Anyone else into fountain pens?

[LeFonque]

For me it is a Namiki red fine nib. I carry three Pelikan with me in my work bag.

 

[Edward]

I have a whole bunch of fountain pens of various styles. My collection includes a couple of original Parker P51s, as well as more modern pens from Parker, Waterman, and a few artisinal makers. Very fond on my PIlot Capless/Vanishing Point as it can be operated one-handed. One specialist I have bought from makes their pens in limited editions from wood from special sources - I have the Dracula, made from old pew wood from the Whitby Cathedral when it was being refurbished, and my first Christmas present to Herself was one made from wood reclaimed from the school room where Emily Bronte taught. Where possible, I try to carry two pens - a fountain pen, and a Fisher Space Pen, which will write anywhere the fountain won't. I exclusively use bottled ink with my fountain pens, mostly bought in China, where it's 30p odds a bottle. Used to be a great one that came in red, black and two blues that was floral scented, but alas the campus shop where I teach in Beijing has stopped stocking it. It's great, though. I encourage my students to use fountain pens when they have to do handwritten exams as it's amazing ho much less the hand cramps up with them. I'm left handed, but never had a particular problem getting a fountain pen to work for me.

 

[viclip]

Edward - I especially like the Parker 51 vacuumatic filling version with the pump mechanism. The later aerometric version with the bladder is nice too, I still have my father's Parker 51 "Special" which I'll occasionally ink up. The hooded nibs used by the 51 family make it next to impossible for the nib to dry out in ordinary usage & they seem to be able to digest practically any ink.

I hope that you make good use of your Parker 51 fountain pens.

 

[2jakes]

1920s Parker Duofold Founten pens
are my favorties:

I have the senior, junior & mechanical lead
pencil in this color.


I am going to build my 1920s bicycle with
this red/orange color scheme.

I recall in the 70s that Arrow Shirt Co.
had available the "1920s" pin stripe and
other styles reminicent of the Arrow Collar
gent!
The white collar was option.
The variety of colors was great!

 

[2jakes]

Parker 51




I used the 51 in high school.

 

[bluesmandan]

I’m not a collector either but I have a Waterman (Harley Davidson edition) that was a graduation gift from a professor, a set of Schaefer calligraphy pens that was a gift from a church member, and a Noodler’s Ahab which I bought. I’ll try to remember to take pictures later.

The Waterman doesn’t flow well enough, and the others sometimes leak and get my fingers messy. But I still use them because I greatly prefer the artistic way they lay down ink. Heck, when I was a kid I used to take my pencils and scrape them on a brick or concrete or whatever to file a nice flat calligraphy profile into the pencil tip!!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[2jakes]

I’m not a collector either but I have a Waterman (Harley Davidson edition) that was a graduation gift from a professor, a set of Schaefer calligraphy pens that was a gift from a church member, and a Noodler’s Ahab which I bought. I’ll try to remember to take pictures later.

The Waterman doesn’t flow well enough, and the others sometimes leak and get my fingers messy. But I still use them because I greatly prefer the artistic way they lay down ink. Heck, when I was a kid I used to take my pencils and scrape them on a brick or concrete or whatever to file a nice flat calligraphy profile into the pencil tip!!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ink on my fingers was typical on me too!

 

[STEVIEBOY1]

Ink on my fingers was typical on me too!

And me, in spite of the pens saying they were easy to fill. They blotted our school books too sometimes which may have resulted in being kept in afterwards by the school masters and often having to write large quantities of Lines!.

 

[jkingrph]

Oh yes, along with watches, safety razors, and guns. I have quite a few fountain pens, mostly rather new, Pelicans (my favorite) Montblanc, Visconti, Auroa, Delta, Pilot, Platinum, Sailor, Cross, and some vintage pens from Parker, Sheaffer, Esterbroo, Conway Stewart, and Soennecken.

 

[2jakes]

Raven nib from Edger Allan Poe Montanc pen.

 

[viclip]

View attachment 151116
Raven nib from Edger Allan Poe Montanc pen.

That also would've made a nice high school pen

 

[STEVIEBOY1]

View attachment 151116
Raven nib from Edger Allan Poe Montanc pen.

That is a lovely nib, (Too good for school though.)

 

[Edward]

Edward - I especially like the Parker 51 vacuumatic filling version with the pump mechanism. The later aerometric version with the bladder is nice too, I still have my father's Parker 51 "Special" which I'll occasionally ink up. The hooded nibs used by the 51 family make it next to impossible for the nib to dry out in ordinary usage & they seem to be able to digest practically any ink.

I hope that you make good use of your Parker 51 fountain pens.

I've owned both styles, though TBH I tend to prefer the later models; I find them more reliable. I do wish Parker would put out a 51 again. hey did do one a few years ago, albeit a cartridge / adaptor pen, and it was a limited and expensive run. It would be nice if they produced the Aeromatic model again at the sub-£50 mark; I'd even accept a convertor version if it was otherwise externally 'correct'. Such lovely piece if design it's a true shame Parker have left it dormant for so long. They do some nice other pens, but nothing with the elan of the 51.

I’m not a collector either but I have a Waterman (Harley Davidson edition) that was a graduation gift from a professor,

I think I have the same pen somewhere. Mine is a lovely writer. I gather they're actually very collectable now?

