Pen/Ink/Paper Trios

[Lithium466]

@USG

> I've noticed a great number of notebooks are using a cream colored paper instead of white.  I wonder why that is?

 

A very long time ago, I had seen some fancier notebooks and agendas advertising that cream paper as a way to differentiate them from the "school" notebooks and paper. Some also say it's easier on the eyes, other that it's cheaper to produce with some part recycled base, etc. Think of this what you want

 

I sneakily ran some experiment with some work colleagues, giving away some stationery: wooden pencils generated a LOT of nostalgia (and the non yellow ones were the most sought after, yellow ones not so much), and cream/ivory paper or notebook generated that idea of "fanciness" compared to bright white paper ("that's just like copy paper"). Fountain pens didn't get much traction at all...wooden pencils had the most success and the whole department came to get some, and used them regularly after that. Some even bought more on their own and came to show them to me what they bought, to "benefit" from my smug snobby judgement.

So...like many things in life, perception and comparison is probably key somewhere in there.

[Mercian]

Today I have discovered a combination of pen and ink that - to my surprise - does not work well for me.

 

It is Pelikan Edelstein Topaz in my ‘W.-Germany’ Pelikan M800 ‘M’.

 

I love the colour of Topaz, and the way that it pools on certain strokes while one is writing.

And I love the ‘wetness’ with which that pen lays-down ink. It makes Pelikan 4001 Violet really ‘sing’, so I thought that it would be the perfect ‘dancing partner’ for Topaz - but I was wrong.
The pen is so ‘wet’ that the ink gets laid-down like watercolour paint, and then ‘spreads’, on almost every paper that I have tried it on!
And this is despite its ‘M’ nib’s width being more like the ‘F’ nib of my 2020 M805 than it is a current Pelikan ‘M’.

 

I have found that this combination produces ink-spread on the following papers:

Croxley ‘Heritage’ laid paper;

G. Lalo Vergé de France laid paper;

Original Crown Mill 100% Cotton writing paper;

 to be fair, in my experience this ⬆️ paper hates ‘wet’ pens, so I shouldn’t have been ‘surprised’.

Basildon Bond ‘Airmail’ paper;

It even ‘spreads’ on the Rhodia 80gsm ‘High Grade Vellum’ in my no.18 bloc pad 

 

The only papers that I have which are vaguely able to cope with the amount of Topaz that is laid-down by this pen are:

Basildon Bond ‘Personal Writing Paper’ (just about), and;
90gsm Oxford Optik (the older stuff; I don’t yet have any of the new ‘Optik+’ paper).

 

Admittedly, this is mostly a ‘problem’ because my handwriting is a hastily-rushed scrawl, and one that is so tiny that the spaces in my ‘e’, ‘b’, ‘d’, ‘p’, ‘g’, and ‘q’ are often filled if ink spreads.
Perhaps I ought in future just stick to ‘F’ and ‘EF’ nibs?

Either that, or I will need to make a very deliberate effort to s-l-o-w  d-o-w-n my handwriting, and almost ‘print’ it 😢

 

[Bo Bo Olson]

32 minutes ago, Mercian said:

It is Pelikan Edelstein Topaz in my ‘W.-Germany’ Pelikan M800 ‘M’. (mine is a black OM)

 

I love the colour of Topaz, and the way that it pools (shades) on certain strokes while one is writing.

And I love the ‘wetness’ with which that pen lays-down ink. It makes Pelikan 4001 Violet really ‘sing’, so I thought that it would be the perfect ‘dancing partner’ for Topaz - but I was wrong.
The pen is so ‘wet’ that the ink gets laid-down like watercolour paint, and then ‘spreads’, on almost every paper that I have tried it on!
And this is despite its ‘M’ nib’s width being more like the ‘F’ nib of my 2020 M805 than it is a current Pelikan ‘M’.

 

I have found that this combination produces ink-spread on the following papers:

Croxley ‘Heritage’ laid paper;

G. Lalo Vergé de France laid paper;

Original Crown Mill 100% Cotton writing paper;

 to be fair, in my experience this ⬆️ paper hates ‘wet’ pens, so I shouldn’t have been ‘surprised’.

Basildon Bond ‘Airmail’ paper;

It even ‘spreads’ on the Rhodia 80gsm ‘High Grade Vellum’ in my no.18 bloc pad 

 

The only papers that I have which are vaguely able to cope with the amount of Topaz that is laid-down by this pen are:

Basildon Bond ‘Personal Writing Paper’ (just about), and;
90gsm Oxford Optik (the older stuff; I don’t yet have any of the new ‘Optik+’ paper).

 

Admittedly, this is mostly a ‘problem’ because my handwriting is a hastily-rushed scrawl, and one that is so tiny that the spaces in my ‘e’, ‘b’, ‘d’, ‘p’, ‘g’, and ‘q’ are often filled if ink spreads.
Perhaps I ought in future just stick to ‘F’ and ‘EF’ nibs?

Either that, or I will need to make a very deliberate effort to s-l-o-w  d-o-w-n my handwriting, and almost ‘print’ it 😢

 

Pelikan makes a wet nib for it's dry inks.....and I don't know what pen I last ran Topas through, but it was with the last year.

But thank you for telling me that the W.Germany M was running wetter than normal...as 'mentioned' I have OM....I had thought the shading ink Topas, dry enough. In it normally shades.

.......................................................

