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For sale: a radical cull

 

Again, I’ve ended up with too many pens. So I’m reluctantly selling some old favourites with an aim of getting down to 10 pens total.

All the prices below include shipping to the UK. I’ll consider offers if you’d like to buy multiple pens, although no lowballs please — I’ve barely convinced myself to sell them at these prices. These are not pens I dislike or actively want to get rid of.

I will ship internationally, but I imagine the cost will put most people off!

All of these pens have been lovingly used: they’ve been kept in a pen case most of the time, but you’ll find micro-scratches and the usual wear marks on every one of them. Where there’s anything extra to note, I’ve described it below.

If you’re interested, message me on Instagram @eciton90, or hit the contact button.

Tactile Turn Gist brass, EF Ti nib, £85

The Gist is such a clever design. Long comfy section, grippy ribbed finish, square-cut threads, so precise. And the Bock #6 Ti nib I have installed here is simply great. Two things to note: there’s a tiny ding at the end of the section, picked up during cleaning when I had the nib removed; and the brass has plenty of patina.

Reason for selling: actually, I’m not quite sure. I generally don’t use metal pens any more.

Retailed new for £90 plus the nib is about £50.

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Studio 22 concrete rollerball, grey, £55

Look at it, this is a striking pen. The concrete is so unusual, and grippy. If you want to keep a conversation piece in your bag, this is it. Basically new and boxed.

Reason for selling: I’d lusted after this pen for ages, then after I bought it, I realised I’d never use it, because I simply don’t use rollerballs. Oops.

Retails new for £85.

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Tactile Turn Shaker, brass, £35

The original clicky pen from Tactile Turn, it’s heavy and grippy and nicely machined. I’ve had this for a few years including some pocket carry, so the brass has plenty of patina, scratches and dings.

Retails new for about £60.

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SOLD! TWSBI Vac Mini smoke, FPnibs medium cursive italic, £35

One of the better-looking demonstrators, the cheapest vac filler you can buy, and the CI nib from Pablo is really good. In the interests of honesty, there’s a blemish on the cap threads and three small cracks on the filler knob threads. Apparently this is a TWSBI thing: they appeared without any overtightening and they haven’t got any worse since then.

Reason for selling: as you’d expect, a pen called “mini” is too small for me, and visually the nib is too small for my tastes too.

Retails new for £55; the nib is about another £20.

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Photos below show the cracks.

SOLD! Pilot 912, FA (falcon) nib, £95

Now this is a surprise. Arguably my favourite pen, one I utterly love, with the esteemed FA flex nib. Yep, I can’t believe I’m putting it up for sale either.

Reason for selling: if I’m honest with myself, flex writing doesn’t suit my usual overwriting-lefty hand position, which means I rarely use the FA to its full potential. And the CON-70 converter annoys me: I much prefer integrated fillers.

Retails new via Japan for at least £110 plus customs.

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SOLD! Platinum 3776 soft fine, Chartres blue, £50

This was my first gold-nibbed fountain pen and it’s beautiful. The soft fine nib is very fine and very bouncy. Some line variation, but mainly a lot of spring! Comes boxed.

Reason for selling: of my three 3776s, I use the UEF most often.

Retails new for around £60 plus a long wait and customs fees!

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SOLD! Platinum 3776 music, black with rhodium trim, £75

The triple-tined music nib is a sight to behold. Great fun to write with. Boxed.

Reason for selling: I like my nibs fine, so I simply don’t get any use out of this!

Retails new for £160.

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SOLD! Franklin-Christoph Pocket 66 antique glass, fine, £80

Yep, the famed antique glass finish. It’s beautiful, and the F-C tuned fine steel nib is wonderfully easy to write with. Now here’s the caveat: I used this eyedroppered with Emerald of Chivor for quite a while, and the threads are a bit stained. Nothing I can do about it, sorry!

Reason for selling: with cap off and cartridge installed, this pen is a featherweight 12g. I prefer heavier pens.

When available, retails new for £115 plus customs charge.

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Note the blue/green staining at the back of the threads. That’s a cartridge of brown ink in the barrel at the moment!

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 SOLD! Esterbrook, 2314 Relief nib, £35

I’ve had this pen since 2005. I had it professionally resacced in about 2013. It lays a fantastic line and coolest of all, has VL WITHINGTON engraved and filled on the barrel.

Reason for selling: like most vintage pens, it’s small, and as an inveterate ink changer I feel bad for flushing out a sac-filler every couple of weeks, so I very rarely use it.

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2 Comments

  1. Eve

    Am I the only person to dislike that smokey inner cap on the TWSBIs? I know it serves a purpose, in preventing the ink drying out in the nib, but I always feel it spoils the aesthetic of the pens, which is odd given how much attention TWSBI pay to such things overall. I know that there was a black and rose gold 580 a while ago, and a white and rose gold mini. Now, rose gold is not my thing, not being a slave to trends that won’t go away, but the combination of demonstrator body and solid-coloured cap (with metal-look trims) seemed to me a better option, disguising the ugly inner cap. I’m sticking with the Eco.

    • Anthony

      I always quite liked the smoked inner cap. Demo look, but condensation and ink spatter is not so obvious…

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