Tag: Montblanc

July’s Currently Inked Fountain Pens

A mixture of some pens left over from last month, coupled with a slew of new pens in mostly long unused inks characterizes this month’s lineup.

The paper is Hobonichi Techo 2024 this time (I bought it on Black Friday, to compare with the original Tomoe River Paper in my 2014 Hobonichi). The paper in it is almost as good as the original Tomoe River Paper for showing off ink properties.

From June’s rotation I only have:

The mauve Sailor Pro Gear Slim with a music nib and delightful yet discontinued Sailor Jentle Apricot. A readable reddish orange ink with generous shading.

Kaweco AC Sport Carbon fine nib with Diamine Ultra Green. It’s almost written dry but has seen less use than I planned since I’m not in love with the ink colour. It is growing on me though.

Writing sample on Hobonichi 2024 paper

In the end of June I added two new pens into the rotation:

Franklin Christoph x Stilo x Stile 03 Sparkling Rock EF nib with Diamine Earl Grey. Earl Grey is still one of my favourite inks and if you want a readable, interesting grey I highly recommend it.

PenBBS 456 Smog with a RM nib and Pelikan Edelstein Golden Lapis ink. I have no idea what possessed me to fill a vacuum filler with this ink, but I’ll pay for that later. Golden Lapis was a gift from the Pelikan Hubs and has turned out to be my favourite shimmer ink.

Closeup on the sheen on Diamine Holly

The proper July inked pens are:

Franklin Christoph 46 Polar Ice EF nib with Diamine Inkvent 2019 Holly. I reviewed this ink here and I liked it enough to purchase a full bottle of it, though I have rarely used it since. Holly is a dark blue green with a wild red sheen and is saturated enough to pass as a serious businesslike black at a cursory glance, so you can sneak it into office use 🙂

Pilot VP Matte Black M nib with Pilot Iroshizuku Chiku-rin ink. I used to use my VPs a lot more, especially to take notes in meetings, but now I rarely use them because they have a tiny ink capacity and are a bit of a pain to clean out. They do have beautiful nibs, and I wanted a cheerful green ink so the pairing works well.

Visconti Homo Sapiens Lava black EF with Sailor Shikiori Yama Dori – this is the original Homo Sapiens pen, before Visconti did dozens of versions of it, when it took the pen world by storm. I bought mine at Mora Stylos, and they customized the finial with my initials. Yama Dori is a peacock blue with red sheen, and is a wonderful ink in Sailor’s annoying flat Jentle ink bottles.It was almost impossible to fill this pen due to the bottle shape.

Writing sample on Hobnonichi 2024 paper

Esterbrook Estie Sea Glass Journal nib with Diamine Aurora Borealis. I love the Journal nib, and it really shows off the gorgeous teal of Aurora Borealis. There’s some shading with this ink and a hint of red sheen. This ink is one of the few I own in both bottle and cartridge format.

Leonardo Momento Zero Grande 2.0 Galattica Universe F nib filled with Montblanc The Beatles Psychedelic Purple. A wild pen and a wild ink that have wildly jumped in price over the past year or two. I have a handful of Montblanc inks, but I’ve been priced out of the brand now. Leonardo makes great pens, but I no longer feel the need to buy every limited edition they come out with. The Beatles purple is a wonderful PURPLE – bright, not muddy and perfectly midway between red and blue.

Last but very far from least Parker 51 Plum F nib with Sailor Jentle Peche. A rare 51 and a long discontinued ink coupled together to make sure that I use the good china. Parker 51 pens are my favourites, and this one is a gold capped aerometric with a fantastic nib.

The pens in order of appearance here, from top to bottom.

What have you got in your pens this month?

Currently Inked Pens March 2025

Of February’s pen lineup only two pens remain inked, the Parker 51 with Waterman Purple, and the Leonardo Momento Zero Bohemian Twilight with Pilot Iroshizuku Tsuki-yo. As they’re both running low on ink, it’s time for a new pen lineup, with a slightly different theme than last month’s one:

  • All the pens are modern (last time I had more vintage pens than modern ones in rotation) and ones that I haven’t inked in years.
  • All the inks are ones that I haven’t used in years or ever, apart from one that was in the last rotation but I still haven’t figured out so it got another go.
  • The ink colours are much brighter than those that I used in February.

