come visit.

Vintage Wahl-Eversharp Dorics and Stenographer’s Pens

Laura9 Comments

Wahl-Eversharp Dorics and Stenographer's fountain pens

I’ve been surrounded by vintage pens lately, not my own, but from an estate that we at Chicago Pen Show have been working to sort through and sell. It’s been fascinating, and I’m learning a lot, but it leaves me less time to blog. So I’ll share some photos.

First are those five beautiful Wahl-Eversharp fountain pens, dating to the 1930s.

The three on the bottom are Doric fountain pens, two second generation vacuum fillers and one first generation lever filler. Dorics are celluloid pens, made in the US, in a 12-sided faceted design that reminds me of the Omas vintage Paragon. They are gorgeous, and the nibs are supposed to be excellent.

All three of the Dorics have adjustable nibs, with a slider which the user can operate to make the nib more or less flexible. Here’s a closeup of the three Doric nibs, which feature three different nib sizes, and two different slider models.

Wahl-Eversharp Doric adjustable nibs various sizes

The nib on the bottom is the smallest Doric nib, a number three.

Apart from the Dorics, we’ve got two green Stenographer’s pens. The Stenographer’s fountain pen is a long, slim pen, with a long, slim nib. It has a nice, lightweight feel in the hand. And it’s a bulb filler.

Wahl-Eversharp Stenographer's fountain pen bulb filler

I like these, a lot. At every pen show, I ooh and ahh over the Dorics. Now I get to add Stenographer’s pens to my “someday” list.

Parker 75 Sterling Silver Plain Fountain Pen and Pencil Set

Laura10 Comments

Parker 75 Sterling Silver Plain fountain pen and pencil

Parker 75 Sterling Silver Plain. This Parker 75 set has a fountain pen and mechanical pencil in a finish called “sterling silver plain” on Parker Pens Penography. I hadn’t noticed this finish before, and I couldn’t find photos online, so here we go.

The look is posh, elegant and formal. Mine was manufactured sometime between 1966 and 1970. It’s fun to think that in those same years the Rolling Stones were releasing Aftermath, Between the Buttons, Beggars Banquet and Let It Bleed. This pen set is for Mr. and Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate, not Benjamin.

And still, I’m totally into it. It’s a beautiful object, sleek and stylish. The un-ornamented sterling silver is simple and feels almost contemporary. Next to this plain sterling silver, the iconic 75 finish, sterling silver ciselé, looks much more traditional.

Parker 75 Sterling Silver Plain and Cisele

The plain sterling silver looks lighter and brighter. It’s shiny, but in a restrained way, because it’s sterling silver.

And here’s a nice touch: Because the smooth silver finish is liable to show scratches, fingerprints and tarnish, Parker provided two little pouches made of silver cloth.

Parker 75 Sterling Silver Plain set

My pencil and pen are filled and in use right now, but I love having them in their pouches. I’m sorry, it’s adorable.

The sterling silver ciselé 75 makes a good companion, and a good contrast.

Parker 75 Sterling Silver Plain and Cisele

The ciselé is crosshatched, which gives it texture. This grid makes the finish easy-care, with no polishing or special precautions needed, whereas I suspect the plain silver may need a light polish every now and then. The plain silver finish may pick up some marks of use over the years, too, just like the Kaweco AL-Sport in raw aluminum.

So even if the plain silver 75 were commonly available, it wouldn’t be for everyone. But it is for me. I wasn’t kidding that I am not interested in buying fountain pens these days. But when I saw this one, boom, interest.

Parker 75s are great user pens if you don’t mind a thinner pen, and the nib is a pleasure to use if you write like I do — quickly and without flex. A Parker 75 isn’t very expensive, either: in fact, the more common ciselé is a veritable bargain, and has always been one of my favorite pens. Now I will enjoy using them both.

Parker 75 Sterling Silver Plain and Cisele detail

It Is a Very Good Thing I’m Off Pens

Laura13 Comments

Okay, I was supposed to be enabling everyone else last week. So what the heck? How is it fair, or right, for people yesterday to start enabling me? That is not how this is supposed to work. I am officially “off pens.”

