Lamy Al-Star Purple with fine nib. I’m still focusing on purple. This is Lamy’s idea of a purple pen, which is more my idea of a deep burgundy, but it’s a nice color. Sometimes we just have to roll with it.
I think the aluminum body of this Al-Star looks great with the silver clip.
The ink is Sailor Kobe #32 Tamon Purple Grey. I really love this ink. Does it match the pen? Maybe not exactly. But sometimes we just have to roll with it.
I’ve been writing with Platinum and Sailor’s inexpensive desk pens recently. Both were around $12 from Jetpens when I bought them a few years ago. I noticed that Jetpens isn’t carrying the Sailor any more, but still has the Platinum, as do other retailers. Here are my thoughts when comparing the two for writing, rather than drawing.
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Sailor Desk Pen. This is another sub-$15 plastic desk pen featuring an ultra-fine Japanese nib. I’ve got it filled with Sailor’s pigment-based ink, the nano ink Kiwa-guro. The combination is very similar to the Platinum Carbon Desk Pen featured Tuesday.
Sailor’s stainless steel nib is marked extra-fine. I find it very similar in width to both the Platinum desk pen with Carbon Black and the Pilot Prera fine nib with Pilot Black (a regular dye-based ink). The two desk pens may write slightly thinner lines than the Prera with fine nib, but all three are pretty close in my real world use.
Sailor Kiwa-guro ink is made from pigments rather than dye, so it’s similar to Platinum Carbon ink. In the desk pens, Kiwa-guro is darker and blacker than Platinum Carbon ink. However, Kiwa-guro is only water-resistant, while Platinum Carbon ink is totally waterproof.
Fountain Pen Follies 