Here’s March’s rotation:

Writing sample on Midori MD Cotton paper

Here’s a bit more about every pen and ink combo:

  • Franklin Christoph 03 modified prototype- Red/White/Black motion with a 1.1 HPSteel cursive calligraphy nib. This is a new pen that I bought last year as my chemo anniversary pen (I buy myself a present every year to mark the occasion). I love the unusual resin colour and pattern, and I like FC’s HPSteel 1.1 nibs. They are just wide enough to really show off the ink without becoming a nightmare to use because it takes ages for the ink to dry.
    As nice as the pen is (and it is), the ink is the star in this one in terms of interest: it’s the ORIGINAL J.Herbin 1670 Rouge Hematite, which means that it has NO GLITTER and NO SHEEN. It’s just a deep, bright red with some nice shading and good outlining, but it isn’t full of gold glitter and sheen to the point where you can’t see the base colour. Yes, this is also the bottle that had the problematic crumbly wax cover on the cap, but I really think that I prefer this version to the one they issued later (I have both). I don’t normally use red inks, but this one was perfect for this pen.
The FC 03
The HPSteel 1.1 nib
Original Rouge Hematite compared to Cosmic Glow on original Tomoe River paper. Note the lack of sheen or shimmer.
  • TWSBI ECO Saffron fine nib filled with Rohrer & Klingner Helianthus ink. I use yellow inks even less often that I use red inks, but this ink is fairly readable for a yellow ink. It is, however, not going anywhere near a vintage pen as it has a tendency to crust over (as many yellow inks do). I wanted something bright, cheerful and different, and this ink checked all three. The TWSBI ECO is a phenomenal pen for those starting out with bottled fountain pen ink, and I can’t recommend it enough.
TWSBI ECO Saffron
  • Aurora Ipsilon medium nib with Rohrer & Klingner Alt-Goldrün ink. This is my one and only Aurora pen, which I bought years ago in Florence, Italy. Aurora nibs are nice enough, but the pens are priced well above what I believe that they are worth, so I have steered clear of them over the years. The Ipsilon is small pen, but you can’t post it, which is annoying for such a small pen. R&K Alt-Goldrün is a fantastic ink colour – a non standard green with plenty of shading and character – and the only reason I haven’t used it more is because it was tucked away behind two rows of other ink bottles. If you are just starting out with green inks, give Alt-Goldrün a try.
Aurora Ipsilon
The Ipsilon nib looks ridiculously small but it’s just the design of the section that makes it appear that way. Comparison photo to a TWSBI ECO nib.
  • Leonardo Momento Zero Blue Hawaii Fine nib with Diamine Steel Blue ink. I have used this pen fairly recently compared to some of the others in this rotation, but the ink has been one that I actually forgot that I have. I love teal and turquoise inks, and Diamine Steel is a beautiful member of this group. There’s a hint of shading with it, and it just pops off the page so nicely. If you want a different take on “boring blue” inks, I highly recommend it.
Leonardo Momento Zero Hawaii
  • Montblanc Writer’s Edition Victor Hugo medium nib with Montblanc Around the World in 80 Days ink. I bought this pen in Mora Stylos in Paris before they closed mainly because I adore the Notre Dame de Paris cathedral and it’s featured on this pen. Hugo has the honour of being the saviour of this extraordinary cathedral, and though I shy away from Montblanc limited editions (talk about overpriced) I thought this one was worth purchasing. The ink was last in rotation, in a vintage Montblanc, last month. I just can’t get over how unrelated it is to the green-gold elephant on the box, and I’m not sure what to make of it. I was expecting it to be more like Alt-Goldrün than like the bluish-grey (Payne’s Grey really) that it is.
The Montblanc Writer’s Edition Victor Hugo
The Victor Hugo death mask on the cap
The nib, which features Victor Hugo
  • Finally, speaking of a pen and ink combo that have gotten “lost” in my collection: the Stipula Model T marbled grey pen was also an Italian purchase, and it has a very peculiar fine “flexy” titanium nib. I would characterize the nib as springy, and as my other titanium nib Stipula does, it squeaks sometimes as you write with it. The ink is one that I bought in 2013 in Fahrney’s pen store in Washington DC. Since then I haven’t opened it and used it, mainly because Fahrney’s Tempest Blue is a blue ink, and I don’t use blue inks often. It shades nicely, but other than that it looks close enough to my benchmark blue, Waterman Florida Blue (now renamed to Waterman Serenity Blue), for me not to bother using it often. Waterman Serenity Blue is a best-in-class blue in my opinion because it’s so well behaved, gentle and easy to clean out of pens that you can safely use it in any pen that you have, particularly vintage ones.
The Stipula Model T. A very sleek design.
The Model T titanium nib.