G. Lalo Vergé de France laid paper; have at 160g.

Original Crown Mill 100% Cotton writing paper; Don't use...100%&50% cotton don't shade...soft to write on but I'm after shading. I expect a woolly line, and a wider line on this paper or any 100-50% cotton paper. I like the 25% cotton papers.

 

It even ‘spreads’ on the Rhodia 80gsm ‘High Grade Vellum’ in my no.18 bloc pad ....OK a paper I didn't know about having just  Rhodia 90g, which some don't care for. Got to buy not only some normal 80g, but some  new to me....'High Grade Vellum’.

....................

This spreading is something I really don't understand on Verge de France or Rhoda.

Is it possible that the ink has been contaminated by a bit of dish soap/ammonia mix from a pen not quite really cleaned out.      Spreading on all papers, seems to me a contaminated ink problem.

 

And I love the ‘wetness’ with which that pen lays-down ink. It makes Pelikan 4001 Violet really ‘sing’, so I thought that it would be the perfect ‘dancing partner’ for Topaz - but I was wrong.... so it isn't the pen Plastic Gasket 2.0........

[Mercian]

1 hour ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

This spreading is something I really don't understand on Verge de France or Rhoda.

Is it possible that the ink has been contaminated by a bit of dish soap/ammonia mix from a pen not quite really cleaned out.      Spreading on all papers, seems to me a contaminated ink problem.

I was very surprised by it too!

 

I strongly doubt that it’s because of any kind of ink contamination; I am rather ‘OCD’ about cleaning out my pens…

 

I tend to switch to a different pen whenever one runs out of ink, and then put the just-emptied one back into storage for what might be ages.
And I switch between different types of ink which don’t ‘play nice’ with each other, so I dare not risk having any old ink left inside a pen before its next use.

I therefore flush my pens thoroughly, and then I re-fill them with plain water, which I allow to ‘wick’ through the nib into kitchen roll paper.
I flush my pens by using their piston mechanisms, or with a converter, so that the water travels through the feed in both directions.
I do that repeatedly, until no more traces of ink come out, then ‘wick’ fills of water out through the nib to ensure that the feed is clean, and then I allow one last fill of plain water to ‘wick’ out, just to be sure.
If a pen has had iron-gall ink in it, I initially flush it with vinegar solution, then allow fills of that to wick through the nib until no more ink is visible, before then flushing the pen with plain water and then wicking a fill of water through the nib.

 

This M800 was last used with Pelikan Edelstein Aquamarine, at the start of April of this year, after which I cleaned it in the manner described above, and since when it has been stored with its cap on, inside a pen-case, inside a briefcase.

 

The again, the ink bottle is several years old now so, although I store it inside its box and inside a (closed) desk drawer, perhaps it may have become ‘denatured’ in some way? 🤷‍♂️

This is the first time that it has given me any problems.

 

As I said previously, I also suspect that the main source of this ‘issue’ is the tiny size of my cramped scrawl.
I have been using my 1954 Pelikan 400 a lot of late, and the 1990/91 ‘M’ nib is much broader than the ‘F’ nib on the 1950s pen!
I have, in all likelihood, just got used to the very-crisp, narrow lines of the 1950s nib, and so now need to write with the M800 for ‘Some Time’ to get myself re-accustomed to writing in the larger size that is necessitated when using a wider nib.
It will take me longer than it would most people 

 

1 hour ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

It even ‘spreads’ on the Rhodia 80gsm ‘High Grade Vellum’ in my no.18 bloc pad ....OK a paper I didn't know about having just  Rhodia 90g, which some don't care for. Got to buy not only some normal 80g, but some  new to me....'High Grade Vellum’.

The ‘High Grade Vellum’ - or Vélin supérieur - is the name that Rhodia gives to the 80gsm paper in its bloc pads.
That paper is in my A6-sized ‘N^o 13 bloc pad’ and in my A4-sized ‘N^o 18 bloc pad’.

 

The spreading is less-pronounced on the 90gsm ‘Vélin Velouté’ paper in the Rhodia ‘Webnotebook’ that I use for journalling.

[USG]

23 hours ago, Penguincollector said:

 Oh good! I just asked if you had decided in the ink thread. I really hope it performs for you. 

 

@Penguincollector  Where is the ink thread? Do you mean the latest purchased ink?

 

4 hours ago, Lithium466 said:

 

@USG

> I've noticed a great number of notebooks are using a cream colored paper instead of white.  I wonder why that is?

 

A very long time ago, I had seen some fancier notebooks and agendas advertising that cream paper as a way to differentiate them from the "school" notebooks and paper. Some also say it's easier on the eyes, other that it's cheaper to produce with some part recycled base, etc. Think of this what you want

 

I sneakily ran some experiment with some work colleagues, giving away some stationery: wooden pencils generated a LOT of nostalgia (and the non yellow ones were the most sought after, yellow ones not so much), and cream/ivory paper or notebook generated that idea of "fanciness" compared to bright white paper ("that's just like copy paper"). Fountain pens didn't get much traction at all...wooden pencils had the most success and the whole department came to get some, and used them regularly after that. Some even bought more on their own and came to show them to me what they bought, to "benefit" from my smug snobby judgement.

So...like many things in life, perception and comparison is probably key somewhere in there.

 

@Lithium466  I think your'e right.  The illusion of Higher End.

 

Nifty experiment 😀👍

 

2 hours ago, Mercian said:

Today I have discovered a combination of pen and ink that - to my surprise - does not work well for me.

