Search the Community

Hi Guys. I have been into fountain pens for a while now, but I hadn't bought any expensive pens until now. My collection mainly consisted of TWSBIs which I have been very happy with. I worked really hard this year for my 2nd-year exams, and I worked pretty hard over the summer in an internship so I decided I would reward myself with my first "expensive pen". I decided on the Pelikan M805 Stresemann for a couple of reasons. 1 - It looks brilliant. I really like the look of the grey stripes down the barrel. I haven't seen a pen that I like the look of so much. 2 - I had heard that Pelikan nibs are some of the best nibs around and write brilliantly out of the box. However, I opened up my new pen this morning and sadly I have never been so disappointed with a purchase. As I was opening the pen it was somewhat clear that I had been sent a pen that was previously a return. For example, the little plastic bag that the pen comes in was all screwed up. (I bought this pen from cultpens in the UK by the way). Now I'm wondering if someone else had a bad experience of this pen, sent it back, and now I've ended up with it. On the barrel, it appears that one of the grey stripes is missing. There appears to be a dark gap where it is missing. I have tried to get a picture of this but it is quite difficult to pick it up on camera! This is something that wouldn't bother me in the slightest on a much cheaper pen, but at £300 I'm not impressed by this. I decided to forget all this as the writing experience is the most important thing. So I inked up the pen with some Iroshizuku Ku-Jaku and began to write with it. The writing experience is extremely disappointing! It's almost as if I am writing with a different pen to that of the reviewers online. The nib is very dry, and not smooth at all. Also, it feels very stiff which I was surprised by as a lot of people say the Pelikan nibs have some spring to them. I grabbed my TWSBI Eco to compare the writing experience, and the eco is the clear winner. Smoother and wetter, at less than a tenth of the cost. A lot of people say that the Pelikan nibs are quite broad. For example, the medium M805 nib in the pen habits review looked more like a broad or even a double broad. So I decided I would go with a fine nib as opposed to the medium nib I usually go for. So I'm wondering, would you guys recommend returning the pen and swapping it for the same pen with a medium nib? Or do you think I would be better getting a refund and buying a different pen altogether? If you think there is a better alternative pen out there I would appreciate any recommendations - I'm looking for a pen with a really wet and smooth nib for the best writing experience possible. Around £300 or less.

I have spent the last few weeks trying to find the perfect set of greens for drawing and coloring (the amount of variation in natural color is endless 0_0 Four is barely enough, lol) I finaly chose my two lighter-end greens-- Diamine Jade Green and Light Green-- but I'm having trouble on the mid-level and the darkest. I finally settled, after testing about 15 greens, on De Atramentis Cucumber...buttttt... it's scented and comes in a tiny bottle I will constantly be re-ordering The mid-level green, whatever I choose, will get the most use, so a larger bottle would be preferable, and a non-scented ink, even more so Anyone have some suggestions? Shading is nice, but not necessarily necessary; I just want something close shade-wise that will go well with my other two greens (and if you want to suggest a darker green for my fourth, go right ahead I haven't been very successful there yet...)

I went to Jetpens to reorder a kokuyo inspiracion (my favorite notebook to use as a refill for the lihit lab twist rings system) and to my horror they don't stock it anymore!! I couldn't even find it on Rakuten, so I suspect it may have been discontinued So now I need your help to replace it! For the general info, here's the old description on Jetpens. And here are the parts that mattered to me: - page size and hole pattern: they're identical to the lihit lab twist ring system (a 3:1 pitch, for binding geeks). This is a must-have - without this there's no point - color and page layout: off-white (cream and ivory would be ok too, just no bright-white), 5mm grid type, but faint (fine and light in color) so it organizes the page without overwhelming the writing. Please, no dot pads - I know many people love them and are excited to recommend them, but I really don't get along with them and would be grateful if you could help me avoid the confusion of having to sort dot-pad recommendations from grid ones :-) - available from a retailer with sane int'l shipping. The inspiracion also had microperforated pages, but since the Lihit is a binder system that's not critical (the neat edge was nice to have when I wanted to give someone a page, but I wouldn't sacrifice the other stuff for microperf'ed pages ) I also liked that the grid pattern extended to cover the whole page, no margins. But I can live with a frame/box style grid, as long as otherwise there's nothing to prevent me from using it in both portrait and landscape mode ) Can you guys think of anything that fits the bill? Or alternatively, just a good place to buy Inspiracion notebooks? At this point I could even stock up and buy several, which should make the shipping situation a bit easier hopefully! thanks!!