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UKFP Uncapped: 28th September 2019

Hold on to your hats. Busy week this week.

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Kaweco Dia nib swap. You forget how much you know, don’t you? I figured this out ages ago, swapping the #76 nib from a Visconti Van Gogh with the nib from a Kaweco Sport. I may even have mentioned it on this blog. Completely compatible, much better nib. Makes you wonder what other tidbits of knowledge are lost to the ages, or are being rediscovered over and over again.

A new swatch log. Having just created my own printable layout template for ink reviews, this would have saved me a lot of time! I will have to pick it up…

The 100 pen sale. My golly gosh.

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Pebble Glacier Edition. I like the look of this. Also excited to hear about Pebble planning a planner!

Mathematician’s chalkboards. Total sucker for this kind of article. And it’s writing related!

Kipling review. I still find it really weird that so few Montblanc pens get reviewed. We know how many writer’s editions get made — anywhere up to 16,000 fountain pens per year — so we know they’re out there. But reviewers don’t tend to cover them. Personally I think the Kipling looks fugly and uncomfortable, and the wolf head looks cheap. I’ve thought that since the leaked pics I saw in January that prompted my post. But as always Dries does a marvelous job with the photography.

On my doormat

Lamy Imporium. I know, I know. I reviewed the Lamy Imporium before (thanks to Dapprman for the loan) and found it a bit uncomfortable to grip. But I thought I’d give it another shot, after the extremely positive recent experiences I’ve been having with Lamy. It’s still a bit lumpy in my grip, but the EF nib I got with it is simply fantastic. I love the way Lamy grinds an EF. So suddenly I have four Lamys with another two on the way. Oops.

Pelikan M205 Star Ruby. This arrived from The Writing Desk. I’ve had a couple of M2 and M4 series Pelikans before and I sadly acknowledge that they’re too small for me, but the Star Ruby edition was worth checking out — it’s the first sparkly Pelikan, and the colour is great. Look for a review soon.

Lamy Studio Aquamarine. The second pen in the pack from the kind folks at The Writing Desk. Check out the review below!

Omas Ludovico Einaudi Milord. My first Omas! It arrived from Italy on Thursday. The nib has a tiny bit of hard starting, but this has been a pleasurable couple of days. The Milord is very light, quite long and slim, and the F 18k nib is firm but still expressive. Still on the hunt for the Paragon version. Money waiting for you if you have one to sell!

Montblanc blues. Lapis Lazuli, Maya Blue and Turquoise landed, I think it was this week! I am in love with all three. Maya Blue in particular is special.

Published

Yep, four proper pen reviews this week, and another two posts to boot. Hardcore.

Santini Tosca Ambra. Worth discussing this one a bit. I heard from quite a few people on Instagram, Facebook and this blog that after reading my post I’d introduced them to a new brand and that they were investigating Santini’s pens, which makes me happy. That’s what I try to achieve!

Unfortunately, I had a chat with Santini on Instagram and they were not happy with my comments about the nib I received. They basically accused me of lying, saying that their quality control processes would have caught those problems:

“the nib goes out from several tests, so many that we cannot believe all the problems you mentioned”

and what’s more they suggested that I don’t understand what a stub nib versus an italic (I guess I don’t have enough stubs and italics in my collection?).

It’s a shame to end things on a tense note, especially when I actually like the pen. But this is one of the realities of being a pen blogger — if you write your real experiences, sometimes you’ll piss some people off, and some people will say you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Naturally I stand by my review: there’s photographic evidence in there of the before and after skipping (and you can ask Dapprman if you want a second opinion), and zoom in on the photos if you want to see just how little line variation there is. You can check out the review index above if you want to validate whether I’ve handled enough pens to judge one accurately, and I figure you guys are smart enough to decide whether the duff nib is a one-off.

If Santini want to send me another pen (perhaps one of the models with their new in-houe ebonite feed) I’d happily write a reappraisal.

Lamy Studio Aquamarine. One of my great joys in this job (well, hobby) is reviewing a pen that I expect to hate and finding that I love it. The Studio Aquamarine really pleased me, so much so that I did indeed order the olive and terracotta versions from last year. Thanks again to the lovely folks at The Writing Desk for giving me the opportunity.

15 types of pen addict. Holy moly did this go viral. It was all across Facebook and got thousands of views this week. Since I dashed out the post in about half an hour when the idea came to me, I’m glad you folks liked it!

Tactile Turn Gist v2 Delrin. Glad to get the word out about this white delrin version — it tends to sit in the shadow of the metal versions. Looking forward to what Will comes up with next!

Onoto plunger filler prototype. This got a ton of traffic too. I got some hate mail about the PEEK rod!

Baron Fig Strategist Note Cards. See, I don’t just review expensive pens!

On my mind

I’ve started planning out my next pen sale. I’m bursting at the seams here with pens. Hold on to your hats. Although my sale won’t be as extreme as Mike’s…

Elia journal. I ordered a lined Tomoe River notebook from Elia Note as a new journal. I’ve decided I like writing on ~7mm lined paper enough to switch to it for a journal, and I’m hoping that not having a page per day will encourage me to write more. So here goes. On its way from Malaysia!

Sailor Kobe #53 Kitano Pearl Silver. Hey ho, time for more grey ink! I saw this on Instagram and couldn’t resist. Let’s see how long this takes to get here.

The Montblanc Homer Writer’s Edition pen. I got one at a good price. Excited to have one of the two writer’s editions with the big nib!

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Undoing Sheaffer regrets. I sold my deepcut palladium Sheaffer Legacy Heritage some time ago, miss it like crazy, and haven’t been able to find one since. One popped up today, and it is mine!

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Traffic again. Wow, you guys gave me a great September. Over 42,000 views this month! It really encourages me to write more when I know people are reading and enjoying. I got a huge buzz out of hearing my words read out on the Pen Addict Podcast. And one donation too (thanks Ian!)!

5 Comments

  1. James

    Damn, how I wish you’d published this last week. Having tried a 1.1mm stub bib in my Lamy Safari, I wanted my pocket pen to be a stub so bought a second Kaweco Sport in natural coconut with a 1.1 stub. I was disappointed with the nib as it seemed thicker and less precise than the Lamy one.

    If I’d seen this, I’d have ordered the Bock nib instead (and in fact have now ordered one).

    Brill post, as always.

    James.

  2. Kamil Klapka

    It is always shame when producer of item is not able to acknowledge possible mistake and instead attacks customer.

    Could you share where you are buying Sailor inks?

    • Anthony

      I ordered this one through an Amazon seller!

    • annafdd

      Choosing Keeping has some Kobe in a drawer for the discerning customer.

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