What Is Your Grail Pen And Does It Change?

[inkstainedruth]

Well, I have gotten two of my three "grail" pens: a Sheaffer Snorkel (actually two now) and a Parker 51 Aerometric in Plum. Still haven't gotten the first Snorkel really working; until I do, I'm not going to try futzing around with the second one. But that 51....

Mind you, I've got every day writers that I like a lot, including several Noodler's Konrads and (now) a number of Parker Vectors. And I still have the third grail pen on the wish list -- a Yard-o-Led Viceroy Victorian (but that's the "when I win the lottery" pen).

On the off-chance I ever do get to the point I *can* afford grail pen #3, I will probably start looking for a *new* grail pen....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Mike_Dowling]

My Pelikan M800 is my grail pen, use it everyday, the perfect pen. I do want a Lamy 2000 and a Visconti Homo Sapiens added to the collection.

[82Greg]

My current grail pens are (in priority order)

 

a) Waterman 56

Waterman 58

 

I don't know when I'll be able to afford one of these. I have several other pens that at one time or another were my grail pens. I use all my pens in my rotation. At some point, I will add future grail pens.

[jaymac]

I agree with others that a grail pen is a sort of evolving target. My longer term one has been a Nakaya Spider with Web and Butterfly. And an equal delight has been fantasizing about nib choice

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I wouldn't mind having another Wearever Penman, somewhere in the maroon/burgundy/purple range (and a bottle of purple Skrip or 4001, to use in it, of course). Or another blue dome-top Pelikan M200 that's in mint condition, for when my current one finally gets so beat-up that it no longer works.

[mrbig]

The Tribute to the Mont Blanc would complete my white German pen collection.

[MJ Vesuvius]

Got most of 'em:

Parker Duofold Centenial pearl & black

Waterman Edson blue

Montblanc 149

Delta Dolce Vita OS

Aurora Optima Sole

and the Super Grail Girl, Agatha. Oh those snake eyes!

Honestly only one left. Elusive and dear... MB Ernest Hemingway.

 

-- MJ

Edited June 13, 2013 by MJ Vesuvius

[Moshe ben David]

Parker Duofold Centennial, blue marbled, medium nib. This would round out my set (pencil and bp); and complement my set in the burgundy marbled.

 

Moshe

[SB129]

In order (#1 being most grail/least feasible):

1. Omas 360 DLC (That Pricetag )
2. Visconti Divina Springs Limited Edition (That Celluloid )
3. Omas Mueller Burl (That Classiness )
4. Any Danitrio
5. Any Nakaya
6. Any MB

[I like mango cheesecake]

I have been a watch enthusiast (WIS) for over 10 years and am just getting into FPs - and one thing I know is that 'grail(s)' change all the time, and that you CAN have more than one grail.

 

The best part about grails, and this happens to me all the time, once you put it down for a while and then take them out again, you get the same feeling you had when you bought it.

hahh, me too. but only for 5 years as a WIS. Just getting back into fp's.

 

but I digress. my grail pen? MB149

 

(btw, my grail watch? the 1680 Red, feet first. )

[camoandconcrete]

Well, I always had one grail pen on my mind. It was a pen that I first saw on the cover of a Fahrney's catalog around the time I started getting into fountain pens after collecting Parker ballpoints for years.

 

That pen is the Montegrappa Eternal Bird. After years or so of looking, coming close to getting one but lost at the last second, etc. etc. I finally have one. It was definitely worth the wait! There are other pens that I am interested in that I will hopefully get but, none have had the same emotional value to me as the Eternal Bird.

[loudkenny]

My grail pen has changed three times in the last year.

 

Right now I have two... a wartime green pearl Vacumatic Maxima and a Sheaffer Ebonized Pearl Balance, oversize preferred.

 

I have my grail watch already - my grandfather's 1930's Bulova 'doctor's watch'. The only problem is I have to get it restored and there aren't any watch repairmen around here anymore.

 

ken

Edited June 15, 2013 by loudkenny

[ethernautrix]

The Montbanc Semiramis was a grail pen for years and years, but I could not bring myself to breach the thousand-dollar-per-pen mark. I resigned myself to appreciating its beauty from afar.

 

And then I acquired one in a trade.

 

I wasn't as excited about it as I thought I would be, because my tastes had shifted. I'd discovered Nakaya, and I preferred the lightweight and simple beauty of the urushi to the heavy filigree of the Semiramis.

 

And so I traded the Semiramis for another pen I didn't want to spend the cash for, a Pelikan Toledo M710 with a Mottishawed stub fine nib. This nib isn't my favorite - I actually prefer the Pelikan steel fine (which is in use with the Pelikan Toledo M700 I've had for twenty years).

 

Seems that my grail pens are the ones I acquired without realizing they would be my favorites, such as my Nakayas (the unpolished shu Piccolo Cigar with the ruthenium-plated F nib's being my favorite favorite) and the Pelikan Toledos and a Montblanc (or two).

 

Meanwhile, I'm not looking. There isn't any pen I am eager to have that I don't already have. That is, I seem to be contented with what I have.

[Pen Nut]

The twists & turns of getting to my various 'grails' was an intertesting journey in itself but often dissapointment followed. It has been mentioned before about pens that sort of stay with you as your appreciation of them grows whilst others simply pass by, some quite quickly, and I suppose I am at that stage now of having three or four pens that hit the mark for me.

 

I noted a members signature a while ago which said something like "chase the nib not the pen" which I didnt really get but now I kind of do.

 

The quest continues. . . . . . .

[Opooh]

Perfection is not of this world, therefore no grail.