After watching this site during some time, I finally registered.
I'm not a real collector but a user. I learned to write with a dip pen at the age of 6, with a fountain pen at the age of 10 and never stopped using a fountain pen since then. So I have now about 40 years of experience. Not great penmanship, but most people can read my writing and I have gathered enough experience and skills to have relicted inky fingers and messy things in my childhood.
Most of these years I had just one single fountain pen and I bought a new one to replace a lost or a broken one. Since a few years, I found many reasons to own more than one: 1 with red ink for editing; a VP for quick notes, a Safari for traveling, 1 for my office, a second in case of running out of ink in the middle of a meeting (wich never happened), 1 in case I need to give a present, etc.
Those I don't use, I give or loan to someone else, just to avoid collecting things that stay useless in a drawer. That's me.
I never use cartridges, don't see the advantage of buying some ml of ink in plastic when I can fill at a lower cost my Récife ED with the quantity of 6 cartridges, enough for 1 month writing.
My current 'collection':
- Récife eyedropper M (oldest and still the most exciting)
- Pelikan M 800 M (nothing exciting, but always reliable)
- Pilot VP F (excellent and practical, but not the best converter)
- Dupont M (model ignored, smoothest nib but not the best pen)
- Lamy 2000 EF (love the stealth look and the solidity, but it sometimes wants to slip through my fingers and replacing the nib costs € 50... and the EF nib is still too broad)
- Montegrappa silver (model ignored, a beauty that stops writing after 1 page and they couldn't fix it in Italy - my wife uses it now because she don't need to write more than 1 page)
- Reform calligraphic pen (bought this cheapy 20 years ago and it never wrote decently until I fixed the nib thanks to this forum - writes like a charm now)
- Lamy Safari F (great design)
- Omas Milord (pe-2005 model, just bought it and my first leaky pen, I returned it to Omas to fix it, my Safaris nib was better)
- Pilot 74 (newest acquisition for € 75 - excellent pen supplied with a remarkable converter, the best ever, never skips, easy filling and with an amount of ink equal to my best piston fillers)
- Waterman Audace (bad writer with a bad converter - stays in drawer).
I write a lot - my job is listening and writing - but during 10 years my beloved Récife ED did the job alone. Why more? No... I'm not addicted...., just researching for the holy grail.
Greetings,
Orval
Full Version: hello from Belgium, with an overview of my collection
Hi and welcome to FPN!!! Sounds like you have some great pens and a real passion for Fountain Pens. You will fit right in around here. What is your favorite ink, and how many colors have you explored?
Welcome Orval. Sounds like a nice collection.
Hi and welcome. I see it's hard for me to suggest what you should buy next. But after a day or two you'll soon have your wanted-list ready.
Mike
Mike
QUOTE (pakmanpony @ Aug 23 2008, 03:24 AM) 
Hi and welcome to FPN!!! Sounds like you have some great pens and a real passion for Fountain Pens. You will fit right in around here. What is your favorite ink, and how many colors have you explored?
Thank you for your nice welcome.
This is my experience with inks:
Black I used mainly black during many years and the best black I found until now is hands down Pelikan Brilliant Black. I buy it by bottles of 250 ml. (also the cheapest). It is the blackest even in an EF nib, it doesn't smear. It is the quickest drier (when I sign on the last page of a document, I never have to care about spoiling the page before), it doesn't fade (I found notes that stayed in the sunlight during at least 5 years and it changed into a nice vintage dark brown, similar to the writings of my 17th century ancestors); this ink behaves well in all my pens until now, with none exception. No feathering, no bleeding through, even on lighter paper. I compared this ink to the blacks of Waterman, Skrip old, Skrip new, Quinck). Aurora black was a deception in my VP EF, but I didn't test it yet in other pens. Challengers that are appealing to me are J. Herbin Perle noire and Dupont black. They are on my list but my 250 ml bottle is far from empty.
Blue: I don't use this colour anymore since about 15 years. I remember that I used mainly Waterman Florida, Pelikan and Quinck, all trouble free.
Blue-black: I only tried Pelikan and Waterman and Pelikan wins again hands down for colour, fastest drying, less bleeding through on bad paper. Dupont blue-black is appealing to me as a challenger of this ink, because of Girliegs recent review.
