Bexley Poseidon - a stubby marvel

I do like Bexley pens. And one of my favourites is the Poseidon. Two of mine are shown above - one in coral, and one in tortoiseshell. The tortoiseshell is a regular, while the Cardinal Orange is a Poseidon Magnum, slightly longer (five and a half inches).

The Poseidon is a nicely stubby and chunky pen. I suspect it takes some of its lines from the classic Pelikan 100 / 100N, though the filling system on most Poseidons is cartridge/converter rather than piston. 

The Poseidon went through a couple of iterations: the second generation of production pens was available till quite recently, and I believe Bexley was fairly active with custom productions as well, as well as the larger Poseidon Magnum model. Bexley also created some lovely limited editions with Chatterley Luxuries, such as the Rosso Verde, but these are very limited editions (around 20 pieces) and I haven't tracked one down yet.

The gold furniture isn't too blingy, but the double cap band and twin barrel and cap top bands together with a cravat-style clip give the design a lively assertiveness. he fit and finish is good, though I note that the translucent material of the tortoise hasn't been polished on the inside of the barrel, where the turning marks are evident. (One day I'll get round to polishing it myself.)

My tortoise has a 750 gold nib in medium; it writes wet and wide, and while it's not vintage flex, gives a fair amount of variation with pressure. For note taking I prefer the orange pen, with a fine steel nib that is really crisp, but writes nicely wet so that it skates across the page nicely.

I don't see these pens too often on the second hand market, but when I do, I usually try to grab them. They are as robust as they look, and I've never had buyer's remorse with them as I have with some other Bexley models.

Why I love Rohrer & Klingner

I am not the world's biggest ink collector by a long way. I have a few inks, but I'm not a collector.

I'm not all that conservative with my ink choices either. I like purples, oranges, lime greens, post box reds, lurid fuchsia.

I have one bottle of Quick blue-black. I probably won't get through it in my lifetime. I regard blue-black as a loathsome confidence trick. It's not black, it's not blue, and it's one of those kinds of compromises which makes life utterly unlivable. "Even in the face of Armageddon, never compromise."

But I also find it difficult to give up a wad of money for an ink. I have a few Pilot Iroshizuku inks that I love dearly, but a price point of 30 plus euros for a bottle makes me uncomfortable.

And I like my inks wet. I like my pens to write like fire hoses. I use broad nibs and love them. I find a lot of really lovely inks annoy me by writing dry. (Jacques Herbin I'm looking at you.)

So I love Rohrer & Klingner. It's got everything I want.

• Strong colours; Solferino a wonderful purple, Fernambuk bright reddish pink or pinkish red, Cassia a deeper purple, Smaragdgruen a more subtle green than many I use, a forest green. And Alt Gold-Gruen, which I love more and more the more I use it - a sort of green tinted with golden yellow, like drying moss or the yellowy green of very old brass.
• Easy flow: none of these inks have yet caused me a problem in my Platinum 3776s, which are very choosy about which inks they get along with. And when I use them in my broad and Italic nib Pelikans, oh wow!
• Four euros a bottle. How can I not love this? Nice ordinary bottles, nothing fancy. 

Actually I really like the bottles. They have wide enough mouths that I'm not worried about dipping my chunkier pens, and they're good and stable, and in nice heavy glass that doesn't threaten to tip over while I'm filling. They're probably third in my affections to the hexagonal-ish Waterman bottle and the gorgeous (but oh so expensive) Iroshizuku big bottles.

(Actually, make that fourth to my incredible one litre Waterman blue that I found at a flea market!)

I must get some more. R&K doesn't have the most extensive range - certainly not compared to Diamine - but I really do like its colours. I just wish I could find it here in France!

Necessity is the mother of invention

I blame Brian Gray.

He blames covid-19.

Anyway, Edison couldn't get enough of their stunning Rock Candy material for the Collier, one of my very favourite fountain pens. Which is annoying, as so far I've held off buying one of the Rock Candies, and I really want one, but a few Pelikans and Platinums this year had nearly run me out of pen budget.

But then Brian thought of the darndest thing.

Instead of just picking another material to run with, he put it to a vote.

I voted for subtle. That's fairly unusual for me, but I liked the 'Juniper'.

I thought one of the more vivid colours would wing it.

Oh, blimey. Juniper won. So I've been over to La Couronne du Comte and pre-ordered one.

I really like the way Edison does business. This was an innovative and fun way to bring customers into the decision. It also introduces what is in effect a rather intriguing random element to a special edition, because no one knows how many of these pens will be made - production will stop once the Rock Candy material is available again.

And now I'm off to find a real rarity - elastic, which you can't get for love or money in this part of France.

New pens! First sortie after lockdown

In France, we've been 'unconfined' for a while now and mid sized outdoors events are beginning to occur.

Which means sales! Hurrah! hurrah!

But Thiron-Gardais, a little village in the middle of the Perche, produced no fountain pens. It did produce a couple of nice things, but no pens.

And two hours of searching at Breval today produced an Egyptian statuette (Louvre miniature), two Burmese monks in gilded wood, some really good books and a small pestle and mortar for the kitchen.... but no pens.

I was coming up to the last alley, where the path from the forest turns round and opens up on to what used to be a field and is now a quite nice little housing development, and I saw there were a couple of professionals set up there. Okay, let's have a look.

Oh boy. Look at those Parker 45s! Such bright colours they put the little Pelikano in the shade.

I have a ton of Parker 45s. About 80% of them are in black. Some are flighters. I've never run these cute colours to ground before. Even better, the Pelikano came along for the ride.

These are not high end Viscontis or Omas. These are school pens and a bit better than school pens. But both Pelikano and Parker 45 share qualities that I love - they're well made, well designed, and incredibly usable pens. And I know I'm not going to have any trouble with them - a bit of cleaning up (the Pelikano section is black with dried ink!) and they'll be ready to go.

