When you have 200+ inks, it's all too easy to find yourself picking up a bottle and having no recollection of the ink at all. You uncap it, and all you see is some dark, shiny liquid. Hmmm. If only there was some way to keep a a record of how each ink looks on … Continue reading How I do ink swatches
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The simple joy of mucking about with pens
I had a joyous, pen-heavy day today. I joined a few folks for a beer at my local pen meet (and got to play with a 1.9mm F-C music nib!) ...reinked a couple of pens with fresh beautiful inks, did my version of adult colouring by writing up a Currently Inked on an A3 sheet … Continue reading The simple joy of mucking about with pens
Quantifying greatness: going deep down the rabbit hole
A while back I made an attempt at a scoring methodology for pens. It was a way for me to take a bottom-up, step-by-step approach to working out what I liked and disliked about the pens I owned, and to see whether the cumulative total resulted in a ranking that actually reflected my gut preferences. … Continue reading Quantifying greatness: going deep down the rabbit hole
Going on a diet (recalibrating to smaller, cheaper pens)
My pen hobby has, at risk of generalising, broadly trended towards larger and more expensive pens (I covered this in 'boiling a frog'). I started with "normal" pens like the Pelikan M205, Lamy Al Star, Platinum 3776, Sailor Pro Gear, Kaweco Sport and Pilot 91, and have escalated to rare and costly giants like the … Continue reading Going on a diet (recalibrating to smaller, cheaper pens)
What I leave out of reviews
I'm a professional writer by background, and I've learned over the years that writing anything is an exercise in choosing not just what to say, but what to leave out. When I write a review, I tend to approach it by focusing on the experience of examining the pen for the first time: what it's like to … Continue reading What I leave out of reviews
My pen “capsule wardrobe” (cheating at a top ten of fountain pens)
Whenever I buy a new pen recently, I'm finding there's a smaller and smaller chance that it will stick in my collection. Even though I'm learning more about my tastes, and making (hopefully) better and better purchases, the new pens have a huge task scaling the heights of my current collection, which I have been … Continue reading My pen “capsule wardrobe” (cheating at a top ten of fountain pens)
9 genius pen features
To the untrained eye, most fountain pens are basically the same. There's the pointy bit, the holdy bit, the screwy on bit, the clippy bit. Ink goes in, words come out. But look a little closer and there's so much diversity, so many innovations, so many great features to celebrate. Here are nine that I've … Continue reading 9 genius pen features
Boiling a frog
I'm not sure when it started to feel OK for me to spend £500+ on a pen, or when I started to think of a £100 pen as "cheap". I definitely remember agonising about buying a £70 pen, not that long ago. But somehow my brain has gradually acclimatised to higher and higher prices, just … Continue reading Boiling a frog
What’s on my wishlist?
I can't help it. No matter how many pens I sell, or how recently I've bought wondrous pens like the Visconti Medici and Onoto Magna... there's always something else. Here's what I've got my eye on today. Aurora 888 Nettuno Aurora releases a million special editions, particularly in this, its centenary year. I normally don't … Continue reading What’s on my wishlist?
A grand new methodology: scoring my pen collection
Before I begin, let me say this first: I believe any attempt at objectively scoring reviews of aesthetic objects like fountain pens is doomed to failure. After all, everyone's opinions are different (see my post about pen compatibility for why). But I think there is value, and interest, in comparing a bunch of reviews against … Continue reading A grand new methodology: scoring my pen collection
