Search the Community

Hello, I just bought some pens, paper and inks from Gouletpens and paid a very expensive shipping to Mexico, but now I am afraid that my package may be retained at customs for containing inks and sent back. So, I wanted to know if anybody has experience buying inks from US to Mexico and if you have encountered problems with customs in doing so. Thanks a lot in advance for your help. I hope my package reaches me without problems. It would be very sad and disappointing to not get my products after paying those shipping prices. :/

I am new to the fountain pen community, and I have only purchased one pen before, the Jinhao x750. I bought this pen on gouletpens.com, seeing their YouTube videos and other people buying from them made me decide they were a trustworthy retailer. I am looking for a Parker Vector for my next pen. However, gouletpen.com does not carry Parker pens, I cannot find any Parker Vectors on the Parker website, and there are none at my local office supply stores. What is a trustworthy retailer I can buy the Parker Vector from?

Good day FPN, This event literally just happened a few minutes ago and I wanted to recount the details. Before I go further, I will say at the very beginning that the issues occurred in transit after leaving Goulet, this is a review of their customer service in dealing with such an incident. I'm also not affiliated with Goulet Pens in any way other than a customer who spends way too much on fountain pen supplies, but that's all of us right? So I've been ordering from Goulet Pens for a pretty long time, since before the Noodler's Ahab came out, and I've made more than a couple of orders so I know their shipping habits by now. Over the weekend I ordered a shiny new TWSBI Diamond 580 in Rose Gold (buy one here, if you like), as usual I got my shipping confirmation from Goulet first thing Monday morning when they opened. The first odd thing I noticed is USPS tracking said the item would take several days to be delivered, I live about 1.5-2 hours north of their office (in the DC area) so I'm used to my packages from them arriving within 24 hours even with regular shipping. No big deal, something must be going on with the post office. The day of delivery (according to the tracking number) arrives, and the pen does not. I check the tracking number again after receiving the rest of my mail, and see they misrouted my package to the wrong city; again, post office issue. The next day they've sent it where it needs to go and this is where things go from curiously irritating to bad. My box arrives and I open it up to find... nothing. The TWSBI box inside has the plastic case with the wrench and the booklet (you know the one I mean), but no pen. I was as crestfallen as a child without a puppy: http://i.imgur.com/W2l2zEC.jpg So I contacted Goulet Pens with a few pictures, and this is where the review starts. In less than 5 minutes I received two emails; one was an order confirmation for a replacement, the other was an email from Jeremy in customer service expressing his concern and he wanted to know more about the situation. I was also contacted by Jessica (who is a personal friend of my girlfriend, so we met each other quite recently) who recognized the order immediately. Between the three of us we discussed the state of the package, the outer box was banged up and retaped where torn, the TWSBI booklet was loose inside, there was no bubblewrap or cellophane (anyone who orders from Goulet understands this is a red flag), the TWSBI box itself was torn and taped over, and the TWSBI casing was missing tape on one side. We very quickly determined that something must have happened with the postal service, which I would not say is Goulet staff saying "oh it isn't our problem", this is a conclusion which I came to on my own from my personal inspection and past experiences and I fully believe the problem happened during transit: http://i.imgur.com/Khx5dSy.jpg http://i.imgur.com/7eMa8oI.jpg At this point, they've already packed my replacement, they even made sure the pen was inside the package and sent me a photo of it. If it arrives without my pen again, of course I must challenge USPS to a duel. I'm confident in my abilities, I'm a trained rapier fencer and a biter. I can't express enough the atmosphere of this company, it was a very human experience, no form letters or customer service templates, the interest and concern was sincere, you aren't getting the "jaded customer service rep punching a timecard" from Goulet Pens. This is also the only bad experience I've had while ordering from them, and clearly at no fault of their own. I'm preaching to the choir here for veteran Goulet customers, but this sort of personal touch is what put Brian and Rachel Goulet on the map in the first place; I think it's important to recognize that in 8 years since the company started, that core value has not changed. Goulet Pens has expanded and evolved over the years quite a bit, however they are no less personal and organic than when they were shipping out of their garage. I don't think that will ever change, because it's deeply ingrained into the company culture. I hope that the US Postal Service can do something to mitigate the damage, but regardless I am sad that this incident may have caused them a loss of profit because of the lost merchandise, that being said I appreciate them taking care of me so throughly and quickly. I can only hope that this testimonial will steer more business towards them in the future, and the potential customer base will outweigh the cost of one misappropriated package. A big thanks to Jeremy and Jessica at The Goulet Pen Company for giving 120% to taking care of the issue! Cheers.

Brian Goulet just made an awesome video on "Back to School", a guide for using fountain pens in school. It's something that I've been looking for and this summer I just got into fountain pens. The video is very informative. http://www.inknouveau.com/2014/08/fp101-back-to-school-shopping.html One thing I want to point out, everyone says that if you write in cursive it will improve your memory because you have to concentrate more on what you're writing, I disagree with this. I write everything in cursive and I have done so for years now, so writing in cursive is effortless for me, no it's not gorgeous, but I do not concentrate very hard on this. The concept is that you have to be concentrating harder, the study was also conducted with people who don't normally write in cursive. So if you're like me and write in cursive all the time, switch to writing in print, I find I concentrate harder when doing so and I remember things better when I switch to print because I'm not used to forming the letters in print. I could be entirely wrong here so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong I don't mind. =) Also, today I picked up four cheap Composition notebooks from Wal-Mart. Three were made in Brazil, the other was made in Vietnam.....Holy....Cow. I am shocked at the differences. The one from Vietnam threhad more tooth and wasn't smooth, it was more absorbent and feathered badly. The three from Brazil feathered VERY little, and there was hardly any bleed through. Like none. A few spots here and there from where I started the stroke or ended it. The paper was very smooth, more tooth than Rhodia, but still very smooth. The pens stayed truer to their marked size. I wrote with three pens. 1. Monteverde Impressa with Fine nib, the ink was Diamine Ancient Copper 2. Noodler's Ahab with flex nib, the ink was Diamine Ancient Copper 3. Pilot Metropolitan with M nib, the ink was Diamine Grey The Grey had the overall least amount of bleed through. These notebooks were on sale for $.50! I did find several ones made in Brazil that had more tooth to them, I didn't purchase them so I don't know how they perform, the three from Brazil that I bought had very smooth paper. So be aware, it seems as if even the ones from Brazil aren't made as consistently as one might think.

I'm looking at purchasing an Edison bulb filler second hand and I don't care for the nib size. I'm wondering if I can change the nib with one of the new Goulet nibs, or a similar #6 nib. Note- I won't be changing the feed, just the nib if possible. Anyone know? Thanks for the help!

Hey, just wanted to let everyone know that we now have the new limited edition Lamy Al-Star Black in stock at Goulet Pens. Matte black with black clip.... gotta get a black nib to match. While I'm posting, I should probably mention that we've got a lot of other great new products and specials going on right now. Just a few highlights of some recent happenings: We received some Noodler's Ebonite Konrad Flex Pens. We still have good quantities of two colors available right now.We have the new Monteverde Intima fountain pen. Four bright, bold colors with the swappable Monteverde #6 nib.We developed our own line of pen tuning/smoothing tools (loupe, micro-mesh, mylar paper, and brass sheets). We also have our own Goulet Pen Flush!Tons of great deals are still available in our Goulet Outlét - check out the Closeouts and Sale Items pages to see what's happening.Feel free to contact us with any questions!