Do you use a fountain pen?

[Sway]

I'm boring, but very nice...

Parker Duofold International platinum, medium nib, Mont Blanc midnight blue ink.

Gave my Lamy Al-Star to a colleague, along with montblanc Irish Green ink.

Also passed on a nice stainless steel with gold plated nib to another colleague as a maternity present, along with a bottle of montblanc Toffee Brown ink.

Pleased to say both are using them daily, and enjoying them.

Every other pen I obtained from ex-Parker friend, including a couple of German Rotring, were claimed by my better half and kids! Other half loves her Parker Ellipse and Edelstein Adventurine...

Still have a hankering for a nice piston or vac filler - either Pelikan M605, Pilot Custom 823 or Montblanc Einstein or JFK. Funds are not allowing real pursuit of any of those currently!

[jules_s]

Omas 360 Bronze vision here

[Robbo 27]

Sway said:

I'm boring, but very nice...



Pleased to say both are using them daily, and enjoying them.

I cannot think of a better gift that doesnt break the bank, people like to receive them and to use them, they remember the gift every time that the pen is used.

Just heard of someone who bought at a Pen show a boxed Parker pen and pencil set from the 1960s. Inside the box lid was written Happy Christmas John from Aunt Jane. The pen didnt look like it had been used, still had the chalk marks on the pen saying Parker 45 Medium. The buyer lifted out the pen from the tray to see if the cartridges were still underneath and found a 1960s £10 note.

[Prohibiting]

John S currently has my green striped M800

[Robbo 27]

Prohibiting said:

John S currently has my green striped M800

Excellent, same nib set up as before?

John is in the best three in the world at what he does, and one of those doesnt work much nowadays anyway.

Hope you can post the results when it comes back.

[Sway]

Robbo 27 said:

Prohibiting said:

John S currently has my green striped M800

Excellent, same nib set up as before?

John is in the best three in the world at what he does, and one of those doesnt work much nowadays anyway.

Hope you can post the results when it comes back.

Nice. My Duofold had, shall we say, a little extra quality assurance compared even to the norm, however I do wonder sometimes about having it adjusted to be perhaps a little wetter and possibly a smidge greater feedback (through incorporation of a little extra flex?).

However, I'm loathe to risk it!

I've been offered pretty much any Duofold nib type unused for less than half the current market price, is there one that may give me what I'm looking for? Currently using a medium bicolour nib, I think some options were only available in gold which would jar aesthetically.

[Robbo 27]

Sway said:

I've been offered pretty much any Duofold nib type unused for less than half the current market price, is there one that may give me what I'm looking for? Currently using a medium bicolour nib, I think some options were only available in gold which would jar aesthetically.

Nib type is very personal and relates to the size of your handwriting and even what you do with the pen, anotating spreadsheets might be difficult with a medium or a broad nib, for example, someone who signs there name 100 times a day might want a Broad or Double Broad.

My own favourite is an Oblique Medium, because that suits my handwriting and I rotate the pen to the left without thinking instead of straight on to the page. I dont think Parker made obliques for the Duofold.

I have seen the F/M/B nibs go for £100-150 each, good deal if you can buy at a discount.

Has to be said that medium nibs suit most people and their pen uses.

On a seperate issue, a friend in America wanted a leather writing case, the sort with a zip around it, place for a pen, A5 letter pad, stamps and address book. People also use them for ipads and stuff.

The letter pad is hard to find in America, found one at ASDA, 200 pages and the paper is very fountain pen friendly, only costs £1, also comes with a ruled guide sheet.

[Prohibiting]

I've asked him to grind my M800 nib into a 0.6mm cursive italic with a slight oblique angle to suit my left-handed hook when writing. Can't wait for the results! It'll be an everyday use pen but with the bonus of interesting line variation to give more style and flair.

I really enjoyed using my 1.1mm stub nib (I've measured and it's more like 0.9mm) on the TWSBI but it's a little too broad for me personally as an everyday pen. I find ordinary fine/medium nibs quite bland now! I highly recommend everyone to try a stub nib if you haven't already.

John is very helpful in his email relies but he is very busy. His replies are always detailed and will give you plenty of suggestions.

Edited by Prohibiting on Wednesday 17th May 10:59

[Robbo 27]

Prohibiting said:

I've asked him to grind my M800 nib into a 0.6mm cursive italic with a slight oblique angle to suit my left-handed hook when writing. Can't wait for the results! It'll be an everyday use pen but with the bonus of interesting line variation to give more style and flair.

I really enjoyed using my 1.1mm stub nib (I've measured and it's more like 0.9mm) on the TWSBI but it's a little too broad for me personally as an everyday pen. I find ordinary fine/medium nibs quite bland now! I highly recommend everyone to try a stub nib if you haven't already.

John is very helpful in his email relies but he is very busy. His replies are always detailed and will give you plenty of suggestions.

Edited by Prohibiting on Wednesday 17th May 10:59

That should be a very special pen, probably the best made pen that is bespoke to you.

If ever you want to change the stub nib on the twsbi it is quite an easy job and a number of other nibs will fit, even Jinhao nibs if you didnt want to stay with twsbi.

[SPR2]

[





I was given these three Parker pens today. I think the red one may be a Parker 45 but the other two ?

Edited by SPR2 on Friday 19th May 23:19

[ClockworkCupcake]

SPR2 said:

I was given these three Parker pens today. I think the red one may be a Parker 45 but the other two ?

Top one is definitely a Parker 45. I don't know the other two though, but I'm sure Robbo will.

[AlexC1981]

That last pen looks a bit lethal You've got a Parker 75 and Parker 180 there. You can write on both sides of the nib of the 180 (hence the name). The 45 isn't worth much but the other two are definitely worth taking care of and are quite valuable. Good haul!

[Robbo 27]

Top one is a Parker 45, next is a Parker 75, and then a Parker 180.

Fantastic gift, and all look in superb condition, the 75 is a superbly made pen, very valuable and will be a pleasure to use.

The 180 is very unusual in that it can be used either way up, to give either a medium or a fine nib. This pen was not a commerical success, nothing wrong with it but by this time people were moving away from pens to ballpoints. As a consequence the 180 is now rare and sought after.

If you are going to put them to use I hope you will allow us to give you advice on putting them back into service, propably not much more than a longish soak in some cool water with a drop of detergent, the nibs and finish all look very good ideed.

The nibs on the 180 were probably more technical than the market wanted and must have been difficult to make, the two sides of the nib are shown below, I really wouldnt take this apart, too many bits to be lined up on reassembly.


If the pens need cleaning up I would use nothing more than a soft microfibre cloth. I wouldnt wash the caps just the nib sections although the nib unit on the 45 can be unscrewed to make cleaning very easy.

Let us know how you get on, we like stories like this!

Edited by Robbo 27 on Saturday 20th May 10:08

[ClockworkCupcake]

I've just been googling to try to find some info on a Jinhao pen, and I came across a Reddit post where someone was asking if there was a complete list of Jinhao pens anywhere. This reply amused me:

"Even Jinhao doesn't have a list of all their products. Legend has it that the first man to collect all of Jinhao's pens can summon a dragon and bring on the 7-year apocalypse"



There do seem to be rather a lot don't they!

Incidentally, the reason for my search was to try to identify what model of Jinhao my ceramic body one is. It's definitely not an X450 or X750 as I have examples of those models and can compare them, and the clip and the barrel end cap are both different to those pens.




Edit: The only model description I have been able to find so far is "Chinoiserie Blue and White Vine Ceramic"

Edited by ClockworkCupcake on Saturday 20th May 10:43

[Robbo 27]

ClockworkCupcake said:

I've just been googling to try to find some info on a Jinhao pen, and I came across a Reddit post where someone was asking if there was a complete list of Jinhao pens anywhere. This reply amused me:

"Even Jinhao doesn't have a list of all their products. Legend has it that the first man to collect all of Jinhao's pens can summon a dragon and bring on the 7-year apocalypse"



There do seem to be rather a lot don't they!

Incidentally, the reason for my search was to try to identify what model of Jinhao my ceramic body one is. It's definitely not an X450 or X750 as I have examples of those models and can compare them, and the clip and the barrel end cap are both different to those pens.

Giving a number or name to that pen is going to be a problem, it is not like a 250 pen either.

This finish on a pen must be difficult, coating a brass pen with ceramic material. Still surprises me how little they cost for a complex manufactured product with a very long life, all for cup of coffee money.

I had a Hero 300A that was similar to your Jinhao, I had it delivered to the office about 10 years ago, as I unwrapped the parcel, three people said they wanted to buy it so I let it go,




The coating must make it a cool pen to use in a hot summer.

You are right, a huge number of choices in Jinhao pens, I suppose that with 1bn+ people and perhaps 100m+ schoolchildren all wanting fine nibbed pens and slightly different to their friends then you are going to make many pens and in as many choices as you can.

[ClockworkCupcake]

I thought it might be amusing to list all of my fountain pens, using each one to write its name. It was a good way of making sure they were all inked up and writing. For many they were not only dry but their converter was empty (presumably due to evaporation? Maybe I should keep less-used pens empty rather than filled?)

Anyway, here's the list. You can see why I wanted a model number for the ceramic pen now.

Not on the list is a 3rd Jinhao X750 in plain black, because it is still in its cellophane wrapper and has never been inked up.

[C&C]

Robbo 27 said:

Top one is a Parker 45, next is a Parker 75, and then a Parker 180.

Yes - a bit more info on the 45 here

The 75, I think is one of the French ones - pattern "Godron".
The Parker 75 site has a fair bit of info on the 75 (unsurprisingly) - Reference section is quite comprehensive.
After the Parker 51, I think the 75 is my favourite pen. I seem to have already collected several 75s - well 2 75s and 2 Premiers (which were a 75 variant). They tend to write really really smoothly (well the ones I have do anyway).

As Rob says, the 180 was an unusual pen, and is not that common.
Further info here

Follow Rob's advice on cleaning them. Also there's plenty of advice earlier in this thread too as quite a few people have embarked on the fountain pen journey. Have fun using them, and be careful - you'll end up collecting more if you're not!

[C&C]

While talking about Parker pens....

Whoops!

Although to be fair, I've only got 1 other 61, and that is the old style capillary filler, it's black and is missing the arrow near the nib.

Pics from eBay listing.

1 by conradsphotos, on Flickr

2 by conradsphotos, on Flickr

3 by conradsphotos, on Flickr

[Robbo 27]

Is the nib okay on that 61 C&C, it looks to be a little far forwards, as if its not sitting properly in the section.



They usually sit a bit closer like this.

[C&C]

Robbo 27 said:

Is the nib okay on that 61 C&C, it looks to be a little far forwards, as if its not sitting properly in the section.

Not sure Rob, I'll find out when it gets here (auction ended less than an hour ago) - may need a bit of adjusting or something... I understand that to remove the nib on a capillary filled 61, the capillary filler must be removed first (unscrewed), then the nib can be removed (which is a push fit). Do you know if this is the same for the aero/converter filler?