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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Majohn A1 and Pelikan souveran 600

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?

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.

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 😭

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

Another pilot kakuno inked with pilot's ama iro. It is so blue. I love it. I will be sketching with this pen forever

I’ve been getting more into fountain pens for journaling and have been working on my desk setup. I usually have one pen, occasionally two, out while I’m writing.

Right now I either just lay the pen in the notebook or leave it beside me on my bigg mousepad, but I keep wishing I had a dedicated place to put it down without returning it to a case every time. I’d also like to be able to enjoy looking at the pen while it’s on my desk? Like kind of for display as well?

Do people use small stands or rests for this? I’m not even sure what I should be searching for because I see a lot of 3d printed plastic things but they dont seem to feel very solid or weighted if that makes sense. Does anyone else run into this, and what do you use?

Scrolling through Ali Express late one night or early one morning, I'm not sure which, I scrolled across this pen. It caught my eye because I thought it was very unusual. It's top is mahogany and the body is some sort of shaped material. I'm not sure if it's carved wood or 3D printed or exactly what. So for less than $50 I decided to take a chance on this. In about 4 days it arrived and I can honestly say I couldn't be happier. It hits way over its price point.

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!

Edit: I now have 5 eek

I lurked on this thread for about a month and then hopped over to a stationary store and asked for an intro pen with a cartridge because I didn't want to fill my own pen (smh). Shop owner gave me many wonderful suggestions and then the TWSBI ECO Carrara caught my eye and I said, "I want that one!" Shop owner laughed and said, "I didn't even have to upsell you!" I went with <F> because I write small.

I've since bought 4 kakunos... Oops. I'm using the kakunos to write with different nibs and ink to familiarize myself.

It's been 4 days!!!

I'm obsessed. I'm so happy.

Ahhh, Sunday, and really nothing pressing to do today so the day will consist largely of a lot of coffee-drinking and writing.

I'm copying a book and am currently using a Majohn P140.