February 2025 Currently Inked Pens

I have finally written dry all of my Inkvent 2024 fountain pens, which means that after two months I get to write with a whole new set of fountain pens and inks. I normally don’t spend too much time selecting which pen and which inks I’ll use next, but this time I decided to use some criteria for the next pens in my rotation:

  • They need to include at least 50% vintage pens. I don’t use vintage pens with Inkvent inks, and vintage pens make up most of my pen collection.
  • All the pens need to be pens that I haven’t used in a long time (at least a year). It was time to mix things up.
  • The inks needed to be inks that are new to me, or that I haven’t used in years, and all of them need to be inks that I haven’t swabbed before. This was not only to mix things up, but to get me to use and swab more inks in my collection, instead of going again and again to a few select favourites.

Here’s February’s fountain pen lineup:

The pens from left to right: Leonardo Momento Zero Bohemian Twilight, Sailor Pro Gear Slim Graphite Lighthouse, Edison Nouveau Premiere Cappuccino, Montblanc 32, Mabie Todd Swan L2 Leverless pen, Waterman 52, Parker 51, Parker Vacumatic Standard double striped jewel.

And here are ink swabs of the inks that I’ll be using:

Ink swabs on Col-o-Ring cards

The Vintage Pens

  • Parker Vacumatic 1st generation Laminated Burgundy Pearl Double Jewel (striped jewels, striped section) – I adore Parker Vacumatics and this is a “use the good china” pen. The grip section is also laminated (and not plain black), the body is transparent, and the nib is a sharp extra fine gold nib with a bit of character to it. It’s filled with a brand new ink for me, Diamine Writer’s Blood. I never use red inks, but this got raving reviews and seemed dark enough for me to try. I bought the ink in Oxford last year, and the pen years ago from the late Henry Simpole (Henry the Pen Man) in London. I don’t think I inked up this pen since I bought it, as it was too precious, and I still won’t let it leave the house, but I am looking forward to actually using it.
Parker Vacumatic first generation burgundy laminated grip section
Closeup on the striped jewel and the grip section of the Parker Vacumatic
  • Parker 51 Burgundy aerometric with a silver cap and gold filled arrow clip. I love Parker 51s, they are my absolute favourite fountain pens. I believe this cap is on the rare side, though it’s far from pristine or attractive (it’s blackened in specks, and there are a few scratches and micro scratches on it). The nib is a generous fine, bordering on medium, and like all other 51s that I’ve used, it’s magic. I haven’t used this pen since I bought it, so it’s time to give it a whirl. It’s filled with Pilot Iroshizuku Yama Budo, which is a lovely, sheening burgundy ink, one of the more popular inks in the Iroshizuku lineup. In hindsight coupling this ink with this pen wasn’t the best choice, as the 51 has generous nibs and Iroshizuku inks are on the wet side. It just means that I’ll have to steer clear of cheap paper with this combination.
Parker 51 cap and nib closeup
  • Waterman Ideal 52 Red Ripple fountain pen with a super flex extra fine nib – my word but this pen has the most glorious nib. The pen itself is elegant and pristine, and because of its age it doesn’t have the ebonite stink to it. The nib is why I bought this pen, and it effortlessly moves between extra fine and broad or double broad lines, with the feed easily keeping up with tines. Like all Waterman nibs that I’ve tried, there is some feedback, so if you like butter on hot pan nibs this one isn’t for you. This is the kind of nib that you can only get in a vintage pen, and it puts modern flex pens to shame. It’s only minus is that this is a lever filler, and I hate cleaning out lever fillers, which is why I rarely use them. This pen is filled with Diamine Autumn Oak, which I haven’t used yet (in bottle form at least – I have cartridges of it). I wanted a brighter ink in this lineup, so Autumn Oak was a perfect choice.
