What is your latest pen acquisition?

[Cyril]

Another dip pen haul. This includes 10 dip pens of vintage/antique holders.
One victorian metal telescopic holder with a pen/ pencil combination, and a collection of rare antique dip pen nibs.

[FredRydr]

... and a collection of rare antique dip pen nibs.

Gold, by any chance?

[Cyril]

@Fred

Nothing in gold, but I guess they have a good value of reusing for my day to day writing. Also they are solid antique pens. Guess they always better than the contemporary dip pens.


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[Sailor Kenshin]

When you get there let us know if they have the other two kinds...

We have no Five Below store nearby, so I ordered mine from them online. They arrived and look okay, but I haven't opened or tested any yet.

[scrivelry]

When you get there let us know if they have the other two kinds...

We have no Five Below store nearby, so I ordered mine from them online. They arrived and look okay, but I haven't opened or tested any yet.

Yesterday I had the day from Purgatory, following a similar day from Purgatory on Tuesday, so I solaced myself by driving up to the local Five Below and finding the other two sets of fountain pens.

(I should note that, as far as I know, this is the widest choice of fountain pens available in person to me short of a trip to downtown Manhattan or just as far in some other direction, except for one local antique store that has a few vintage pen, and is open for a few hours each of two days of the week, when it is open.)

I found the package of 8 pens and the package of two pens that were on the website but which I did not see the first time. These were several aisles away from the other pens, for no obvious reason. It took determination to turn them up.

The 8 pens for five dollars set was certainly a bargain for the price. The pens I have tried so far work, and I almost manage to Franken pen the sections with these cheap pretty No-Nonsense ball point look a likes from Dollar tree. Either I have to mix the solid caps with the new barrels, or else figure out how to build up the section so the new caps will also fit.

Because, you know, if you can't play with a pen that cost maybe 60 cents, when can you?

The vari-colored pens two for I think it was 3.75 are a slightly, but only slightly different story. They are very very long, with long cps. So long they look odd. The Pink and yellow one that I got was more to my taste than the Turquoise one I got, but I suspect that the color intensity, etc, maybe vary quite a bit.

My Blue/Green pen has a hooded nib but is not terribly fine. The Pink one has an open nib. and it writes, but there is some obstruction in the ink flow I have to figure out - but ever other pen I have just stuck a cartridge in has written just fine. These two pens came with four carts total.

What's the best deal? I think this depends on the individual. None of them have converters. Do you want an Italic set? The one with the two pens and six nibs would do, so far as I can tell. The four hooded nibs are probably the least cheap looking of the other three sets - this is strictly a relative position, because none of these is fancy enough to be taken for a really expensive pen - like a Jinhao 599A,for example (delicate cough) The package of Eight doesn't look very much cheaper - just cheaper in a slightly different way. While the two longer pens looked pretty in the picture, in real live the only sort of appeal to me and one of them is not working perfectly, so I'd say I, personally, would consider them last.

However, if your life is trembling around you and you have to DO Something, then finding a Five Below and buying yourself a bunch of cheap pens is hardly the worst and nowhere near the most expensive wild, crazy impulsive act of abandon with which to signal the Universe that if it continues on its chosen course, you will bring it.

[Sailor Kenshin]

Tested now, and they do work. I got the hooded needle-nib type that appear to have Hero/Zebra carts. The other set is the two pens with many calligraphy sections, and these are supplied with Jinhao/Gullor carts. I have a Jinhao converter that fits.

Just discovered they will be opening a Five Below near enough to justify a visit. 👍🏻

[scrivelry]

Tested now, and they do work. I got the hooded needle-nib type that appear to have Hero/Zebra carts. The other set is the two pens with many calligraphy sections, and these are supplied with Jinhao/Gullor carts. I have a Jinhao converter that fits.

Just discovered they will be opening a Five Below near enough to justify a visit. 👍🏻

I once had a very good time at a grand opening celebration of a Five Below that featured something like five cent hot dogs and other forms of fun.

Yes, I am extremely easy to amuse...

[scrivelry]

Tested now, and they do work. I got the hooded needle-nib type that appear to have Hero/Zebra carts. The other set is the two pens with many calligraphy sections, and these are supplied with Jinhao/Gullor carts. I have a Jinhao converter that fits.

Just discovered they will be opening a Five Below near enough to justify a visit. 👍🏻

They also have other nifty art stuff. I was surprised.

[christof]

I received this fountain pen in the mail today from a friend who found it in a remote store in France. 22 years the pen has lain there and no one wanted to buy him...

[Dougc]

I received this fountain pen in the mail today from a friend who found it in a remote store in France. 22 years the pen has lain there and no one wanted to buy him...

Where can I get a friend like that?

Sent from my SM-A505U using Tapatalk

[Prettypenguin]

I just cleaned them all and haven’t inked anything yet but as part of my birthday gift, my husband bought me some Jinhao x450s in various shades of blue to experiment with, one with a Zebra G nib pre installed, and a blue chrome trimmed Parker Aster by Luxor (he was clearly peeking at my iPad). I took a picture of the Aster.

