Saintpaulia
September 2nd, 2012, 05:41 PM
I figure it is long past time to introduce myself, somewhat after the fact. Here's an Introduction and I'll follow this with a chronological listing of pens I've ordered, both those I've kept and which are a part of my collection now (Sept. 2, 2012) and those I had to send back.
___________________________________
Hey there! (with all due obeisance to my mentor in the Kingdom of The Netherlands)
My story really goes all the way back to those Golden Days now long past when modern life was much more civilized and people still wrote with fountain pens when they had serious work to do. Like school work. Ball point pens were just beginning to make their inroads into daily life, but were considered decidely declassé. This was the end of the 1950s and the early years of the 1960s and I was a school boy in Midland, Texas. Back then one could buy a Sheaffer Student pen for $1.00 and I did (it was bright yellow w/ a silver cap). I kept that pen until the latter days of the 1960s when it became lost along with much else in my life during that turbulent era. I'll come back to this.
I used to write with that fountain pen in my Journals, a series of notebooks of a spiral wire type. That Sheaffer wrote well on that paper. And it was memories of these journals that led me this past several weeks to look into using fountain pens again; to, well, recapture that sense of writing with more elegance and intent. Basically I was looking for another Sheaffer Student type pen like the one I had. I discovered such pens were now considered "vintage" while at the same time also considered rather primitive, novelties really.
What I did find though on eBay, Amazon and via the googlized searches for on-line pen companies, were some inexpensive pens of modern manufacture. My favorite business in this regard was and is Goulet Pens. I ordered from them a series of pens -- not intentionally, it just turned out that way.
I began by ordering a Kaweco Sport in white with gold trim in a fine nib. I have an attraction to white pens, they look so clean, simple and elegant (more on this anon). I also tend towards fine point nibs as I write small. The Kaweco was chosen because I have rather small hands for a male, more on the order of a slightly large woman's hands (this leads me to the women's glove section of gardening supplies). When it arrived I was surprised by just how small the Kaweco Sport was. And even more important how short it was. This would not have been in itself a reason to return it, but when I inked it up and began to write with it in my journal I discovered that even with a fine point nib the ink was WAY TOO WET. (It was only later, a few pens later, that I realized the fault, dear Brutus, lay not in the pens but in the paper). Fortunately for me, the folks at Goulet are ultra-accommodating and took this Kaweco back (but I did clean it thoroughly before sending it back).
I went back to the old proverbial drawing board (almost literally) and then ordered my second pen, a Sheaffer Prelude. In a sense this was going in the opposite direction, since the Prelude is a much more expensive pen than the Kaweco, as well as being made of metal and not plastic. Of course I ordered this in a fine nib as well, hoping that this would enable me to write in my journal with it. It did not. Plus it introduced a new wrinkle -- this Sheaffer was a bit too thick for my hands. Now, admittedly, if I had some place here in Spokane where I could actually hold these pens I would not have had to keep ordering and sending back pens -- something I felt very bad about since it costs companies money as well as myself. And yet that is what I had to do, send it back. And as before, no problem says Goulet.
This was beginning to get embarrassing. So I tried to use what I had learned with these two pens when I made my next order, which was also with Goulet, a Platinum Plaisir. This was much less expensive than the Prelude, was also made of metal, came in a fine nib and...well...I just thought it was gorgeous looking! I ordered mine in the gold finish, and when combined with that silver band at the bottom of the cap made the pen look, to me, like a very slim Fabregé egg. In the same order I took the precaution, at the recommend of Alex at Goulet, of buying some Noodler's X-Feather ink. Hoping that this would solve the wetness problem I had been having with the two previous pens when writing in my journal.
Although it was scarcely better than the two other pens, the Platinum was so pretty that I couldn't bear to send it back too! That and my reputation at Goulet! Meanwhile I had also bought, as a way of seeing if the problem was my notebook's paper, some higher quality Clairefontaine Triomphe paper. With that paper I discovered that most of the problem was with my notebook's paper. The Plaisir wrote quite respectably on it as a fine nib should. (By the way I have yet to use the Noodler's X-Feather ink). Anyway, my third pen, the Plaisir, sits right now on my desk at my right hand. It is now filled with J. Herbin's Violette Pensée (which writes much drier). It is however still too large and thick for my small hands as much as I like it.
