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Purely THEORETICAL, but here are the rules: 1. Limited to 10 bottles MAX. 2. Can be any combination of ink and bottles as long as it pertains to rule #1. 3. DO NOT PANIC... this is not real. If you had to take or save only 10 bottles of ink, what would they be? These are the inks that you absolutely cannot live without and need to be pried from your cold, inky fingers. You can choose to take 10 bottles of the same ink or you can have 2 bottles of one ink and 3 bottles of another so long as the final result adds up to 10 bottles total. You may also opt to take one bottle of several different inks. Whatever the choice, let us know.

I teach college chemistry, so there is a lot of grading to be done. There are many pens at home, including a big vintage sheaffer collection, but those are not in rotation. In the flock are: A marble green m200 with M and an extra R. Binder cursive italic nib (rarely used). A blue-o-blue m800 with an IB nib, filled with blue pelikan ink (the sign official stuff pen). A red m800 with a F and an extra EF nib, filled with brown pelikan ink for general writing and grading. (a nice ink, BTW) A red d800 pencil for all things pencillish, including filling in bubble sheet keys, crosswords and kenken puzzles. I love the m800's because they are the perfect weight for my hand. The pencil is sublime. The blue-o-blue, the red pen, and pencil live in a leather case in my purse all the time. I somewhat prefer to color code my pens to the ink. I am getting meaner as I get older, and am considering shifting to bloody screaming red ink in the red pen for grading. This leads me to needing another pelikan m800- one for general writing. Of course I might also eventually need a new matching pencil, since the general writing pencil must match the general writing pen. Choices are, of course: Green : Love the green stripes. They scream Pelikan. Problem is that I would eventually be tempted to fill it with green ink. And only crazy people write letters in green ink. I do not know whether I am more concerned about the perception, or the danger of falling into madness from the green ink. Black : So elegant, but looks like every high class black pen out there. So, "Erm, no, it's not a Mont Blanc" or Blue. Darling, but I already have a blue pelikan. I could buy it a nibless pen body from RB, since I have a spare nib. Weigh in, my friends!

After saving some money and wondering what fountain pen to get for it I decided to get me a nice Lamy 2000. I had read loads of good things about this pen and finally went into town to buy one. At the shop they had a whole bunch of Lamy pens and several 2000s. I could test them all and found that the Lamy 2000 sure is a nice fountain pen but not for me. The little ears that hold the cap in place disturb me and make the pen uncomfortable to hold and write with. I wanted to get a fountain pen with a gold nib at a reasonable price. A pen that would last long under heavy use. So I looked at the other Lamy models they had. There was the rather heavy Studio with the grip section that seemed to get slippery when wet on hot summer days. And the CP1 Platinum that looked great but had this step behind the grip section that made it uncomfortable, too. Then another pen caught my eye. It was an early Lamy accent with a convex grip section made from briarwood that was matte and not lacquered like on the newer, "brilliant" accent models. The nib was a fully rhodinized Z50 gold nib with roughed-up sides to fit to the rest of the pen. It was a medium nib that wrote more like a fine nib. Quite smooth and springy with a little bit of edge. It felt quite different from the Lamy gold nibs I had tried out in the Lamy 2Ks and Studio and CP1. Those were buttery smooth and kinda felt all the same to me. The Lamy accent`s wooden grip section felt good and soft and warm in the hand. There were no steps or ears in the way. I bought the accent and a fitting Z25 converter for it. I have filled it with Standardgraph corn yellow which is a shameless copy of Pelikan Edelstein amber for half the price. The springyness of the nib results in a very nice shadowing of the ink and some nice line variation of my writing, drawing and doodling. The slight edgy-ness effectfully prevents the nib from slipping away on smoother paper so my handwriting doesn`t become illegible. The thick grip section of the Lamy accent has one big advantage compared to thinner grip sections: grip it in a relaxed manner and you can`t get any cramps while writing for longer periods of time. I`m completely satisfied with this fountain pen. It is my first pen with a gold nib and I like that it has a fully rhodinized one which to me looks better than the modern twotone nibs. I also have compared this nib to a few of the Lamy steel nibs and must say that despite they basically look the same there is quite a difference between them. The steel nibs are stiffer and don`t respond that well to the tiny changes in writing pressure one does constantly. That doesn`t mean they are bad in any way, just different. What I also like about the accent is that it is so easy to clean when you want to change ink colours. After flushing it for a minute it is free from ink and ready to be filled again. I also like the screw-in type converter that sits securely tightened inside the pen body. I have never seen a converter like this before. Many converters can get loosened inside the pen when the pen is transported which results in an inky mess. IMHO this Lamy accent has a design that is fully thought through. It is a strong follower of the "Form follows Function" philosophy most of Lamy`s products are based on. I`m happy to have found a hassle-free, no-nonsense fountain pen that sure will be a good workhorse for me.