In early January I wrote about my ink collection and I mentioned that I’d be writing an update on my pens as well. It’s taken a while because there has been a lot of photos taken for this! This is a long, so I’d understand if you skim the stats and my thoughts on the pens and just look at the pretty pens (I think they’re pretty anyway)! This article is also more of a pet project, and more of a journaling and record keeping article. I’m hoping some people can get something out of it though.

In early 2019 I wrote about my pen collection then and in mid 2017 I first wrote about my pens.

I got my first pen back in 2013 and it started quite slowly. In October 2014 I grabbed a Franklin-Christoph Model 02 and then March 2015 I bought my second gold nib, a Lamy 2000. By then I had around 10 pens including three donations from my parents. I also had a few inks by then. I consider 2015 to be the start of when I really began my collection of pens and inks rather than just having a couple of pens.

Statistics

Starting off with some statistics, I currently have 78 pens in my possession with 7 more either ordered or in transit. This is, including the ordered pens which should all arrive within the first quarter of 2021, almost a one-third increase in pens from 2019. This actually a surprise for me. I didn’t think there was that much of an increase. That said, I’ve also not sold many pens since the last pen roundup (I have given two away, however).

As of right now, I have 7 fountain pens on order. Two are in transit (Sailors). The others I’m waiting on are five Lamy Safaris that I “accidentally” bought…

Ordered Pens

Colours and Furnishings

Not surprisingly, black is the most represented dominant ‘colour’ in my collection. Black, after all, is such a classic pen look. Do I get into Black Pen Society? After that Blue is my most prominent colour, then green. