Speedball dip pen nibs. Are they any good?

[Anne-Sophie]

 

Dip pen nibs found. Grade is C1, C2, C3, C4.

 

Can they fit in a traditional nib holder with a metal 'feed' with the center slit?

 

All info appreciated, Mods move if not in the right sub-forum. 

 

 

[daniel_art]

I don't understand the question. The nibs fit in to a holder, and then are dipped in India ink. Can you be more specific?

[daniel_art]

2 hours ago, Anne-Sophie said:

 

Dip pen nibs found. Grade is C1, C2, C3, C4.

 

Can they fit in a traditional nib holder with a metal 'feed' with the center slit?

 

All info appreciated, Mods move if not in the right sub-forum. 

 

 

Ah. Those are flat nibs -- I use the size B3 nibs, which are similar, but round.

 

They work just fine in regular Speedball holders, which can be found at any art supply shop. Most other "standard" holders should work too, but they're Speedball nibs. I don't know about any nicer holders -- I just use the regular $2 ones.

[Anne-Sophie]

58 minutes ago, daniel_art said:

Ah. Those are flat nibs -- I use the size B3 nibs, which are similar, but round.

 

They work just fine in regular Speedball holders, which can be found at any art supply shop. Most other "standard" holders should work too, but they're Speedball nibs. I don't know about any nicer holders -- I just use the regular $2 ones.

 

I have the Speedball holder but I would like to suse some of the nibs on beautiful nib holders I got years ago, they have a metal with slit opening.

[daniel_art]

All you can do is try it.

[AAAndrew]

Speedballs are good pens for their uses. They were designed as lettering pens and work well at that. They should fit into any standard dip pen holder except the newer Manga Pen holders from Japan that have a circle into which you fit your nib. Any standard holder should work. You can see more about holders on my website. https://thesteelpen.com/2017/10/18/using-steel-pens-part-3-holding-your-pen/

 

 

[inkstainedruth]

When I took a calligraphy class as a sophomore in college, we used Speedball pens but I don't remember what size nibs we used (it depended on the project  -- for instance, for one project, we were supposed to do a map where the locations and other info were done in Italic, and had to use very fine italic nibs for the places on the map and then larger italic nibs for the title and other text (I forget the specific terminology now).

I'll admit I was a little disappointed, because my first roommate (who was a sophomore and had taken that class with a different professor the year before) got to use an Osmiroid FP set.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth