Caran d’Ache Electric Orange. A gorgeous ink, with beautiful but not distracting shading. I find Electric Orange a worthy successor to Caran d’Ache Saffron, which it replaced. This is a vivacious but elegant medium orange. It’s legible even from a fine nib, but is never so bright that it sears the eyes.
An everyday ink? In October, certainly.
Parker 51 Cedar Blue with fine nib. This is a vacumatic 51. It belonged to my mother. When we found it this January, it hadn’t been used for decades. It was inside an old jewelry box, unseen and forgotten. The body jewel and tassie were missing, and I didn’t have to test the filler to know it needed a new diaphragm.
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Pelikan M101N Lizard with medium nib. This pen is a special edition that I think doesn’t get enough attention. It has two tortoise brethren, which are also quite nice. But this is the one for me. I mean, lizard! And a sleek black. And a few sparkly bits in the binde.
Always remember that I am a complete sucker for “ooh shiny.”
It’s a gorgeous design, a modern updating of the 101N brown lizard models from the 1930s. Look at the beautiful curves of the clip, and the Pelikan Germany engraving on the cap top — those and other details quote the original 101N.
The original models were all quite small, compared to most modern pens, and the M101N Lizard is as well. That’s the only thing that I would mention as a caution, though the pen can be used posted. The nib is wonderful and has a bit of softness, unlike most modern Pelikan nibs.
The ink is Diamine Shimmering Shadows. As my friend said, I’m sort of cheating with this Pen of the Day: I used it last week and have kept it inked. But can you blame me? Fantastic pen, fantastic ink. Plus, ooh, shiny.
I like every single Shimmertastic, but Blue Pearl is my very favorite. It’s a medium blue with silver particles, with shading and sheen.
A friend had an inspiration about Blue Pearl, noting that it looked similar to Diamine Blue Velvet.
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Thanks to Random.org, here are the winners of the Diamine Shimmertastic samples.
Blue Pearl: Daniel
Sparkling Shadows: plume145
Magical Forest: rhyming is fun
Night Sky: Dronak
Thank you to everyone who commented. If you are one of the winners, please use the Contact form to email me your name and mailing address.
There are a lot of standard green inks that are similar to Kaweco Palm Green, and I always enjoy looking at the similarities and differences.
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Fountain Pen Follies 