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Hello there! I own a new pen from the "Originals of their time 1931" Yellow Gold series. I decided to sell it via ebay, and after examining the pen I've found out a problem (or not a problem?) The thing is that the plastic (resin?) part of the barrel (on top of the pen) has a matt brown color. But as far as I know, this part shall be black. It looks like the color faded with time. Photos attached. I have several questions: 1) Is this case common for this Pelikan series?2) Can this issue be considered as a problem? I mean does it influence the price?3) Is there any way to fix it? Many thanks!

I recently purchased a Parker 21 and it had this wonderful ink inside. I was wondering if any ink finatics can identify it.

I'm new to the forum and in need of desperate help. I'm an artist and I have sold some commissioned work for Christmas involving the Florida State University (FSU) logo and I'm having a hard time finding an ink to match it. I read in a post on here back in 2011 or 2013, I can't remember, about somebody liking Private Reserve Fiesta Red as a match to the Garnet color in their logo. Has anybody else used this ink? Or does anybody have any suggestions for an ink that would match the garnet for FSU? I will be mainly doing line work, but I'd prefer a smooth ink that doesn't have variations in color. If I can't figure out any other colors, I'm just going to order the PR Fiesta Red and hope for the best. At $10 a bottle, usually, I can't afford to buy oodles of ink to try. The amount of reds are endless so I'd go broke. Thanks for the help!

The Airmail pen company is well known in India and abroad and there are already several reviews about their pens on FPN and elsewhere. They are known for making ED pens with transparent barrels. They also make Jumbo sized ED pens (6.3 inches approximately when closed, even longer if posted) in the series called 71 consisting of 71J(Jumbo marbled) and 7JT(Jumbo with transparent handturned barrel). Their new model in this series is called the 71JB (already reviewed by manojd) which was so far offered only in black acrylic with an engraved cap band and domed end jewels. They have now introduced this pen also in solid colors which this review will attempt to document. They call these as "English" colors since the colors are inspired from the colors of the english duofolds from the 50s. http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii197/hari317/71JB/IMG_8626_zps8ae4418b.jpg The new colors: L-R: Black, Maroon, Blue, Grey. Blue: http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii197/hari317/71JB/IMG_8628_zpsb6fc355b.jpg http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii197/hari317/71JB/IMG_8629_zpsd3a805c5.jpg Grey: http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii197/hari317/71JB/IMG_8630_zpsb8a3e3cf.jpg Maroon: http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii197/hari317/71JB/IMG_8631_zpsfdec0208.jpg http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii197/hari317/71JB/IMG_8632_zps5210c2ec.jpg Black: http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii197/hari317/71JB/IMG_8633_zps3dc3d9ad.jpg http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii197/hari317/71JB/IMG_8634_zpsdd840e56.jpg Group Photo with 71JT and 71J on the right: http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii197/hari317/71JB/IMG_8627_zpsf35600bd.jpg The pens are fitted with the standard monotone yellow Airmail steel nibs, it seems the nibs on the 7JB have recd a little bit more attention, the pens have been good writers so far. Cheers! Hari

I have posted a few scans here and there on FPN. I have tried to scan multiple pages at once so posts would be self-consistent at much as possible. However, it has been on my mind whether I should do something to try to help viewers get the most accurate representation of the color. I see three main options: Do nothing. Hopefully the scanner is fairly well calibrated. Always try to include standard "reference" colors that hopefully will let people draw their own opinions about the color quality of the scan. (Most useful it the user is familiar with the reference color). Adjust the image to accurately. For me personally, I have the originals of what I post on paper, so I do not need the scans and am not really affected by their accuracy. If I post images it is for the benefit of others, so I am curious what people here find helpful or would like to see. Member Sandy1 is the only one I know to color correct her posts on FPN. I seem to recall from when I watched Fountain Pen 101 that Brian said GouletPen's Swab Shop are also color corrected scans. If I wanted to color correct images, I would need to acquire a "target" that contained known colors so that software could compare the result of scanning the target against the expected value to build a profile for correction. Since there is a non-zero cost for a target, I wanted to see if the result would be something that even mattered or would be useful to people.

