Ellington Fountain Pens?

[benpenny]

I've also bought some Ellington pens, and agree that they are very nice to write with, well balanced, and attractive. 

The ink is very 'fluid', and will start instantly after a week without use. They also work well with my Diamine inks.

My only criticisms are that the cartridges are tiny, and don't last very long. There's room for a spare inside the barrel, though this does make them rattle.

For environmental reasons, I prefer to use bottled ink, and the plungers are a bit cheaply made. I had one which didn't work until I realigned the screw part into the cylinder a bit. You get the feeling that they could break very easily. 

The pens are supposed to take "universal" cartridges, so perhaps there's some other cartridges and plungers that would work well. 

 

 

[psimpson130]

I have an Ellington stealth as one of my daily writers. I have their red one and the mechanical pencil as well, but they are still in the box.

 

I like the stealth as it is a very solid pen and quite comfortable in my hand. I carried it in my pocket and ended up beating the (bleep) out of the finish, but it still wrote fine. Like a Timex, takes a licking and keeps on ticking. For laughs, I sent them a picture of my beat the hell pen (money clip and pen knife will do that in the pocket) and they responded with a "we don't normally do this, but we want to send you a replacement." I accepted the offer and also ordered a matching mechanical pencil (hey, I like to have a set). Told them I would take better care of them. 

 

While their ink cartridges are small, they are essentially the same as a small international size. I have no problems with having the second cartridge in the barrel as I have several other fountain pens that also take the smaller cartridge. Being retired, for my use, cartridges are fine. If I was doing more writing, I would investigate bottled inks and maybe the use of a siphon. Overall, a good, relatively inexpensive day-to-day pen.

 

On a side note, I do have my fathers Parker 51 which uses a bladder. Afraid to reink it as it is 60+ years old.

[inkstainedruth]

Your father's pen might need to have a new sac or diaphragm at this point (depending on whether it's an Aerometric or the earlier Vac filler model).  But other than that, the pen should be fine unless the nib needs some work on it as well.

I've got a 51 Vac right next to me at the moment -- I pulled it out to compare it to one that I don't remember buying (both are black, with 14K gold filled caps; both are blue diamond models, and both have the "T6" code which apparently they were made in a factory Parker bought/leased from Townsend (a company that built tractors).  Neither pen seem to have a date code other than the "T6" code, so I'm not sure I can precisely date when they were manufactured.  

While the 51 Vacs may need to have the diaphragm replaced, I have another one with a nicely tuned EF nib that is my go-to pen to ink up if I have to do research and take copious amounts of notes.  

The one I've got inked up at the moment has some vintage Quink Permanent Blue Black in it, but I've used all sorts of inks in some of my 51 Aeros -- with the exception of shimmer inks (trying to remember if I've used IG inks in some of them or not).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

ETA: You are SOOOO lucky to have a family heirloom pen, BTW!  The closest I've got is a Sheaffer Balance Oversize that had belonged to my husband's grandfather, and when my mother-in-law gave it to me, it had the cap from HER old Eversharp Skyline jammed onto it so tightly I had to have someone at a pen show take section flyers to it to get it off the pen without breaking anything....

[psimpson130]

I am very much leaning to not using it (or the two Scripto Mechanical  pencils with mother of pearl) that reside in the same leather holder. I added the Parker Mechanical Pencil I was given by my ninth grade biology teacher for helping her during the year. My father passed in 80 way too early due to cancer. I am a retired USAF navigator and have always bought pen an pencil sets. I still have a flight jacket hanging up in the closet and there is a Scripto pen and pencil set in the pocket which I bought the first week of navigator training back in 76. Flying, I found the Parker jotter sets were great, except the stainless steel ones as they got slick when your hands dried out, and on my last assignments flying EC-130Hs I used the Zebra rubber coated ones. They were fantastic.

 

My daily writers are either my Ellington Stealth or my Waterman Phineas (have several). I also have several Lamy Safari's which really need to be cleaned out as well as a couple of Cross fountain pens. My go to ball point is my Parker jotter (at home) and I have several Office Depot generics that work just great at the office. 

 

If you want to try a fun pen, Yookers makes a felt tip (of sorts) that uses fountain pen ink. Not a bad pen for the price.

 

 

[welch]

On 11/28/2023 at 1:21 PM, inkstainedruth said:

I see what you did there, Karmachanic....  (I would have guessed "Take the A-Train" myself.... )

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

Well said, Ruth. I would say that I take the A-Train almost every day. I would leave this pen on the platform at 145th Street, in Sugar Hill way up in Harlem.

[nigelg]

Could they be a sub-brand of Duke fountain pens? After all, they are based in Shanghai.

[Cooker II]

On 1/27/2024 at 7:56 PM, Doc Dan said:

Where did you buy them for that price? I see them for twice that on their website and on Amazon.

I was able to get my Ellington Pen in Mid Nov and December.  I bought twice as they had a discount and gave away a free pen.   So I have four Ellington fountain pens with an average cost to me of $19.   I do enjoy them and they write well.   But at the current price on their website, I believe there are better pens at that price point.  

[psimpson130]

I mentioned earlier I use my Phileas as my daily writers, but in the last year, they are  out of the rotation. My current daily writers are my Lamy Safaris, and Ellington, and for more elegant occasions, my Wordsworth and Black. And I have a Kaweco Sport that I can just throw in the pocket of my jeans.