What pen(s) are you using today?

[inkstainedruth]

15 hours ago, Amberjack said:

Ha, and I thought I was the only one who bought one of those!

Love my R2 Astromech pen, usually with Skrip washable blue.

 

AJ

I have a few of them at this point: I also have the Star Wars Pop "Yoda" pen and the "BB-8" pen.  Didn't like the "Rei" pen when I saw it (even though I really liked that character).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

ETA: Yeah, yeah -- "school pens"....  But you know?  They say the same thing about Parker Vectors (which are inexpensive little workhorses, although I can see why they might be too small for some people to use) and Lamy Safaris.  And you know?  All of them just WORK....

[Mercian]

Today I put some Pure Pens 'Saltire' into my 1970s Sheaffer 'Imperial' c/c in Sterling Silver.

 

My fist impression is that this pen does not especially like this ink - it's great when it flows, but it tends to hard-start. I don't remember this ink doing that in other pens, or this pen doing that with other inks.

 

Ah well, such is Life®, eh?

[InkyProf]

After using the Pelikan 400N all day, I reached for the Parker BCHR Jack Knife 20 1/2 and found it dry, so I've flushed it out and set it aside. I was enjoying the Montblanc Midnight Blue that was in it, so I replaced it with another pen I thought might work well with that ink, a coral-red pushbutton Skribent Super 4, made in Denmark in the early 50s, apparently at the same factory as the Danish Montblancs of the era, which consequently looks very much like a coral-red MB 212.

 

You'd hardly know it was the same ink: whereas the Parker had a very fine and thin flexible nib that produced a very dark line at any width, the Skribent is a semiflex that requires some pressure to produce a consistently dark line, and, when used with a light touch, gives a lighter, blue-grey line with some darker shading. Nice pen, but not the effect I was hoping for!

 

 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, as the kids used to say.

[jotterius]

Today I used my Lamy Safari inked with Diamine Sapphire Blue at work and my Lamy Vista 1.1mm stub inked with Lamy Dark Lilac for journaling purposes.

[antares1966]

Pilot Custom 743 Verdigris, with Iroshizuku Syo-Ro.

[Russprechtl]

Today I used two of my workhorses - a Black Hongdian C1 with Pelikan 4001 Black and a Blue/ Black Admok M800 with Pelikan 4001 Blue.

[Misfit]

Today’s pen is the Pelikan Cafe Creme with IB nib filled with Oster Caffe Crema. 

[USG]

Asvine C80s <F> and <EF>

Bungubox First Love pigment

Cosmo Snow paper

CLICK TO ENLARGE

 

[InkyProf]

Today, the coral-red Skribent Super 4 Danish button-filler with Montblanc Midnight Blue (which seems to be flowing differently after sitting overnight; maybe the feed needed to get thoroughly saturated, or something).

[Misfit]

Today’s pen is the Kaweco Classic Transparent with a BB nib filled with Visconti Bordeaux ink. 

[InkyProf]

Followup: well, that's annoying; the Skribent only filled enough to write a few pages before running dry. (The button is quite stiff and I was being cautious with it, but now that I've cleaned it out I think I'll have the confidence to use the button more aggressively next time. Maybe I'll try holding the pen nib-up, with the button resting on my nice solid walnut desk, invert the ink bottle over the nib, and then activate the button by pressing down on the pen with both hands. I can see no problems with this plan.)

 

Meanwhile, inspired by @camelsuspicious, I've replaced it with a recently acquired chased black celluloid Onoto 5601 plunger-filler, now filled with Waterman Absolute Brown. Very nice!

[USG]

Jinhao X159<F>

Pilot Tsuwairo Blue ink

Cosmo Snow Paper

 

Enlarge to see shading...

[USG]

3 hours ago, InkyProf said:

Followup: well, that's annoying; the Skribent only filled enough to write a few pages before running dry. (The button is quite stiff and I was being cautious with it, but now that I've cleaned it out I think I'll have the confidence to use the button more aggressively next time. Maybe I'll try holding the pen nib-up, with the button resting on my nice solid walnut desk, invert the ink bottle over the nib, and then activate the button by pressing down on the pen with both hands. I can see no problems with this plan.)

 

Meanwhile, inspired by @camelsuspicious, I've replaced it with a recently acquired chased black celluloid Onoto 5601 plunger-filler, now filled with Waterman Absolute Brown. Very nice!

 

😉👍

[flodoc]

On 1/3/2026 at 5:54 PM, CSSD said:

Decided on one I haven't used in quite a while ......

 

Montegrappa 1912

 

 

 

 

It appears to be a Symphony because the cap and barrel look like celluloid which is much more subtle than the acrylic of the Harmony. Beautiful pen!

 

[lamarax]

38 minutes ago, flodoc said:

It appears to be a Symphony because the cap and barrel look like celluloid which is much more subtle than the acrylic of the Harmony. Beautiful pen!

 

 Here's my lowly acrylic Elmo 2+ with a 14K 1.1 stub (and custom ebonite feed):

 

 

...but I cherish it anyway!  

[CSSD]

flodoc,

 

I don't know enough about the model differences.  Mine has "1912" engraved on the silver band around the cap.

 

.

[Tashi_Tsering]

16 minutes ago, CSSD said:

flodoc,

 

I don't know enough about the model differences.  Mine has "1912" engraved on the silver band around the cap.

 

.

This is definitely the "Symphony" model. 1912 was the year the Montegrappa company was founded. Montegrappa used the number 1912, framed by a wreath, as its logo until recently.

[InkyProf]

Aaand the Onoto 5601 doesn't actually fill properly, which I'm afraid is going to mean either sending it back to the UK for service by the same person who sold it to me as serviced in the first place, or doing it myself, which will presumably make the pen more expensive than it already was but will at least yield some tools to add to my toolkit. Hmph.

 

So I'll use the Omas 556/F today, with Stipula Muschiato* Verde, which I know writes well.

 

*I've been mis-remembering the Italian name of this ink as "Moschiato" lately; mi scusi. I discovered this because I was curious about having seen the ink listed both as "Mossy Green" and "Musk Green" in English, and I wanted to see what was what. If you search for either "moschiato Italian" or "muschiato Italian," though, our new artificial overlords will decide that what you really meant was "macchiato," and give you results about tasty espresso beverages. If you click the little "no, stop gaslighting me, I knew what I was searching for" link, you'll get a SCAI summary that botsplains to you that the word muschiato is "often confused with macchiato" (which of course is nonsense: I'll even bet that the total number of times anyone has walked into a cafe and asked for a muschiato doppio is close enough to zero to be, for lexicographical purposes, zero). Intelligent? No. Very good at algorithmically predicting and mimicking the techniques of rationalization and deflection human beings use to distract from their own ignorance? I'll give it that.

 

 

[PAKMAN]

Sheaffer Imperial

[Mr. Pink]

I went to work at the Luck, WI Golf Course today, so I brought along a purple Pilot Varsity.  It's always a great pen to have in your pocket if someone wants to borrow.  

 

(Mr. Pink half-way expects a question)