What Was Your Last Impulsive Pen Acquisition?

[oregano]

It was yesterday, I took revenge on coronavirus by ordering a Waterman Carene ambre marine with a stub nib ! Et voila !

 

Me too! I was feeling a bit depressed for various reasons and decided to get the closest thing to a ray of sunshine--Pelikan vibrant orange (a pen I never thought I wanted before). (In the meantime, I'm waiting for some other orders, which I feel guilty even mentioning, let alone specifying!) Let's just say it's been a productive ahem stationery spree for me.

[maclink]

Just ordered on impulse, a Cross Peerless Darth Vader!

[inkstainedruth]

Well, the place I was supposed to be getting the new Safari LE Violet from finally sent me shipping information. Only the tracking link didn't work (kept getting an error message saying that it was a "duplicate" tracking number. So I contacted them and asked them to please check the tracking number, since when I tried again the USPS website wasn't working right at ALL.

And the seller's response was to decide to just CANCEL my order outright. In theory I'll be getting the refund in a few days, but for all intents and purposes, I'll just see it as a credit on the next credit card statement. So I was pretty ticked off, and went looking to see who DID have the pen in stock. And their loss was Vanness Pen's gain, because I ended up ALSO ordering a Vibrant Pink al-Star, which I found when I dug through their "Grandpa Basement" section of the website. And of course I than needed to order a second converter, and since I was on their website ANYWAY I spent a few hours looking at inks and ended up buying a few samples (I was actually good -- I kicked a fair number of OTHER samples out of the shopping cart for another time). So besides the Violet LE (B nib, because Van Ness lets you do that -- which saved me from having to use my original plan of buying one with an F nib and then ordering an extra nib), I've got the Vibrant Pink with a 1.1 mm stub (because why not -- and because I didn't like the EF nib on a Safari I tried at a pen show a couple of years go), and four ink samples: Noodler's Purple Mountains Majesties; Ferris Wheel Press Tanzanite Sky; and a couple of Robert Oster inks (Carbon Fire and Grey Seas). I actually had a lot more samples in the shopping cart and ditched a few of them for another time; a few others were out of stock at Vanness....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Thymen]

I ordered this Aurora 88 Huangshan Mountain pen at 3am last night. Just loved the colours ...

 

Huangshan Mountains.... they say when the gods are bored with Heaven they go and have a holiday over there.

 

 

You are lucky to have these bright colours in your pen though. My wife and I visited these mountains a few years ago. I really wanted to go there for the scenery, hauled my camera and lenses all the way. I knew it would be a very steep and tiring climb... but ah, the scenery....!

 

Turned out they forgot to tell me it is rainy and foggy 250 days of the year. It was one of those days. Couldn't see farther than 10 meters.... Took two pictures: my wife with an all-gray background....

Edited May 5, 2020 by Thymen

[Arkanabar]

Not too long ago, FPRevolution.com had a number of Jaipur piston fillers on sale for $5 each. I bought four, two for me, and two for my wife. Naturally, there were some nibs, some converters, and a Muft (Hindi for "without cost") tossed in when the total surpassed $25, as well.

Kevin will sell Mufts for $7, and they're absurdly simple vegetal resin eyedroppers. Providing a nicely lightweight piston filler with pleasant girth for even less than that? How could I pass that up?

At least a day or two passed between me finding the sale, and acting on it. But for me, that's really fast.

[MoriartyR]

Huangshan Mountains.... they say when the gods are bored with Heaven they go and have a holiday over there.

 

 

You are lucky to have these bright colours in your pen though. My wife and I visited these mountains a few years ago. I really wanted to go there for the scenery, hauled my camera and lenses all the way. I knew it would be a very steep and tiring climb... but ah, the scenery....!

 

Turned out they forgot to tell me it is rainy and foggy 250 days of the year. It was one of those days. Couldn't see farther than 10 meters.... Took two pictures: my wife with an all-gray background....

Thanks for this great story, which somehow I am sure I will remember and sometimes smile about when I pick up this pen. I haven’t been to the Huangshan mountains but I would love to - even in the fog. One of my dreams is someday to do a long trip and explore some of rural China. I envy you and your wife.

[Thymen]

Just google huangshan /images, and you will know what I hoped to see there...

[amk]

Pelikan m200 brown marble on ebay. I just really liked it. Wasn't on my shopping list.

 

Now thinking about a Bexley Poseidon Magnum... shall I push the button???

[basterma]

I bought a Parker Sonnet from a guy in Beijing for 15$. I think it is fake, but I had to try and see. The nib is really plain and the cap is weird. I hear people complaining about the pens drying out and the cap on this makes it clear why. It has vent holes at the jewel like those on cheap disposable pens. I think they are required to stop kids choking on them in case of swallowing the cap accidentally. It is a bizarre detail, and either they are copying the real one which complies with a law (EU?) or the faker is just dumb. it will be in rotation in a while as I have other new pens ahead in the queue .

[Mercian]

It has vent holes at the jewel like those on cheap disposable pens. I think they are required to stop kids choking on them in case of swallowing the cap accidentally. It is a bizarre detail, and either they are copying the real one which complies with a law (EU?) or the faker is just dumb.

Whether your pen is a fake or not, Sonnets are famous for having over-sized vent holes that cause the pens to dry-out. There are several threads on here in which members discuss ways to fix the drying-out problem (by blocking-up those vent holes).

 

The bad design is not attributable to any EU regulation.

