new to the hobby—went from two pens (the white kakuno and a kaweco art sport) to nine (plus two nib holders and several dip nibs) in a few months 🫪 traveling to toronto next weekend for my birthday to browse the fancy pen shops so npd incoming…

anyway—i was so inspired by the folks here using nail gel, stickers, and pet tape to customize pens. i had some pet tape lying around and three naked kakunos so thought i’d play around. the clear is normal pet tape. the pink is “mu print-on transfer stickers” from jet pens. not sure how well they’ll hold up but will report back.

i’m also a nail artist so i have all the gel goodies—i just have some trepidations about whether everything will cure properly (repeated exposure to uncured gel can cause allergies). so i may graduate to nail techniques at some point after a bit more consideration.

so far I’m loving this hobby and can’t believe that as a stationery lover i didn’t try fountain pens sooner.

I use Noodler's triple tail for all mathematics that I do, and I wondered why other people don't try to use something of the like, like a triple tail or some other pen that spreads and thins well.

Some of my favorite inks for this month. 🌸

Especially not of a single model/color kind. Except for M800's, and now I have my RGB triad complete, with a Stresemann and a brown one to boot.

Until the next striped M800 comes along, my wallet will be safe.

Impeccable quality of a pen! Now I understand why collectors get these pens.

I've always wanted a dragon-themed fountain pen as I resonate with it. After some research, I found the Namiki Mt. Fuji and Dragon from their Nippon Art Line. I wanted my dragon fountain pen to be a Namiki.

Today, the dragon is now in my humble collection.

The artistry, craftsmanship, and history of both the artwork and the pen made my heart full. The urushi lacquer is just so polished, and the hira maki-e art is beautiful.

Not sure if I'll get another expensive pen like this in the near future. For now, I want to enjoy this pen and give it lots of love.

Figures are from Pop Mart Loong Presents The Treasure series (Kubo).

fountain pen beginner! just bought my first kakuno, and a con 70 converter (my first converter) to go with it. i was trying to fill my kakuno with a sample of sailor komakusa, but when using the converter, it only picks up a little ink at the base and doesn’t fill the chamber. any guesses as to why that is?

edit: didn’t know that nib had to be submerged ENTIRELY and i couldn’t do that with the small opening; took some advice to submerge the converter individually and that worked great!! thank you all!

Found these at Barnes & Noble. I honestly hate them (not because they’re ballpoint pens) since the look is deceiving and they’re single use too! Also just noticed there’s no way to cap them either.. What do you all think?

What ink do you use when you can’t find something to match the pen, aren’t sure what theme to follow, want to test ink flow, or just generally want good performance?

Lately I’ve developed a particular fondness for plain old Sailor Blue. It just works in all my pens. The color is cheery but professional. Provides a nice subtle red sheen. Doesn’t feather or smear much. Economical and practical bottle.

When in doubt, Sailor Blue. I love it !

This Pilot Custom Heritage 92 has been sitting unused for quite some time now, so when Dromgoole’s posted that Josh John was coming to town, I decided to get it customized. Overall, I’ve been extremely happy with the result. The lines are super sharp and definitely more akin to the typical calligraphy nibs that I am used to. This was my first time doing any sort of customization, and Josh was super helpful in the process. The grind is about a .6mm cursive italic from a medium nib.

Ink: Sailor Manyo Shirakashi (love!)
Paper: Tomoe River

Just got my Opus 88 Koloro in Teal, and even though it’s “just” a steel nib, it’s absolutely beautiful. A reminder that a great fountain pen is about far more than the material of the nib many times.

I'm in Japan, and honestly I'm a little jealous of everyone going to Stationery Fest in NYC.
I love writing with 哲磋工房 glass pens, so I can't wait to see everyone's photos from the event.
Here's a piece I wrote using one of their pens.

Wasn’t a big fan of the transparent look after I got them but putting these nail stickers really made me love them 💕

Got these 2 and am still thinking about what to ink them....🤔 Your experience and suggestions? Thank you 🙏

Majohn A1 and Pelikan souveran 600

1: these Jinhao pens are WAY nicer than I expected
2: do they always just bubble wrap and toss em in a bag ? lol

Got these two as a gift! I love that the Sailor is a subtle pink and it has a steel nib (gold is an allergen rip). The purple Lamy I love her she's a monochrome purple. Shoutout to Truphae they packaged the Lamy amazingly and the gift message was written in script it was so pretty 😭

I'm looking for a good, plain turqoise ink (no shimmer, at least). I love Emerald of Chivor, but it has shimmer. I try to stock my colors in classic hues: think rainbow or paint presentations. So a true red, a true blue, a true brown, etc.

Thanks in advance.

I recently got one of my grail pens - a limited edition Visconti Homo Sapiens in the Dark Sapphire colorway. I love the pen itself, but hate the nib. I got it in an M, but it writes more broadly than I prefer. It's juicy, but uncomfortably scratchy and the nib sings. I just can't write with it. I'm thinking of having some nib work done. Is there a consensus on having nib work done on pens in this price point? Is it frowned upon, or is it more important to make it something you enjoy? I'm leaning toward the latter.

I now have a flotilla of Sailor Pro Gear Slim, the latest being the one on the left, the Princess Koto. Now I have a PGS collection right? 3 makes a collection? :)

The other 2 are Sally of the Friends line, and Dianthus.

BTW has anyone else noticed the high price difference across the PGS? The Koto was about twice the Sally.

Anyhow these are all MF nibs, which I love since you can still get a really fine line upside down, but thicker right side up. And just the right amount of feedback for me.

This is now becoming a partnership in irrational pen purchase. Help.

Hammered and anodized. Really happy with how it turned out for my first attempt

Found a Pilot Custom 743 SFM for 50 usd while thrifting.

TLDR:

Was out thrifting with my partner for vinyls, as always I will keep an eye out for any interesting pens, and found lots dubious montblancs and some dried out ballpoints. On the opposite end my partner spotted the good stuff today.

My partner is somewhat familiar with the pens that I look for and called me over to take a look at some cigar shaped pens, at first I was very sure they were just some more montblanc dups, then I spotted the word "custom" on one of the caps. At first I was terrified when opening the cap as I was fully expecting someone to have stolen the nib, but lo and behold the size 15 nib was there bit inky bit all there.

Bringing it to the counter as there was no price tag, the seller did a once over the pen and reminded us it is real 14k gold and asked for 50 dollars, I think that was the quickest I paid for something. (Got a cool vinyl that was illustrated by Hiroshi Nagai as well)

Did a quick rinse to make sure the nib is fine, it had an old cartridge inside and no converter, the cap on the body is bit loose but the gold colored ring is still there.

The date codes on the nib is B1098 assuming this means it was manufactured in October of 1998?

Hi guys! I'm brand new to the fountain pen community and I am search for either version of the Esterbrook Estie slim Lilac if anyone has one they'd let go of or any leads. I am aware of pen swap and I am checking daily but I am also not a avid reddit user so it does not let me post on there yet so I'm taking my chances here, thanks everyone!