What pen(s) are you using today?

[sandy101]

Montegrappa Elmo 1 with broad nib and Montblanc Maria Callas with a medium nibs.

 

 

[Mark from Yorkshire]

2 hours ago, inkstainedruth said:

Oh, I dislike the "tapping" stuff immensely, just in general -- I much prefer to swipe the card in the reader or stick it in the bottom end of the reader.  But most of the readers I've come across lately do NOT require the pin #.  Although there are stories on the news every now and then where someone has added their own little "skimmer" gadget that records the card # and possibly the expiration date when a legit transaction is being made .  And as for stuff like utility bills?  Those are paid by mail, and with a check made out to the CORRECT amount, thank you very much....

And I actually keep a little notebook in my purse where I write down purchases (what they are, when/where they were made, and how much I spent on X item).  It was one of the things I picked up partly from one of the chapters in The Artist's Way and partly because of my mom would keep a little notebook of expenses for tax purposes -- stuff like "replacing the ribbon" on her typewriter, or going to dinner at her friend's house in IIRC Brooklyn who edited a book that my mom had a story in (if they talked "shop" at all, my mom would keep track of the mileage and tolls from the top end of Westchester County down there and back for tax purposes...).

And of course, my parents grew up during the Depression -- they didn't even HAVE credit cards until I think I was maybe in high school (if they didn't have the money to pay with cash or by check?  They didn't BUY the whatever they were looking at; they even bought the house I grew up in without a mortgage -- based on savings and the sale of our old house -- because the interest rates were so high on mortgages).  I got MY first credit card about 3 years after graduating from college, because I was six months ahead on payments on my first car -- and NOBODY'S name was on the car loan but MINE (my dad took me car shopping, but I decided on which to get of the ones I test-drove I liked the best -- but I signed the paperwork while my parents were on a trip abroad somewhere....  And was paying my parents room and board and my share of the phone bill, mostly on poor-paying jobs doing layout and pasteup.  When I first got out of college?  I tried to get a Sears "store card" (it wasn't even a real credit card because it could only be used at Sears) with a $500 US limit -- and got turned down;  when I was six MONTHS ahead on car payments?  Bank of America contacted ME and *offered* a Visa card with a $1500 limit (and that was in roughly 1985, IIRC...).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

edited for typos

Cheers @inkstainedruth, glad to see we brits are not the only ones with this scourge. That been said in some ways it has made life a little more convenient. I just wish they would ask for card to be inserted and pin entered a little more often than they do.

 

swiping down the side and signing has generally gone in the uk it’s either chip and pin or contactless. 
 

it seems in the uk signatures are too easy to fake. I think the banks have been bitten once too often for fraud claims 

 

All the best

 

mark 😊

[rodia77]

4 hours ago, Mark from Yorkshire said:

Pilot MR (metropolitan) Pilot blue ink

 

Same pen, different ink here (Kaweco black 'experimental').

  

4 hours ago, Mark from Yorkshire said:

i think the MR may have sprung a leak, it is certainly a lot wetter than normal and looks like ink my be coming down from the base of the section on top of the nib. I really do hope not. I really like that pen and they are hard to get hold of in UK.

 

I hope your pen is OK, but if you keep seeing that ink coming, you can swap the nib/feed assemblies with for example the Kakuno and determine if it's really the section that's giving out.

[Mark from Yorkshire]

@rodia77, if the two were not so darn hard to obtain in the UK / EU I’d consider it, but I do not really want to loose either pen. The only place I have seen them is awesomepens.co.uk and I don’t entirely trust that website. It looks like a scam, even though the scam checkers says otherwise.

 

I can’t find any info on them at companies house.

[rodia77]

@Mark from Yorkshire, true, the MR seems to have become more difficult to get here, but Kakunos seem to still be around (see Stilo&Stile, they ship from Italy, I've used them two or three times and can recommend them).

[Misfit]

Today’s pen is an Asvine C80 in Galaxy Blue with a stub nib filled with Birmingham Celestial Blue ink.  The purchase was inspired by @USG  

[inkstainedruth]

Today it's been the Dusty Rose Duofold Junior (Deluxe?), F? nib -- still with Waterman Serenity Blue; and the Parker Vector "Computing Services" pen, F nib (a pen I have NO recollection -- or record -- of acquiring ) still with Organics Studio USS Constellation (the LE ink from this year's B/W Show).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Misfit]

Late to post my pen of the day is the Retro 51 Sprinkle Ops with M nib filled with Rohrer & Klingner Blu Mare ink. 

[Stompie]

On 4/3/2026 at 11:10 AM, USG said:

 

Very nice.... 😀👍

What are the pens?

Sorry about the delay - no internet for 2 days!

 

The larger pen is the Wyvern and the bottom smaller pen is the Dinky. 

The paper did not interact with the Dinky flex too well but, considering the notebook is getting on for 15 years of use I am not complaining!.

[InkyProf]

Today, I'll be using three freshly inked pens: 

 

1. Desiderata Pen Co. Chiaroscuro (faceted ebonite), fine steel nib, Lamy turquoise.

2. Franklin-Christoph Model 20 in Tiger Red acrylic, medium steel SIG nib, Wearingeul Architecture Infinite Cube.

3. "The King" (SAFIS) late-40s piston-filler in green pearl celluloid, no. 2 Astura Nova 14k nib (barely semi-flex), J. Herbin Vert de Gris.

