Inexpensive Pens With Cursive Italic Nibs?

[View from the Loft]

 

I have a Parker 45 with a gold nib but wouldn't want to risk having this ruined and assume that a nibmeister would charge more than £55. I also have a Parker 95 which I would be more willing to risk having customised, but how much would this cost?

.

Hi, my suggestion would be to get the medium italic nib for your P45 from Battersea Pen Home (no affiliation other than a satisfied customer) for around £11, if my memory serves me right. Although this is a steel nib rather than gold, it's a good one coming from this source. The nibs for the P45 screw in, so it is a nice easy swap.

 

Edited for appalling typing.

Edited October 27, 2013 by View from the Loft

[BookCat]

Hi, my suggestion would be to get the medium italic nib for your P45 from Battersea Pen Home (no affiliation other than a satisfied customer) for around £11, if my memory serves me right. Although this is a steel nib rather than gold, it's a good one coming from this source. The nibs for the P45 screw in, so it is a nice easy swap.

 

 

 

Thanks for this suggestion. Rather than changing the nib on the P45, which I know in theory is easy having seen it done in a youtube vid, would Battersea Pen Home provide a cursive or stub italic for the Pilot 78g? I like the body of this pen, but hate the nib. If this was possible, roughly how much would this cost?

 

Otherwise, the cheapest risk from all the suggestions is to buy another nib for my Safari, but I'm sure this would be a conventional italic, not cursive or stub.

 

In other words I'm looking for a nib with less definition than a conventional italic, but a smooth writing experience. An everyday writer, in other words.

Edited October 27, 2013 by BookCat

[Randal6393]

 

Thanks for this suggestion. Rather than changing the nib on the P45, which I know in theory is easy having seen it done in a youtube vid, would Battersea Pen Home provide a cursive or stub italic for the Pilot 78g? I like the body of this pen, but hate the nib. If this was possible, roughly how much would this cost?

 

Otherwise, the cheapest risk from all the suggestions is to buy another nib for my Safari, but I'm sure this would be a conventional italic, not cursive or stub.

 

In other words I'm looking for a nib with less definition than a conventional italic, but a smooth writing experience. An everyday writer, in other words.

 

Oh, boy, spending money rather than adapting the pen to what you want. A lot of that going around. About 25 years ago, I read up on grinding italic nibs and practiced on a couple of cheap pens that were unsatisfactory. It didn't take very long to learn how to set the nib up for my hand. Of course, I did ruin a pen or two. But, you don't learn without a few mistakes.

 

If you decide to try this, look around on the Internet for information on nib grinding, go down to the hardware store -- some wet/dry sandpaper, 200 grit, 400, 800, 1200, 5000, etc. The major investment is in a good loupe, 10X or greater. The later editions (he is at 10th or so) of Fred Eager's The Italic Way to Beautiful Handwriting has a very good, concise explanation of nib grinding in it. Oh, yes, some of the nibmeisters offer kits for nib adjustment -- very nice, by all accounts.

 

Best of luck to you,

[View from the Loft]

 

Thanks for this suggestion. Rather than changing the nib on the P45, which I know in theory is easy having seen it done in a youtube vid, would Battersea Pen Home provide a cursive or stub italic for the Pilot 78g? I like the body of this pen, but hate the nib. If this was possible, roughly how much would this cost?

 

Otherwise, the cheapest risk from all the suggestions is to buy another nib for my Safari, but I'm sure this would be a conventional italic, not cursive or stub.

 

In other words I'm looking for a nib with less definition than a conventional italic, but a smooth writing experience. An everyday writer, in other words.

 

Battersea Pen Home doesn't sell Pilot goods, so won't be able to help with that. Trust me, the P45 nibs are easy to change, easier even that the Lamy. You could get someone to grind your Pilot 78g for you, but at around £40, is it worth it? But if your 78g is a broad nib, that exhibits fairly stubbish tendencies anyway.

 

The Lamy 1.1 nib is not a crisp italic nib, they vary between stub and cursive italic (I'd call my husband's Al Star a stub and my daughter's Safari a cursive italic, exhibiting slightly more line variation). They are easily used as everyday writers, and I have used them while the designated note taker in HR hearings. And I've used the P45 for exams, so no problem with it either.

 

I suspect (hope) that you will be pleasantly surprised by either the Lamy 1.1 or the P45 medium italic. A nib for the Lamy is a cheaper investment, and if you like it, you can always go for the P45 nib as well later.

[missclimpson]

I recently bought a jinhao with a cursive italic nib on eBay for about $15. Ive never used a nib like this before but Im enjoying learning how to use it.

[Honeybadgers]

Cheaper than anything anyone has listed, they're made from bamboo on the body and cap, and are surprisingly well made for the cost (I'd guess them at $10 or so) and come with a big variety of rather high quality italic sizes from 1.0 to about 2.9mm. The nibs are regular #5's that can be swapped into a ton of stuff.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Bamboo-Calligraphy-Art-Fountain-Pen-Broad-Stub-Chisel-pointed-Nib-Writing-New/163129308387?hash=item25fb43b4e3:m:mIlqJxcw8KNQxbrzjXxO_4g

 

A plumix stub nib can be bought for $7-8. Or you could get four of these bamboo pens with 1.5, 1.9, 2.5, 2.9mm italics.

Edited August 2, 2019 by Honeybadgers

[stylophilly]

+1 on the Pilot Plumix recommendation. And if it matters to you, the Plumix nibs are also easily swappable with PIlot pens such as Kakuno and Metropolitan. The Plumix pens have a very plasticky body.

[Anne-Sophie]

I second the Lamy 1.1 nib. I cannot stand scratchy nibs and the Lamy 1.1 gives flair to one's handwriting without the "is it going to catch on the paper" feeling.

 

You could also make your own by buying a regular bold or medium Lamy nib and slowly grind the sides with inexpensive nib grinding items. They are the cheapest nibs I can think of.

 

I have no experience whatsoever doing that, so check the nib grinding and cursive italic posts.

[Inky-Republic]

"Recently I acquired a Noodlers Ahab with a 1.1 mm italic nib through Goulet Pens : Cost $35.00. Ordered a Serwix Dilli with an italic nib through Fountain Pen Revolution for $20.00. And ordered two Nemosine Singularity, 0.6 and 0.8 mm italic nibs from xFountainPens for $15.00 each. All four pens work well and have pretty decent stub nibs.

 

So decent italic pens are fairly easy to find and cheap enough to buy."

 

Agree that a Noodlers Ahab would definitely be a good idea. The pen is designed for experimentation, easy stripping and modification. Also takes a standard #6 nib, which gives you plenty of options to source italics nibs from various other companies and try them out. Have found my Ahab is forgiving in the hand and writes very well. It is a particularly good ergonomic fit for me, since I have lager hands.

 

I prefer a stub nib myself and have fitted a Leonardo #6 stub nib into my Ahab, which just happens to write superbly with that option (nib is actually a Bock supplied component to Leonardo, but with perhaps a little extra post production TLC applied at the assembly plant)

 

Anyway - Ahab is a good and flexible platform for not much money - and good for plug and play nib trials.

Edited August 9, 2019 by Inky-Republic

[missclimpson]

Cheaper than anything anyone has listed, they're made from bamboo on the body and cap, and are surprisingly well made for the cost (I'd guess them at $10 or so) and come with a big variety of rather high quality italic sizes from 1.0 to about 2.9mm. The nibs are regular #5's that can be swapped into a ton of stuff.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Bamboo-Calligraphy-Art-Fountain-Pen-Broad-Stub-Chisel-pointed-Nib-Writing-New/163129308387?hash=item25fb43b4e3:m:mIlqJxcw8KNQxbrzjXxO_4g

 

A plumix stub nib can be bought for $7-8. Or you could get four of these bamboo pens with 1.5, 1.9, 2.5, 2.9mm italics.

[missclimpson]

Cheaper than anything anyone has listed, they're made from bamboo on the body and cap, and are surprisingly well made for the cost (I'd guess them at $10 or so) and come with a big variety of rather high quality italic sizes from 1.0 to about 2.9mm. The nibs are regular #5's that can be swapped into a ton of stuff.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Bamboo-Calligraphy-Art-Fountain-Pen-Broad-Stub-Chisel-pointed-Nib-Writing-New/163129308387?hash=item25fb43b4e3:m:mIlqJxcw8KNQxbrzjXxO_4g

 

A plumix stub nib can be bought for $7-8. Or you could get four of these bamboo pens with 1.5, 1.9, 2.5, 2.9mm italics.

[missclimpson]

I ordered one of these recently and they projected a delivery date in October. They must be coming via the silk route on a camel.

[Randal6393]

missclimpson, haven't you heard of a slow boat from China?

 

Yes, it's infuriating to buy an item and wait 30 to 60 days for delivery. But, in my experience, any item ordered direct from China (or Europe or India or ...) is at least as likely as any mail-ordered (Amazon-ordered) item to be worth the wait. And at a fraction of the cost of an over-the-counter item.

 

For me, this has held true for folding knives from the Ukraine, China, India, or Europe. For pens from Germany, Italy, China, India. For tea from around the world. So I suggest, grin and bear it. And show us pictures of your lovely pens from wherever that got to you just in time for Christmas.

 

Oh, and I have had a couple of the bamboo pens. Work pretty well, do a good job.

[missclimpson]

I now have two of the bamboo stub pens, a .7 and a 1.1. They seem like good pens for the price but they both write so wet that you dont get any line definition. I like the cursive italic bargain pen I got on eBay a lot. It gives a lot of line definition but the nib does need to be primed from time to time.

[shamsuzzamansadi]

Well you can get 2 ambitious #6 35mm Cursive italic nibs from Kiwipens for 18USD and the owner of the Kiwipen always sends an extra nib with his purchased goods.

  

[Karmachanic]

That's a stub nib.

[sansenri]

I think you're asking a bit too much in wanting a nice CI nib for $20 and bundling in also a pen for that...

 

The exercise is bound to be somewhat disappointing in the end, and probably set you on the search again...

 

I'd extend the budget quite a bit, reasonably save up for a short while, get a nicely done CI Jowo from fpnibs in Spain, and fit it on a pen that takes Jowo nibs (that you either already have or can get for the purpose).

With fpnibs you can actually tell them how sharp or not you would like to have the CI (their medium stubs are rather nice too).

[TSherbs]

The original post here is from 2013. I'm not sure to whom these replies are being made....

[sansenri]

had not noticed... oh, well does happen...

but you know there's always a generic usefulness in answering even old questions

possibly those $20 can be stretched a bit today and would surely get a nice CI steel nib from fpnibs!

[como]

Buy a Lamy Joy with stub nib and sharpen it on micro mesh to as sharp as you like!