Red: Skrip new: I followed the unanimous advice of the wisest members in this forum and I'm very happy I did. I doesn't even stain. Editing ink.
green: J. Herbin Lierre sauvage, I can't imagine a greener green. Also for editing.
dark green: Montblanc British Racing green: an elegant alternative for black, for professional use; dries fast, no smearing. Yet my second bottle. Very good in my Pelikan M800 and Pilot Custom 74, but my Lamy 2000 and Pilot VP didn't like it. Montblanc has the best bottleshape.
Brown:
- Waterman brown: an old bottle I found in a drawer. I don't know if it is the same as the actual Havana brown, but I like it.
- J. Herbin Lie de thé: my wife loves this colour in her silver Montegrappa. Dries too slowly for me. Needs good paper.
Violet:
- 'Binders tanzanite': a 50/50 mix of Waterman purple and Florida blue: didn't stain in my Récife transparent ED so far. This nice combo turned a colleague who is purplemaniac mad of jealousy. Needs good paper in a wet writer.
- Montblanc violet: just bought it as another alternative for black but I have still to try it.
Other brands like Noodlers, Private reserve, Diamine, De Atramentis, Rohrer & Klinger are not available in Belgium, so I didn't trie them.
Greetings,
Orval
Welcome to FPN.
Welcome,
An interesting collection of pens, I am also a great fan of Pelikan Black, although I have a variety of others one of my pet hates is slow drying ink, I bought a large bottle of Noodlers Black last year and although I like the colour it takes a long time to dry even when blotted, so I tend not to use it often.
Andy
An interesting collection of pens, I am also a great fan of Pelikan Black, although I have a variety of others one of my pet hates is slow drying ink, I bought a large bottle of Noodlers Black last year and although I like the colour it takes a long time to dry even when blotted, so I tend not to use it often.
Andy
Welcome to the FPN!!
Welcome. That is a wide variety of pens. Nice.
Hi, Welcome to FPN, I'm a new user myself!
I lived in Belgium (Leuven) for two years as a student, and it was a wonderful time.
I found a NOS pelikan school pen that I had been searching all over for, at Arteel in Leuven.
Timmermans in Ghent gave me a good price on another pelikan.
I admire your discipline not to collect pens that you don't use.
Ah, Belgium... good memories.
Thomas
I lived in Belgium (Leuven) for two years as a student, and it was a wonderful time.
I found a NOS pelikan school pen that I had been searching all over for, at Arteel in Leuven.
Timmermans in Ghent gave me a good price on another pelikan.
I admire your discipline not to collect pens that you don't use.
Ah, Belgium... good memories.
Thomas
Hi Orval,
can you post some photos of the Récife eyedropper M if possible?
thanks
can you post some photos of the Récife eyedropper M if possible?
thanks
QUOTE (Orval @ Aug 22 2008, 09:20 PM)
After watching this site during some time, I finally registered.
I'm not a real collector but a user. I learned to write with a dip pen at the age of 6, with a fountain pen at the age of 10 and never stopped using a fountain pen since then. So I have now about 40 years of experience. Not great penmanship, but most people can read my writing and I have gathered enough experience and skills to have relicted inky fingers and messy things in my childhood.
Most of these years I had just one single fountain pen and I bought a new one to replace a lost or a broken one. Since a few years, I found many reasons to own more than one: 1 with red ink for editing; a VP for quick notes, a Safari for traveling, 1 for my office, a second in case of running out of ink in the middle of a meeting (wich never happened), 1 in case I need to give a present, etc.
Those I don't use, I give or loan to someone else, just to avoid collecting things that stay useless in a drawer. That's me.
I never use cartridges, don't see the advantage of buying some ml of ink in plastic when I can fill at a lower cost my Récife ED with the quantity of 6 cartridges, enough for 1 month writing.
My current 'collection':
- Récife eyedropper M (oldest and still the most exciting)
- Pelikan M 800 M (nothing exciting, but always reliable)
- Pilot VP F (excellent and practical, but not the best converter)
- Dupont M (model ignored, smoothest nib but not the best pen)
- Lamy 2000 EF (love the stealth look and the solidity, but it sometimes wants to slip through my fingers and replacing the nib costs € 50... and the EF nib is still too broad)
- Montegrappa silver (model ignored, a beauty that stops writing after 1 page and they couldn't fix it in Italy - my wife uses it now because she don't need to write more than 1 page)
- Reform calligraphic pen (bought this cheapy 20 years ago and it never wrote decently until I fixed the nib thanks to this forum - writes like a charm now)
- Lamy Safari F (great design)
- Omas Milord (pe-2005 model, just bought it and my first leaky pen, I returned it to Omas to fix it, my Safaris nib was better)
- Pilot 74 (newest acquisition for € 75 - excellent pen supplied with a remarkable converter, the best ever, never skips, easy filling and with an amount of ink equal to my best piston fillers)
- Waterman Audace (bad writer with a bad converter - stays in drawer).