 

It is Pelikan Edelstein Topaz in my ‘W.-Germany’ Pelikan M800 ‘M’.

 

I love the colour of Topaz, and the way that it pools on certain strokes while one is writing.

And I love the ‘wetness’ with which that pen lays-down ink. It makes Pelikan 4001 Violet really ‘sing’, so I thought that it would be the perfect ‘dancing partner’ for Topaz - but I was wrong.
The pen is so ‘wet’ that the ink gets laid-down like watercolour paint, and then ‘spreads’, on almost every paper that I have tried it on!
And this is despite its ‘M’ nib’s width being more like the ‘F’ nib of my 2020 M805 than it is a current Pelikan ‘M’.

 

I have found that this combination produces ink-spread on the following papers:

Croxley ‘Heritage’ laid paper;

G. Lalo Vergé de France laid paper;

Original Crown Mill 100% Cotton writing paper;

 to be fair, in my experience this ⬆️ paper hates ‘wet’ pens, so I shouldn’t have been ‘surprised’.

Basildon Bond ‘Airmail’ paper;

It even ‘spreads’ on the Rhodia 80gsm ‘High Grade Vellum’ in my no.18 bloc pad 

 

The only papers that I have which are vaguely able to cope with the amount of Topaz that is laid-down by this pen are:

Basildon Bond ‘Personal Writing Paper’ (just about), and;
90gsm Oxford Optik (the older stuff; I don’t yet have any of the new ‘Optik+’ paper).

 

Admittedly, this is mostly a ‘problem’ because my handwriting is a hastily-rushed scrawl, and one that is so tiny that the spaces in my ‘e’, ‘b’, ‘d’, ‘p’, ‘g’, and ‘q’ are often filled if ink spreads.
Perhaps I ought in future just stick to ‘F’ and ‘EF’ nibs?

Either that, or I will need to make a very deliberate effort to s-l-o-w  d-o-w-n my handwriting, and almost ‘print’ it 😢

 

 

@Mercian  Would it be possible for you post pics of what you're discussing, Amigo?  There's all kinds of spreading.  Normally I take it mean a fine point is laying down a line like a medium, or a medium like a broad.  But even in that there's variation.  Sometimes the line is wider but also woolly.  Sometimes it's wider but also feathering.  Sometimes feathering looks like spreading.  Pics would really help and it would show the difference between the papers.

 

Regarding paper, Clairefontaine and Rhodia, for instance, produce thinner lines than Cosmo Snow, Iroful or Tomoe River but I wouldn't call the wider lines on the latter, spreading.... or maybe I should.... what do you think?

 

 

1 hour ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

 

Pelikan makes a wet nib for it's dry inks.....and I don't know what pen I last ran Topas through, but it was with the last year.

But thank you for telling me that the W.Germany M was running wetter than normal...as 'mentioned' I have OM....I had thought the shading ink Topas, dry enough. In it normally shades.

.......................................................

G. Lalo Vergé de France laid paper; have at 160g.

Original Crown Mill 100% Cotton writing paper; Don't use...100%&50% cotton don't shade...soft to write on but I'm after shading. I expect a woolly line, and a wider line on this paper or any 100-50% cotton paper. I like the 25% cotton papers.

 

It even ‘spreads’ on the Rhodia 80gsm ‘High Grade Vellum’ in my no.18 bloc pad ....OK a paper I didn't know about having just  Rhodia 90g, which some don't care for. Got to buy not only some normal 80g, but some  new to me....'High Grade Vellum’.

....................

This spreading is something I really don't understand on Verge de France or Rhoda.

Is it possible that the ink has been contaminated by a bit of dish soap/ammonia mix from a pen not quite really cleaned out.      Spreading on all papers, seems to me a contaminated ink problem.

 

And I love the ‘wetness’ with which that pen lays-down ink. It makes Pelikan 4001 Violet really ‘sing’, so I thought that it would be the perfect ‘dancing partner’ for Topaz - but I was wrong.... so it isn't the pen Plastic Gasket 2.0........

 

@Bo Bo Olson  Same comment as Mercian.  Could you post some pics so we can see exactly what you mean.

 

I have seen the same type of spreading that you talk about, from a surfactant contaminating the feed or the ink chamber, but pics would really make things clear.  And besides I'd love to see the samples.  A picture is worth a thousand words.😁

 

[Bo Bo Olson]

2 hours ago, Mercian said:

I have been using my 1954 Pelikan 400 a lot of late, and the 1990/91 ‘M’ nib is much broader than the ‘F’ nib on the 1950s pen!

Shouldn't be, unless you have a fat M and a skinny F.

 

Now I don't go measuring, but as far as I can tell my '50-65 semi-flex and W.Germany -to Germany '97 seem about the same width with in their widths...F-B... B is a writing nib not a signature nib...same with a couple OBB Osmia pens I have, one can write with them very nicely.

 

My '50-54 500's OBBB ('52-54) is real fat even if it don't look it. When writing a legal signature name...takes 2/3rds-3/4ths of a page.

But not so wide when just scribbling. Had to eyeball it in it was the era of marking the piston cap and this pen has a rolled gold piston cap overlay.

I have other Osmia OBB nibs of that era that are narrower.

Crystal is supposed to be a dry ink.

BBL(BBLeft) is Oamia's more exact way of saying OBB.

