Greetings!

I bought my first fountain pen about 9 years ago. A black matte Inoxcrom. Unfortunately, the gold plated clip soon became pitted and eventually was covered with rust..
Pen 2 was another Inoxcrom, this time with stainless steel fittings. Lovely writer. The Iridium nib is smooth and 'fat' which makes for a line with no variations though. But it flows very well.
Unfortunately, the red enamel flaked off the cap of this one!
So I decided to go for an entry level Waterman Apostrophe in marbled blue. The nib was not as smooth as Pen 2, needs more pressure to get the ink going. Believe it or not, the gold on this one started pitting too! I was told by the seller that I must have acidic hands! Whatever that means... Also the plastic nib holding wore after a year and the cap started falling off.

So for Pen 4 I had decided to stay clear away from gold and a get a screw cap.
The latter idea held, but the first was sent packing when I laid eyes on the white Pelikan M400. It gleamed amongst all the fat black cigar type pens in an Art Decoish, ladylike way which appealed to me. As a writer, its personality completely complements mine. We have been inseparable for the past two years.

I've been eyeing different coloured inks now and am faced with a quandary. Do I go through all the trouble of emptying my Pelikan every time I want to try a new colour.. Or do I get another pen?? Must admit the local pen shop must have several of my noseprints on the window! So much to choose from.

And now after lurking on these boards for a while, I have decided to sign up :-) Would you say I had the bug yet?

Cheerio,
Nicole P.

Yep, you have the bug. It's chronic.

Welcome to the FPN.

Hi. Welcome. Brisbane is a great place,especially the Paddington area of the city.

Pelikan M400 is a fantastic choice of pen. Enjoy.

Ronin

Hi and greetings back from a land "up over" (no quality assurance and all that).

As to inks, I'd say buy yourself any ol' pen, you know, just a piece of wood or plastic where you just shove any ol' separate nib into it, take a dip in any new ink, buy yourself a few new bottles and cheers! At the same time of dipping, use a swab too, making a wide line of about 3-4 mm. Just to get to know what a new ink on your paper will really look like.
Of course you might end up sooner or later with more and more pens, fill'em up each with his own. Maybe a blue ink in a blue pen etc.

Fooling around with different inks (as re wettness and flow and check of shading etc) and mixing them too is fun and a lot less expensive than collecting "just" pens!

Mike

Welcome to FPN.

Welcome Nicole.

Welcome from another Aussie.

When you start looking to buy another pen, I would stay away from the full-priced penshops like Pen Ultimate. Unfortunately, in Aus, there is little competition and pretty well everybody sells at full RRP. No discounting here...

There are a number of sellers like Pam from oscarbraunpens.com, M Lewertowski of eBay shop lewertowski, Mel from eBay shop melpens, amongst others, all of whom sell a nice range of quality pens at good prices, and with excellent service. Those prices are typically between one quarter to one half of Australian RRP prices.

As well, you need more inks. And you don't want to be emptying, cleaning and refilling every time you want a change of ink, so you need more pens, too!

There are lots of reviews of pens, inks and papers on the FPN.

We don't call ourselves enablers of your obsession for nothing...

Hello and welcome to FPN.

Thank you for the warm welcome folks!
Oh and thanks for the tips dcwaites, it is lamentable how few fine pen shops there are in Aus. The two in Bris are both owned by Pen Ultimate and you're right about smashing the poor piggy bank. Now that I have been snooping around the internet, I was astounded to find my white Pelikan on Amazon for half the price. Live and learn...
How well do inks in glass bottles travel in the post?

Happy writing all and I am looking forward to participating in the forum!

Best wishes,
Nicole

Hello and Welcome to FPN!!

Ink bottles travel fine. I've had ~40 or so posted to me from the US and Asia without a hitch!

Welcome from the CQ coast, btw!

Welcome to the group!

Mark

Hello and welcome to FPN

Welcome, Nicole! And if you don't have the bug NOW, you will.... These people are incorrigible... insidious... encouraging...!

Greetings from the town one over from Brisbane, CALIFORNIA --

-Lisa

Welcome to FPN! Pen shop in Brisbane? I must visit this shop when I go to Australia later in the year!

http://www.pensdeluxe.net/locations_new.html

For your reference. Very shiny shop. Expensive and very snobbish in the sense that they know they're the only pen dealers in Brisbane. But good to have a look at the shiny goods

You said it! Very shiny (except for my noseprints on the window) and they do have the monopoly. A Montblanc shop has opened in the same block. Not sure what they are like pricewise and MBs aren't really my pen so I haven't been in to check them out. But they might provide a little competition.

PenUltimate in the Queen Victoria Building in Sydney is just as glitzy and I nearly came away with a Visconti Van Gough from there a couple of years ago. Was very pricey though and I didn't. Just as well or I might not have met my M400.

Thanks for the greetings everyone! I'm definitely hooked, already contemplating my next pen...

Hi Nicole,
A very walm welcome to FPN. I have a great love for Australia and always wanted to visit Sydney and Brisbane to cricket matches and hopefully on day, I will.
Cheer
Kareem

Hello Nicole,

Welcome aboard the FPN, from the "Water-Winter Wonderland" of Michigan.

I have bought a number of glass bottles of ink from Australia, UK, Malaysia and the US. All the new bottles travelled with no problems, no leaks, no worries. All but one of the older bottles travelled with no problems, except for one bottle of Parker Penman Sapphire (that I got for about GBP3.50. Be ye undyingly jealous, all ye Penman Sapphire fans!). The lid on this was a tiny bit loose, and spilled a little in the packaging.
I now ask people who send me older inks to make sure that the lids are screwed down firmly.

Ink bottles travel fine, but unfortunately they are heavy and expensive to ship, this is the only reason why it is difficult to sell them oversea, J.M.L.

Welcome Nicole, from cold old Melbourne! You think pens are an obsession, wait til these guys get you onto more and more inks - and paper! Oh it's an evil world out there !

Welcome to FPN, Nicole.
As you spend more time on the various FPN forums, you will find out about all sorts of dealers allover the price who will ship stuff to you in Australia
Please also check out all the FPN sub-forums to learn about all sorts of interesting stuff about various pens, inks , papers, creative writing, penmanship etc.

Welcome! ............ and check out the classifieds here on the forum for pen bargains. I wasted a whole week before I bought a pen here.

One whole week? :-)
It is four weeks since my first post and in that time I have acquired just as many pens!

Hello folks and what a dangerous crew you are to be around...

New to the stable:
A gorgeous 1941 Parker Duofold with vacumatic filling system.
A fascinating (and at present a little coy) 1937 Conway Stewart .
[Thank you Peter from Melbourne for these two]
A smooth 1950s Pelikan 400NN tortoise
[Thank you Savas from Turkey]
And on its way from the PENguin himself, an eagerly awaited Pelikan 400 tortoise to go with my day to day M400 white tortoise

I’ve got it rather badly haven’t I?

Also ventured away from my usual Waterman Florida Blue and picked up a South Sea Blue and Pelikan Braun.
And experimenting with Croxley and Crown Mill...
Will get some photos and samples up into the appropriate forums soon, but for the moment I having fun just writing with these beauties.
Now.. where can I find a nice box to put them in? And should I anticipate future bouts of madness and get one with room for 24...

:-)

Melbourne is the place to be though, my first two vintages just came from there and do you not host a Pen Show as well? (which in the interest of the continued health of my piggy bank, I should resist travelling down for!)

Yes Nicole, we do host a pen show, and yes Peter in Melbourne is a great dealer with the passion you're clearly starting to cultivate. See you sooon

Welcome to FPN.