KWZ Iron Gall Blue #6. Here is another excellent KWZ ink. Iron Gall Blue #6 is a green-tinted blue black that exhibits excellent behavior and is particularly good when writing on poor paper.
(click Page 2 below to continue)
J. Herbin Bleu Azur: Another Sky
My friend just gave me a sample of this lovely ink, J. Herbin Bleu Azur.
I have a strange fondness for inks that are nearly invisible. One favorite is Pilot Iroshizuku Kiri-same, a delicate, pencil-like gray ink. I also like very light greens, like J. Herbin Vert Pré and Lamy’s recent Charged Green. I don’t know if this stems from my childhood love of spy stories, or just an interest in things that are different. An ink you can’t easily read? How different. I like that!
I loaded Bleu Azur into a Kaweco Classic Sport because that’s a wet pen, and I can interchange the nibs. The above photo shows it with a double-broad nib. Bleu Azur is pretty legible with a wide nib and good ink flow.
I do like the color of Bleu Azur. It’s like another sky, which is from a beautiful poem Emily Dickinson wrote to her brother:
There is another sky,
Ever serene and fair,
And there is another sunshine,
Though it be darkness there;
Never mind faded forests, Austin,
Never mind silent fields –
Here is a little forest,
Whose leaf is ever green;
Here is a brighter garden,
Where not a frost has been;
In its unfading flowers
I hear the bright bee hum:
Prithee, my brother,
Into my garden come!
Pen of the Day: Kaweco AL-Sport Grey
Kaweco AL-Sport in Grey with medium nib. I shared some photos of this pen yesterday, since it’s my newest purchase. I just really like it, so it’s Pen of the Day, too.
This one has a very nice medium nib. It’s narrower than the medium nib on my Pelikan M400 White Tortoise, which you can compare here. I’m using the Kaweco with a wetter ink than the Pelikan, too.
I’ve got my new AL-Sport inked with Waterman Blue Black, now sold under the name of Mysterious Blue. Waterman Blue Black is a traditional blue black with a greenish tint. It’s not perfect. It’s not an ink for a dry pen, because the color looks better with more ink flow. And on some lower quality paper the ink color can lighten with time. But Waterman Blue Black is very feather resistant, it won’t show through poor quality paper, and it’s a wet ink that works with most pens.
I use either Waterman Serenity Blue or Blue Black with every newly purchased pen. That way I can tell right away how the nib writes. This one writes a little bit wet and is super smooth.
New Pen! Kaweco AL-Sport Fountain Pen in Grey
I’m going to post more about this pen tomorrow, but I just wanted to write a little about it today, too. Because, squeal, new pen. It’s not every day I buy one of those.
My husband probably wouldn’t believe that last line, but you are my witnesses. Some days I rest.
(click Page 2 below to continue)
All Lost in the Supermarket
I was in an unfamiliar and old-fashioned grocery store the other day. I thought this was pretty.
Pen Clutter
I was trying to find my yellow Line Friends Lamy Safari the other day — for the blog, of course. Instead I found a clown car of pen-related clutter — boxes and boxes of it — all on a tiny shelf. Which is not my only shelf of pen and ink things.
But I’ve learned my lesson, and I’ve turned over a new leaf. And that is called: ignorance is bliss. From now on, I’m not going to pay any attention to what’s on my shelves. Unless something happens to fall on me. At which time, I’ll shove that item back on the shelf and walk briskly into the other room. That’s called: just good common sense.
(click Page 2 below to continue)
Pen of the Day: Pelikan M400 White Tortoise
Pelikan M400 White Tortoise with medium nib. I feel like this is the Kevin Bacon or Kevin Hart of writing instruments for me. I seem to make it Pen of the Day a lot. And for good reason. For a pen I long hesitated to buy, I like it very much.
This time, though, I was mostly focused on the ink. My friend was talking about Pelikan Edelstein Amber, so I wanted to dip into my sample. You’d think this would be a perfect ink for one my five yellow Safaris, wouldn’t you? Yes, that would be sensible. But moving along ….
Pelikan Edelstein Amber is a nice ink. I find it similar to J. Herbin Ambre de Birmanie, which I also really like. Edelstein Amber is a touch darker and drier; and for me it does not shade quite as much. Amber is also a past ink of the year, so harder to find. But lovely.
Five Yellow Lamy Safaris
I have five yellow Safaris? Yes, I have five yellow Safaris. I really had no idea.