The maroon Australian Snorkel was given to someone nice as boot. Have no idea now what ink this was.

 

1 hour ago, USG said:

Same comment as Mercian.  Could you post some pics so we can see exactly what you mean.

It has been ages since I inked that pen (which ever it was), and I don't keep old edited papers that long.

I'm down to 25 inked pens (from 32 or so...got new inks; ran a test of my gray inks, orange ink and mix, etc)....aiming again for 7, so don't expect to be inking anything but the Lamy Dark Lilac that is in the mail. (Been convinced to use my Lamy Persona B, made CI by Pendelton Brown......and my hand writing is third grade stuff compared to his.)

I was talking about basic shading, not that I had had a problem with my favorite ink.

I liked the way someone defined shading as ink pooling...on good to better paper.

 

The third or forth ink I bought was Lamy turquoise, then the turquoise all were measured against. It was sort of BLAAAAA.  Then I looked in Ink Reviews and the then both reviews showed SHADING...but both were using 90g paper not the 80g copy paper I was using.  The passed Piemb has sent me a Oxford Optic 90g school booklet with some 20 different inks jumping over a lazy dog. On Oxford optic lamy turquoise shaded.......

For the longest time normal 90g copy paper shaded, then some 3 years ago, it no longer did and I had to chase expensive paper.

 

[USG]

26 minutes ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

Shouldn't be, unless you have a fat M and a skinny F.

 

Now I don't go measuring, but as far as I can tell my '50-65 semi-flex and W.Germany -to Germany '97 seem about the same width with in their widths...F-B... B is a writing nib not a signature nib...same with a couple OBB Osmia pens I have, one can write with them very nicely.

 

My '50-54 500's OBBB ('52-54) is real fat even if it don't look it. When writing a legal signature name...takes 2/3rds-3/4ths of a page.

But not so wide when just scribbling. Had to eyeball it in it was the era of marking the piston cap and this pen has a rolled gold piston cap overlay.

I have other Osmia OBB nibs of that era that are narrower.

Crystal is supposed to be a dry ink.

BBL(BBLeft) is Oamia's more exact way of saying OBB.

The maroon Australian Snorkel was given to someone nice as boot. Have no idea now what ink this was.

 

It has been ages since I inked that pen (which ever it was), and I don't keep old edited papers that long.

I'm down to 25 inked pens (from 32 or so...got new inks; ran a test of my gray inks, orange ink and mix, etc)....aiming again for 7, so don't expect to be inking anything but the Lamy Dark Lilac that is in the mail. (Been convinced to use my Lamy Persona B, made CI by Pendelton Brown......and my hand writing is third grade stuff compared to his.)

I was talking about basic shading, not that I had had a problem with my favorite ink.

I liked the way someone defined shading as ink pooling...on good to better paper.

 

The third or forth ink I bought was Lamy turquoise, then the turquoise all were measured against. It was sort of BLAAAAA.  Then I looked in Ink Reviews and the then both reviews showed SHADING...but both were using 90g paper not the 80g copy paper I was using.  The passed Piemb has sent me a Oxford Optic 90g school booklet with some 20 different inks jumping over a lazy dog. On Oxford optic lamy turquoise shaded.......

For the longest time normal 90g copy paper shaded, then some 3 years ago, it no longer did and I had to chase expensive paper.

 

That was great.... a wealth of information there... I remember reading you had a fancy 'L' as one of your test letters (I don't remember what the other letters were)  but I didn't know what you meant.. Now I do... 👍  A "Lamy style  L"

 

OK, just a few questions...

 

What color and type of blank paper was the 'Amazonite' writen on?  (so I can color balance the pic)

 

Same question for the lined paper with the Osmia 63 BBL and the Snorkel, Color and type of paper?

 

Were you using the Lamy Amazonite ink with the Osmia 63 BBL on the lined paper?   I'm assuming yes.

 

Below that you said "Australian Maroon Snorkel".  Was that a Statesman?  Very educational looking it up.  I didn't know about that variation.

 

Also helpful was when you indicated if you were using more or less writing pressure.

 

 

[Penguincollector]

I like your handwriting,  @Bo Bo Olson.  It’s legible and I bet it would be easy to tell who wrote it in a work setting. Italics and stubs always add a little flair as well.

[lamarax]

Re: Graphilo,

 

I'm trying to replicate @USG's shots, with the left hand holding the phone, and with the right struggling to hold up a ~1 kg Roterfaden organizer steady:

 

 

...aand... not much of a success 😔

 

 

[Bo Bo Olson]

2 hours ago, Penguincollector said:

It’s legible

Not to my wife.

The lined paper is CT.

3 hours ago, USG said:

Was that a Statesman? 

No, a very plain normal maroon Snorkel. I had been chasing very slowly a Snorkel President, Saratoga or Admiral...but in the very seldom '50's semi-flex, being willing to pay the $15-18 postage had I hit there.(As a bottom feeder back 15 years ago, I could pick up vintage  old top of the line pens for $20-25...not the top of the line Shaffers....but coming from a One Family Pen, a Snorkel was willing to go big time.........but it never showed up.

 

Then a passed pal in England found that one for me...and I took the maxi-semi-flex factory BB stub in a plain Snorkel against US nibs that couldn't match that.

English/Australian Parker and Snorkels had to match the wide  flex rates of Swan....as did Esterbrook, which IMO luckily took Osmiroid brass  calligraphy nibs. Esterbrook semi-flex nibs were a hard semi-flex from my reading...at least in the US. Could be it was softer in England.