And then on the next stand, a Parker 75, pristine, with the French lozenge poinçon (hallmark) for 18 karat / 750 gold. It came to me for a lot less than it should have cost and I have managed not to scratch it on the way home.

The thing I love about the 75 is the very nerdy feature of a nib orientation device. It's a bit like the Eversharp flexing device, it's probably more interesting in nerd terms than it is useful in practice. And it eventually disappeared, and the thick bank with its marks, reminiscent of a gear or an indexing device, was replaced by a thin gold band. But this pen has got it. Hurrah!

Altogether I'm ridiculously happy with today. I may not have found many pens, but the ones I did find were absolutely lovely.

Needing some sun in your life?

It's grey here.

Grey every day. Sometimes, I can hardly tell dawn from a slightly less intense version of night. Grey fields, bleached stumps of colza; grey skies, with grey clouds; grey roads, grey everything.

I need some sunshine in my life.

Cue two pens that have brought it over the past few weeks, alongside some fine joyful inks like Diamine Autumn Oak, Papier Plume House of the Rising Sun, Roher & Klingner Fernambuk, and Herbin Orange Indien.

Platinum 3776 special edition 'Apricot' (tarumi) demonstrator for Nagasawa pen shop of Kobe, Japan. I managed to secure this fine implement on eBay and it came with a crisp italic nib. A real delight.  The gold plated clip, cap ring and tail ring are exactly what's needed to pick up this gorgeous colour and make it glow.

Even nicer, it has a little rooster on the nib - Nagasawa's house symbol, the weathervane, and the date 1882 instead of the usual '3776' (height of Mount Fuji, a cheeky homage to another mountain and another penmaker).

I have a mini collection of 3776s. They're adorable pens, and until recently prices were eminently affordable. Unfortunately the price points for some of the special editions are now rather ambitious... but this one I had to have.

And here is the Edison/Goulet Nouveau Premiere Tequila Sunrise, with a glass of white rum since I didn't have any tequila in the house. It's actually a bit more orange than the picture shows, with more and less intense areas of colour and incredible chatoyance. It's just a bit more summery in feeling than my Edison Collier in Persimmon Swirl, another bright and happy feeling pen from the same stable.

I really adore Edison pens - it's a pity they're not well represented in the EU. Super pens, without bling, in really gorgeous acrylics (and sometimes ebonite). Every one a great little writer. I'm primarily a user, not a collector, and these are pens that I reach for time and again when I need to ink up and get writing.

And this one brought me a lovely dose of Vitamin D just when I needed it.

Mending some Bayards

I love Bayard fountain pens - but they used some very shrinkage-prone celluloids.

Yes, they're very colourful and characterful celluloids. But they shrink.

Quite often you'll find a little bump around the lever axle. That's not a problem.

What is a problem is that the lever won't actually close any more.


There are a few things that help.

• First, take any rust or dirt off the sides of the lever. Micromesh or very fine (500+) sandpaper can help, but go very gently. Not recommended if you have a nice plated lever, but if it's brassed and rusty, do what it takes.
• Secondly, with a fine pair of pliers, if the lever is still not fitting properly, close down the 'ears' at the top end a little. They have bumps on them to ensure the lever stays flat once engaged, and that may be what's stopping the lever lying fully flat.
• If you still can't make the lever flatten nicely, it could be the other end that's the problem. You can generally work that out by just feeling where it's sticking, as you move it around gently. In that case, the lever slot needs to be a bit longer. Take a thin jeweller's file, or make a sanding stick by supergluing fine grit (300+) sandpaper to a cocktail stick / toothpick. Then file the 'nib end' of the lever slot till the lever fits positively.

I got all my Excelsiors working nicely. Hurrah!

Resacking and other repairs, and a lovely little Swan

I've finally managed to make some time for pen repairs, and I've been busy pulling pens apart, and in some cases, getting them back together again.

The job is complicated by the fact that so often, you think "easy, that pen looked fine, I'll just resack it" - only to find that it's missing a j-bar, missing a nib, got a crack in the barrel, a cracked nib, the lever has come adrift from its bar or c-clip, or there's some other little fault that means you'll have to put in some time on the lathe, order more components, cannibalise another pen...

So I now use the pulling-apart stage as a form of triage. I have boxes marked

"need nibs"

"CRACKS"

and

"need sections". They are filling up much too quickly for my liking.

And then I have the box marked "ready to sack". It's rewarding when more than half of the pens go into that box!

Then there are also the pens that go back into the box because they still won't come apart. I have a couple of gorgeous Parker Modernes that simply will not separate. I just give them a go every time I'm working. One day I will, I'm sure, feel that little sideslip that means they're ready to give...

This is the nice thing about restoring only your own pens. You can leave them as long as it takes. I'm really glad I don't work on other peoples' pens; I can run a batch processing system like this, and no one is going to ask me why, for instance, I haven't done their piston filler, because this is lever fill month...

Batch processing means those pens needing new sections or end tassies or blind caps will all be put away till I get the mini lathe out, and then they'll all be done at once. All the safety pens will be done at once.

It's also useful because it means I never work on a pen that's above my current level of skill. The Vacumatics can wait! By working on the easy stuff first, I've got reasonably good at taking pens apart, I've got good at resacking (only one disaster, an Edacoto where I managed to shellac the channel in the feed closed, and had to knock out the feed and nib to solve the problem), and I have got started on a few pens that needed their nibs knocked out, straightened and reinserted. (The reinsertion is the hard bit.)

