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54 g, posted or unposted?

I have put an FPR ultraflex on a Konrad and carved the feed. My experience was that the feed did not keep up until I had radically carved the channel to be massive. I did a V shape that went extremely deep which may not be ideal but it did work. I might should have gone wider instead of that much depth. The FPR feed was too long for the Konrad so I carved the Konrad one. Drooling could be caused be a gap between the nib and feed which would be fixed by heat setting so that the nib and feed fit together well. I installed my nib and feed on the pen and dipped the nib and feed into just boiled water and gently pressed them together while it was hot. If once doesn't do it, do it again. The feed now keeps up with normal paced flex writing. If I do too much too fast it can dry up, but if I wanted to go faster I would carve the channel wider. I have decided not to do that because I don't want feathering on cheap paper. With an extremely carved up ebonite feed I have noticed that its not a pen that you want to carry around in your pocket. The feed when the pen is sitting around is WET and movement slings it into the cap. Walk around with it and there's going to be ink in the cap. Otherwise its fine at home. Hope that helps!

here you go.

belated post here. Congratulations on doing such a wonderful job with the equipment you have. These are very nice and it sounds like you've headed in the direction that "you" wanted. There are a lot of YouTube Videos of high end european product and jewelry and fashion photographers, Yuri, etc, that you can get equipment and lighting setup ideas, as well as inspirations on your compositions. Suggest really take time to get your "iconic keepers" over taking a large number of shots that are throwaways. Wife and I have been commercial product and stock photographers ever since film. It is a demanding but rewarding genre of photography. Have fun with it. Up your gear as your skills improve as well. Though an investment, consider a full frame or aps-c sensor camera with proper lenses and lighting, and if you have the space, shoot "tethered" to a laptop or computer and use a very solid tripod and setup or lighting table. So you don't touch the camera. Also, learn to "focus stack" to control your depths, etc. The later and newer Olympus OM's do in camera focus stacking and finishing. If you have the budget, shoot raw and refine your post processing. Have fun. k

I've already tried Waterman Tender Purple, and I was hoping for something a little darker and more subdued than that.

@pen2deepA cursory internet search yielded a photo of a notebook of The Origin Collection in one colour — from this website: https://www.mens-folio.com/lifestyle/montblanc-meisterstuck-the-origin-collection-celebrates-100-years-of-the-meisterstuck/ One hopes, like the bracelets, cufflinks, and inks, that the notebook is also available in coral and green.

parker striped duofold ef from 1941, just needed a quick ultrasonic clean and resac. parker washable blue.

i do like 'em for their serviceability - the one in my photo is the opaque striped duovac, that ink window just has a view of the latex sac. opaque or translucent, it is a nice looking pen

While I haven't used it in a vintage pen, Waterman inks are generally considered super safe, so you could consider Waterman Tender Purple.

Waterman Tender Purple is your best bet for a vintage pen. Mixing inks can be tricky, so I would avoid doing that with any vintage pen as precipitates can form and cause feed damage or clogging. Other than that- Pelikan, Diamine, and Herbin inks have been around forever and are generally safe.The only waterproof ink I have that I use in a vintage Waterman is Waterman’s Patrician Purple, a very old ink that is no longer made.

@Toll Nice! I know the feeling, I usually stay at the intercontinental opera in Paris, and there is a MB boutique at street level. I haven’t seen the notebook yet, were there multiple colors/designs? I hope you’re enjoying Lisbon!

Hello, everyone. I think this might be the right place to ask this, I can't find anything else online or on this site that can answer my question. So, recently I managed to score a restored vintage pen for a decent price. Hasn't arrived yet, but I've been looking for a good purple ink to use it with. Originally I was planning to go with Noodler's La Reine Mauve, but... as I researched a bit more I realized that's a really, really bad choice to use here. I do really like the color though, so I was wondering if you guys can recommend me a good ink that looks similar to it (or just generally something that's not so bright and pinkish) that's also safe to use inside a vintage pen. Preferably waterproof, if that's even possible in this case. Willing to do something weird like mixing inks if that turns out to be the best option. Thanks

Birmingham Pen Company’s Interstellar Bronze, Tesla Coil, and Emerald Fusion. The emerald fusion pleasantly surprised me with the lovely sheen.

Any idea how much original Wilkinson pen patents are worth, if anything at all?

Here's what I got, in the swatch order as well as their order in the poem. Herbin Terre de Feu ("land of fire") identified by @Misfit Sailor Jentle Souten ("sky blue") Herbin Café des Iles ("island coffee") identified by @Misfit Daniel Smith Walnut, a dip pen ink that looks really wonderful to my eye Rohrer & Klingner 2021 LE Isatis Tinctoria, which @Mercian identified. I was thrilled to find this supposedly unobtainium - unfortunately it appears to be truly unobtainium now. Sailor Jentle Blue 😁 Kaweco Sunrise Orange Thanks @Misfit & @Mercian for playing along with my attempt at a little game! ------- Yesterday's impulsive purchase was NOS bottles (with boxes) of Montblanc Blue Black and Black, I believe from the 1950s.

Inked up my gray Pilot Metropolitan CM with BPC Interstellar Bronze.