(have an Osmiriod BB in one Esterbrook, could put a M or B in the other. ...have six Osmiroid calligraphy nibs.................and only use them when the moon is green.)

.................................

For the below......thinking back and just run into a couple unused sheets stuck in the back of my green cloth ex-Government 3 ring binder***......I think it was Mondi, Color Copy laser-inkjet 100g. White.....Considering what it cost, I thought I was impressed....but after a month or so became less and less until it was just real expensive copy paper. It didn't shade enough. I am how ever impressed with the Mondi 120g.

 

****There are notes I have about kitchen utensils I got to add back into my kitchen scenes.  With names of the companies that made them of course....Raisin seeder...Ice cream freezer,  of 1880....and in the winter one used Bordon's condensed milk for cream or milk. Can't have a City Slicker western saga with out the English sung Opera...every three horse town had an Opera house or a variety theater where Opera was staged....The East Was In....no body but well to do dime western reading fool dudes had a glamor with men who only made 50 cents a day or $15 a month...would think $20 was if he was real good)  what they made as trail driving to Kansas also. (A $30 top hand....was much a myth.)...and cowboys mostly wore a Bowler, being a horseman's hat, hat didn't blow off, until 1885 when the Buffalo Bill's Wild West show showed the no longer dangerous Cowboys what they should be wearing. .  (When 4 of the top ten women Opera singers in the world were American. Gilbert and Sullivan was very popular. In the better saloons, where drinks cost a quarter...not two drinks for 25 cents in the cheap saloons, had a French buffet 'free lunch',  along with the better Parlor Houses on the Row.

 

The ladies didn't want a man ruining his liver.

 

With the Comstock laws preventing birth control, the shady ladies were used by the good women as birth control units. With out foreplay it was a duty to be avoided.

 

The Doctors and Ministers gave all newlywed women, a bood that said taper him off  after the two day honeymoon to once every six weeks. Ladies of the Evening didn't teach a man how to change his wife's mind...she had a living to make. ... and pay off the horrible expensive, right in fashion, dresses the Madam who was getting a kickback from the dress maker insisted the top ladies wore.

A normal woman took the material home ans sewed it on her sewing machine...if her husband didn't gamble or get drunk, she might have a $35 dollar dress a couple times a year.

When a real good dress with all the bangles could be had for $75.

One had to show the other Night ladies how well one mastered the trade, by looking down one's nose at a cheaper dress while strolling for business. $150-200-250 to $300 for a hand sewn copy of a Worth Paris dress.

He invented the cakewalk and manikin hand sewn dresses.

 

Saloon girls (B Girls who got paid by the dance and half of what the man drank while she drank Dove Tea) who could, only if they wished go off with a man of their choice, could make $15 a week, and wore normal street dresses of normal women, couldn't tell until one noticed she had discrete lipstick, a touch of blush, and eye make up. Nothing to make a good woman swish her skirts away from her if passing on the street. No Hollywood...no ankle either.

(Outside one hell hole in Deadwood.)

Both those women looked down their nose at each other.

 

 

'Free Lunch was three drinks....and back then there were no shot glasses on a bar...it was a gill glass...4 ounces. Beer was more expensive then whiskey...that leave the bottle for a western to show how tough the drunk was, could happen it was 8 drinks in a quart. Two dollars.

  In my bar book from era, the one of the cocktail measurement of the basic booze is a wine glass into the shaker. If one had a rail road one had ice...if not up in the mountains where one had an ice house...Anywhere Virginia and north had ice houses.

 

In the cheap saloons you put down your quarter and got a dime back....to be used on the next drink...in that saloon. There food there might be Hollywood. Quaff half the beer, shoot the 4 oz of booze, finish the beer, get the third drink and head for the 'free lunch' pickled eggs, pigs feet, sandwiches, a soup....and stagger back to work.**

 

In Leadville, the home of blackjack muggers and day light pistol robbery, such Ladies of the Night, paid the whole of the police forces salary. In Tombstone, the schools and teachers salaries.

 

The Oriental Saloon; extorted to owning half by the fighting pimp Earp brothers(no...lie)...had such a grand menu....I think it was for Christmas, but if for Sunday it was fantastic. It can be looked up.  (Wyatt (a Kansas horse thief)  had to pay a bribe of $250,000 to the Governor Pitkin of Colorado, not to be extradited back to Arizona territory for the murders he and his posse band committed. Not bad for a year or so's work.)  

 

**In most restaurants, you bought a meal ticket for say 20 meals at $4.50 and saved a dollar for the week. Come in sit down get your ticket punched for today's special...if one ate fast enough, there was time for a drink or two at the nearest saloon before going back to work. It was more expensive in high mountain one, later two, rail line Leadville.

 

These are back east prices.""""""1876 Shorey’s, Haymarket Square, Boston: “Famous Boiled Dinner” (25¢), Soups (10¢), Chowders (10¢), Stews with Dumplings (15¢), Roast Beef (25¢), Sirloin Steak (35¢), Chicken Pie (25¢).

1877 “Cook’s Substantial Dinner,” Boston: 40¢ for a meal including Soups, Chowders, Fish, Meats, Poultry, Sauce, Vegetables, Puddings, Pies, Tea, Coffee, and Dessert. “No extra charges for second orders.”''''''''''