[markiv]

Dunhill Namiki No. 50 and Nakaya DecapodDSC05054.jpg

Sent from my Pixel 4a (5G) using Tapatalk

[Bisquitlips]

I took delivery of the Fritz Schimpf's "The Expressive". The nib is essentially a crisp italic grind of the Montblanc's "calligraphy" flex nib. Limited edition of bespoke Montblanc nibgrinds of 80 pieces, based on the 149 model.

From my observation the specifications from Fritz Schimpf seem to be pretty spot on; about 1:4 ratio between verticals and horizontals, double that under pressure. The railroad is due to pushing the nib beyond the limit, testing where the limit is.

Steep for my wallet (1800+€), so I'm out of pens buying game for a good while now.

Congratulations! That writing sample is just about perfect for my taste.

[Bisquitlips]

Wandering around Five Below today after already spending money at the Hairdresser and the dollar store, right before I went on to spend money at the ridiculously cheap discount store a few doorways down the plaza, I decided to look for fountain pens. Because, why not? I found a handwriting text in there last fall... so what do I find but two sets of pens for sale at four dollars each.

One has four pens and twenty carts which look to me to be 3.4mm but that is just a guess. They are sort of hooded fine nibs. They are cheaply made, but for possibly the cheapest pens you could find they are not bad- I popped a cart in one, let it sit a little, and it wrote with no problem. You can see them here.

The other is actually two pens, six italic nibs, and eight carts which look like 2.6mm to me. (I can't eyeball tenths of millimeters, but the only two sizes I ever see mentioned on carts you can buy from China are 2.6 and 3.4 - this is the smaller of the two kinds of carts so I am making a guess.) In this case I changed the nib to the one marked 0.7, put a cart in, waited a few minutes and that pen wrote immediately, also. You can see this set here.

The second set looks like you could use them as eyedroppers. The first set sort of looks that way, but when I look in the barrel it gives me the impression that there are actually some holes in the plastic which are covered only by the paint, so I'm not sure that's a good idea. It would probably work until it didn't and then fail spectacularly, at least if it was me trying it...

But wait! There are two other sets of fountain pens on the site which I did not see in the store, possibly because they were not there, possibly because I was so stunned to find what I had already found that my brain simply couldn't take any more. One of these is eight pens, seemingly one cartridge each, for five dollars, and the other is two pens, a little prettier, for something under five dollars.

They clearly don't expect anyone's interest to last past the cartridges supplies, because they don't seem to carry any apart from the pens.

Did I need these pens? Hell to the no. Did I want these pens? Yes. I wanted them. I wanted them in their cheap beyond cheapness goodness, whatever it was, and frankly, it seems to be as good as or better than the usual run of cheap Chinese pens you can get on that auction site, with the additional goodness that they were right there.

In front of me
.
I payed less for the two sets than a "You Pick Two" combo of half a sandwich and a small salad would have cost me at the Panera down the strip mall, I didn't have to pay postage and I didn't have to wait at all.

I am having to restrain myself from running back up there to see if they do, indeed, have the other two sets in store.

Now this is no way to save up for the fully jeweled gold version of a Chaos, I will grant you - but I don't want or need a Chaos. (My Jinhao snake pen ticks that box for me.) I like the accessibility of cheap pens. I like that they are just hanging there in this shlock shop waiting to be discovered by someone, anyone, who doesn't realize what they are, or wants to try a fountain pen, or an italic writing style - that one does not have to be already convinced that a fountain pen is a needed, desired instrument and then wait for it to arrive in the mail. You can't love something if you have no idea it exists outside of history and perhaps literature. I was enraptured by the Sheaffer school pens hanging on cards in the Ben Franklin when I was kid - maybe someone will be enraptured by these pens and end up really liking fountain pens.

I am absurdly happy over the whole experience.

ETA: I have the impression that posting links is ok, but if it is not I apologize. In that case just someone let me know and I will figure out how to get rid of the links.

[Jon Szanto]

Possibly not the pics you were looking for, Bisquitlips, but you should check this out.

[Jon Szanto]

I've had a few coming in and need time to do a proper presentation, but this just one cracked me up. Here's a juxtaposition between two pens separated by around 75 years. As they say, "everything old is new again!".

Upper pen: Arnold Pen Company, ~ late 1930s - mid 1940s (I call this one Primary Manipulation #0)
Lower pen: Leonardo Momento Zero Grande, 2020, in Brooks' Primary Manipulation "Vesuvio"

[Cyril]

Congrats Jon!!!!
They looks amazing. I basically love clip-less pens.
But I am curious if those two pens have the similar characteristic quality as springiness/or flexibility as we call it?

[Jon Szanto]

Congrats Jon!!!! They looks amazing. I basically love clip-less pens.
But I am curious if those two pens have the similar characteristic quality as springiness/or flexibility as we call it?

Thanks, Cyril. Actually, they are both clipped, just facing down to focus on the body material. I can't compare writing - the Arnold didn't have a nib!! (I really got it just for the wild "end-of-the-day" material, but will find a period nib to put in it.

[Cyril]

I received this fountain pen in the mail today from a friend who found it in a remote store in France. 22 years the pen has lain there and no one wanted to buy him...

Love the look of this Double trouble!!!!


2000 seems to me like yesterday.
I remember I bought My Hasselblad in 2000. Millennium special edition. I still refuse it is vintage and 22years after. This clock is ticking very faster and I am antique and not vintage anymore now. Sorry

[Sailor Kenshin]

Couldn't help it.