Waterman 52 cap and nib closeup. You know the nib is going to be fabulously flexy once you see that heart shaped breather hole and the slight bend down in the nib.
Writing sample on Midori MD Paper. Notes written with a Platinum Preppy.
  • Mabie Todd Swan L2 Leverless L205/62? Not sure – Swan did a poor job labeling their pens, and I didn’t write down notes when I bought it. This is a lovely pen that I bought from Henry Simpole years ago because of the phenomenal Swan nib. It’s an oblique flexible nib with Swan’s gimmicky “Leverless” filling system (which is a lever system in disguise, but such were the ’30s – you needed a gimmick to sell pen). I haven’t used it at all since I bought it because I don’t remember the experience of cleaning it out very fondly – imagine all the bother of cleaning out a Lamy 2000, but with a piston that has just one twist of travel. I used Pilot Iroshizuku Asa Gao with this fountain pen, and it’s a gorgeous ink with a good amount of sheen with this nib. I love this shade of royal blue, and I haven’t used this ink in a while. Take a look at the Swan above – it’s almost 100 years old and works perfectly.
Closeup on the nib and cap of the Swan Leverless pen
Writing sample on Midori MD Paper. Notes written with a Platinum Preppy.
  • Montblanc 32 (1967) OM 585 nib – heavens, you can get a gold nibbed, piston filling original Montblanc with an Oblique Medium nib for less than a steel nibbed Pelian M2xx costs? Yes, you can. I love the design of this pen (you can read about it more here) and the nib is great… provided you write in the exact angle it expects. The Swan’s nib is generous in terms of the writing angles it accepts, and the Monblanc 32 is demanding: you will use the nib at the precise angle it is designed for, or it will not work at all! I only wish that the Montblanc Around the World in 80 Days ink was so exact. From the description and the illustration on the box I was expecting a brownish gold ink, maybe with a hint of green. In reality I got a dark, cold grey ink, with a hint of blue to it. No brown, no gold, nothing at all to do with the elephant illustration on the box. I had to double check just to make sure that I hadn’t landed on a bad bottle by chance.
Montblanc 32 semi hooded nib
Writing sample on Midori MD Paper. Notes written with a Platinum Preppy.
Writing sample on original Tomoe River Paper

Modern Fountain Pens

  • Sailor Pro Gear Slim Graphite Lighthouse H-EF nib – I haven’t used this pen in over a year, and I wanted a pen with a very fine nib, so that I can use it for note taking. It’s inked up with Sailor Black, a new ink for me and one that’s supposed to be water resistant. I’m using this combination for my certification study notes, and I may also try it out with some watercolours in a sketch, just to see if I can use Sailor Black ink as part of my sketching kit.
  • Edison Nouveau Premiere Cappuccino fine nib – I bought this pen in early 2012, before they did a run of seasonal limited editions of this pen design. I haven’t used in years, and the same goes for the ink in it: Lamy Petrol. This is a limited edition ink, one that Lamy issued with the Lamy Safari Petrol, and it’s a wonderful blue-black with red sheen.
  • Leonardo Momento Zero Bohemian Twilight fine nib – this pen has “only” been a year out of rotation, and it’s one of my favourite Leonardos. The colour of the resin is gorgeous, and it works very well with the Pilot Iroshizuku Tsuki-yo ink that it’s filled with. Tsuki-you is a bluish-teal with red sheen and a wet flow, and it suits the Leonardo’s fine nib.
Modern pens writing sample on Midori MD paper.