Anyway, I did get a few pens all the way through the process, and I've been using one today. It's a sweet little Swan, just 12cm long, with a nice flexy nib. I think I've underestimated Swans in the past - this is a delight of a pen, in 'snakeskin' effect spiral wrapped celluloid. I did a little extra work filling in the swan engraving on the black cap top with gold pencil (yes, it probably should really be white, but I'm keeping this pen for myself, so never mind authenticity) and cleaning up the rather inky threads.

I was about to see if I could remove the scratches on the section when I realised: those aren't scratches! "SWAN" is actually engraved across the section (with the double quotation marks), just in case you had missed the swan on the cap top and the three-line barrel imprint, again with the little figure of the swan. Branding gone mad.

Apologies for the rather poor photo - my compact camera is out of action so I had to resort to the Nexus 7.

I've been trying to improve my handwriting with this nice flex nib. I think my pen restoration skills are some way ahead of my copperplate.

New Chinese pens - rekindling an old flame?

It's been a long time since I ordered a Chinese pen.

I started out with a bunch of Chinese pens - Jinhaos and Picassos. They were fun fodder for nib grinding, and they didn't cost much, but I soon found myself tiring of them. Quite literally in some cases because of the very heavy, brass-based build.

But the Chinese pen industry has been changing and a recent post on FrankUnderwater's blog got me interested again. Two wooden pens - the Moonman M5 and the Delike Redwood - made me break into the Paypal account for the first time in a while.

I don't know what they'll feel like when they arrive. They might not feel as good in the hand as they look on the screen. The nibs might not be great (I ordered a 0.6mm and an EF fude). But they do look rather stylish. They don't seem to be outright copies of another pen manufacturer's work (there's a Faber-Castell Ondoro clone out there, but then I have the Ondoro in bog oak and orange, so I don't need a clone) and they're wood, which is a material I love.

Probably neither of them is going to replace the Waterman Man 100 briar in my heart (particularly since neither of them comes with a Waterman Ideal 18 carat nib), but I'm looking forward to a pair of parcels arriving... and of course I'll write the pens up once they arrive.

(I've also been interested by the PenBBS pens I've seen featured; there are some really quite amazing acrylics available. But then Bexley and Edison feed that lust quite nicely, and if I really want to go premium acrylic it'll be a Kanilea or Carolina Pen Company, probably, or maybe a Fred Faggionato...)

A ***B-I-G*** bottle of ink!

The problem with loving fountain pens is that you not only end up collecting pens - you end up collecting ink. It starts with your noticing that the local stationery store has an alternative to Parker blue-black. You can buy Waterman blue or turquoise. Then you get into purple. Then you get on the internet and you find out about Diamine, Iroshizuku, Sailor Jentle... and even vintage inks.

Then one day you're looking for fountain pens at a car boot sale and this catches your eye.

Oh. My. Goodness.

An absolutely monster bottle of Waterman ink. About half of it has been used - but there's still loads sloshing around there. And it comes with the funnel that you can screw on to the top of the bottle when you want to fill inkwells, or smaller ink bottles.

I absolutely love the form of the bottle - like a well muscled wrestler, with its broad shoulders and its ribbed waist. The packaging is rather wonderful, too, and I particularly like the typographical contrast between the solid modern style letters of 'Waterman' and the delightful handwritten effect of 'Bleu-Noir' (blue-black).

Dating pens I can do. Dating inks... is difficult. But I managed to find one site that suggests this is a 1940s logo.

Best thing of all? This bottle cost me slightly less than the local maison de la presse has 5cl bottles of modern Waterman ink selling for!

My top pens of 2017

I have had a little luck finding pens in the wild this year, as well as having spent a bit of money on new pens. Some real love affairs happened.

I should make it clear that these are not my all-time best pen selections: they're the pens which entered my collection this year and that I've really loved. Added to which I should give honorary mention to two Bexleys (Poseidon Magnum and 20th Anniversary 'lemon') and two Pelikans (m200 blue marbled with an m400 gold nib, and 950 Toledo) which have delivered real enjoyment over the year.

Pelikan Brown Tortoise m400 with broad italic nib

Because tortoise. Slightly more orangey and less varied than my vintage 400s, but still the most amazing colours; twirl the pen in your fingers and watch the highlights shimmer.

And because that nib is so juicy. I love a good stub or italic, and this nib is delightful - bouncy, wet, fat, and still gives good line variation, though it's not quite crisp enough for calligraphy. Thank you very much, Pelikan, for giving us the chance to buy a nib that's not F, M or B, and please do it again on other pens!


Pilot Custom Heritage 92 demonstrator

My first upscale Pilot, with an FM nib. In some ways this is quite a clunky looking pen, with two steps down to the piston turning knob, and a very visible inner cap. But I've grown to love it, particularly filled up with a nice wet ink. The piston works wonderfully smoothly, and the nib is juicy, and the clear plastic has the sparkle and brightness of diamonds, and it's just the most comfortable pen ever to write with. For a couple of weeks I've had it paired with another of my favourite Japanese pens, the Platinum 3776 Sai, giving me a double dose of beautiful transparency.


Aurora desk pens

Two generations of writing implements

An unexpected entry for an unexpected find - four desk pens, probably an accounting set (the inlay rings in red and blue show the colour of ink so you could have pens ready for doing double entry bookkeeping), found in an old watermill turned antique shop in the Eure valley. Beautiful matt ebonite, the 'Aurora' badge impressed on each section, fantastic nibs (though one, sadly, is broken, and it won't even work as a stub). The flared edge on the section is beautifully sharp. I really love the desk pen shape - Lamy Joy and Rotring Artpen are two of my favourites - and these little pens have delighted me.

Edacoto and unidentified red mottled hard rubber pens - French 1930s

I found the  'Mory et Cie' pen at a vide-grenier, and couldn't resist the character of the imprint, which I found out later belonged to a French shipping company. Late in the year I saw the gorgeous Edacoto at Vanves flea market, and negotiated a good discount as it was getting towards lunchtime (it's strictly a mornings-only market).

