Fountain pens Archives - Page 8 of 10

A weekend in Shropshire

7 Comments / Fountain pens, Inks, Koh-I-Noor, Pencils / 22 October 2014 / Monteverde, Omas, Sailor, Shrewsbury

To celebrate my 40th birthday we spend the weekend in Shropshire …and of course I couldn’t resist buying more stationery.

A dower house form the 1820s, between Weston-under-Redcastle and Hodnet — A dower house from the 1820s, between Weston-under-Redcastle and Hodnet

Independent stationery shops

What a nice weekend it was – and I found an independent stationery shop in Shrewsbury – what a nice surprise. I hardly ever come across independent pen shops these days. The one where I live closed down and one in the town where I’m from closed down, too ^[1]There still one left in my home town, but it’s more of a post office / news agent / bit of everything shop.. I’d like to visit the Pen Company one day, but it’s several hours away. What’s left nearby is either focusing on art supplies or is part of a chain, which usually means that staff are not really excited about pens.

After buying some souvenir stationery in Shrewsbury Abbey I discovered Write Here. First: stocking up on Koh-I-Noor 1500 pencils – and then a fitting eraser from Koh-I-Noor as well.

Sheep in the country side — Sheep in the countryside

Koh-I-Noor

In the 18th century Jospeh Hardtmuth started the pencil factory in Austria that would become Koh-I-Noor. Koh-I Noor is the name of a famous diamond. I seem to remember reading somewhere, probably in Petroski’s book, there were several pencils named after diamonds because diamonds and graphite both consist of carbon. In the 19th century manufacturing then moved to Bohemia, to Budweis in what is now the Czech Republic.

The Koh-I-Noor 1500, the pencil I bought, started being produced in 1889 ^[2]see Koh-I-Noor Hardtmuth’s history.. After WWII the factory, in what was then Czechoslovakia, was nationalised and Joseph Hardtmuth’s descendants started manufacturing in Austria again. A few years ago the Austrian ‘branch’ of the company went bankrupt and was taken over by Cretacolor, but the Czech ‘branch’ of the company does still exist under the Koh-I-Noor Hardtmuth name.

I have previously bought new old stock Koh-I-Noor 1500s in Shanghai and in my home town, but these are one of my few new ones. Too bad Write Here didn’t have HB and F (yes, you can get the 1500 in F), so I went for the B and H, which I’ve been using all of this week so far.

Write Here

Later that day I went back to Write Here, asking whether they have any fountain pens with flexible nibs. I’ve been looking for a nice fountain pen with a flexible nib for a long time now. My Lamy 2000 with an M nib and some of my Pelikan M200 nibs in F are quite flexible, but the line at its thinnest is too wide for me. Noodler’s nibs are nice and flexible, but when using any of my different Noodler fountain pens I usually end up having dirty hands because they spill ink after a while.

After asking for a pen with a flexible nib it took the owner of the shop a second to think about my request before taking a fountain pen out of his jacket and telling me to try it. What a nice, flexible nib that was. It was a fountain pen from Omas. I knew about Omas, but I never tried one before. When I started writing there was some feathering, but when I tried it on another paper the pen wrote smooth while still producing crisp lines. Unfortunately the pen was far too expensive for me. It turned out that this shop is also the distributor for Omas in the UK and I was told that very soon a cheaper pen with this nib will be released. I say cheaper, but it is still a £300 pen, which would make it more expensive than the most expensive pen I own.

Pen and ink

I then bought the Monteverde Tool fountain pen – more in my price range, and the owner of the shop told me about Sailor’s pigment ink which contains nano pigments, so it doesn’t clog up the fountain pen.

I’m still not sure what to think about the fountain pen. It seems to skip quite a bit (using the cartridge that came with it), I hope that will get better over time. I also wonder why the scales on the pen incluse 1/200 metre and 1/300 metre. I have seen 1/x inch scales, but 1/x metre scales are certainly not very common and don’t seem to make much sense to me. Is this how imperial users imagine the metric system to work?

The ink can behave very well when used on good paper, but when I use it to fill in forms at work it feathers quite a bit. I think time will tell whether I like this ink, but so far I don’t think I’ll buy another bottle.

References[+]

References
↑1	There still one left in my home town, but it’s more of a post office / news agent / bit of everything shop.
↑2	see Koh-I-Noor Hardtmuth’s history.

A weekend in Shropshire Read More »

The beautiful M101N tortoiseshell brown

5 Comments / Fountain pens, Pelikan / 29 April 2014 / M101N, Pelikan, tortoise

I try to keep the number of fountain pen posts low, but I guess every month or so a blog post about fountain pens is ok without diluting the pencil theme of this blog.

