I've Sinned Terribly...

God help me, I was innocently cruising around the internet not two hours ago, when I saw it. "It" is a Nakaya Piccolo Blackish Red Tamenuri fountain pen with a 14K Extra Fine nib! I wrote about here, and I was going to get the Nakaya next year, but when opportunity knocks...!

Anyway, it will be here via FedEx in a couple of days - joy!

*Happy Dance*

So, I've sinned terribly by buying the Nakaya not three weeks after my Aurora, but what the hell - you're a long time dead. :)

Pilot MYU / Redipoint

My bargain Pilot MYU 701 arrived the other day and the engraving is so faint you can barely see it! Just as I'd hoped... :) It took all day to clean the old ink out - and I'm sure Black ink is still working it's way through - but it's a sweet, sweet writer. I had it at work today and it performed great.

Also, my vintage, rolled-gold Redipoint pen arrived today. It's a very handsome pen, and the condition is very, very good. However, the nib is not a superflex by any means (more a semi-flex), and there are one or two small dings. Overall though, it sure is a neat little pen.

Inky Fingers

Yesterday my FPN ink arrived. :)

I was a bit surprised by the packing method (newspaper in a cardboard box), and as I lifted the third bottle out of the box I saw a suspicious red smudge on the bottom of the box. The bottle had cracked, and was slowly leaching its contents all over the place. I couldn't find an empty ink bottle for the life of me, so I poured the whole thing into a zip lock bag. Probably not the best solution, but oh well.

Since two of the bottles were for friends, I don't actually have a bottle of FPN ink now - I do have a bag of ink (which looks freakishly like a bag of blood), and I have a bottle with ink stains all over its beautiful label. I don't know what to think of the ink, it very much reminds me of timber stain and has an odd opaqueness to it. I think it's all good though. I put it in my Pilot MYU. It writes very well and the colour is also really nice - very much a rusted red-brown.

I have enquired about the broken bottle, but don't really expect to hear anything. Sigh. Guess I had to run out of good fountain pen luck eventually.

Esterbrooks!

I snapped a pretty picture of a couple of my Esterbrooks this afternoon:


The Red J is the newest member of the family, and was very kindly traded from JimG. The condition is fabulous.

I have no idea why I ignored Esterbrooks for so long... I guess the colours didn't appeal at the time. Now that I know how great the SJ size is, I can't believe I went without one for so long. :)

Mini Optima!

It arrived yesterday and I love it! The colour is just gorgeous!

Happy, happy, happy!

See my FPN Review for more information.

Ooo... Shiny Gold

This morning, like the true fountain pen addict I am, as I was checking out posts on FPN a few minutes after having woken up, I FINALLY got a pretty rolled-gold flexible-nibbed pen from The Marketplace.


Usually I miss out on good pen deals because the board is most active while I'm sleeping, but today I saw a post made within minutes of my logging on. It is a Redipoint advertising pen - the price was good, the nib is superb (fully flexible extra-fine to extra-broad) and the condition is stellar. I was so excited I could barely type the PM and email to say I wanted the pen! (I'm pathetically obsessed, I know. ;)

Another Pilot MYU

Picked up a second gorgeous Pilot MYU 701 today. Condition isn't the best, but it will do for everyday use while my other pristine one stays safe in the collection. :)

Finally - Aurora Optima Mini

Yesterday I purchased the very pretty Bordeaux Auroloide Optima Mini fountain pen with EF nib! The price had been the lowest I had seen for some time, and I decided to put my Nakaya off until next year. (The fact that the Aurora was half the price of the Nakaya was important too. :)

Just before I began writing this post, I was checking out the WorldLux site when I noticed they had an Aurora Clearance Sale. My heart began to thump very slowly. As I clicked the link, I thought maybe I should just close the browser window as I would be better off not knowing how much cheaper the pen was compared to what I had just paid. When I saw the price, my relief was audible - it was $5 more than what I had paid.


When I see the pen - and I may see it by Friday - I will have to decide what ink to use for the first filling. The current contenders are Parker Penman Ruby or Private Reserve Burgundy Mist; however, I am concerned about the Optima’s ink-view window. I don't want one of these heavily-saturated red dye inks to stain the clear resin, although the chance of this actually happening is pretty slim.

Vintage Pen Sadness

A lovely Green Esterbrook Dollar Pen arrived this week, and I was very excited. However, the ‘rare’ 2314-M nib is annoyingly large, and the section has a crack - which I discovered after I inked it. Of course.

The last two vintage pens I have bought have been very disappointing. I should really be saving my money toward the Nakaya instead, which if it ever breaks; it's someone else’s problem which I don't have to pay for!

In addition, I sent my Fiesta Red Snorkel away for a service recently, and it came back filthy! I didn’t even think it was my pen – I thought the barrel had been swapped! So very disappointing and unnecessary. It’s too much trouble to wipe down a pen after you work on it? Sheesh.

As someone who cannot repair fountain pens, this is when collecting vintage stuff really bites.

Nakaya Pens

In my endless pursuit of super-fine nibs, I have looked several times at Nakaya pens. Their selection certainly is tempting, especially since the Danitrio Urushi pens I want are not available with EF nibs.

Hmm... a Nakaya Piccolo may be my Christmas present.

Huh.

I received my ring top from Pendemonium yesterday, and it's pretty disappointing. "Very Good Condition" obviously means a 15% brassed lever, a 95% brassed ribbon ring, and 25% brassed cap rings. The nib is also useless - badly re-tipped with the majority of the tipping ball on the end of one tine. Unusable.

On a brighter note, in the same package was my long-awaited bottle of Stipula 'Moss Green' ink, which I love. The bottle is beautifully boxed and quite large in size at 70ml. I'm really happy with this ink - wonderful and super-smooth flow, terrific shading, and as it is not heavily saturated it has very good drying time.

Noodler's Russian Eternal Inks

There are some quite exciting new Noodler's inks on the Pendemonium website of late, especially the Russian Eternal collection colours, of which I have already ordered four. Currently my Pendemonium order looks like this:

- Diamine Umber
- PR Burgundy Mist
- R&K Morinda
- R&K Fernambuk
- Noodler's Russian Pushkin
- Noodler's Russian Dostoevsky
- Noodler's Russian Tolstoy
- Noodler's Russian Rachmaninov

Maybe I will also get Akhmatova if I find out a little more about the colour.

I am really looking forward to these inks, especially Pushkin! :)