There should be a photo to come when I can actually find the Mory pen!

Since I've been living in France I have found that the Brits and Americans never really understood what red hard rubber can do. The French have wonderfully extrovert ways with this material - there are tiger stripes, Rorschach blots, vivid stormscapes, as well as ripple and bark effects.



And they do it in celluloid too! This Stylomine (fourth from top), also found at a vide-grenier, would make it into my top pens of the year... if only it had a section. I have some work on my Unimat lathe to do.

Not a bad haul for a handful of euros

The modern Tortoise

I have really fallen in love with my M400 special edition brown tortoise. I find with my relatively small hands the 400 is a good size for me, though I marginally prefer the M600 - but this special edition had two things going for it.

1. it's in brown tortoise, one of Pelikan's best known and (for me, anyway) most beautiful materials, and 
2. it came with a broad italic nib.

Pelikan cut out a lot of its special nibs a few years back. No more BBs, no more OBBs or italics. Which is a real pity, and I suspect it may prove to be counterproductive, since the fountain pen fancy is becoming more and more focused on speciality nibs. (If Pelikan considered trying to make a modern flex nib, the massed hordes of Fountain Pen Network would beat a path to its door. And obviously, judging by the fact that Jowo is now making stock flex nibs for Edison, there's enough of a market to pin a business plan on.

But just for this one pen, Pelikan announced a broad italic option.


It's marvellous. The photo really doesn't do it justice. It writes super wet (making this quite an expensive pen to keep supplied with Iroshizuku ink: five pages and you're dunking it back in the bottle for a refill) and really broad, and has good line variation - though it's not a calligraphic italic, it's a cursive, and I find it can keep up with my need to take notes of phone interviews with no problems. Smooth, a little bit bouncy, and ... it squeaks. Now that is weird. But apart from the squeaking, it's rapidly become one of my favourite nibs.

I don't know how I'm going to explain this to my Rotring Artpens....

As for the tortoise; it's not perhaps my favourite tortoise in the entire Pelikan family. It's a trifle orangey rather than the deep browns or honey colours of vintage pens. But what I do love about it is the variance in the stripes - it's not a regular pinstripe, and the colours are not solid, but shot through with flakes and streaks of lighter and darker shades. No, you wouldn't mistake it for real tortoiseshell, but there is something about it that feels organic, and that has the gentle undulation of a natural form, like the wrinkles the sand makes when the tide goes out, or the gentle curves of a willow branch.

A note on Special editions

I rather like special editions. They're rather different from limited editions, which often strike me as rather self-indulgent and overpriced.

The idea of a special edition seems to be; we'll produce this pen for a certain period, and however many we can sell, we'll sell. And then we'll stop. And while the limited editions are often art works, such as raden or maki-e pens, the special editions are generally just a slightly different take on the regular serie and sell at a fairly slight premium to the regular pens.

However.... get 'em while they're there. Once they go off the market, prices can rise significantly - if what's happened to the m600 Pink is anything to go by. (I'm glad I got mine when I did.)

Old dogs, new tricks

Leigh Reyes has a wonderful post on old nibs in new fountain pens. Of course we often call these little babies 'Frankenpens', and they'll never be collector pens - collectors want the original setup. But like Leigh, I prefer to see a good old pen salvaged.

And there's nothing new about nib-swapsies. Plenty of Gold Starrys, Onotos, Edacotos, Conway Stewarts turn up with anonymous 'warranted' nibs that must have been swapped over at some point, perhaps when the pen hit the floor nib-down or little Johnny decided to try to use the pen as an arrow in a Cowboys-and-Indians game.

Pens that don't get their nibs swapped? Parker 51s, because it's too darn difficult to get them apart. Parker 65s and 75s, because no other nibs will fit. But I've seen older Duofolds with all kinds of nibs, so it's clearly not associated with the brand - it's purely and simply about the ease with which the nibs can be exchanged.


I always head for the junker trays at pen shows. I've managed to save some very distressed individuals indeed - and where pens really can't be saved, you can still find a great nib to transfer to another pen.

Meanwhile, Leigh's pictures are just gorgeous - marvellous nibs! beautiful pens! and a bit of good advice on the practicalities of swapping nibs.

Big game Safari - hunting pens in the wild, so far this year

Last year wasn't a great hunting year. I didn't find much, and some of the usual waterholes seemed to have dried up.

This year started with a bang. The first sale I went to, one exhibitor had a couple of nice Rotring pens on his stand. And while I was paying for them, I saw a couple of Parker boxes... and I left with one of the best hauls I've had in ages, and for not a whole lot of money.

A nice haul

So here we have; a lot of nice Rotrings - piston filling. Neatly, the piston mechanism is made in red plastic to form the red ring ('rot ring' in German), and I particularly like the way the pens have the size in white letters around the barrel, as well as on the cap, so that however you keep your pens you can quickly see which one is which. These pens tick all the boxes for me that the Lamy 2000 does - they're functional, they're beautifully designed to be functional, there are no bells and whistles, every bit of the design does its job and does it well. And as a bonus, if you don't like the stylographic nib, you can replace it with an Esterbrook Reform nib and feed (I've done that on two of mine).

Then on the left, from the top: a mismatched Waterman glass cartridge pen, gold nib; not sure what the next one is; Waterman Laureat; Waterman gold nib pen in thuya lacquer; Parker mixy (I think these were only ever made in France), Waterman hemisphere; Parker 35 (I think -  very similar to the 75) in thuya lacquer, and a little mechanical pencil in celluloid.

Even better, I now have a friend - last time I bumped into the seller, he actually gave me something I'd been looking at and refused to let me pay for it!