The truth is, yellow pens are not exactly necessary in my life, since I never use yellow ink. Let’s say I own 9,043 bottles of ink. Admittedly, that’s a rough estimate; the actual number might be higher (cough). But I do know that, of those roughly 12,000 bottles, exactly zero contain yellow ink. It’s not exactly legible, at least not to me.
But I still like the yellow Safaris. And that photo puts a smile on my face. The cute Line Friends Safari is especially adorable. Though it lives in a box. Which I had to search for. Because it was in a storage box. In the basement. We’re talking deep storage. I really only use the regular yellow Safari.
The funny thing is, as shocked as I am by the breadth of my yellow Safari ownership, I know that Lamy has made more than five different yellow Safaris. There’s a lighter yellow with black clip for sure. And there probably are other special edition Safaris in yellow: I think I’ve seen some with logos. I just don’t buy the ones with logos. Or the rare and expensive ones.
Rest assured that I am okay with not having every yellow Safari. In fact, I’m thrilled.
It might mean a tiny bit of sanity prevails. But you know me better. It really means: more room for my blue pens!
Hey. If I put a few more of these in the storage box in the basement, wouldn’t that mean … there’s room for that blue Pelikan M205?!
A New Pen is Announced: My Six Stages of Perfectly Normal Behavior Indicating Excellent Mental Health
Pelikan has announced it’s bringing back the Classic M205 Demonstrator in Transparent Blue as a special edition starting in April. Pelikan is a weakness of mine. As are demonstrators. Also, blue.
I can admit that I don’t happen to love the modern M200. It’s an excellent pen, but it’s a little lightweight for me, and it has the steel nib and I just have never bonded with it. Still, of course all I needed to do was to see the photo, above, to start salivating. It never fails. Aurora, Pelikan and certain Montblancs affect me like a butcher’s bone does a dog.
Here are my stages, which are essentially invariable.
1. Infatuation. Oooh, shiny.
2. Reasoning It Out. Boy that looks so nice. And I don’t have the exact same pen already. I mean not exactly the same. Or, if exactly, I only have one (maybe two, tops) of the exact same pen already. What if one breaks? And I could always use a different nib size in this pen. Or a different color. Or heck the box is probably different if everything else is the same.
And it says “special edition.” That means: not around forever. Remember that I never got that yellow special edition that, okay I’d never use, but the point is that now I have no yellow pen. Okay, no yellow pen other than my three yellow Safaris. No, okay, four yellow Safaris. Five? But let’s not confuse the issue. This isn’t yellow anyway. It’s so much more useful than yellow.
And for heaven’s sake, I haven’t bought anything pen-related for a week. Yeah, okay, maybe it’s just four days, really, now that I think of it. Then there were those cute pants, too. But sometimes four days can feel like a week — or even a month. You know that’s true. And let’s be honest: these last four days have felt like a month. A pen every month or so is really frugal.
3. Annoyance. What? It’s not out for six whole weeks? We’re supposed to wait that long? That’s almost cruel.
4. Uh oh. (The price.) Wait, how much is it? Is that dollars or euros? Without shipping? Oh boy, yeah, well that is sort of … yeah. That’s slightly more than a Safari to be sure. But it’s not like I waste money on Starbucks lattés every day or anything. So think of all the money I save there. This is the equivalent of…. Oh. It’s the equivalent of [33/81/175] Starbucks lattés. That is a lot of lattés, isn’t it? Yikes.
And, okay, strictly speaking I already have [four/eight/nineteen/I can’t count that high] other pens of the same brand. Some of which I bought last year with what I honestly considered “this year’s money.”
And, okay, the stock market laughs cruelly at me, as our “retirement accounts” shrink to the level where they wouldn’t fund a weekend at a Holiday Express. The credit card bill is on the counter. My children, annoyingly, “like to eat.”
5. Acceptance. Sigh. A person is rich in proportion to the number of things which he or she can afford to let alone. Life is not a having and a getting, but a being and a becoming. Something something makes us stronger.
6. A Few Weeks Later. Oooh, I just read online that there’s someone offering it on Amazon dot Freedonia at 10 percent off. Let me just crunch those numbers again.
—————
The image of the forthcoming Pelikan Classic M205 Demonstrator in Transparent Blue can be found here, along with more information about the pen. Drool with me.
Pen of the Day: Montblanc Agatha Christie
Montblanc Agatha Christie with fine nib. This pen always provides a lift, and so does the ink. Two favorites.
I’m in a book group and this month is “the Golden Age of Mysteries,” so we’re reading an Agatha Christie. I’m pretty sure the butler didn’t do it.
Fountain Pen Follies 