The Inked Nib

My second daughter was born Thursday. Yesterday I needed to sign for the birth certificate. I brought my TWSBI 540 ROC 100 with Noodler’s Legal Lapis.

The hospital secretary was having none of that and compelled me to use black insecure ballpoint ink. What is the world coming to?

Water tests have to dry before scanning. Review tonight with the second to follow soon.

It seems appropriate to consider on this June 30th what turns my pen, ink, and paper collection have taken over the past six months.

Ink:

The big development in ink for me has been iron gall. I spent five years in this hobby fearing iron gall inks, but the availability of “fancy” colored iron gall inks from Pharmacist has really converted me. I now own all seven of Pharmacist’s colors plus Registrar’s Ink from Ecclesiastical Stationery Supplies. 

The other big development has been Noodler’s Liberty’s Elysium from the Goulet Pen Company. It was really controversial because it provoked a discussion of bulletproof as a marketing term, but it’s a beautiful ink that now has a permanent home in my TWSBI Diamond 530 in blue with its Pendleton Brown Broad Butter Line Stub with Angel Wings nib.

Coming up, I need to review my Registrar’s Ink and the other four Pharmacist iron gall colors. I have a number of mostly finished reviews I will try to get up. I also have a package on the way from ink startup Organics with several colors. I have joined a reviewer program Tyler has started up, which I will dutifully disclose every time I mention Organics because it could be seen as making me an interested party. I’ll review the inks as fairly as any other, but you readers have a right to know. 

Paper:

In paper, I have many samples of stationery from American Stationery I am still working through. So far, the card stock isn’t really that fountain pen friendly but the paper is decent. I also bought some Banditapple paper that I really haven’t used that much. Paper is by far the thing I am least comfortable reviewing, but I’ll be working on this as this blog matures.

Pens:

The big development in pens for me has been the emergence of my small Edison collection due to group buys from the Goulet Pen Company and Badger & Blade. On its heels, italic/stub nibs have started to take over. My first italic was a 1.5 italic on my Lamy Safari Apple Green fountain pen I got from The Writing Desk. My second was a custom ground stub from Richard Binder on my Edison Pearl. My third was a 1.1 italic TWSBI nib, and my fourth was the aforementioned special Pendleton Brown TWSBI nib with angel wings. I love them all. 

I also got introduced to the joy that is the Noodler’s Konrad in the first half of this year. They’re the best Noodler’s pens yet in my book. I won a Lamy Nexx from FPGeeks.com, courtesy of LamyUSA, playing their geek challenge. Ron Zorn also brought to life a Sheaffer Snorkel Sovereign I had been wanting to revive for years.

My collection has also finally grown to the point where I have sold some selected pens. I believe the count has been five of them so far with several more on the list to be united with new owners. 

Looking forward, I have two TWSBIs in transit to Pendemonium for grinding to a stub. It is my hope things will work out to visit the DC Supershow where I can possibly invest in more custom ground nibs. I bought supplies from Anderson Pens to attempt fixing several Esterbrooks I own in need of sacs. I don’t know that I plan on buying much in the way of pens the next six months, but the introduction of new patterns of the Noodler’s Konrad, introduction of the Noodler’s Neponset with music nib, one of a few life events that would justify a pen purchase, or any sort of windfall of money could change my view on this subject. 

Blog:

I think the blog is going well overall. Recently the review work has gone a bit more slowly than ideal due to time constraints, but I am still reaching an acceptable number of updates. I have plenty of things left to review including most of my pens, a great deal of my ink, and all of my paper. My guest blogging on FPGeeks will hopefully continue, and I will hopefully continue to build a network of friends and associates for my efforts. I have been blessed so far. The blog of The European Paper Company has recently highlighted a few of my reviews, and I am adding them to my own blogroll because their blog is quite well written and worth a read in my opinion. 

I hope this half year summary has been as helpful for you the reader as it has been for me to write it down. I hope the second half of 2012 goes well for all of us.