I write a lot - my job is listening and writing - but during 10 years my beloved Récife ED did the job alone. Why more? No... I'm not addicted...., just researching for the holy grail.
Greetings,
Orval
I'm not a real collector but a user. I learned to write with a dip pen at the age of 6, with a fountain pen at the age of 10 and never stopped using a fountain pen since then. So I have now about 40 years of experience. Not great penmanship, but most people can read my writing and I have gathered enough experience and skills to have relicted inky fingers and messy things in my childhood.
Most of these years I had just one single fountain pen and I bought a new one to replace a lost or a broken one. Since a few years, I found many reasons to own more than one: 1 with red ink for editing; a VP for quick notes, a Safari for traveling, 1 for my office, a second in case of running out of ink in the middle of a meeting (wich never happened), 1 in case I need to give a present, etc.
Those I don't use, I give or loan to someone else, just to avoid collecting things that stay useless in a drawer. That's me.
I never use cartridges, don't see the advantage of buying some ml of ink in plastic when I can fill at a lower cost my Récife ED with the quantity of 6 cartridges, enough for 1 month writing.
My current 'collection':
- Récife eyedropper M (oldest and still the most exciting)
- Pelikan M 800 M (nothing exciting, but always reliable)
- Pilot VP F (excellent and practical, but not the best converter)
- Dupont M (model ignored, smoothest nib but not the best pen)
- Lamy 2000 EF (love the stealth look and the solidity, but it sometimes wants to slip through my fingers and replacing the nib costs € 50... and the EF nib is still too broad)
- Montegrappa silver (model ignored, a beauty that stops writing after 1 page and they couldn't fix it in Italy - my wife uses it now because she don't need to write more than 1 page)
- Reform calligraphic pen (bought this cheapy 20 years ago and it never wrote decently until I fixed the nib thanks to this forum - writes like a charm now)
- Lamy Safari F (great design)
- Omas Milord (pe-2005 model, just bought it and my first leaky pen, I returned it to Omas to fix it, my Safaris nib was better)
- Pilot 74 (newest acquisition for € 75 - excellent pen supplied with a remarkable converter, the best ever, never skips, easy filling and with an amount of ink equal to my best piston fillers)
- Waterman Audace (bad writer with a bad converter - stays in drawer).
I write a lot - my job is listening and writing - but during 10 years my beloved Récife ED did the job alone. Why more? No... I'm not addicted...., just researching for the holy grail.
Greetings,
Orval
Hello and welcome to FPN.
Hello and welcome to FPN.
Hi Orval,
Welcome from a fellow Belgian pen freak !
Given your "Orval" nickname - a famous Belgian Trappist's beer brand ! -l expect you come from Wallonie?
Or -alternatively or complementary- you must be a big fan of this delicious Trappist !
Francis
Welcome from a fellow Belgian pen freak !
Given your "Orval" nickname - a famous Belgian Trappist's beer brand ! -l expect you come from Wallonie?
Or -alternatively or complementary- you must be a big fan of this delicious Trappist !
Francis
Greetings and welcome from New York City. I have a small collection of pens as well. I just bought a Dupont Orpheo. It is one of the smoothest nibs I own. I love it! 
QUOTE (fountainbel @ Aug 29 2008, 10:11 PM)
Hi Orval,
Welcome from a fellow Belgian pen freak !
Given your "Orval" nickname - a famous Belgian Trappist's beer brand ! -l expect you come from Wallonie?
Or -alternatively or complementary- you must be a big fan of this delicious Trappist !
Francis
Welcome from a fellow Belgian pen freak !
Given your "Orval" nickname - a famous Belgian Trappist's beer brand ! -l expect you come from Wallonie?
Or -alternatively or complementary- you must be a big fan of this delicious Trappist !
Francis
Thanks. I'm indeed a big fan of the Orval trappist beer
, but I'm from the Flamish part of Belgium.Orval
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