That weekend left me feeling this could be my year... I was quickly disappointed. The next two months had other rewards but in terms of fountain pens, just a couple of common Waterman Kulturs and one nice but anonymous red mottled hard rubber pen. Where is that Waterman Man Patrician I'm looking for? Where is the Waterman 20? What about the tarnished Aztec in a tray of Jotters? Why are the miracles not happening?

Okay... Saturday, I had a rehearsal for a concert I'm playing next week. Drove there, and decided we'd take the scenic route home, along the river valley, through little villages and woods, instead of along the main route through the wheat fields. It was cooler, if slower. There are some water mills along the route - one still working, one derelict (I keep dreaming about buying it), and one that has been turned into an antique centre, so of course I had to stop.

Nothing in the glass cases. I was about to give up when my eye fell on a pen stand with four dip pens on it.

On my safaris I see lots of rubbishy dip pens - cheap plastic ballpoints. So I prepared to be disappointed. But these weren't ballpoints. They had nibs. On closer inspection, they also had the 'Aurora' stamp in its little shield. Picked up - gosh. They're ebonite - at least, the sections are, I'm pretty sure. Into the bag they went at ten euros each, which for four pens, three gold nibs and one broken nib, ain't at all bad.

Four lovely Auroras. Globus nibs. And one of them is also a Rotring... at least in spirit

And then yesterday, we went off to a number of sales, and suddenly Lady Fountain-Pen Luck was with me. It started with a blue Waterman Kultur, a nice pen - one of my favourite models, though this is a common one. Still at fifty cents, I'm happy! Then a nice purple moire Reynolds box, though the pen inside it wasn't the one that came with it - an 'AA' cart filler. Came with a free bottle of Waterman Blue ink as a present.

The next to appear was a Reform. At first, I thought it was a Creeks - rather cheap French pens that crop up fairly regularly. But the clip is different, and it's quite a nice little pen, from a German brand that I have some respect for - the Reform 1745 was the first piston filler I ever owned. It's in a swirly green plastic - I thought it might be printed, but when I opened it up, I can see the pattern runs all the way through.

Oh look! a big bucket of pens! They're almost all sure to be felt pens or ballpoints, but ... a good handful of Pilot V-Pens at ten cents each? How could I resist!

Wallet empty. Heart full. Yesterday's haul

So far, cheap but interesting pens. Next came a little oddity; a lovely dip pen stand with a gorgeous crystal ink well. Green marble, bronze, and crystal - and in the shape of a heart. Just gorgeous. I don't really collect pen stands but I had to have this one.

And then a stand that had ink. A huge bottle of Waterman Red which I decided I didn't really need and rather wish I had bought. A packet of Waterman glass carts which will come in useful, though the ink in them has gone to powder. (Maybe I can revive it with water.) And a lot of dip pens... but no fountain pens at all. What a pity.

Oh look. There's a little pen case on the same table. I don't suppose there's anything in it. Oh, there is. Probably rubbish pens - Marksman, Daniel Hechter, ballpoints. Let's take a .... oh. Parkers. Lacquer. Okay, let's ask... how much? well, that's a bargain, let's snap it up!

Turns out to be Parker 75s, fine nib fountain pen and matching mechanical pencils. That's a great set for me, as I don't really use ballpoints at all but I do use pencils. Absolutely stunning condition - the pen's a bit dirty but just needs a flush, and the pencil has lead in it still.

Two stands on, I see what I think is a Parker 45 and it turns out to be a second generation Pelikano. Metal cap with a 'Pelikan beak' clip, dark blue ink window, nice.

The day would have a couple of surprises still in store. We went to one last sale which for the past couple of years has had marvellous things in store. This time; nothing at all, except a Waterman Gentleman cigar box, which unfortunately I forgot to photograph (and was too expensive). Inside, a cartoon of two gents in their riding coats, one with his pen and the other with his cigar. I must definitely look up this byway of Waterman history!

Disheartened, I knew it was time to head home. Some of the stallholders were packing up. But there's a little antique shop near where we parked, and it was still open. No pens, but there was a nice lacquer pen box... of course, as a great game hunter, I know that you have to look inside.

And there was my last pen of the day, one of my favourites - a Bayard Excelsior in marbled celluloid. That's the bottom one on the left in the picture, with the characteristic chevrons on the clip and lever. It's just gone to the top of my repair queue.

Okay, I still haven't found the red Man Patrician. But I really have got a lovely little haul and had some fun along the way.

A few repairs

I always have pens waiting for repairs. Since I do a lot of 'pen safari in the wild' at car boot sales and junk shops, it's only to be expected. Occasionally I get down to a day's work on a whole batch, and I have just got ten pens nicely polished up. Four of them need a bit of work on the nibs, but the others are good to go. (Interestingly, all three Waterman pens with their original nibs write beautifully, despite the fact that two of the nibs were horribly bent and had to be carefully tweaked back to shape and burnished.)


Several of these pens are still missing their clips. I'm not too bothered. They fill with ink, and they write, and the celluloid is beautifully polished. That'll do.

The first batch;

• Waterman 92V. This lovely little pen is the star of the lot; a really flexy wet nib and the most amazingly rich red celluloid. It goes with the pencil I bought for seven euros at Nogent-le-Roi vide grenier, though this is such a cute baby pen that the pencil seems a giant next to it.
• Unnamed cracked pearl button filler, with a Mallat steel nib. A very sweet pen with a crisp fine nib. I love these 'pearl' celluloids so I'm happy to have such a good example.
• Waterman 32 1/2, an incredibly thin pen in green - I had difficulty finding a sac thin enough to put in the pen!
• Waterman 32 in mahogany, which again amazed me with a medium flexy nib. This one's a keeper!
• Conway Stewart with Duro nib in black cracked pearl, but with a mismatched cap. I was a bit disappointed with the nib - it's a huge bit of precious metal, but it's not particularly pleasant to use, and writes rather dry on a dip test. Things may be better once I load the pen up with ink. On the other hand, the material is simply gorgeous. One day I hope to find the cap... then again, a big CS for eight quid is a steal.