OK. So for my next, fourth pen, I chose a Lamy Safari. I chose this because I was yet hoping to find a fine point nibbed pen that would write in my notebook on its cheapo paper, and a pen that was not so thick. Imagine my surprise when the Safari arrived and turned out to be as large as, if not larger than, the Plaisir! Same weight too. However, it's fine nib was marginally better on the notebook paper. Whether this was in fact its nib I don't know. It could also have been the Lamy propriety black ink it came with. I also bought a cartridge coverter for it planning on eventually using the Noodler's in it. This Safari was also in my favorite color of white and did indeed look quite elegant. I also bought a Platinum converter and some blue ink.
I kept this Lamy up until just this week, about a month. I tried and tried, but could not love it. It was really just simply too big for my hands and it did not have the added value of looking as pretty as the Plaisir. So I put it up for sale on eBay and it sold immediately. Admittedly it was a good deal as I included in the sale the converter I had never used and the 5 cartridge pak likewise never used. Another reason that I finally decided to sell the Lamy was because I had just ordered two pens, again in white, to replace the Lamy. But before I get into all that (modern history) I need to talk a bit about my fifth pen.
My fifth pen was a Sheaffer Student type pen from the 1960s. In fact I was tickled pink to find it at auction on eBay because not only was it just like my own pen from way back then, but it was also the same color, yellow, and it had never been used (what is apparently called NOS [new-old-stock]). It was also, fortunately, a fine nib. It sits next to my Plaisir right now. Filled with Skrip blue-black ink. I can't write with it in my journal as it is just as wet as were the Kaweco and Prelude and Plaisir. But no matter, I just love it anyway and it does write very nicely on my Clairefontaine.
Believe it or not, somewhere in this time period I had also ordered (not from Goulet) a Parker I.M. in black with gold trim, again in a fine nib. My sixth pen. It was really different. Quite attractive, and very heavy which I thought I might like, but even more to the point (no pun intended), it actually skipped! This was my sixth pen and none of the others had ever skipped. That was simply not going to be tolerated and so back it went too!
Are you beginning to get the picture? I have had a horrible experience in trying to find a suitable fountain pen. Some people may get some sort of sick kick out of buying and returning pens but I am not one of them. For one thing it costs me time and money. Basically, unless you already know what you are buying, buying by mail order is the worst way to shop.
Now pens numbers seven and eight sort of go together. They were bought at the same time from eBay sellers, both were white and both were decidedly narrow lightweight pens: a Parker Vector and a vintage Diplomat, which is apparently a woman's pen given the seller's description. Of the two the Vector has already arrived (yesterday) and the Diplomat is yet to. I inked up the Parker Vector immediately and immediately experienced ITS problem -- I could not get a hold on it! The metal grip section is too slippery for my hand. It was also a medium nib, my first, and did not help at all in the notebook paper wars. So it's going back too.
Now to the Diplomat. It has not yet arrived. It is white and narrow like the Vector but a completely different manufacturer (Diplomat is a German pen company of some repute). Judging by the excellent photos provided by the eBay seller, this pen is going to require some cleaning. I may even get to try milk! I would not have even considered buying such a pen in its condition except that it is... well...narrow and white! And the price was right. Very right. So we'll see on this one just what happens. Regardless I will NOT be sending it back!! LOL.
OK. This brings this narrative (or sordid tale) up-to-date. I now own three pens, two of which are presently in my possession. And, with the exception of the Diplomat, which I am not counting on, I am still looking for the type of pen I began looking for two months ago. My current interest is in the Sheaffer Agio. I learned about this style of Sheaffer from Stephen Brown's review of it. Before that I had never seen it offered by any of the more well-known on-line pen companies. And in fact it is not offered by most of them.
The Agio has seemingly everything I am looking for: narrowness, metal for heft and solidness, comes in a fine nib, and in many colors (I'm still enamoured of finding a black with gold trim), and I have really begun to also become enamoured over the Sheaffers in general. But on the other hand... it received a very, very negative review right here on FPN back on 18 May 2009, by dr3am, mainly on account of its cap, which from his description, has no real workmanship to it. The bottom of the cap where it meets the barrel is just a thin, sharp metal like a bullet casing! I am still looking into this. Would appreciate any feedback.