There’s one fountain pen I’ve been keen on ever since I first saw it in 2011. Pencil Talk even mentioned it – and I mentioned that Pencil Talk mentioned it ;^) The Pelikan M101N tortoise brown. A reissue of a fountain pen from the 1930s.

I once saw a real one in Papier Pfeiffer (a brick and mortar shop you might remember from this post), but the brown plastic didn’t look so good in the strong light in the shop, but anyway, I was very tempted to buy this pen. There was also an online shop in the UK that sold it for a very good price, lower than what I’ve seen in any other country (it might have been The Writing Desk – I’m not sure), but I somehow thought I can’t justify paying that much, mainly because I already have a tortoise fountain pen, a white M400 you might have seen in several of my previous posts – and I thought having two beautiful fountain pens will mean that I can’t treasure each of them enough.

…but I kept thinking about that beautiful tortoise M101N. There was a M101N that was released after the tortoise brown version: the Lizard Special Edition, but I didn’t like the look at all – plus the retail price was much more expensive. Rumours have it that there’ll be a red tortoise version soon. I fear it will be even more expensive than the Lizard version.

Recently I got lucky and got a tortoise M101N for a good price from a seller in Japan. I think I paid more than what I would have paid at the cheap UK online shop back when it was new – but for 2014 it was a good price. I really wasn’t sure whether I should spend that much, but anyway, now it’s done. I might sell some other pens soon to compensate.

The M101N the most beautiful, but also the most expensive fountain pen I own. It’s a shame it’s so expensive. I know they call it resin, but in reality that’s not so different to plastic, is it? What a shame that these pens aren’t mass produced and sold for a cheap price. Pelikan had a go at cheap piston fillers in the past with their Pelikan Go!. Too bad that didn’t work out.

Wouldn’t it be nice if these beautiful pens were easily affordable? Then I’d love them even more, but I guess the less common fountain pens become, the more expensive they’ll become. Ink is also getting more expensive.

This reminds me of a time when this was quite different. The following is from Herbert Rosendorfer’s book Das Messingherz, p. 508. The book was first published 1979.

In a small stationery shop (…) [he] bought a little bottle of ink. It cost one Mark and fifteen Pfennig, despite being the most expensive kind of ink. (…) How do ink manufacturers get rich? [he] thought. A little bottle of the luxurious type is one Mark fifteen Pfennig, and since I’ve been writing I’ve only used up one. Ok, Heinrich Böll wrote more than me, let’s say – if he didn’t use a type writer or a ballpoint pen – that he used up six bottles of ink. No – [he] calculated all the things Heinrich Böll wrote – no: eight. eight times one fifteen. (…) Ten Mark twenty.

Based on purchasing power (see Kaufkraft article ) DM 1.15 in 1979 is about €1.23 today (~$1.70; £1.00) – I guess even when adjusting for purchasing power, ink was still cheaper in the past.

The beautiful M101N tortoiseshell brown Read More »

Faber Castell E-Motion Pencil and Fountain Pen

39 Comments / Faber-Castell, Fountain pens, Mechanical pencils / 19 April 2013 / E-Motion, Faber-Castell, fountain pen, Ivory, Made in Germany, mechanical pencil, Parquet, Silvine

Both E-Motion pens on a teNeues Explorer Journal Hay Harvest.

It took quite a while before I bought my first Faber-Castell fountain pen. Now, only a few weeks after, I had the opportunity to try another Faber-Castell fountain pen, as well as the mechanical pencil from the same line.

I have been recently contacted by Anna from The Pen Company who asked me whether I would like to review a pen from their shop. In the end James from The Pen Company was kind enough to not only to send one, but two pens I had picked: the Parquet Ivory fountain pen and the Parquet Ivory mechanical pencil from Faber-Castell’s E-Motion line. I was also able to try Faber-Castell’s wooden Castell 9000 style 4GB USB stick out. As part of a promotion you get one of these USB sticks with orders of all Faber-Castell pens while stocks last.

Both pens come with an ivory coloured “precious resin” barrel. The parquet pattern on the barrel has been produced using laser etching, a technique often used for keyboards. There is a tiny burr visible on the barrel if you look hard. This burr is slightly more pronounced on my fountain pen, but it is really small. Most people wouldn’t even notice it.

