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Hello, fountain pen network! I have been interested in Fountain Pens for around a year now and have decided to join the forums. The pens I have/ have used include: Pilot Varsity Panache Caligraphy Pen Lamy Safari And my most recent, the Monteverde Invincia (stealth black). It will be a pleasure to talk in further detail! -Nick

Hi everyone, I'm a student (studying Mathematical Physics) living in Nottingham, England. I got into pens about 6 months ago when I was sorting through a deceased family member's things and was given a load of Platignums, a couple of Parkers and a Sheaffer. After cleaning them and using them in classes I was hooked. I won't have the money to buy any extremely fancy pens any time soon, but I'm really enjoying the pens I was given, and a few Jinhao/Hero pens I subsequently found on eBay. As an absolute novice, I look forward to learning a lot here. Regards, Matt

Hello FPN, I'm happy to join this community. I mainly use dip pens for drawing. My recent favorite nib is Gillott 404. I would be appreciate it if you could direct me to good threads about drawing nibs and inks.

Hello all! Greetings from Sydney, Australia. I have been learning and will continue to learn about fountain pens via this lovely community. Everyone is supportive and has very good things to say! Thank you! According to http://www.melbpenshow.com.au/Ant&Art_page.pdf: "Australia has a small ‘pen population’. Fountain pen use in the UK and US equates to one in 25 to 30 of adult population. In Australia, fountain pen use equates to one in 120 of adult population. As a consequence, Australia has the smallest number of specialty pen retailers per capita, in the world. What follows is that Australians are not the modern pen manufacturers’ best friend!" It is nice to know that there is a global community of fountain pen enthusiasts. I'm aiming to get myself to the Melbourne Pen Show. Fingers crossed! This newbie thanks you all!

Hello everyone, my name is Patrick Coday form Springfield, Missouri. I'm a college student at Missouri University of Science and Technology so I don't have an abundance of money for pens/inks but I have a rather small collection. So far I have a Yellow Lami Safari, a couple of Platinum Preppys, an Aldo Domani (twas a gift and I'm unable to find the name anywhere), and I'm in the works of purchasing a TWSBI 580 As far as inks go I've gone with noodlers for everything cause money. I have Apache Sunset, Bernake Blue, X-Feather, and lightning blue.

Hello everyone, I am completely new to this forum and the world of Fountain Pens. First let me introduce myself; I am Dalimar. I come from the frigidly cold lands of Canada. I live in the GTA area of Southern Ontario. I am 49 years old, but with how cold this past winter has been and the lingering chill during the last few weeks I sometimes feel much older I am very new to this world of Pens. I only just received my first fountains pens today from Goulet Pens. I must say, I am very impressed with the excellent level of service and professionalism of the Goulet Pen Company. Everything was brilliantly packaged and arrived in a safe and timely fashion. Even with Canada's notoriously slow customs clearance. My first pens are; Lamy Al-Star Limited Edition Matt Black EF Black (bought last week from Laywine's Toronto, all others from Goulet Pen)Lamy Safari Carbon Black EF BlackTWSBI Diamond 580 EFMy first inks are: J. Herbin Terre de FeuJ. Herbin Lie de TheJ. Herbin Poussiere de LuneDiamine Ancient CopperNoodler's Sequoia GreenI did order the Lamy Al-Star with a Medium nib, but I found that the nib was a bit broad for my style of writing so switched it to an EF. I have been impressed with the inks and pens so far. I do find the Sequoia Green to be a bit of a wet ink though, but I was sort of expecting this from everything I have read regarding Noodler's inks. Many say that they can be a bit wet, specially with greens and orange/browns. The Lamy's are wonderful. I just love how these pens write. The TWSBI is going to take me a little to get used to. It writes a bit more fluid/wet then the Lamy and the balance of the pen takes a bit to "get". What drew me to the world of Fountain Pens is the ink. I am a Journalist. I have been keeping a journal since I was about 14. A counselor from grade school recommended to me to keep a journal as a form of therapy. I scream, complain, whine, beg, pray and poor my heart out to my journal. It really does help to get that all out of one's system if only on paper. In keeping this journal I like to use colour to express my mood. With standard pens you don't have a lot of colour choice in quality pens. Sure you can use gel-rollerballs that come in a huge variety of colour, but most of these are of very poor writing quality. I had been using Sakura Microns to add some colour but they were never designed for writing as they are designed for fine lined art. They are also solvent based markers and come with all the issues associated with that type of pen. While researching Midori Traveller's Notebooks on YouTube I discovered Brian Goulet's wonderful video reviews and Q&A's. These lead me to placing an order for pens and ink and have brought me here to the Fountain Pen Network to learn more and share with like minded. I do have one question to start off a conversation: How do you keep track of what ink you have loaded in what pen? Do you keep some sort of journal/index of currently inked pens? This is what I have started right from the get go with the above pens. Once I finished playing around with my new setups, I loaded my three pens with what I would like to explore for the next week or so and recorded what was in what pen into the back of my journal. I would love to hear how others keep track of what they currently have loaded in their pens. Thanks, Dalimar

Hi! I'm new. I've been mostly lurking on the FPN group on FB for a while, and decided to take the plunge today and create an account. Right now I'm in posession of a single Platinum Plaisir with converter, and have inked it up with several different samples that I bought with it. Favorite inks so far: Noodler's Liberty's Elysium R & K Scabiosa Not so favorite: Diamine Ancient Copper. It looks like dried blood. Yuck.

Hi everyone! I came across FPN a year or two ago and thought it was interesting, because I've always liked fountain pens but I've never written with them until recently. I've been trying my hand here and there and decided to get back into it today, and started tracking down the fountain pens I have. The thing that has kept me away was mainly that I am left handed, and that I was confusing calligraphy pens with fountain pens but I think I have that settled now I received a nice pen set from my Mom a few years ago that had two pens: one thick and one thin with gold plating on the outside. The thin one is sitting right here and it has the word SIGMA embossed on the edge of the barrel but I doubt it is a real SIGMA. I can't seem to open it and the ink may have dried. I also have a Platinum Preppy Pen (03) sitting here and while it is nice, it seems to bleed through all the papers I have, but I'm willing to keep trying. I've always prided myself on my handwriting and wanted to get in to calligraphy. I totally spent most of the day at work reading articles on penmanship and styles of cursive! I have a few pens laying around somewhere that I have to find but nothing impressive that other people seem to be posting. I have a tendancy to move from interest to interest but writing/calligraphy is something that I always come back to (and most things design related) so maybe I can make a home here for a little while. I saw some other threads where people were posting their samples, but I haven't seen any here, so I'll just link to one: http://flic.kr/p/i3aMrZ which you can view if you want. Looking forward to finding my way around this site. I have a cool business card from an amazing pen shop in Toronto and as soon as I find it I'll post something about it in the right forum if appropriate. All the best!

Hi! My name is Tom, I'm a student from the United Kingdom, currently studying maths, further maths, physics and chemistry! This isn't my first post, as i have only just came across this section, so just thought id introduce myself anyway! Although only being 17, I've always had a passion for pens, ever since my mum bought her first cross rollerball, and showed me her old calligraphy equipment, some good 10 years ago. Id just like to say hello and hopefully i will be speaking to many of you in the near future. Many Thanks, Tom