What Was Your Last Impulsive Pen Acquisition?

[christam]

An Otto Hutt Design 02 in honeycomb silver, thanks to a brief period of Amazon algorithm madness and a drop in price of £27.  I ordered a couple of hours ago and the price has now gone back up - by £37!  

 

I've been looking at the Design 07 so I suppose I'm testing the Otto Hutt waters with the 02.

[JonSzanto]

I happened upon a reference to a Narwhal LE pen last night, only to find that it was late last fall and it appeared to be sold out at a few different places. Found it at Dromgoole's and when checking on a detail, turns out to be the last one. 'Click' Should be here in a couple of days: Narwhal Nautilus 365 Anniversary Fountain Pen in Caño Cristales (Brooks material)

 

[AmandaW]

Well that was impulsive. I thought I was ordering a nib unit for an Opus 88 Picnic this week - I just needed to figure out whether to get something else to qualify for free shipping and what, if anything that might be. And I was actually at the point of there being nothing in transit so maybe I should just leave it that way. All that.

 

And now, instead, I've ordered a Hongdian A3 with the prettiest black and gold nib I've ever seen. That's what I love about this hobby: the surprises.

 

 

 

[DvdRiet]

3 hours ago, AmandaW said:

a Hongdian A3 with the prettiest black and gold nib I've ever seen. That's what I love about this hobby: the surprises.

 

Now that is *very* cool!!

[OldTravelingShoe]

3 hours ago, DvdRiet said:

Now that is *very* cool!!

I second @DvdRiet: @AmandaW, this is a wonderful pen. Thanks for the recommendation. 

[A Smug Dill]

3 hours ago, DvdRiet said:

Now that is *very* cool!!

 

What's even cooler is that I'm pretty sure she actually got this nib:

 

 

and not the EF nib with a ‘standard’ grind shown earlier.

 

One seller was trying to flog that variant off for US$30+tax apiece earlier on, on account of it having the Togi-style ‘blade’ nib ground from a larger ball of iridium, than the standard EF nib. HongDian does charge more for that supposedly all manually ground nib on the A3, by not by that much.

 

[AmandaW]

28 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

What's even cooler is that I'm pretty sure she actually got this nib:

 

I hope so too, but if there's a way to mess it up I will have managed.

 

[OldTravelingShoe]

25 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

not the EF nib with a ‘standard’ grind shown earlier

Wow, thanks for this, @A Smug Dill! 

 

Now, an issue: The ad you show and the photos of this Hongdian A3 include "0.8" (mm?). In contrast, the option I see from LT Hongdian on AliExpress offers F-size black-gold nibs, but only "0.7 mm". Is this the same nib?

 

 

Also, without the box the pen is 25 (€, in my case, likely $, in yours). 

 

Thank you for your help. 

[OldTravelingShoe]

1 minute ago, AmandaW said:

if there's a way to mess it up I will have managed

Head high, you're not alone in this, @AmandaW. We're in the impulse buy thread, so I already clicked through... 😄

[A Smug Dill]

28 minutes ago, OldTravelingShoe said:

In contrast, the option I see from LT Hongdian on AliExpress offers F-size black-gold nibs, but only "0.7 mm". Is this the same nib?

 

The marketing image doesn't actually say it's a 0.8mm nib; it says it writes like a 0.8 pen which, from other HongDian marketing images and product descriptions, is in reference to other writing instruments than fountain pens. Perhaps any number of non-refillable fineliner pens one would get from office supplies or art supplies stores?

 

But, yes, the Black-Gold 0.7mm from the LT HongDian store is what @AmandaW and I both ordered several hours ago. I chatted online with the store immediately after placing the order, and they confirm it is the nib in the image I posted.

 

I saw some other stores listing Medium nibs that are just Black for this pen model, which doesn't seem right. It even says the Medium nib is black, in the LT HongDian's product listing (text description, not the title). I remember, a while ago, everyone was out of stock of the Togi-style nib (except the seller listing it for US$30), so it could have been a remnant of that the store failed to update. Anyway, that's why I had to directly check with someone there.

 

Edit:

I just did a Google search of the term. 中性笔(to the left of “0.8”) means rollerball pen or gel pen. 书写笔迹約接近中性笔0.8左右 means, “(for) handwriting(, the ink) marks are approximately close to (that from a) 0.8 rollerball pen (or) thereabouts.” (Note the redundancy in the wording!)