The second batch begins with two no-names:

• a stripy steel-nibbed pen which I have nicknamed 'sexy pyjamas' - the nib's still a bit scratchy so it will get a few swipes of micromesh.
• a tiny snakeskin pen - a bit of a cheapie, but with lovely material and a super flexy nib that needs a bit of smoothing.
•  'The Lincoln Pen' in Lincoln Green, with a cute flower and foliage motif on the clip. A nice lurid oversize, but the nib needs to be adjusted as the tines meet at the end, and the feed needs heat setting.
• Parker Duofold Junior in jade. The barrel is pretty browned off, unfortunately, and it has a warranted nib that's a bit scratchy. A user pen, but a nice pen all the same.
• A Valentine, in a browny-golden-greeny candystripe pattern. It has lost its clip, and the nib will have to be stubbed as one of the tines is broken at the tip.

Next to them is a wooden pen I rescued - every single part of it was broken when I acquired it for a single euro. Epoxy, patience and micromesh have got it working, though it will never look a hundred percent and the cap is not guaranteed to clip securely.

Of course, the delicate floral motif on the clip would be exactly where the light decides to glare, wouldn't it? A lovely display of celluloid, none the less.

What did I learn with this batch?

• Patience is the key to success. Particularly when you're warming the barrels to remove the sections - and also when putting the sections back again - you can't afford to hurry. If I feel myself getting stressed, or if it's getting towards the end of the day and I'm getting careless, I stop. It's not worth ruining a pen. 
• I've still got another ten pens that just won't come apart. I keep trying. Three of them did actually move this evening so they'll be my next repair batch now they're in pieces. The others will just get another ten minutes each every day till they decide to move.
• Almost every pen has taken a lot longer to finish than I thought it would. Getting the section out. In some cases, knocking out the nib and repairing it. Chipping out ossified sacs, cleaning up rusty j-bars, cleaning up the nipple. Finding the right sac and shellacking it on is the easy bit. Then polishing up, if required, and cleaning the inside of the cap, and the threads, and finally testing the nib - and I've still got all the nib work to do.
• A good parts box is useful. I had to replace one nib and a feed. I always look in the corners and at the bottom of pen boxes at sales to see if there are loose caps, nibs and feeds, and broken bits which might come in useful.
• There is greater rejoicing in heaven over one perfect flexy Waterman nib in a pretty pen than any number of restored Esties or Parker 51s. 
• And I lo-o-o-o-ve pretty celluloids.

Fountain pens get Wired!

I was intrigued to see that trending tech mag Wired has now decided fountain pens are a Thing.

Comparing the Lamy Vista and Delta Serena is a bit of a cheat. There's no Delta Serena fan club - there very definitely is a Lamy Safari/Vista/Alstar fan base, and even if you don't like the Lamy, there's no doubt that like its more expensive sibling the Lamy 2000, the Safari is a design classic.

But the other points Richard Baguley makes are good ones. I think quite a lot of FP users would agree that the price point around £100 and just over is where you'll find some excellent value - Platinum 3776, Edison Collier, Lamy 2000. Although there are plenty of great cheapies (and I've featured some of them here), pens at this level make a huge step up.

He also points out that the fountain pen needs a bit of expertise to use. Moving from a ballpoint to a fountain pen is like moving from Microsoft to Linux - to adopt an analogy that will be familiar to Wired readers. There's a bit of work to do to adapt - but once you have made the move, a fountain pen offers so much more flexibility.

Now - go read the article!

In praise of button fillers

I'm just resacking some vintage pens. Some lovely Watermans, a Valentine, a Parker, and a couple of neat Italian celluloids.

One of the things I hate is when you get a sac that's gone gooey or just plain hard, so that instead of getting it to fall out either in one neat piece of ossified rubber, or in tiny dust granules, you end up having to scrape the nastiness out of the barrel.

It's nastiest in a lever filler, particularly one fitted with an integral lever bar. You can't see what you're doing.

In a button filler, you can pop out the filling button, and hey presto! there's light coming through, so you can see what's going on and most importantly, easily see if the barrel is clear.

That's not the only advantage of button fillers. I far prefer filling with them as you are pushing perpendicularly, whereas with a lever filler, you're pushing to the side of the pen and it always seems to result in the pen wobbling in the inkpot. Maybe I'm just a bit clumsy but I don't really love the lever (which makes my love of early Watermans rather problematic).

No mechanical bits to go wrong. Piston fillers are a dream, until the piston shaft breaks or corrodes or the piston housing won't fit back into the barrel properly.
No cork seals to mess around with. I still love my piston fillers, and nothing will ever replace the delight of seeing the ink slowly fill the barrel with a translucent Pelikan or a demo pisto filler, but button fillers are much easier to repair.

And... 90% of celluloid Parkers are button fillers. (Only the cheap Parkette range used levers, as far as I know, which shows you Parker management must have shared my feelings about lever fillers.)

A new dip pen

I've finished the first of my new, arthritis-friendly dip pens. It took a while, and the design evolved as I carved, but I've ended up with a pen that feels nice in the hand and is super comfortable to use.

I started with a bit of wood that I saved from the firewood pile. I used a drawknife to take off the bark and carve the rough outline. At that point I looked at the end and realised I had a lovely fishtail shape at one end if I wanted to use it, so the design changed a bit. The curve at the grip end and on the 'tail' were put in with a spokeshave and an Opinel pocket knife (rescued from a car boot for a euro, reground completely and now my favourite carving knife). I also drilled the hole for the nib holder with a 1/4" drill before carving any closer.