One week 100 people day 2

I almost didn’t post today as I wasn’t up to sketching and I got only three sketches in, none of them great. But I like it when creators show their failures so I’m doing it myself today: my lack of shoulder mobility coupled with a lack of sleep and the difficulty of the subject made for a bad sketching day.

Parker 51 with Montblanc The Beatles Psychedelic Purple on a Stillman and Birn Alpha. Sketched 6-8 were done today. As usual the goal for me is to get to 100 even if it takes more than a week.

Celebrate your failures.

Montblanc The Beatles Psychedelic Purple Review

A few years ago I used to be really on the FOMO limited edition fountain pen ink band wagon, but over the last two years my ink purchases have petered out to nothing. At some point I realized that any limited edition ink that I buy is bound to be pretty damn close to an ink that I already own, and a person can only have too many inks (IMHO). How many inks can you use at one given time anyway?

The precious few new bottles of ink that I have have all been given to me as part of large (vintage) fountain pen purchases, and so I haven’t felt comfortable reviewing them. You don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, do you? Then again, the gift was from the store, not the ink maker, so here we are.

The Montblanc Beatles Psychedelic Purple limited edition ink comes in a very groovy box, that is very well designed. Normally I couldn’t care less about ink packaging (excepts as it pertains to price — looking at you Pilot Iroshizuku. You started the trend and you know it), but someone really put some thought in this.

The little ribbon tab helps open the box easily

Look at that design:

I’ve never seen an ink bottle’s cap protected before, but then again this is Montblanc:

The bottle itself is pretty conservatively designed, but classically pretty:

The ink itself is a rich, saturated purple with a good amount of shading (despite being pretty dark), and a very slow drying time. It’s one of the few cases where the actual ink matches the colour of the packaging. There’s some sheen to the ink, but I’ve seen it sheen only on Tomoe River Paper, and it’s super hard to photograph.

I love this ink’s shade of purple (it’s slightly more to the red side of purple than the blue), but this ink was a hot mess in terms of behaviour on various papers. This ink is usable only on Rhodia/Clairfontaine and Tomoe River Paper, it becomes a bleeding, spreading monster on everything else. It also takes a really long time to dry (not surprising, as it’s a very saturated ink), which means that it’s going to be a no-no for left handed users and you really have to take care where you put your hand when you write with the stuff.

And that’s the thing. This is an expensive, not readily available ink that is finicky and temperamental in a hue that’s not so rare as to be unobtainable. Why spend good money and time buying it if you can probably get a spot on match from Diamine? Montblanc Psychedelic Purple cost about $40 when it came out and $80 now for a 50ml bottle. Diamine Majestic Purple costs $15 for an 80ml bottle. You do the math.

If you enjoy hunting for limited edition inks as part of the hobby, that’s fine. Just don’t get swept away by the marketing and the hype. Remember: there’s a very good chance that that expensive limited edition ink is not very different from the ones that you already have and don’t use, or that you can get a similar hue for less than half the price from Diamine.

#Inktober 24: Chop

Another weird prompt. Montblanc 149 fountain pen filled with Montblanc psychedelic purple ink, with shading from a water brush, all on a Field Notes Signature sketchbook.

#inktober day 10: flowing

Drew this with a vintage Montblanc 149 and Montblanc’s new Beatles Psychedelic Purple on a Field Notes Signature sketchbook. As usual, purple doesn’t reproduce well – this is a super vibrant ink.

#inktober day 9: His Master’s Voice

Drew this with a vintage Montblanc 149 and Montblanc’s new Beatles Psychedelic Purple on a Field Notes Signature sketchbook. As usual, purple doesn’t reproduce well – this is a super vibrant ink.

A quick sketch of an HMV gramophone needle tin.

#inktober day 8: Star (trek)

Drew this with a vintage Montblanc 149 and Montblanc’s new Beatles Psychedelic Purple on a Field Notes Signature sketchbook. As usual, purple doesn’t reproduce well – this is a super vibrant ink.

#inktober day 7: exhausted

Drew this with a vintage Montblanc 149 and Montblanc’s new Beatles Psychedelic Purple on a Field Notes Signature sketchbook. As usual, purple doesn’t reproduce well – this is a super vibrant ink.