 

[OldTravelingShoe]

6 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

yes, the Black-Gold 0.7mm from the LT HongDian store is what @AmandaW and I both ordered several hours ago. I chatted online with the store immediately after placing the order, and they confirm it is the nib in the image I posted

Super, thank you and... got it! Look forward to see how this nib works in practice. 

 

Thanks also for the explanation. I do not understand the Chinese characters, so I typically match and infer. This shows clearly the limits of my approach. 

[A Smug Dill]

15 minutes ago, OldTravelingShoe said:

I do not understand the Chinese characters, so I typically match and infer. This shows clearly the limits of my approach. 

 

Simplified Chinese is difficult for me to read, and then, I'm not familiar with the domain-specific vocabulary often used in describing writing instruments, performance and characteristics.

 

Anyway, see my edit above as to what that “0.8” statement really says.

 

In the style of written Chinese and typical vocabulary used in Hong Kong, that statement would be:

書寫筆跡與0.8滾珠筆相近

[OldTravelingShoe]

4 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

just did a Google search of the term. 中性笔(to the left of “0.8”) means rollerball pen or gel pen. 书写笔迹約接近中性笔0.8左右 means, “(for) handwriting(, the ink) marks are approximately close to (that from a) 0.8 rollerball pen (or) thereabouts

Thanks for the edit, @A Smug Dill! 

[inkstainedruth]

Interesting looking nib.  

The question I have though is whether the black part of the nib is a coating (the way the old color-matched Platinum Plaisir nibs -- which flaked off after a while ) or whether the black part is more like the black nibs that Lamy makes.

If the former?  It's a case of "buyer beware".  If the latter? Very cool looking.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Flippy]

Pulled the trigger my first Mont Blanc, a 146 with a broad nib. Second-hand, of course; not paying the ridiculous +700 retail price

[oliviaf]

Pelikan Stola III I purchased this pen because it was on sale and I misremember the recommended Pilot Metro as a Pelikan. I really enjoy the simple design of the Stola III and am a fan of the density. It feels like a solid pen.

[OldTravelingShoe]

On 1/20/2022 at 2:38 PM, A Smug Dill said:

Simplified Chinese is difficult for me to read, and then, I'm not familiar with the domain-specific vocabulary often used in describing writing instruments, performance and characteristics. [...] 

In the style of written Chinese and typical vocabulary used in Hong Kong, that statement would be:

書寫筆跡與0.8滾珠筆相近

@A Smug Dill, thanks for the clarification. I find this fascinating. I don't understand how large the differences are, other than to see them as significant based on the visual differences between characters. So, to me, the difference could be as large as between, say Nederlands (the current language of the Netherlands) and Deutsch (the current language of Germany) - I can get the direction of some of the words in German without translation, but I could not get precisely what they mean and surely could not include them naturally in my speech even if I tried. Afaik, these two languages are considered very close cousins by linguists, and share a large common root. 

 

I'm wondering if and how two experts with Chinese backgrounds, but from different geographical areas, could understand each other when discussing technical details of, say, fountain pens. 

Edited January 23, 2022 by OldTravelingShoe
Edited for clarity.

[Arcticart]

I'm usually not one for impulse purchases, but when I saw this pop up on Stilo & Stile and I just had to have it.

 

[agaric]

7 hours ago, OldTravelingShoe said:

I find this fascinating. I don't understand how large the differences are

Sorry to jump in here, since a Chinese speaker can respond more properly, but I just wanted to share a story I heard from my linguistics professor. Maybe it was more of a joke than an anecdote, not sure.

 

So he was at a linguistics conference, and heard two colleagues having a casual discussion about the Chinese language. One of the colleagues was Chinese and the other European (I forget which country). The European linguist asks, "so how are the Chinese dialects different?" The Chinese linguist quips in reply, "well, that'd be like asking how the Europeanese dialects are different."

 

Not sure exactly how to interpret the story, except for a general sense that there is far more variability in this family of languages than a non-user might first expect.

 

edit: oh, I just reread the question and it was asking about the difference in the written forms. Yeah, this story wouldn't apply at all 😅

Edited January 23, 2022 by agaric

[noyesville]

At the Philly Show last week, I (who swore to my wife I was getting out of pens impulsively traded for a Mont Blanc 146, from about fifty years ago.  It has a left-oblique nib, so for a while I thought it wouldn't write.  My mentors at Bertram's Inkwell, in Rockville, MD showed me how to use it, and now I have (a) a lovely vintage Mont Blanc and (b) two offers to sell it.  I will try to post a photo, though it looks like any MEISTERSTUCK to me.w to do so.