What Is Your Ideal Nib?

[ac12]

A US Parker F nib that is a NAIL, and smooth on decent paper.

And a case of decent paper, to write on.

 

For flex:

A Hiro 41 nib in an oblique dip pen holder.

[rwilsonedn]

What would be your ideal meal? Let your self go ... as many courses as you wish, each catered by a different chef if you wish, wine pairings of your choice.

Now, would you be willing to eat that three times a day, every day?

For me much of the joy of fountain pens is the enormous variety of writing experiences. A few days ago I was using a $2 Daiso pen that was in every way the delightful modern pen: perfect size, weight, and balance, smooth firm M nib, perfect feed. Today I'm using a restored 1930s E Faber lever-filler. It's a wreck in every way: shrunken and warped celluloid, crooked barrel, permanently stained nib, bent lever. But it too is a joy, in that elegant "you will pay attention and I will reward you" way that only good vintage nibs seem to achieve. And the celluloid, for all its deformation, is a mesmerizing marbled deep blue. I wouldn't want to give up either one, or any of the many other experiences that wait in the cabinet to be rediscovered.

Curiosity is the mortal enemy of optimization.

ron

[inkstainedruth]

Yeah, what rwilsonedn said.

I have a lot of vintage pens, which sort of by definition are Fs. But in the past year or so I'm starting to enjoy the wider side of things.

This morning, I used a Parker Parkette retrofitted with a lovely English-made music nib, harvested from some no-name third or fourth tier lever-filler. This afternoon, it's been the Cross Solo (which I just noticed this morning is actually marked as having been made in Japan -- which may why its F nib is running narrower than some other F-nibbed pens in the stash. Tonight? Who knows?

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Honeybadgers]

If I had to have one pen in my collection that I'd have to use in a daily capacity forevermore.

 

 

Faber Castell Loom with the M nib. The pen is simple, reliable, rugged, easy to maintain, and the nib is a work of absolute perfection. Quite hard (because I do sometimes write a check) and has literally perfect feedback and flow. It's not hot buttered glass, it drags on the texture of the paper like the suspension of a finely tuned sports car.

 

It gets tons of attention and compliments, and writes better than almost any other pen I've ever held in terms of simple handwriting. The M nib borders more on F. Obviously it's not going to be expressive with any flex, but it's fantastic and I can write for hours with it.

 

I really like true semiflex nibs. Soft nibs like visconti dreamtouch or platinum soft fine are fun, but, but I write with a very light hand and like to get some line variation. My custom JoWo smiflex by fpnibs.com ranks extremely high, as does the semiflex vacumatic nib. and my flex nibs need to be VERY fine. I like the expression of a near-needlepoint line opening up into a broad streak of color.