 

Home schooling one self was big. To go to HS cost you money like going to collage...a reason most stopped at 8th grade.

In better grade schools you did have Latin; in some cases Greek (should look up the 1895 Kansas 8th grade graduation test.)

Suddenly in the 1870's being a HS graduate was no longer  enough to get a job as a three dollar a day clerk.

....but one could go to a Businesses Collage for 16 weeks...Pay by the week and got to pass.

 

I have a minor character...real, who did that in 8 weeks, became on of the big city gangsters of  Denver...owned the worlds fastest trotter for a year or two.

Gaskel was a student of Spenser, and his Compendium of Business Forms was a basic of business, with bookkeeping, penmanship....

The first book my murderous heroine read was tom Sawyer. The Second Gaskel's book.There is a few detours she has to take before she can use Gaskel's book. Yes, my murderous heroine is a bit odd, she likes bookkeeping.

Vest pocket books on how to pronounce 10,000 difficult words, or Websters vest pocket dictionary. Books on etiquette were essential, manners allowed upward mobility.  

........................

Every town, once the Indian problem in the neighborhood was solved, had a no gun inside town limit.....the well to do of course could carry a shoulder holster gun under their sac or frock coat jacket, or a couple 2 shot derringers in their big roomy coat pockets. None of the poor of course or the Sports (gamblers)...which is why Doc Holiday was forced to knife that man at the card table who caught him cheating.

The wild west was only wild for 15-max 20 years. By @ 1875 the big Texas ranches didn't allow an ill paid cowboy to carry a pistol at all; much less go to town with it. The West was wilder, further west.

.......tid bit of the day.

President Garfield; once a low paid school teacher, later General, could write simultaneously, Greek with one hand, and Latin with the other.

Pi and Omega is the limit my Greek.

 

3 hours ago, USG said:

What color and type of blank paper was the 'Amazonite' writen on?  (so I can color balance the pic)

[Mechanical]

21 hours ago, USG said:

Also unexpected was the feedback unless you're talking about the same sharp edges that are on my Italic, which can catch the paper..

@USG, this cursive nib moves more easily than even my finest italic nib.  It doesn't at all catch the paper; you can use it without much thought.  With an italic nib I have to be almost in a state of meditation to write correctly.

 

A big difference is that the Lamy Cursive has a ball at the tip.  It must be ground at the factory to give it the "architect-like" behavior.  Not sure this is a good picture.... but you get the idea.

[Claes]

Re taking photos of sheen/glitter &c --- also experiment with the direction of incoming light.

 

Have fun!
Claes in Lund, Sweden

 

[Penguincollector]

23 hours ago, USG said:

Where is the ink thread? Do you mean the latest purchased ink?

Yes.

[Mercian]

21 hours ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

Shouldn't be, unless you have a fat M and a skinny F.

Here is a photo to try to show the contrast between the two nibs’ line-widths:

 

(My apologies for the poor lighting - my part of Inglistan is today experiencing Standard British Summer Overcast.)

The writing was done on 90gsm Oxford ‘Optik’ paper.
The separation between the ruled lines is 8mm.

 

I suspect that the ‘problem’ that I have been experiencing is mostly attributable to me trying to write at the same size that I do with the 400 ‘F’ while I am writing in Topaz with the M800 ‘M’.

When one is trying to write in letters this small, even the slightest bit of spread makes all the open spaces inside one’s glyphs fill with ink.

[Bo Bo Olson]

One word less per line would do away with cramped (very hard to do). And it's not that bad, better than mine.

..........................................

The Topas ink is dry enough it shades. Magnified, it don't look like a woolly line.

Yep...a Fat M, vs a Skinny F.

 

I was never into narrow and very narrow nibs. But, Richard Binder has a width chart one can print out, and check out the width of your nib. I suggest a putting a sheet of a good to better paper in the printer...............that will show you if it's a fat M and a skinny F.

(I mentioned that in a post in June to you.....was looking for Ron Zorn's tolerance info that I can't find off the bat.

 

What other Pelikans do you have from the two eras, stubbed semi-flex, and tear drop tipped regular flex; springy nibs....pre'98.

......................

But you said with other inks the 800 M is not fat.

Which other inks?

 

For me and my memory, Topas wrote normal for the nib width, be that Vintage or semi-vintage...I've out side of my 200's, I only have one modern fat and blobby Pelikan pen, a 605...since stubbed to a nice clean, butter smooth B/1.0

The Studio with a fat B Z55 and a fat MB where B=BB. .... I've not had much luck with modern German pens they all are fat since the late '90's.

I'm not into fat and blobby.

 

 A way to increase the size of your script. Take two sheets of paper, fold in 4ths, write normal  slowly increasing your width on each of the 8 sides (back and front). Start on the second page wide and go narrower, but not as narrow as you can...see which of the middle of both pages felt most comfortable...M or wider nib.

Looking for Ron Zorn's Tollerance...that I re-post with a few of my comments when I ran into your very nice collection of vintage and semi-vintage pens.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Oddly back in the Vintage and semi-vintage Pelikan was narrower than Shaffer.

One of the things that baffle me, is in that era, '88-97, the 800 had it's very own size grouping (something I often forget), narrower than a 400/600 and still wider than the normally referred to skinny Waterman.

 

Somewhere hidden away in my computer is a pre-Japan and pre-fat nib chart of ...ever so real fat Conway Stewart, fat Parker, thin for the US, Shaffer, the two thinner Pelikan widths and skinny Waterman.