I think you have a distinctive looking hand, and that's pretty good. If I were to pick one thing that is throwing off your writing, it would be the lower-case letters failing to adhere to the proportions and shapes of the letter forms. Your letters aren't consisten in spacing, proportion, and shape. When you write very "flat" like you are, it's very important that you retain the relative proportions of the letterforms in doing so, otherwise, you will lose the ability to recognize the individual letters. Imagine that you want to flatten out your letters as you do above; to do this while preserving the proportions, each letters must be "flattened" the same amount and the same way, meaning that you must scale each letter by the same amount in the x and y coordinates. There can be some minor adjustments afterwards, but the general rule applies. You also need to make sure that you can do so while retaining the important "signal points" of each letter which distinguishes one letter from another. The big ones I see right away in your writing are the r, s, n, m, u, and e. All of these letters start to look alike in your writing because you don't maintain the r's shape, the hook in the s, the curves in the n, m, and u, or the inner spacing in the e. This means that they all start to look the same when put next to one another. Some ways that I might adjust those would be to increase the x-height a little bit and write your letters a little taller. That will change the look of them a little bit, but it will make them more legible, especially with the width of the nib that you are using (and being a big fan of wet and wide nibs, I wouldn't ever suggest just using a finer nib!). For the r, which will be hard to get right unless you really practice at it at that size, I might switch to the "Palmer r" which was popular back in the day. Read one of the Palmer manuals on business writing or look at the terminating r form from Michael Sull's alphabet. Look at the second variation of lowercase r in the following image: After that, I'd make sure that you are keeping the space on the e, and working on the shapes of the m, n, and u. Another thing that can help if you don't want to keep your letters taller and more narrow is creating more space between each letter. When you write as flat as you are doing right now, legibility can be greatly improved by making the letters compact and then introducing wider than expected spacing between the letters. Here's an example of a taller and more narrow style: And here is an example of putting a little more space and having things a little flatter, but notice how the letters are still a little taller than yours: Michael Sull has a great variation which is a happy medium between these: At the full opposite end of the spectrum, you might have this, which is Smithhand: However, notice that in all of these examples,the shapes of each letter are fully distinct and proportionally consistent relative to each letter form.

I have used Noodler's Legal Lapis in the past, but over the years it has turned into more of a teal color. I was thinking Blue/Black, but it's really more teal... Erick

@penwarrior32But understandable. Montblanc retains the 75th (and last-produced) example of this mod 75100 Skeleton 149 (75|75), and their archivist admitted that no one at Montblanc is allowed to ink it. As there are only 73 other examples of the mod 75100 Skeleton 149, the OP will have their work cut out for them in finding another that is already inked and used. But since the OP has found one, albeit unused, it is possible they may succeed . . .

@NoType Got it. Thanks mate. A pity.

@MercianFunnily enough, the local Montblanc boutique sales manager, who was recently promoted to boutique manager, made this exact point when asked about sample writing paper, and then went so far as to produce their personal pad of Clairfontaine Triomph A5 blank paper in order for me to test different nib widths. I happen to have collected Meister-Bütten Handmade Paper, including mod no 10016 refill of 100-pack sheet paper (qty:12); mod no 10017 refill of 30-pack cards (qty:6); mod no 10018 refill of 100-pack envelopes (qty:12); mod no 31100 presentation case of 5-pack cards, 15-pack envelopes, and 15-pack sheet paper (qty:7); and mod no 31200 presentation case of 5-pack cards, 20-pack envelopes, and 20-pack sheet paper (qty:54) — all with beautiful texture and deckle edges, and all outperformed for fountain pen use by my HP Premium32 32# laser print paper, to say nothing of product by brands like the aforementioned Clairefontaine, Black & Red Oxford, Crane & Co, Dempsey & Caroll, Fritz Schimpf Feinpost, Maruman, Midori, Original Crown Mill, Rhodia, Smythson, Thornwillow, Twin Rocker, Wren Press, etc, etc. Meister-Bütten Handmade Paper has long been discontinued, unsurprisingly, but regarding current production, Montblanc’s leather-bound notebooks accompanying various pen models also suffer from inconsistent paper quality across different notebook types, between notebooks of the same type, and even within an individual notebook. Suffice to say, bringing one’s own paper to a Montblanc shop when looking at their pens is a wise decision! Please let us know how you get on.

Okay. I knew I had to have not come up with this topic out of no where! I must have read something or watched something related at some point in time 🙂 I am a little surprised David didn't call me on this as Lloyd Reynolds is one of his mentors (and he is no doubt sick of me!) 🙂 Page 12 of his "Italic Calligraphy and Handwriting" book, which is the one that I carry and read and study and practice from almost every day. At the bottom of the page, last paragraph reads: "The medium guide line sheet is here recommended for use with the broad nib, because it is customary in rapid personal writing to use a scale of four pen widths instead of the more formal scale width scale of five widths". So put that in your pipe! 🙂

I recently acquired an MB 32p and when I used a Paper Mate branded converter from the 1980s (came in a German made slim stainless FP I bought in Jr. High school) in it the converter is too long to allow the barrel to screw down without the converter being under significant compression. The converter in question appears to be a Schmidt K5, just like pretty much every other European pen makers' branded converters (excepting of course the imprinted brand name on the metal ring). Does anyone here know if there's a go/no-go list of which converters fit these older MB cartridge pens acceptably? BTW, the barrel screws down on a pair of cartridges with only a hint of resistance at the end, probably just barely sufficient to pierce a cartridge if two sealed carts are inserted in the barrel. In light of that result, I'd estimate that this converter is at *least* .5mm longer than a pair of carts... Thanks!

Thank you. I was a bit surprised when I first held and used it. It was expected to be fairly heavy and it was not (un-posted, at least. And it writes quite smoothly too.

Thanks! It is possibly misleading, as I’m not certain it was meant to be entirely transparent. A few pens companies back then had similar sections: the front grip area was painted black, leaving a clear ink window on the rear portion. Congratulations, that’s an iconic pen.