Current Fountain Pen Collection

August 1, 2020

I’ve made a few changes to my fountain pen line up recently.

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I’ve also been experimenting with some new inks, as I try and find an ink that will dry on the Tomoe River paper in my Hobonichi.

all fountain pens

Kaweco

After a sketchy start, Kaweco pens are fast becoming a new favourite of mine. I started off with the Perkeo* in an F nib. The styling won’t be to everyone’s taste, but it was a nice cheap introduction to Kaweco pens. I liked using this but found the nib a little too thick to use in the weekly pages of my Cousin. I love using this in the daily pages though.

kaweco perkeo and sport

I decided to give the Sport* a try, for use in my Weeks. I wanted a compact pen I could carry around in my Hobonichi Ane Pouch. I went with an EF nib in this but ended up finding this a little too scratchy.

I love the style of the Sport though. It’s a well-made, beautifully small fountain pen. I therefore treated myself to a lovely mint coloured version*, this time with an F nib.

kaweco sport nib

Lamy

I’ve gone from owning three Lamy pens, to just one. I’ve had three F nibs, but there’s been massive inconsistencies in all the nibs I’ve purchased and used. I’m now down to my favourite – the matte petrol blue edition.

lamy safari

While this is my favourite, the writing isn’t perfect. Every first down stroke is patchy, like there’s an issue with the ink moving through the nib. This happens even if I’ve pushed the ink through the converter as much as possible.

I like this Lamy, but won’t be in a hurry to add any more Lamy’s to my collection.

TWSBI

I love my Eco. It was my first ‘proper’ fountain pen and I use this daily in my Cousin.

twsbi eco

High quality, easy to write with and a lovely smooth nib. At around £30 this is great value and while I have this, I don’t have any desire to try anything more expensive.

Platinum

The Platinum Preppy* is an amazing pen for less than £5. I have two now, an EF and the F.

platinum preppy

The EF is the least scratchy EF nib I’ve ever used, but I do prefer the F. It’s finer than most of the other F nibs in my collection. It’s probably the thinnest nib I can use, whilst still keeping my handwriting reasonably neat. It’s what I use daily in my Weeks. It’s the perfect size and fits in the pen loop of my cover perfectly. The ink in the cartridges is also the best I’ve ever used on the Tomoe River paper. It dries quickly and very rarely smudges.

Pilot

Another great value budget fountain pen, is the Pilot Kakuno*.

This is another cartridge based pen, and the ink is a little too wet for the TR paper. This is another F nib pen, though just like the Platinum, it’s on the thinner side.

pilot kakuno

Inks

As I mentioned at the start, I’ve also been on a search for ink that dries quickly on the Tomoe River paper of my Hobonichi’s. I was happy to find loads of samples on offer from Pure Pens.

ink samples

While I’m definitely better at leaving ink to dry, I still often get caught out and end up smudging my pages. I purchased lots of samples and created a page for trying out different inks and writing quick reviews on them.

fountain pen ink trials

Noodlers and Colorverse are the only ones that so far that I’ve got on well with. I’ll continue to use up the samples and if I still like them, purchase full bottle versions.

Ink samples are great for trying new colours and brands out, but all that plastic isn’t great for the environment sadly.