Your M should be 800 M-F as a norm....and yours is so much wider than that.

 

OK, some one screwed up and tossed a measured B into the stamping M plastic box, instead of the B box next to it..

 

................................... Oh, Well here's Ron's fine post butchered by me.

 

Tolerance is a Skinny F= a Fat EF. or any other size.....finding one in the middle of that company's tolerance is luck.

........................

..........................................................coped from an old Ron Zorn post explaining tolerance, when he and Richard Binder went to the Shaffer factory as it closed down @ 2008.

"""""Ron Zorn tolerance

Sheaffer used a dial indicator nib gauge for measuring nib sizes. The nib was inserted into the gauge, and the size read off of the dial. A given size being nibs that fell within a given range. What is listed below were the ranges given on a gauge that I saw in the Sheaffer service center prior to being closed in March 2008.

Measurements are in thousandths of an inch. (((((do notice that a skinny M can = a Fat F.)))

XXF = 0.010 - 0.013
XF = 0.013 - 0.018
F = 0.018 - 0.025
M = 0.025 - 0.031
Broad* = 0.031 - 0.050
Stub = 0.038 - 0.050

*there was some overlap on the gauge. May be 0.035 - 0.050""""""

........................................................

 

And remember each company has it's very own standard of width and all have slop/tolerance.

 

[RedPie]

17 hours ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

Measurements are in thousandths of an inch. (((((do notice that a skinny M can = a Fat F.)))

XXF = 0.010 - 0.013
XF = 0.013 - 0.018
F = 0.018 - 0.025
M = 0.025 - 0.031
Broad* = 0.031 - 0.050
Stub = 0.038 - 0.050

Very interesting, thank you very much!

[Bo Bo Olson]

Thank Ron really, I just  pass on what he found and a bit of my own commentary.

..................

Back in the Day, when you bought a pen from a trained salesman, he would ask what pen you had/were using, to know if you were trained to think a fat M from Parker was normal, or a skinny M from Shaffer, buying your new this decade fountain pen. One Man, One Pen, bought every ten years.

 

If all made the same width nib, why buy a Parker...or a Shaffer this time.

Chevy vs Ford.

[Mercian]

On 8/14/2024 at 6:23 PM, Bo Bo Olson said:

One word less per line would do away with cramped (very hard to do). And it's not that bad, better than mine.

..........................................

The Topas ink is dry enough it shades. Magnified, it don't look like a woolly line.

Yep...a Fat M, vs a Skinny F.

 

 

The pic I uploaded was on Oxford Optik, the paper on which I haven’t had the ink spread.
I deliberately chose to show my writing on that paper, so that you (& the rest of FPN) would be able to judge whether or not my M800 has a ‘fat’ ‘M’ nib on it.

 

I didn’t think that it had, because it’s of a similar width to the 2020 ‘F’ nib on my M805.
But of course that pen may actually have a ‘fat’ ‘F’ on it.

 

 

On 8/14/2024 at 6:23 PM, Bo Bo Olson said:

I was never into narrow and very narrow nibs. But, Richard Binder has a width chart one can print out, and check out the width of your nib. I suggest a putting a sheet of a good to better paper in the printer...............that will show you if it's a fat M and a skinny F.

(I mentioned that in a post in June to you.....was looking for Ron Zorn's tolerance info that I can't find off the bat.

Well, I don’t currently have a functional printer 

Perhaps more-importantly, when it comes to my ‘vintage’ pens, and my Pelikans, I am very much in ‘sample size of one’ territory.
But having some indication of the tolerance-ranges for nibs of each era would be very useful. I shall have to get my printer up-&-running again!

 

One thing I thoroughly like, and respect, about modern Lamy is that they publish the nominal widths, and the tolerances for them, on their website 

 

On 8/14/2024 at 6:23 PM, Bo Bo Olson said:

What other Pelikans do you have from the two eras, stubbed semi-flex, and tear drop tipped regular flex; springy nibs....pre'98.

......................

 

In chronological order, I have:

1x 1954 Pelikan 400, very crisp ‘cursive italic’ ‘F’ nib 

1x 1990/91 ‘W.-Germany’ M800, bi-colour 18k ‘M’ nib with ‘PF’ stamp;

1x 1991-97 ‘Germany’ M400, monotone 14k ‘M’ nib;

1x 2012 M205, ‘2-chick’ ‘F’ nib (the springy nib with teardrop-tipping, of the kind that you like);

1x 2020 M805, bi-colour 18k ‘F’ nib.

After finding that I love my 1954 400’s ‘F’ nib, I now intend to buy an early-50s 400 in Brown Tortoiseshell, with a ‘M’ nib on it.

 

On 8/14/2024 at 6:23 PM, Bo Bo Olson said:

But you said with other inks the 800 M is not fat.

Which other inks?

 

For me and my memory, Topas wrote normal for the nib width, be that Vintage or semi-vintage...I've out side of my 200's, I only have one modern fat and blobby Pelikan pen, a 605...since stubbed to a nice clean, butter smooth B/1.0

 

My experiences with Topaz in my M205 & M805 agree with yours. I have never suffered from it spreading before, whether from my M205, or my M805.

 

The other inks that I have used in my M800 so far are Edelstein Aquamarine (which, in my experience, is a very ‘dry’ ink), and 4001 Violet (which I have always found to be neither ‘wet’ nor ‘dry’, so rather like E. Topaz).