Anyway, that's my introduction to you and my introduction to fountain pens, for what it's worth.
Breck
___________________________________
Hey there! (with all due obeisance to my mentor in the Kingdom of The Netherlands)
My story really goes all the way back to those Golden Days now long past when modern life was much more civilized and people still wrote with fountain pens when they had serious work to do. Like school work. Ball point pens were just beginning to make their inroads into daily life, but were considered decidely declassé. This was the end of the 1950s and the early years of the 1960s and I was a school boy in Midland, Texas. Back then one could buy a Sheaffer Student pen for $1.00 and I did (it was bright yellow w/ a silver cap). I kept that pen until the latter days of the 1960s when it became lost along with much else in my life during that turbulent era. I'll come back to this.
I used to write with that fountain pen in my Journals, a series of notebooks of a spiral wire type. That Sheaffer wrote well on that paper. And it was memories of these journals that led me this past several weeks to look into using fountain pens again; to, well, recapture that sense of writing with more elegance and intent. Basically I was looking for another Sheaffer Student type pen like the one I had. I discovered such pens were now considered "vintage" while at the same time also considered rather primitive, novelties really.
What I did find though on eBay, Amazon and via the googlized searches for on-line pen companies, were some inexpensive pens of modern manufacture. My favorite business in this regard was and is Goulet Pens. I ordered from them a series of pens -- not intentionally, it just turned out that way.
I began by ordering a Kaweco Sport in white with gold trim in a fine nib. I have an attraction to white pens, they look so clean, simple and elegant (more on this anon). I also tend towards fine point nibs as I write small. The Kaweco was chosen because I have rather small hands for a male, more on the order of a slightly large woman's hands (this leads me to the women's glove section of gardening supplies). When it arrived I was surprised by just how small the Kaweco Sport was. And even more important how short it was. This would not have been in itself a reason to return it, but when I inked it up and began to write with it in my journal I discovered that even with a fine point nib the ink was WAY TOO WET. (It was only later, a few pens later, that I realized the fault, dear Brutus, lay not in the pens but in the paper). Fortunately for me, the folks at Goulet are ultra-accommodating and took this Kaweco back (but I did clean it thoroughly before sending it back).
I went back to the old proverbial drawing board (almost literally) and then ordered my second pen, a Sheaffer Prelude. In a sense this was going in the opposite direction, since the Prelude is a much more expensive pen than the Kaweco, as well as being made of metal and not plastic. Of course I ordered this in a fine nib as well, hoping that this would enable me to write in my journal with it. It did not. Plus it introduced a new wrinkle -- this Sheaffer was a bit too thick for my hands. Now, admittedly, if I had some place here in Spokane where I could actually hold these pens I would not have had to keep ordering and sending back pens -- something I felt very bad about since it costs companies money as well as myself. And yet that is what I had to do, send it back. And as before, no problem says Goulet.
This was beginning to get embarrassing. So I tried to use what I had learned with these two pens when I made my next order, which was also with Goulet, a Platinum Plaisir. This was much less expensive than the Prelude, was also made of metal, came in a fine nib and...well...I just thought it was gorgeous looking! I ordered mine in the gold finish, and when combined with that silver band at the bottom of the cap made the pen look, to me, like a very slim Fabregé egg. In the same order I took the precaution, at the recommend of Alex at Goulet, of buying some Noodler's X-Feather ink. Hoping that this would solve the wetness problem I had been having with the two previous pens when writing in my journal.
Although it was scarcely better than the two other pens, the Platinum was so pretty that I couldn't bear to send it back too! That and my reputation at Goulet! Meanwhile I had also bought, as a way of seeing if the problem was my notebook's paper, some higher quality Clairefontaine Triomphe paper. With that paper I discovered that most of the problem was with my notebook's paper. The Plaisir wrote quite respectably on it as a fine nib should. (By the way I have yet to use the Noodler's X-Feather ink). Anyway, my third pen, the Plaisir, sits right now on my desk at my right hand. It is now filled with J. Herbin's Violette Pensée (which writes much drier). It is however still too large and thick for my small hands as much as I like it.
