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Sometimes you have some pens just because they bring on pure nostalgia. This one is one of those for me. A pen by Airmail. Rather any pen by Airmail. We, 90’s kids of India, and also the kids before, grew up using this brand during our school days at least ones. Airmail Pen Company was established in 1951. Since then, they have been manufacturing some awesome pens, especially fountain pens. They are based in Mumbai, India. This review is about one of their offerings, Model 58C. I hope you will enjoy reading it. First Glance I personally don’t like huge pens. There are some exceptions of course. This, in my books, is a very big pen. But it is value for money. And when you have its value in mind, its a damn good pen. You get it in ₹180 (i.e. barely $3). I bet you wont get this quality fountain pen in a $3 pen elsewhere. You can compare it with the build quality of Noodler’s Pens. Looks The pen does not look that great for my taste. A very bulky but not at all a bad looking pen. How do you spot an Airmail from far is the steel band they have on the cap. It’s their trademark. Also this pen isn’t something you can flaunt in your shirt pocket. It is too huge for that. Finial and End-Cap The finial and end cap have a reflective, pointed dome made of steel which looks nothing but simple. The Clip is pretty tight but certainly useful with any type of shirt pocket. Simple steel clip. The Cap is Screw Fit & works great. The threads are all plastic as the pen is. Threads are not sharp at all. The only flaw (I would say) is the threads have 3 openings. This keeps the capped pens clip from aligning itself from the Airmail logo on the barrel. Small thing it is. And also something that you would not expect from a cheap pen. Filling Mechanism This is a eye dropper pen where you have to fill the ink directly into the barrel by using an eye-dropper or a syringe. The ink it should take is about (at least) two times of what a standard long ink cartridge can hold, though I have not measured it. Writing Experience I bought a Fine since it was the only nib option available with the retailer. I worked a bit on smoothing of the nib. There were very few fine nibs I have liked out of the box like my Lamy Safari’s. This nib was a bit scratchy for me. Now it has become somewhere between fine and medium since I worked on it. Posting Posting makes this pen top heavy. And it makes it so long that I could practically scratch my nose while writing General Info & Measurements Locking Mechanism: Screw fit Filling Mechanism: Eye dropper Posted: 17.4 cm Capped: 15 cm Uncapped: 13.2 cm My Ratings (after I worked on the nib) Nib: 6/10 Looks: 6/10 Pocket Looks: 1/10 Writing Experience: 6/10 Wetness: 2/10 Scratchiness: 3/10 Cost: 10/10 Line Variation: 7/10 Reverse Writing: 4/10 Overall: 5/10 ————————————— Disclaimer: This review is all about my personal views about a product especially the one I have used (for this review). You may come across a same model which you might find better or worse. Do let me know how you like the review. Follow my blog: https://pen5um.wordpress.com Thanks, 5umedh

At what point (or pen count) does simply using and enjoying writing with fountain pens and not giving it much thought morph into: --an interest ? --a hobby? --a passion? --an obsession? --a disease/hoarding disorder? --and a happy state of recovery? What was the greatest number of pens you owned at one time and what is the stable number that you are comfortable with?

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2842/9468845410_608af30fb4_c.jpg Parkers in a tray by Inkysloth, on Flickr My Parkers as they currently stand, minus a couple of 45 Flighters, Vectors (yellow, translucent green, sky blue, red), a classic and a 15 which are in a pen roll ... ahem. So, this is a dangerous hobby. New pens are nice, but they don't do it for me in the way vintage pens do. The excitement of the first test of a nib - every nib has its own characteristics and quirks, rather than the fairly bland regularity of modern steel nibs. Reliable but a lot less fun than discovering a beautiful springy flex nib - that Parker Premiere has a proper wet noodle of a nib. Doesn't spread too wide, but takes next to no pressure to get line variation. Unfortunately I can't get a photo with decent colour reproduction with my phone camera. There's a little shadow wave vac in there that has lovely sparkly green stripes. The Premiere is a beautiful soft pearlescent grey, and my teal 51 is, well, teal. The tray is an IKEA small plywood chest of drawers. I cut a sheet of archival foamboard to size, cut the rectangles out, and then cut a sheet of mountboard to size, matching the rectangles to the foamboard. This is then glued down on sheet of mountboard. (There are two trays in the plywood drawer separated by thin wooden strips around the inside of the drawer.)