 

On 8/14/2024 at 6:23 PM, Bo Bo Olson said:

A way to increase the size of your script. Take two sheets of paper, fold in 4ths, write normal  slowly increasing your width on each of the 8 sides (back and front). Start on the second page wide and go narrower, but not as narrow as you can...see which of the middle of both pages felt most comfortable...M or wider nib.

 

That looks like great advice! Thank you 😊

I shall have a play….

 

On 8/14/2024 at 6:23 PM, Bo Bo Olson said:

Looking for Ron Zorn's Tollerance...that I re-post with a few of my comments when I ran into your very nice collection of vintage and semi-vintage pens.

As for ‘older’ pens, I have:

a Geha 700 ‘Schulfüller’ from the late 1950s (whose steel nib is actually fairly stiff);

two 1954 Q3 examples of the aerometric Parker “51” - whose nibs are of course ‘nails’;

 

a made-in-the-1960s Parker UK Duofold ‘Junior’ - which has a rather ‘bouncy’ nib on it.
I bought that pen, which has an ebonite feed, as my pen to dedicate to use with ESSRI. With which ink it gives results that are delightful 😊 
 

Plus an early-1970s ‘Made in England’ Parker 45, which has a ‘springy’ English 14k ‘M’ nib on it 😊

 

My only other ‘springy’ nib is a 2007 Parker Sonnet, with a steel ‘M’ nib that is far more fun than I expected it to be

 

Getting back to my ‘problem’ with my M800 & Topaz:

I am a klutz (having grown up as a ‘ballpoint barbarian’) but I have, over the years, managed to develop a ‘light’ hand for FP use.
Today I realised that my worst problems with my M800 & Topaz were on papers that are textured, or ‘laid’.

I therefore suspect that the following may be happening:

The lightness of my hand seems to be making:

1. the slightly ‘springy’ or ‘bouncy’ PF nib on my M800 rebound off the textured parts of the paper which, when it happens, makes the ink-flow miserly at those points. So;
2. I appear to be reacting by pressing down on the nib. But, as mentioned before, I am a klutz, so;
3. I am very probably pressing too hard on the nib, and thus making the nib ‘flex’ a little too much, and therefore deposit too much ink onto the paper.

 

I therefore think that I need to:

1. practice, practice, practice, and then;
2. practice some more, until I can add only a little bit of pressure!

 

And in the meantime, until I have managed to learn how to use these nibs correctly:

• when writing on ‘laid’/textured paper, restrict my choice of pen to only those that have ‘nails’ for nibs! 😉

 

Slàinte,
M.

[Bo Bo Olson]

1 hour ago, Mercian said:

1x 1954 Pelikan 400, very crisp ‘cursive italic’ ‘F’ nib 

IMO a factory stub not CI...but they do leave such a nice clean line.

1 hour ago, Mercian said:

a Geha 700 ‘Schulfüller’ from the late 1950s (whose steel nib is actually fairly stiff);

I don't think mine is a 700,(I have a whole slew of numbers written in the first page of German Pens on Andreas Lambrou's Pen book,)  but I have a Schulfüller, that is a regular flex, like a Pelikan 120; a bit springy but stiff enough for school kids, of that era. (You could be of course right on the stiff nib. It was quite a shock, I ended up with a Schulfüller with a maxi-semi-flex nib on it.

Both Schulfüller were a slight bit different in length and girth and neither took each others nib. (When I set the guy upstairs with the basic; EF, regular flex, F maxi, M also regular flex and OB semi-flex, that is where that Schulfüller ended up...now in India so can't be measured.)

There is a guy with a great Pelikan blog, that now has a Geha blog where he does the same fine work. His name is Rudiger...in I misspelled the hell out of his name, I can't find it...

1 hour ago, Mercian said:

a made-in-the-1960s Parker UK Duofold ‘Junior’ - which has a rather ‘bouncy’ nib on it.
I bought that pen, which has an ebonite feed, as my pen to dedicate to use with ESSRI. With which ink it gives results that are delightful 😊 

English made Jr. Doufold.....quite a shock to me when I ran into it at an indoor flea market. That bouncy nib is what I call, semi-flex. I have a similar P45 and I call those springy nibs regular flex...from way back when when that was what one got  in the '50-60's in the States, when buying school pens. It too was a shock...same flea market two tables down the round.

1 hour ago, Mercian said:

when writing on ‘laid’/textured paper, restrict my choice of pen to only those that have ‘nails’ for nibs! 😉

, No...laid paper  can be enjoyed by any M or B nib, but ... I don't reach for it as much as I should....I have it in Heavy G.lalo 160g and I think in that old Audi paper at 90g. NOT KNOWING OF WHAT I TALK....see next post.

 

I'm still a tad heavy handed.

But if you want to learn an automatic light hand, Calkin? (sp) over in the Writing section showed up among the cannibals, a good 10-12 years ago, with his 'forefinger up' way of grasping a fountain pen.

 

Takes three minutes to learn how to do it, and 3-4 days of switching back and forth until it is comfortable. No pain, no fatigue, ...won't say my writing hand improved, but I'm not so Ham Fisted as I once was. I can ask for line variation instead of having a constant fat line...like always being at or near 2X on a nib that maxes at 3X ...semi-flex and such.

 

I've wrote this a lot of times, so each is a tad different.

But do take a look at this.

Help! How Do You Hold Your Fountain Pen?