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Hey everyone! Thanks to the success of my post asking about your favorite pens for less than $200 I've come very close to deciding on which pen I want. Two pens in my top three are from that list and the third is above budget but looks really nice. My current picks are: Sailor 1911L in black and silverLamy 2000Pelikan M605 Transparent whiteI've had a chance to hold all three of these pens in person after a nice day trip to Toronto. Out of those three my two favorites are the Lamy 2000 and the Pelikan M605. I do really like the Sailor 1911L but its boring and a fingerprint magnet, it also feels very warm to hold. It's about the size I like if a touch small. The Lamy 2000 is a very nice writer and large which fits my hands rather well. The price is right for it and its a piston filler which is never a downside, the aluminum grip is also cool in my hand which makes me like it more. However its not very unique being basically a rite of passage in the FPN community. The pen is also perfectly sized. The Pelikan M605 in Transparent White is gorgeous, $278 on Amazon (not prime and only in Medium) and the one I've had the least experience with. The one I held while I was at the pen store actually had a bad nib which combined with the price tag of $460 Canadian made me initially set it aside as an option. It also would be a bit wet and the medium nib would be more similar to a broad when compared to other brands which wouldn't make it ideal for my purposes as a daily writer but every time I look at a picture of it I immediately want one. It pushes my barrier on price, may stain, would be a broader than I might want, and is absolutely lovely. The pen is also a touch small but still feels nice in my hand. I'm really torn. I want a reliable daily writer for notes in class and recreational writing at home and the Lamy 2000 is a no-brainier for that yet I just don't feel compelled to buy it. Any advice? Also if my request wasn't convoluted enough anyone have a recommendation of a dark purple ink?

Yesterday a box arrived bearing my new Pilot Custom 74 with a soft fine nib. I feel like I already know this pen to a certain extent since it is an exact replacement for one that was stolen, but I am still faced with a conundrum: which ink do I use to welcome it into the collection? My own process involves determining the pen's vibe and finding an ink that complements that vibe along with the color. So in this case the pen itself is rather plain, so I'll want an ink that has some liveliness but isn't frivolous. I don't ink more than four or five pens at a time so I try to vary the kinds of colors I have available. This is both a hue/value thing (I have a bunch of inks in my favorite families and try not to have more than one in a pen at the same time) and a tone thing (some inks are serious, some are punchy, some are contemplative so I try to keep a mix to match my moods as they change). Apart from these highly subjective questions, I also want to get a good gauge of how the pen performs. Using an ink with which I'm familiar gives me a more reliable gauge of performance, but I have a ton of samples I'm itching to try out. The welter of questions often produces a delicious flurry of indecision that can last for several days. Right now I'm leaning toward Colorverse Andromeda even though it breaks all of my rules. I suspect that it is too frivolous for this pen, I have two other pens inked with what I broadly consider "red", one of which has Yama-budo (although I'm considering flushing that one; it's a TWSBI mini and they don't really seem to go together), and I'm new to Colorverse as a brand (my other current "red" ink is Dark Energy, which is my first full Colorverse fill) and have never tried Andromeda. So how do the rest of you approach the first fill of a new pen? What questions do you ask yourself? Do you use a standard ink? Why?

I had a field trip today to Laywine's in Toronto for some new pens and ink. I bought a Lamy Studio Stainless EF and a Lamy Al-Star Sea-Foam Green EF. I also picked up 2 bottles of ink. When I get home I opened my Factory Sealed (at least I thought/think they were. They both had a sticker sealing the box) and eagerly proceeded to ink my brand new pens. I place the first pen, the Al-Star, into the bottle, draw up some ink, pump back into the bottle to release any air for the second draw and scream in shock as my beautiful amber ink turns an ugly green. My sealed new pen had blue ink in the feed. Now my amber ink is ruined. Glad is was only $13.00 CAD and not my $35 dollar bottle of Iroshizuku Yu-yake! I have done some research. Lamy factory tests every pen. I did not know this. I do now! Valuable Lesson Learned. Flush each and every new pen, always!!! Namaste, Dalimar