The laser-etched Parquet pattern and Faber-Castell logo on the pencil

The mechanical pencil

Lead width

The mechanical pencil accepts 1.4mm pencil leads and comes with B leads. Size-wise these are between Yard-O-Led leads and the leads used in leadholders. I assume that unlike leadholder leads, which are usually sharpened, the Faber-Castell leads are not supposed to be sharpened, as I haven’t seen a dedicated lead sharpener from Faber-Castell. My handwriting is very small, which means that even if I frequently rotate the pen the lines get too wide and I have to starting writing bigger letters – but the lead size might be just right for someone with a bigger handwriting.

Propelling the lead

To propel the lead you have to turn the cap clockwise. Similarly you can get the lead back into the body of the pen, e.g. when putting the pen in a pencil case, by turning the cap anticlockwise. This is different to twist-based mechanisms where turning will unlock and advance the lead. The E-Motion‘s lead stays ‘locked’ all the time.

The eraser

There is also an eraser under the cap. As expected for the big size of the pen’s body this eraser is bigger than what you usually find in mechanical pencils.

Replacement leads

When you unscrew the cap you can find a storage area on the side of the body that should be able to hold six to eight replacement leads. Unfortunately I couldn’t try out how many exactly will fit as I didn’t have enough leads of this size.

Conclusion

A very nice pencil. The spring-type clip is very nice. There is a big eraser for emergencies and the pen can hold several spare leads despite the big diameter of the leads. If normal pencils are to thin or light for you this might be a great alternative, as long as you don’t mind the width of the lead.

The fountain pen

The fountain pen comes with a big and heavy screw cap, that has a nice spring-type clip, like the one found on the pencil. The nib is stainless steel, available in F, M and B. I chose the F nib as it fits best with my handwriting. The pen accepts standard cartridges and comes with a converter.

The laser-etched Parquet pattern on the fountain pen. There is no etched logo. The logo is embossed on the cap.

The nib and its performance on paper

The bleed through compared to a Lamy Safari, here on Silvine paper. — The bleed through of the E-Motion compared to that of a Lamy Safari, here on Silvine paper.

The nib is nice and smooth and writes well on all types of paper. I found that the writing experience is above average on really poor paper. When it comes to average paper performance is good, but not as good as some other fountain pens. I used the E-Motion with Diamine’s Sapphire ink, a very well behaved ink. On average quality paper, in this case a Yokrshire-made exercise book from Silvine, there is no feathering at all – but there is some bleed through: it’s much less than the bleed though you get with a wet Noodler’s Konrad, a bit more than with a Pelikan M215 EF and more than with a Lamy Safari F, which doesn’t produce any bleed through at all. The bleed through issue be easily fixed by using different paper or by trying to make the nib drier ^[1]Instructions how to do this can be found on the Internet..

When freshly uncapped I never had any problems with skipping, unlike my experience with some other, more expensive fountain pens, like the Cross Century II. The cap-off time time of the E-Motion is however shorter than some other fountain pens. Left uncapped it tends to dry and start to skip when starting to write again after two minutes non-use, which might be a problem when taking notes in a meeting or in some other situations (classroom, writing comments, …) ^[2]This is obviously dependent on temperature, humidity, etc. – but as a comparison: in the same conditions a Lamy Safari can be left uncapped for 5 minutes or longer without any skipping when … Continue reading.

Conclusion

A very nice fountain pen. It is heavier than many other fountain pens and the grip section doesn’t provide as much grip as some other fountain pens. I think it’s a great fountain pen for constant writing. If you want a pen more suitable for meetings or other situations where you only write occasionally the short cap-off time means that a Faber-Castell’s Basic or Ambition fountain pen might be more suitable as it’s easier to cap and uncap these pens. If you want a pen with a more “substantial” feeling to it the E-Motion might just be the right pen.

Giveaway

I was very happy that Anna and James from The Pen Company sent me these pens, but it’s time for the two pens to find a new home. For a chance to win the the mechanical pencil or the fountain pen please leave a comment at this blog post, telling me which type of pen you normally prefer (pencil, mechanical pencil, fountain pen, roller ball, ballpoint pen or whatever it may be). It would be nice if you explain why you prefer that type of pen, but that’s not necessary to be eligible to win. If your favourite type of pen is not the one you want to win, e.g. you might prefer pencils, but you’d like to try a fountain pen for a change, please state that in the comment, too.