But if that happened, hypothetically, and those very bad people did that, it’s possible I ended up buying another pen yesterday. But that probably would be okay, right? Because it’s totally their fault.

And then, if you think about it, I actually saved someone else from having to buy it. I mean, looked at a certain way, that’s helping others. Maybe, and I’m just going to say it, maybe I am a hero.

Which means, and again we’re talking hypothetically, if there were two pens, I’d be twice as good, right?

Well (and maybe don’t listen to this part) but what if there was a mechanical pencil, too? That’s a little harder to just glide over, perhaps. Maybe we’re on shaky ground when we come home with three writing instruments, when we are “off pens.” But if the pencil was included, say, in a set, then maybe it shouldn’t even count. I didn’t seek it; I had to take it. Also, looked at a certain way, I kept a family together; I did something good. Really, I’m seeing similarities to Clive Owen in Children of Men. And Pongo and Missis when they escaped with all the puppies, not just their own.

Well, wow. Good for me! Some people would reward themselves with a pen. But I’m not like that.

I’m All In on the Pelikan M605 White, Fashionable Accessory, and First of Its Name

Laura17 Comments

Pelikan M605 White

Okay, I pulled the trigger. I preordered this icicle yesterday.

It’s been a will-she-or-won’t-she saga, at least in my head. When I heard the rumors early in the year, I was on the fence. Leaning no. “White? Another pen?” Then after it was announced and photos released, I leaned yes. But I didn’t preorder right away. Because I do nothing right away.

Until my usual drug dealer (sorry, pen dealer)* reminded me yesterday that, uh, you need to order, duh.  So I did so immediately. Because I’m swift when it’s the last minute.

But then after I paid, I had second thoughts. Well, familiar thoughts. Like, “It’s, um, white.” And, “I have no money.” And, “Wait, why am I buying a pen?”

That’s the real issue. I don’t need another pen. I don’t even want another pen. And I don’t have the boredom or craving for excitement that sometimes makes us shop for fun. It’s really the opposite: my life has been so hectic in the important areas that I’m fine with no controversy or change in the pen lineup, thanks. Dead calm, that’s what I’m after.

But while I don’t actively want any pen, I do like this particular pen. I think it’s going to look great. And, true, I’ve never been sure about the white, but I’m starting to cotton to it. I’m starting to see it as nicely wintry. Sure, one could read it as “icy hellscape,” but even that appeals to me right now. We’ve had record heat here this fall, California is on fire, Puerto Rico is under water, and yesterday brought news of not one, but two, “supervolcanoes” getting ready to wipe out all life on the planet. In my own personal Apocalypse Watch slash drinking game, each of those events is worthy of “Drink!” So why not add a melting polar ice cap pen?

Not to mention that this pen totally reminds me of the winter coat that Daenerys put on to go north of the Wall in Game of Thrones.

dany-coat-1.w710.h473

And that was such a cool look, it was fire hot. Sure, the White Walkers and the Night King are sick and scary, and have our guys surrounded. But I’ve got dragons, and Jon Snow is hot, and if I have to fly on a dragon to the frozen north, I am sure going to wear my fashionable coatdress and look my best.

So, I’m on board with the white Pelikan, once more. It’s worthy of both Jon Snow, king in the North, and Daenerys of the House Targaryen, the First of Her Name, The Unburnt, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Queen of Meereen, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Protector of the Realm, Lady Regnant of the Seven Kingdoms, Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons. I am looking forward to it, again.

*I bought mine from the Nibsmith. Not for nothing, my Pusher Man the Nibsmith is offering a discount on all pens and ink of 10% using the code SAVE10 through October 20. That’s if anyone else is similarly gripped by insanity interested in buying Pelikan’s coatdress or any other pen. I point it out here because, when you’ve signed up to bungee jump into the gorge, you want as many friends possible going with you. Yes. This is me, enabling you.