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I'm curious about the color progressions Pelikan celluloids go through over time. I know it's a topic of discussion in Japanese sections of the forum--people talk about the marked color changes in urushi, and in Waterman celluloid, but haven't seen any on Pelikans. Apologies if it is discussed online or a book I don't have... I like the green the light tortoise changes to almost more than the pristine light tortoise, for example, and it's fun to think about what these pens will look like a few decades on. I've tried to guess some of the progressions in color below. Pelikan enthusiasts and collectors, please chime in and correct or add to the list! 400, 400N, 400NN light tortoise --> light green (or are these the 'export' pens?) light tortoise? --> yellow mid-brown tortoise --> red-brown/orange vibrant green --> green/grey grey --> light grey/white 100N green --> blue-green (turquoise blue)---> slate blue-green/grey green --> olive green 100 marbled red --> burgundy brown --> gold dark jade green --> olive green 101N light tortoise --> light green (but could just be green barrel showing through) tortoise --> murky olive brown-green 80's-90's Modern/'old-style' 400 green --> blue/green brown tortoise (dark brown) --> light brown --> ambering/transparency New Modern: crackles, surface becomes opalescent (as a side note, I've noticed in modern pens I have the modern celluloid and plastics are unstable, too; the colors tend to bleed into each other over time)

I have read here on FPN about spray painting preppies. (Using that special meant-for-plastic-spray-paint) I was wondering if I could spray paint a Pilot Metropolitan? I am considering purchasing the white one but I don't like the animal print design and was considering painting that part of the pen. I would take it all apart of course and tape up the the silver end and the open part very thoroughly. Any thoughts? Is it worth it to try or would it be a disaster? As the pen is only $15 I thought it might be safe to give it a try and it wouldn't be too big of a loss if it didn't go well. But I'd really like to hear what you think. Have you ever painted a fountain pen? How did it turn out? Did you like the end result? Tell us about it! Thank you for your input!!

Hello. I recently made my first Japanese pen purchase. It was the Pilot Prera. An excellent writer, with a nib akin to mercury: liquid metal... That smooth right out of the box. I WILL be buying more. One question though: Is the body, nib, size, etc of the demo or clear versions of the Prera, the same as that of the solid-colored Prera's? Please help if you have the infor for me. Definitely interested in more of these and at such a great price...Thanks and regards, Leroy

Hi All! A "chemical" question: what is the effect of chlorine on inks? I know the impact on the environment and I try to use only totally chlorine free paper when possible, but I'm wondering: is there a difference in the way inks react on different kinds of paper: paper with chlorine, elementally chlorine free paper and totally chlorine free paper? I'm especially interested in the impact of chlorine on inks in terms of permanence: will inks fade away faster on paper that contains chlorine? Will this happen with permanent inks (iron galls or noodlers) as well? thanks, Fabio

Boy gosh, I sure would like a rich royal blue celluloid or acrylic pen with bold crimson red veins. It would be my designated royal blue pen, and I'd put royal blue ink in it, and it would dry to show rich blue coloring and have a crimson sheen. Yes, I would really like a pen like that. Its color name would just be Royal Blue. I'd love a Noodler's Konrad with that color. In fact, I'd love several of them. (The Royal blue Lamy Safari's blue was not a rich ultramarine. It was just sky blue. Not good enough) But as for colors I'm very glad exist, I'm super happy that The Zuni Ahab is like jeans, with ink stains and gold threading. I pair it up with Diamine Denim, and it was always meant to be. The pink tiger is interesting. I initially got it just because it was on sale, and fortunately I got one with a really good nib. It reminds me of a strawberry desert dessert, with the strawberries and whipped cream, but the black part is like licorice, and I don't think licorice would go well with strawberries and cream (but IDK, I never tried that combo). I would recommend the black part be switched to brown, because chocolate syrup would be more fitting on strawberries and cream, and it wouldn't have such a harsh look to it. And also the black clip on the gray Safari is too harsh against the matte 20% gray. But the black clip looks excellent on the charcoal Safari. And the two of them do make a good pair. What if I switched the black clip on the Gray to a chrome clip? Maybe I should try that sometime. so you can go ahead and blah about what pen colors you'd like, do like, or think could stand to be different.