OK. So for my next, fourth pen, I chose a Lamy Safari. I chose this because I was yet hoping to find a fine point nibbed pen that would write in my notebook on its cheapo paper, and a pen that was not so thick. Imagine my surprise when the Safari arrived and turned out to be as large as, if not larger than, the Plaisir! Same weight too. However, it's fine nib was marginally better on the notebook paper. Whether this was in fact its nib I don't know. It could also have been the Lamy propriety black ink it came with. I also bought a cartridge coverter for it planning on eventually using the Noodler's in it. This Safari was also in my favorite color of white and did indeed look quite elegant. I also bought a Platinum converter and some blue ink.
I kept this Lamy up until just this week, about a month. I tried and tried, but could not love it. It was really just simply too big for my hands and it did not have the added value of looking as pretty as the Plaisir. So I put it up for sale on eBay and it sold immediately. Admittedly it was a good deal as I included in the sale the converter I had never used and the 5 cartridge pak likewise never used. Another reason that I finally decided to sell the Lamy was because I had just ordered two pens, again in white, to replace the Lamy. But before I get into all that (modern history) I need to talk a bit about my fifth pen.
My fifth pen was a Sheaffer Student type pen from the 1960s. In fact I was tickled pink to find it at auction on eBay because not only was it just like my own pen from way back then, but it was also the same color, yellow, and it had never been used (what is apparently called NOS [new-old-stock]). It was also, fortunately, a fine nib. It sits next to my Plaisir right now. Filled with Skrip blue-black ink. I can't write with it in my journal as it is just as wet as were the Kaweco and Prelude and Plaisir. But no matter, I just love it anyway and it does write very nicely on my Clairefontaine.
Believe it or not, somewhere in this time period I had also ordered (not from Goulet) a Parker I.M. in black with gold trim, again in a fine nib. My sixth pen. It was really different. Quite attractive, and very heavy which I thought I might like, but even more to the point (no pun intended), it actually skipped! This was my sixth pen and none of the others had ever skipped. That was simply not going to be tolerated and so back it went too!
Are you beginning to get the picture? I have had a horrible experience in trying to find a suitable fountain pen. Some people may get some sort of sick kick out of buying and returning pens but I am not one of them. For one thing it costs me time and money. Basically, unless you already know what you are buying, buying by mail order is the worst way to shop.
Now pens numbers seven and eight sort of go together. They were bought at the same time from eBay sellers, both were white and both were decidedly narrow lightweight pens: a Parker Vector and a vintage Diplomat, which is apparently a woman's pen given the seller's description. Of the two the Vector has already arrived (yesterday) and the Diplomat is yet to. I inked up the Parker Vector immediately and immediately experienced ITS problem -- I could not get a hold on it! The metal grip section is too slippery for my hand. It was also a medium nib, my first, and did not help at all in the notebook paper wars. So it's going back too.
Now to the Diplomat. It has not yet arrived. It is white and narrow like the Vector but a completely different manufacturer (Diplomat is a German pen company of some repute). Judging by the excellent photos provided by the eBay seller, this pen is going to require some cleaning. I may even get to try milk! I would not have even considered buying such a pen in its condition except that it is... well...narrow and white! And the price was right. Very right. So we'll see on this one just what happens. Regardless I will NOT be sending it back!! LOL.
OK. This brings this narrative (or sordid tale) up-to-date. I now own three pens, two of which are presently in my possession. And, with the exception of the Diplomat, which I am not counting on, I am still looking for the type of pen I began looking for two months ago. My current interest is in the Sheaffer Agio. I learned about this style of Sheaffer from Stephen Brown's review of it. Before that I had never seen it offered by any of the more well-known on-line pen companies. And in fact it is not offered by most of them.
The Agio has seemingly everything I am looking for: narrowness, metal for heft and solidness, comes in a fine nib, and in many colors (I'm still enamoured of finding a black with gold trim), and I have really begun to also become enamoured over the Sheaffers in general. But on the other hand... it received a very, very negative review right here on FPN back on 18 May 2009, by dr3am, mainly on account of its cap, which from his description, has no real workmanship to it. The bottom of the cap where it meets the barrel is just a thin, sharp metal like a bullet casing! I am still looking into this. Would appreciate any feedback.
Anyway, that's my introduction to you and my introduction to fountain pens, for what it's worth.
Breck