Which One Is Best?

[Zavenda]

I know very little about the different types of fountain pens and am wondering which one you found to be the best brand/type for calligraphy?

[BaronWulfraed]

True "calligraphy" pens tend to be category of their own. Steel nibs (or even copper for old Osmiroid sets), interchangeable or nib/section units. They tend to be at the lower price points. Fanciest I have is a Sheaffer Prelude that came with a pair of calligraphy sections -- generic italic and a "shadow" nib, besides a regular writing nib unit.

 

The rest of my collection entails an old Sheaffer calligraphy set (two No Nonsense bodies, three nibs), a later generation (German production with longer sections -- three bodies, three nibs; the newest generation has changed the bodies again), a later Osmiroid set (5 widths italic, one copperplate flex, section units -- older Osmiroid used screw in nibs), an old Platignum set (one body, five screw-in nibs), and a Staedtler set (four bodies, five nibs).

 

I believe Rotring has a set of ArtPen with calligraphy nibs (mine are the sketch set EF/F pair).

 

Pilot Parallel pens get some interest. They are broad nibs in normal use, but as they are two sheets of steel with the ink between them, one can turn them perpendicular and use the corner for fine (relatively speaking) lines. Something that can not be done with regular slit&feed nibs.