Search the Community

I am starting to wonder if these things are like wire clothes hangers - multiplying on their own while my back is turned. I got an Eight Ball. I think it came in with some other stuff I bought on ebay. I really do. And then I wanted one desk pen for it. I now have four Estie desk pens here on my desk, one plain black Estie that lacks a cap and might like to be thought of as a desk pen, and another bona fide desk pen coming in the mail. I have the Eight Ball. I have another Eight ball lacking the plastic part - I stuck a bead with a hole just the right size in there. I wrapped up a piece of black foam to fill in the neck of a very small vase for a third one. A fourth is in some other brand of pen holder - no, that's the Sengbush, I had to put it somewhere... Everywhere I turn there is an Estie desk pen... I am going to have to open a hotel. One on the desk in every room. It is my destiny.

(I realize this is a lame post without pictures, but I'm having uploading/photo editing problems, so I apologize for the lack of them.) Today, for the first time I've been in a big antiques mall since I started with Fountain Pens a few months ago, I asked the guy at the desk if he had any fountain pens. He rummaged around in the junk drawer to end all junk drawers, pulled out two, and told me $60. One is a nice blue Esterbrook, needs a new nib and has chipped jewels. The other is an Eversharp. Though it had ink in it and has some scratches on it, it still has the paper band around it from when it was brand spanking new, and the band says "NO. 60-B $9.75 Fine-Flex" The nib is marked Eversharp, 14K, and Made in USA. A line of lettering around the band up by the top of the cap says it is a Skyline. There is a sort of brass barrel around the cap - it's loose now, but obviously was glued on to begin with - possibly with shellac? I gave the man 40 for the two of them, and my question is, did I get a shellac-ing myself, or did I do OK? I figured I was paying fifteen for the Esterbrook and 25 for the Eversharp. I was proud of being able to come out of the bathroom where he sent me when I said I wanted to dip the nibs in water and see how they wrote able to say that the Estie needed nib work or a new nib and they both probably needed to be re-sacced. Nothing brilliant, but I would not have known that all before I got here... T

So I just got an Esterbrook J with a NOS 2668 (Firm Med.) nib, and I was wondering what the best ink to get would be. I currently only have bottle of black Parker Quink. I would like to get an ink that is on the cheeper side (I'm a student so I don't have too much money) and maybe blue or something? I read on another post that Esterbrooks write on the drier side so it would be best to get a wetter ink, I'm pretty new to this whole Fountain Pen thing/lifestyle so I don't know much about any of that either.