I am happy to ship to any country as long as Royal Mail is delivering to that country. The UK’s National Stationery Week runs from 22 – 28 April, so the closing date for the giveaway will be 28 April 23:59:59 BST. To determine the winner I will go to random.org and will get a random number. The corresponding comment will win the pen of choice (either pencil or fountain pen) unless it’s a comment from me or it’s obviously spam (think ‘cheap Rolex’ ads) …in which case I will get a new random numbers until there is a winner. I will then get another random number to determine the winner of the other pen. Similar rules: the corresponding comment will win if the pen left is their pen of choice – unless it’s a comment from me, a comment from the first winner or it’s obviously spam. I will draw new random numbers until there is a winner. As long as you write meaningful comments, e.g. as part of a ‘discussion’, you can leave more than one comment and the comments will not be counted as spam.

If you want to win an even better pen: as part of The Pen Company’s Spring Poetry Competition you can even win a Graf von Faber-Castell Guilloche Fountain Pen in a choice of colours.

I’d like to thank Anna and James from The Pen Company for giving me a chance to try these pens out.

You can find a review of another Faber-Castell E-Motion pencil at Dave’s Mechnical Pencils.

You can find reviews of other Faber-Castell E-Motion fountain pens at Fountain Pen Geeks and From the Pen Cup.

References[+]

References
↑1	Instructions how to do this can be found on the Internet.
↑2	This is obviously dependent on temperature, humidity, etc. – but as a comparison: in the same conditions a Lamy Safari can be left uncapped for 5 minutes or longer without any skipping when starting to write again.

Faber Castell E-Motion Pencil and Fountain Pen Read More »

Noodler’s pens and Pelikans

12 Comments / Fountain pens, Noodler's, Pelikan / 13 February 2013 / Ahab, fountain pen, Konrad, M215, Noodler's, Pelikan

I know that Bleistift is a pencil blog, so I usually try to keep fountain pen blog posts to a minimum, but today I can’t resist.

In December 2011 I bought a Noodler’s Ahab fountain pen ^[1]The Ivory Darkness version. Mine ended up being extra dark. and I didn’t use it a lot. Why? Because I was disappointed.

Why was I disappointed? That was actually down to my unrealistic expectations and wasn’t Noodler’s fault at all. When I read that it’s supposed to come with a flexible nib I expected some wonderpen that would be the fountain pen equivalent of my Brause 361 nib, i.e. I thought even relatively few pressure would make it possible to create a lot of nib variation. That wasn’t the case. The nib wasn’t much more flexible than M200 steel nibs from Pelikan in F or my Lamy 2000 M nib. My initial impression of the Ahab’s nib was probably also made worse by the fact that I often write on poor quality paper ^[2]Simply because many of the documents I get are printed on that kind of paper. and because I used an ink that tends to be absorbed into the paper instead of staying on the paper to form a crisp line once dry.

The Konrad and three M215s — Left to right: M215 Orthogons, Konrad Galapagos Tortoise, M215 Lozenges, M215 Blue Barrel and Stripes

Enter the Konrad. The text from the leaflet that comes with the Konrad reminds me very much of the Citroën C5 adverts ^[3]“Not a single component of the Konrad pen is German made. Yet, its design is extremely German…”. I bought it because I like the look of it – no wonder: I like the look of Pelikan pens. I prefer the look of the round cap Pelikans to the crown cap Pelikans – and the Konrad has the round cap look I like. Unfortunately, the celluloid derivative used for the Konrad ^[4]In my case the Galapagos Tortoise. doesn’t look as good as the one on my Ahab, probably because it’s more translucent. This is however completely subjective and someone else will prefer the material used for the Konrad ^[5]I don’t and am thinking about getting the Ebonite Konrad once it’s available again. The Goulet Pen Company will have it back in stock again soon, but I’m undecided whether I should … Continue reading.

In terms of nib flex the Konrad and Ahab are great, I just have to accept that I need more pressure to make it flex compared to my dip pen nibs. On the maximum flex end of the scale they don’t really produce a wider line than a Pelikan M200 steel nib in F ^[6]There is quite some variation though when it comes to Pelikan’s steel nibs in F, depending on when they were produced., but they can produce a slightly thinner line on the minimum flex end of the scale. If you now think a Pelikan steel nib in EF will produce similar results you might be disappointed. On good paper (steel) EF nibs produce a finer line than F nibs, but on poor quality paper the difference can be hardly noticeable. The EF nibs do however tend to be very hard and there’s hardly any line variation, i.e. they are much less flexible than the F nibs.

