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I was discussing pens this afternoon with my fiancée, and she was quite taken with the colour of the 2016 Lamy Safari. It got me thinking that she has even more need for a reliable writer than I do given her job (she works in tertiary education), and when we got to discussing fountain pens she confessed that she has never used one before. I was wondering what brands and models FPN would recommend for a first time FP user at around and under $100 US? As low maintenance as possible, and cartridges over converters with a decent array of colours available. As a geek she's not afraid to tinker when required, but I'm guessing she would much rather not have to mess about with filling from an ink bottle, especially with two cats who like to get underfoot. The kind of pen that would be forgiving of being carried in a pocket or accidentally dropped (cap on) once in a while. Design is also an important aspect. She likes some modern designs, but she absolutely loves art nouveau, flowing organic curves, bold colours, that kind of thing. I would straight up recommend the Safari or Al Star, but I'm wondering if anyone has any other suggestions.

I have enjoyed writing and collecting FP's since my arithmatic teacher in 4th grade. insisted that her class use a FP. Only in the past year have started some serious purchases like Nakaya . When I lived in the US I used to pick up parker 51's at antique fairs and only recently I had them refurbished with new sacs and stub nibs. When I came across Ariel kullock's oversize 51 I was blown away as I had always wished for the regular 51 to be a little fatter and bigger. I recently purchased 2 oversize Parkers with custom designed caps from Ariel I look forward to sharing info with other FP enthusiasts luigi

I've had this green acrylic sitting around for a while, and an Aristocrat fountain pen kit. So I combined the two on my Harbor Freight lathe and came up with this: Next I'll have to try a kitless, about how many 4 1/2 inch blanks does it take to make a kitless?

this is my first attempt at improving my handwriting. to do this i found an image on the forum page named 'depository of handwriting and calligraphy styles and discussion' and just tried to imitate it. iv only done a single page of the letter 'a'. this probably isn't a long enough time period to show thorough improvement but if you could tell me i'm going into the correct direction. One thing i was asking myself while doing this tonight was 'how necessary is the small tip of the letter is?' what i'm using- Rhodia A4 graph paper (5x5 squares) TWISBI Diamond 580 (M) Diamine Aqua Blue ink Sorry about the pictures being sideways. ill know for next time. beginning end of page

After lurking around these parts, I finally took the inky plunge bought a flex pen, an Ackermann Pump pen with a Gillot 303 nib because it was pretty cheap for the amount of flex it seemed to offer, and I can always bum a few nibs off my school if need be. After a literal month of anticipation, it finally arrived and this was the result: This seems to be my natural hand if I write slowly, I quite like the rhythm it gets going once you start writing it Bad attempt at copying out some script from the internet Some rambling bs, was just looking for some excuse to write So what do you (vous) think? (I borrowed the ink from school, some concoction of purple and black)