If oversized vent holes were stipulated by any such thing, then every pen made by Parker would have them. As would every pen made by Waterman. And LAMY. And Pelikan, Montblanc, Faber Castell, Aurora, Diplomat, Visconti, etc etc.

Those other pens don’t have the same over-sized vent holes. Not even all Parkers have them. So their presence can not be required by any regulation, whether at national level or at EU level.

 

In the case of the Sonnet, the bad design of the vent holes is just an example of bad design.

 

I do confess though to being surprised that Parker have never fixed the flaw. The pens have been in production since 1994, and their design has been ‘refreshed’ a few times since then. I would have expected the company to use one of those ‘refreshes’ as an opportunity to fix the design flaw in the caps.

Maybe Parker don’t think that it is sufficiently negatively-impactful on sales of the Sonnet to justify the cost to the company of fixing it? Which is a shame IMO. I like the appearance of the Sonnet, and also the size of the pen (I own three Frontiers, which are very, very similar), but I have seen so many complaints about the Sonnet drying-out that I won’t buy one.

[DrDebG]

Well, I received the MB Starwalker, wrote with it for a few pages and decided that it needed a visit to Danny Fudge for optimization. I sent along several other pens that need to be tweaked as well.

 

I guess I should expect that when I buy a used pen.

 

But I did also get a couple of Faber Castell Looms, both with broad nibs. They were both new and write very well.

Edited May 9, 2020 by 5Cavaliers

[vivdunstan]

A few weeks ago I ordered on impulse a BENU Briolette Milky Way. I hadn’t heard of the brand until seeing a Figboot on Pens video reviewing another BENU pen. As someone learning Russian and keen on Russian history this was appealing! But I wanted a slimmer model that would suit me. Bit of browsing and the Briolette range looked promising. At the time BENU had shut down due to COVID, so I found an Amsterdam shop with stock, and ordered from them for delivery to me in Scotland.

 

Then things went a bit pear shaped. The pen arrived, but the shop had packed the wrong model. Cue a need for a replacement sent, and a return (prepaid by the shop) of the wrong one. Both those packages ended up in postal limbo for ages. The return still hasn’t come out of it (Parcelforce).

 

However yesterday my replacement arrived (sent via PostNL and courier Hermes) and I’m delighted with it. It’s lovely to hold in the hand, with a good balance between grip and barrel sizes plus pen length. It’s also writing well, with my favourite ink installed, and makes me smile to use it.

 

So yup, an impulse buy but a good one, though delivery could have gone more smoothly.

[Tas]

Ordered a HongDian Black Army General EF and Fude nib set last week. Arrival who knows when but very excited.

[JotterAddict62]

Next time I look on evil-bay for advertising Jotters I'll let you know what I find.

[NumberSix]

Won this Shaeffer school pen auction last night. I haven't used these pens before, and I thought they might be fun to play with.

 

But now, I am not sure I am going to want to open the package on the green one. The inks are probably dried up anyhow, and it looks so cool this way.

 

 

[Arkanabar]

I had one of those ca 1986. I miss it from time to time, as it was an excellent pen (aside from the expense of cartridges).

[Tas]

Ooo. My HongDian arrived. Immediately loaded it with Aurora black (from a sample) and am ecstatic. Incredible value for £19.99 delivered.

 

Ok, I'm going to need lessons in how to use a fude nib but the EF nib is gloriously smooth and lovely and wet.

[Karmachanic]

Ooo. My HongDian arrived. Immediately loaded it with Aurora black (from a sample) and am ecstatic. Incredible value for £19.99 delivered.

 

Ok, I'm going to need lessons in how to use a fude nib but the EF nib is gloriously smooth and lovely and wet.

 

My understanding is that line width will change as the angle of nib to page changes. Hold at 45º, have scribble, hold at 60º repeat and compare.

Edited May 14, 2020 by Karmachanic

[AL01]

Won this Shaeffer school pen auction last night. I haven't used these pens before, and I thought they might be fun to play with.

 

But now, I am not sure I am going to want to open the package on the green one. The inks are probably dried up anyhow, and it looks so cool this way.

 

 

 

The one in the blister - pack should be from the 50s to early 60s.

 

Those particular pens had ebonite feeds, and wrote REALLY nicely.

 

You can eyedropper them too, but if you use newer Sheaffer cartridges on some of the older school pens, just know that the newer cartridges are ever-so-slightly longer than the previous ones, so threading the barrel back into the pen will take more force than before, (in order to seal the barrel flush to the section.)

 

You can eyedropper Sheaffer school pens too, and I have had excellent results. No burping or erratic flow whatsoever. Just make sure you put some pure silicon grease on the threads.

 

Enjoy the fantastic School Pens!

[NumberSix]

 

The one in the blister - pack should be from the 50s to early 60s.

 

Those particular pens had ebonite feeds, and wrote REALLY nicely.

 

You can eyedropper them too, but if you use newer Sheaffer cartridges on some of the older school pens, just know that the newer cartridges are ever-so-slightly longer than the previous ones, so threading the barrel back into the pen will take more force than before, (in order to seal the barrel flush to the section.)

 

You can eyedropper Sheaffer school pens too, and I have had excellent results. No burping or erratic flow whatsoever. Just make sure you put some pure silicon grease on the threads.

 

Enjoy the fantastic School Pens!

 

Thanks for the info! I figured that blister packed pen was from the 70s. The sealed cart packs look to be a lot newer, so I would assume they're the modern ones you mean. There should be no problem using them, as long as I am aware of the fit issues? I'll probably try on the unsealed one first.

 

I have seen them eye-droppered on youtube, and that sounds like fun. May have to give it a try.