How Big Is Yours?

[ManofKent]

Typically 4-5mm with a medium or fine nib on lined paper. Much larger when using a stub, but when I'm sending postcards I switch to fine/extra-fine and cram a lot more on with a spider's scrawl - sometimes down to 2-3mm (blame it on the ridiculous prices for stamps in the UK ).

[sidthecat]

In the 18th and 19th centuries, letters cost a lot to send, so writers would fill a page, then turn it ninety degrees and fill it again, doubling the amount of text you could put in a letter. Writing small was also a strategy: Charlotte Brontë's writing was almost microscopic.

[lurcho]

Ooh, you are awful! But I like you!

[FOUR X FOUR]

I just love a woman with big nibs

[inkstainedruth]

We used to cramp our writing into small spaces with tiny, little letters. Does with FP, do we tend to be more lavish with our writing in accordance to what pen we use?

 

It depends entirely on the pen and the nib. When I started in with FPs, I used mediums -- cheap Parker cartridge pens (Reflex models?). When I "upgraded" to a Parker Vector, it had an F nib and I wasn't sure I'd get used to it, but of course I did. When I started getting into vintage pens, the bulk of those were F nibs. Now I'm starting to "broaden" my perspectives, so to speak -- pun possibly intended. But I've also now got a couple of pens with EF nibs, and those were ones I *really* wasn't sure I'd get used to....

Hmm. These are the pens I've bought so far this year:

Esterbrook J, 9556 (fine) nib;

Parker Vector [new old stock, still in the blister pack from the 1990s], F nib (although the packaging said M, the nib unit is an F);

Pelikan M405 Stresemann, B nib;

Pelikan M405 Striated Blue, EF nib;

TWSBI 580-AL, B nib.

The last pen I bought in 2016 was a (possibly) NOS Sheaffer Snorkel, with a nib width sticker on it that said it was a medium. So clearly my taste in nib widths are all over the place, but I'm still betting that I have more F nibs than anything else.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Inky.Fingers]

That's a fine way of going about it. Are those nibs fine tuned as stubs or as is, it suited your writing styles?

[Inky.Fingers]

@ManofKent - Wonderful way of putting it. Instrument dictates the writing. Do you use a different script hand or the same?

 

@SidtheCat - I don't think it suits me as I dislike disorganization of the script that is required of the hand. However, I really like to see Charlotte Brontë's writing.