 

 

Notes:

 

1. Nothing new to say about the Chiaroscuro except that it feels good in the hand and this JoWo nib seems unproblematic. I cleaned out two pens with turquoise-to-teal inks this weekend, the Conklin Endura and the Onoto 5601, and I really need something with a bright, summery blue for an April day that starts with... snow.

 

2. Someone commented that the Dominant Industry Romania Red I'm using in another pen reminded them of Wearingeul Human Issues, which prompted me to explore the brand a little (I've never used any of their inks until now). This is a fun one, too brown to be red but too red to be brown, and it plays nicely with Audrey Matteson's SIG nib.

 

3. I picked up this pen because it was sold as a Radius, and since I also have a modern Radius in pearl green, I thought it would make a nice companion. But this pen doesn't say Radius anywhere on it: instead, it has an Astura Nova nib and a barrel imprint that says "THE KING." As I understand it from Letizia Iacopini's page, the company "Pennini The King" had changed its name to SAFIS (Società Anonima Fabbrica Italiana Stilografiche) and subsequently abandoned the "King" brand to conform to Mussolini's "autarky" legislation, which restricted the use of "foreign" words in commerce; in 1935, it had registered the (appropriately Latinate) "Radius" mark, which replaced "The King" by 1937 at the latest. "Astura Nova," in turn, was a mid-range line of pens from SAFIS launched during the war. So I suppose this could be a pre-1937 "King" later fitted with a replacement Astura Nova nib, but I think it's more likely a postwar pen. It's not an especially exciting pen to write with -- the nib is not a nail but it's not even really semi-flex either, and I'd call it a slightly sharp fine-to-extra-fine... but it's a really interesting artifact of 20th-century history. And it's pretty.

 

[PAKMAN]

Faber Castile Ti Porsche Design pen

[Cjtamu]

On 4/4/2026 at 12:28 AM, Penguincollector said:

  Geha 600 inked with Diamine Jacaranda.

 

Lovely. And the pen holder is beautiful as well.

 

Not much writing this weekend as planned obsolescence forced us to purchase new cell phones after a mere eight years! Took some doing. Using this today. I love the way some of the vintage Pilots have the date and factory code. Cool connection to the pen’s history.

[Penguincollector]

  Thank you, @Cjtamu. I rarely see Pilots from the Tokyo factory, and besides yours, I have seen one other today on eBay. I really like Elites. 

[Penguincollector]

  I wanted to try a cartridge of Sailor Seiboku that was given to me awhile ago. I put it in a Sailor Lecoule that I had used once and forgotten about. I am very pleased with the nib on this pen- I wasn’t expecting to like it as much as I do. I think it’s because I am not enamored with the green color of the pen- it borders on fluorescent. 

[Mark from Yorkshire]

A black Parker vector that had dried out and had crud on side of nib and feed from dried up ink. Washed through and refilled with Diamine meadow followed by two sides of A4 green writing.

 

 

[inkstainedruth]

So far today it's been the Parker Ciselé 75, F nib, just refilled with Waterman Tender Purple (for today's journal entry) and the Pelikan M120 Iconic Blue, still with Pelikan 4001 Blue Black (I needed to write a check for a credit card bill that needs to go in the mail today -- I try to mail stuff like that about a week before bills are technically due, since I never know how screwed up the USPS is going to be -- especially around here, and even more so after hearing the story last year about some Postmaster being marched out of the building in HANDCUFFS for stealing checks and drugs out of packages a few years ago.... 

Trying to decide if I'll use either of those, or yet a third pen for doing today's NaPoWriMo entry It's barely a week in, this year, and already there have been some of the best "prompts" I've ever encountered in all the years I've been doing it (thanks to whoever posted about it on FPN, which is how I first heard about it).  I especially liked the "Day 1" prompt, which was to write a tanka (one of my favorite poetic forms) -- think "haiku" but with two extra seven syllable lines after the 5-7-5 syllable lines.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[JasonR]

Today has been the Onoto Magna and a smaller Onoto plunger that I need to confirm the model.   They are inked with Diamine Graphite and Oxford Blue respectively 

[Ceilidh]

6 hours ago, InkyProf said:

And it's pretty.

Indeed it is!

[ParramattaPaul]

The LE Ebony Magna to hand write a personal letter for the first time is years.  Most of my correspondence is 'professional' and not 'personal' and gets 'digital' treatment.

[InkyProf]

7 hours ago, InkyProf said:

I'd call it a slightly sharp fine-to-extra-fine

 

Aha, the reason it was "slightly" sharp (which quickly turned into "unusably scratchy") is that the nib and feed hadn't been set deeply enough in the housing, so the nib kept rotating a little in relation to the feed, which kept pushing the tines out of alignment. Removed the housing, knocked out nib and feed, adjusted the nib, reset everything to the proper depth, re-inked with Stipula Musk Green, now it's a much smoother fine-to-medium.