At this point I tried the pen and it was way too heavy. When I held it to write, it was pulling against me because it was top-heavy. I did a bit of thinking, and then decided to do two things;

1. I sliced off half of the top part of the pen, from where it rests on the web between thumb and first finger all the way to the top,
2. and then I drilled a hole in the middle and carved out a bit of the 'barrel' with my gouges to lighten the weight a little more.

A dip pen can dream...

I finished the pen by sanding to 400 grit, and then oiling with linseed oil. The inside part was stained darker by first painting on very strong tea, and letting it dry, then using vinegar in which rusted iron had been soaked to get a rich dark brown colour.

I've enjoyed using it. The balance is good, and the fat barrel lets my hand give it more support so that I don't have to grip hard with the fingers. The concave curve of the section together with a relatively fat girth at that point make it very secure in the hand, too.

However...

The fat end of the section means I have to write with the pen rather more erect than I normally would - nearer 60 degrees than 45 degrees to the paper.

Dimensions: narrowest part of grip, 14mm: widest part of barrel, 28mm: length, 190mm.

Fountain pens: where to start. 3. Inking it up

Fountain pen ink used to be really easy to get in any stationer's. Nowadays, it's trickier. You may have to go online to get what you want, or find one of those rare bricks-and-mortar pen shops, though some department stores still carry a narrow choice of big brand inks (Waterman, Parker, Cross).

Your first decision is going to be: bottled ink or cartridges? There are pros and cons to both.

• Cartridges are a great way to go for the beginner. No mess, just slot them into your pen. Most pens will take an international standard cartridge (but do check, just in case). They're easy to carry in a handbag or pocket. Cons? Relatively expensive, and not always available in the widest range of colours.
• Converters offer more options. You can use a wider range of inks. Bottled ink will turn out cheaper per millilitre than ink in cartridges. But you need to carry a bottle with you, and there's always a risk of it leaking (or breaking, if it's made of glass). Plus refilling is impossible if you're in a moving car, on a train, or likely to be jostled by kids or pets. If you do refill from an ink bottle remember to put the lid back on! (That's the voice of experience, that is.)

Other things you need to know about inking up your fountain pen.

• No, you don't have to use only Pelikan ink in a Pelikan pen, or Parker ink in a Parker. You can use any ink you darn well like..
• Except... Avoid calligraphy inks and Indian ink, as these will clog up your pen. They're made for dip nibs, which you can clean much more easily. Don't use Rotring technical pen drawing ink, either.
• Red and purple are probably the worst colours for staining. If you've bought a transparent pen, you may need to clean it quite meticulously after using a dark red.
• Some inks have a reputation as being 'wet' or 'dry'. 'Dry' doesn't mean they're not liquid, but refers to their flow characteristics - they will tend not to flow as readily as 'wet' inks. It's all to do with the balance between the dyes and the lubricants used. Pelikan inks tend to be 'dry', and some Herbin inks write dry, too. Waterman blue is a good well-behaved ink while most Noodlers inks are on the 'wet' side.
• Remember that an ink can behave differently depending on the size of nib you're using and the kind of paper you're writing on. Before you give up on an ink, try a different combination of nib and paper and see if it behaves itself.

 By the way, cartridges can be reused by filling them from the bottle using a syringe with a blunted needle - so if you were given a pen that didn't have a converter in it, you can still use bottled ink if you're careful.

Fountain pens: where to start - 2. Recent 'vintage' pens

There are various definitions of the word 'vintage', particularly if you look on ebay. If you are still getting started in fountain pens it's possibly not time to start thinking about a Waterman Patrician or a Parker Snake, but it could be time to consider some pens of the past fifty or so years that are still widely available and represent solid value.

Secondhand pens can be found through ebay or through sellers on FPGeeks or Fountain Pen Network, as well as 'in the wild'. If you're lucky you can find NIB - 'new in box', perhaps coming from the inventory of stationers and pen shops that have closed.

These are all cartridge-converter pens. C/c is the prevailing modern system and pretty easy to get used to, not any more difficult than putting a refill in a ballpoint or rollerball. If you've been terrified by the sight of instruction booklets showing how to fill a Vacumatic or eyedropper pen, this is a lot more user-friendly. (Personally, I love piston-fillers, but if you are starting out, and particularly if you take a pen to work or travel with one, it's nice to have the choice of using mess-free cartridges as well as being able to fill with bottled ink.)

I could quite easily have mentioned the Waterman Kultur and Phileas here, as the Phileas has been discontinued and many versions of the Kultur seem not to be available any more. There's a definite fancy for these pens and sometimes you see them at crazy prices; on the other hand I got a super golden metallic effect Kultur for two quid, and free postage, a couple of years ago.

Waterman Laureat is another lovely pen that you can find relatively easily - a bit up-market from the Kultur. It's a 1980s pen with a tubular design, in various lacquer colours and with a surprisingly comfortable ribbed section. Laureat nibs are quite fat and wet and enjoyable to use. As with the Kultur, prices vary, but you can sometimes snap up a bargain. Do look closely at the lacquer, as it's impossible to repair if it gets chipped.

Waterman Laureats and another (spot the odd man out!)

The Parker 45 was born in 1960 and was so successful that Parker carried on making it until 2007. It was intended to be a decent affordable pen and that's just what it delivered. Additionally, it offered screw-in nib units, allowing a wide choice of nibs to be made available. The 45 came in many different finishes, including the 'flighter' (stainless steel), solid colour with steel cap, solid colour with plastic cap, and patterned metal finishes - the latter are now very collectable, so if you see one at a bargain price, nab it! Inevitably, the pen that turns up most often is the basic black. I love the 45 - just give the nib section a good soak, to get rid of dried ink, and when you think it's clean, stick a cartridge in, and it will probably write first time. I find the plastic bodied pen a little light, and I'm glad I managed to get two flighters, which just have a better feel in the hand.

