For a brief period a week or so back I managed to get down to three inked pens. Unfortunately, I’m back up to eight. I have no self-control.

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The Lamy 2000 doesn’t feel quite at its best with Aurora Black, which means I rarely use it — and with its large ink capacity, it’s taking ages to run dry. I may give up and flush it.

The TWSBI Vac Mini, with its FPnibs cursive italic, is getting a lot of use. I wrote it dry of Oku Yama and on a whim filled it with Noodler’s Manhattan Blue, which is frankly an awesome colour, as my blues roundup reminded me. It stays nice and crisp with this nib and is well lubricated. Strangely, it refuses to coat the inside of the barrel — lots of surfactants in the mix, maybe?

The Pelikan M205 is, like the Lamy, taking forever to run dry. It’s got loads of capacity, a relatively fine nib, and the Diamine Autumn Oak is a colour best used in small doses. Once it’s dry I think I might go back to the matching Edelstein Aquamarine ink for a while, or even let it sit uninked for a bit.

The TWSBI Eco is a new addition. I bought it as a gift but the recipient found the nib too fine and gave it back. It’s inked with Sailor Yama Dori, which used to be my favourite ink — but I think I’m getting a bit bored of it, particularly since I’ve currently got it in two fine-nibbed pens… Anyway, the Eco is an odd pen. It feels really long, and the nib is really fine and has a little bit of feedback; it’s almost like writing with a pencil.

The two Platinum 3776s are my “extreme” nibs, from fat to fine. The KWZ Gummiberry is a very fun ink, but with this music nib to get the level of wetness I want I have to prime the feed by winding the converter on. The soft fine nib on the Chartres Blue pen is wonderfully fine and springy, but it sips ink.

I reinked the Pilot Elabo last night because I wanted to give KWZ Honey another spin. It’s a superbly juicy combination and I used it for a letter and a card. The Elabo is such a light pen, I notice it every time I pick it up.

Last but not least, the Franklin Christoph 45 with Edison 1.1 stub, inked with a Caran d’Ache Infinite Grey cartridge. Like the 3776, there’s a noticeable difference in performance when the feed has had a chance to saturate with ink. The first paragraph out of the 45 is a dark grey (like in the shot above), then the ink lightens out unless I give the cartridge a squeeze. It’s a little annoying. But it’s such a comfortable pen that I’ll forgive it.

By next week I expect to have let the 3776 Music run dry, and maybe put Akkerman Passage Blauw in the Lamy 2000. Beyond that, who knows. It’s looking to be a busy note-taking week at work so it may be all change by the weekend!