M205 De Atramentis Schwarzriesling ink, Konrad Pelikan Blue ink, Ahab Noodler's Baystate Blue ink — M205 De Atramentis Schwarzriesling ink, Konrad Pelikan Blue ink, Ahab Noodler’s Baystate Blue ink — Please excuse the shape of the letters, I usually don’t try to vary pressure on purpose when writing

Pricewise the Konrad is amazing. I paid about £23 including shipping (~$35; €27), bought on eBay. That’s about half of what I paid for my last Pelikan M215, about £56 including shipping (~$87; €66), bought from Amazon Germany. There are similar offers for different versions of the M215 on Amazon UK, but just to spell it out, one reason why the Pelikan pens are cheap on Amazon is because they don’t come in the Pelikan gift box, they come in a cardboard box, similar to the one the Konrad came in. The body of the Konrad does not seem to be as carefully handled as the Pelikan, mine came with some scratches on the body, but nothing too obvious or bad. The Pelikan has some advantages, too. It comes with a metal sleeve on the body, the body and cap have a higher quality feel to them and ink flow is more controlled and there less spilling of ink when transporting the pen – but hey, the Konrad is only half as expensive, plus it can take all sorts of nibs.

Prices: January 2013.

Exchange rates: February 2013

Sbrebrown reviewed the Konrad on YouTube.

You can find reviews of the M215 at OfficeSupplyGeek and Goldspot pens.

References[+]

References
↑1	The Ivory Darkness version. Mine ended up being extra dark.
↑2	Simply because many of the documents I get are printed on that kind of paper.
↑3	“Not a single component of the Konrad pen is German made. Yet, its design is extremely German…”
↑4	In my case the Galapagos Tortoise.
↑5	I don’t and am thinking about getting the Ebonite Konrad once it’s available again. The Goulet Pen Company will have it back in stock again soon, but I’m undecided whether I should order because I might have to pay Customs Duty, Excise Duty and import VAT.
↑6	There is quite some variation though when it comes to Pelikan’s steel nibs in F, depending on when they were produced.

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The Berol Handwriting Cartridge Pen (New Look)

8 Comments / Berol, Fountain pens / 1 January 2013 / Berol, Berolzheimer, fountain pen, STMT

East… West… Everywhere had two blog posts about beginner fountain pens in December. Some of the fountain pens in these blog posts are really affordable and I didn’t expect to find a cheaper fountain pen …but when I recently ordered something from CultPens I was surprised to find an even cheaper fountain pen ^[1]at least in the UK – prices in other countries might vary: The Berol Handwriting Cartridge Pen (New Look version).

The Berol Handwriting Cartridge Pen (New Look) — ...even got a free OHTO Smile Paperclip with the order

Berol, a British company that is now a subsidiary of Newell Rubbermaid, has its origins in pencil making. In 1856 Daniel Berolzheimer went from Franconia, where Staedtler and Faber-Castell are from, to the USA and founded the Eagle Pencil Company. I don’t want to bore you with details, but in the end Newell Rubbermaid took over. Many readers of pencil blogs will also know that the Berolzheimer family is still part of today’s pencil industry as they own CalCedar. Some will also remember how they managed to upset parts of the pencil community last year, but there is no direct link to Berol or Newell Rubbermaid.

What you pay and what you get

I paid £2.45 (~ $4; €3). There is only one nib width available. The pen is made in China. I don’t really find it very good looking, but better looking fountain pens, like the Pelikan Pelikano junior (< £10) or the Kaweco Sport (< £20) are several times more expensive than the Berol Handwriting Cartridge Pen. The Berol comes with a rubber ring and a rubberised grip area to make holding the pen more comfortable. It is very light, some might find it too light, but fairly comfortable to hold.

Writing

The nib is not very wet, not very dry either. It’s certainly drier than most Pelikan nibs, but they tend to be on the wet side anyway. Ink will dry fast and you won’t see a lot of shading. With it writing fairly dry ink cartridges should last a long time, but light inks might appear too light on the paper. I didn’t have a problem with nib not ‘starting’, even after the pen hasn’t been used for several weeks. Unfortunately I only had the pen on my desk, so I am not sure whether ink will spill if the pen is knocked around in a pencil case.

The nib is very rigid, which is normal for cheap pens. If you try to vary the line width this is not the pen for you.

Conclusion

This pen offers excellent value for money. For me it’s not really a beauty, but that’s subjective – you might like the looks. If you want a cheap fountain pen that does the job this pen might just be right for you.

Price: December 2012

Exchange rates: January 2013

The paper in the pictures is from the RAH STMT X Iceland kit.

References[+]

References
↑1	at least in the UK – prices in other countries might vary

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