Some 45s come with gold nibs. And sometimes you can find them for nearly nothing in your local junk shop.


The Pelikano comes in various versions but the one I love is the P460 which came out between 2003 and 2009. It's a fairly fat tubular pen in translucent plastic, with a metal cap and big fat arched plastic clip, and comes in vibrant colours including pink, orange, bright red, purple, and ...black. Unusually, the black version is the one you hardly ever see! It was intended as a school pen and has a gently textured section to keep your fingers from sliding, and while it may not have the good looks of the Laureat I think it's a charming little pen with attitude.

The Pelikano - bright and jazzy

I bet someone will tell me there should be a Sheaffer in here somewhere. But I'm not much of an expert on Sheaffers and the one I do like, the Targa, is quite expensive. I hope one of my readers can make a recommendation!

Fountain pens: where to start - 1. New pens

Getting into the world of fountain pens is fraught with difficulty. The difficulty doesn't lie in locating a fountain pen - that's the easy bit. The difficulty is that if you get the wrong fountain pen, you'll probably say 'oh well, fountain pens are not for me', rather than get another, different one to see if you like it better. So here is a guide on what's available for the beginner - and particularly, each pen's vices and turn-offs, so you can easily see whether or not you're going to like it.

There are some wonderful bargains among Chinese and Indian pens, but I wouldn't advise beginners to take them. Quality control among Chinese pens can be hit and miss, and the 'misses' are frequently just horrible. With experience, you'll learn how to tinker with them - but it's like getting a vintage car to learn how to drive, not necessarily the best way to start. Indian pens are lovely (anyone who reads this blog knows that I love them), but don't always have great nibs, and often come as eyedroppers (trickier to fill, prone to blotting), so I'd suggest you get two or three other pens first before trying them out.

The Kaweco Sport is a great little pen - and 'little' is the right word; it's a pocket pen, with a cap that turns into the barrel when you use it. It comes with easy-to-swap nibs, so if you start with a fine and find out you want a 1.1mm stub, you can buy a new nib at relatively little cost. Lots of different colours and materials available - transparent, opaque, aluminium, even brass, though some of the metal finishes are more pricey and no longer belong in the budget category.   It's a robust little pen, that you can easily carry around in a trouser pocket or at the bottom of a handbag. I also like the flare of the section that holds your fingers in just the right place and stops them slipping on to the nib or too far up the pen. Turn-offs? Nibs can be dry and hard starting, and if you have big big hands, you may find it too small. And such small pens don't hold a lot of ink, either, plus the converters aren't really very good.

These are the 'art' sports, rather highly priced but just the same shape and size as the cheapie 'Ice' sports

The Lamy Safari is another great beginner pen, and it's very easy to find - most department stores and many graphics shops and art shops carry it, or its desk pen version the Lamy Joy. It's incredibly robust, like the Sport comes in plastic and aluminium versions (the Al-Star) and different colours, has a modernist design vibe, and has swappable nibs that you can easily purchase online at a low cost. There's a little ink window so you can see how much ink you've got. Turn-offs? Some people hate the triangular section, while others love it - it was designed to help get your fingers in the right grip for holding a fountain pen, so if you can tolerate it, it will help you get into good pen-holding habits. You'll know straight away if you like the look or not.

What Joy! simple but stylish pens with great calligraphy nibs

Japanese companies are terrifically good at entry-level fountain pens. The one I love is the disposable Pilot V-pen - incredibly cheap, and I have never had a bad one. They write quite wetly straight out of the box, and they are actually refillable, though it's a bit tricky and can be messy. Turn-off? Cheap plastic, and as for their looks, I think 'functional' is the word. Further up market with Pilot you might consider the Metropolitan (I'm not sure why it's called MR in the UK), a metal bodied pen available in various funky finishes including bright purple and with leopard skin and crocodile accents. A great writer, but with, for me, a major turn-off - a sharp step between the section and the barrel of the pen. I'd rather just buy more V-pens!


Sailor offers a number of entry-level pens, such as the Sailor Lecoule. If you looked at the Sport and Safari and thought "NSFW", this pen could be for you; it has a more conservative styling and comes in 'stone' colours such as lapis (blue) and garnet (red) as well as funkier combinations. As with most Japanese pens, the fine and medium nibs are a bit finer than many Western nibs. Platinum offers the Plaisir, another low priced Japanese pen that's a reliable starter.

Faber-Castell offers the Loom, with a metal body and plastic cap. I'm a big fan of Faber-Castell's nibs - they may look a bit odd, with no breather hole, but they write really well. The section has five textured rings on it to stop your fingers slipping, which is an understated but useful feature. Turn-offs? The caps can get loose after a while and no longer snap back on properly, which could mean ISPS (Inky Shirt Pocket Syndrome).

Now for two pens that don't often get mentioned. That may be because they're not easy to find outside their home markets in Europe, but I think they are lovely pens to get started with. First off, the Waterman Kultur. Waterman Phileas (an up-market version of the same model)  and Kultur can sell for silly prices on ebay, but French supermarkets still have the Kultur for ten euros or so. (All I can find online is the FNAC website which has it a little dearer.) It's a big pen, nice for those with larger hands or arthritis/RSI issues, and has a nice big nib, too (usually M or F), and I've found it super reliable and fun to use. I also like its slightly art deco styling.

A few of the different finishes available for the Waterman Kultur

And finally... the Pelikan Twist. It's almost like a 21st century update of the Bauhaus Safari to a funkier, Zaha Hadid or Frank Gehry aesthetic. A delightful pen if you don't need to be conservative, with a similar grip to the Safari, and incredibly cheap.