View attachment 151116
Raven nib from Edger Allan Poe Montanc pen.

Very nice indeed. I've never been able to bring myself to sink the money into a Mont Blanc, but they are lovely pens. I was somewhat bemused a few years ago to see a Ghandi model; I wonder how he'd have felt about his image being used to sell a pen at several hundred pounds retail?

That also would've made a nice high school pen

High School? Well.... if you're at Eton, maybe....

I live in hope that the fountain pen will see a significant revival over the next decade for one of the key reasons they continue to attract me: minimal wastage. Using bottled ink, the only waste from my fountain pen is the empty ink bottles, which are eminently recyclable. Compare that to the mountain of waste plastic from disposable biros...

 

[viclip]

Vintage Parker 51's in the aerometric version are readily available for those desirous of using them. They came in a variety of colours & are quite collectible. Remarkably the bladders or "sacs" in these old 51's often remain elastic & usuable however it's a simple matter for a pen restorer to replace that item.

The original P51 in the vacuumatic version is also available. The restoration of their internal rubber diaphragm is somewhat more involved compared to restoring the aerometric version, but nevertheless any competent pen restorer can quite handily bring these back up to snuff.

If interested in a P51 fountain pen then I'd recommend finding one with its matching (working!) mechanical pencil, with the matching set housed in their original Parker case & preferably including the original instruction sheet. But of course if the set is too nice, you might not want to actually use them!

 

[Kane]

Great thread. I try to use a FP for all my writing, unless it’s a duplicate/triplicate form that requires the pressure of a ballpoint. The pleasure of using a FP inspires me to write and draw. My fanciest pens are a Lamy 2000 and a couple of Pilot Vanising Points. I dropped the 2000 once and bent the nib, sent it out to Lamy for a nib replacement (not an easy company to deal with in my experience, but this was their repair facility in Texas, not their operation in Germany), and it’s been a bit of a dry and skippy writer with the replacement nib they installed. Lamy was very slow and unresponsive, so rather than send it back to them I am going to send it and a few other pens off to a nibmeister. One of my VP’s is an awesome writer, like writing on air, while the other one is a dry and resistive writer, so that one will probably go with the 2000 for a tune-up. My best writers and most used pens are a couple of Parker Vacumatics (the 1940’s models with the screw-on caps) and a Parker 51 Aerometric. I always felt that the Lamy 2000 was an attempt to reinvent the Parker 51. Other than the piston fill mechanism on the 2000, which I like because of how much ink it holds (same benefit with the older Vacumatics), I find the 51 to be a nicer pen to use, just a really nice size and weight, and a great nib and writer.
My EDC is a Metropolitan with a fine nib (a true Japanese fine line) that I keep filled with Nooodler’s Black for writing checks, envelopes, anything that requires a really fine line and bombproof ink. Also carry an Safari M inked with Noodler’s Zhivago, a very dark greenish black, for note taking and general writing while out-and-about, and also the Space Pen for when a ballpoint is necessary. Someone mentioned that they write left handed.....check out Noodler’s Bernanke Black that was formulated as a super fast drying ink for lefties. The Pilot VP gets Namiki Blue, the 51 Parker Blue-Black Quink, the Vacumatics Waterman Serenity Blue (the old Florida blue) and J Hebrin Perle Noire. I reckon I’ll be passing the old Parkers down the line as they should keep writing for many generations to come.

 

[Kane]

That Poe nib is so friggin’ cool.

 

[Dreamofgilgamesh]

I realised the other day, or rather my wife realised for me how awful my handwriting is so I set myself the goal of improving it. I thought a good start would be getting a fountain pen, I hadn't used one since my school days many many years ago. After much googling I decided to get a couple of Chinese pens from EBay. I absolutely love them and so cheap. You can get clones of most well known and respected makes for next to nothing. A new fountain pen all the way from Shanghai to my front door for £1.12 . It looks wonderful and it writes beautifully. I know it doesn't have the same pedigree as an original but for the price you can't go wrong.

 

[SirPandaEsq]

I work in a bank famous for its free pens. Pens that...are as good as free pens can be. Therefore my daily driver pen is a Tornado Retro 57, I use it with Noodlers Blue Eternal Ink, and she writes smmoooottthhh. In my 2 years of constant use, I have noticed the barrel has developed the slightest wiggle in it. Not great for only 2 years of use, but it looks as though a small gasket where the nib barrel and pen body meet should fix the issue. Overall not bad for a $35 pen that looks gorgeous imo.

 

[STEVIEBOY1]

I realised the other day, or rather my wife realised for me how awful my handwriting is so I set myself the goal of improving it. I thought a good start would be getting a fountain pen, I hadn't used one since my school days many many years ago. After much googling I decided to get a couple of Chinese pens from EBay. I absolutely love them and so cheap. You can get clones of most well known and respected makes for next to nothing. A new fountain pen all the way from Shanghai to my front door for £1.12 . It looks wonderful and it writes beautifully. I know it doesn't have the same pedigree as an original but for the price you can't go wrong.

That's useful to know, I have the same issue with my handwriting, I shall have a look on that website.

 

[LeFonque]

Gave an acquaintance a near new Pelikan M815 today. Not a cheap pen by any means. I was happy to welcome a newcomer into the fountain pen collective. It made me feel good.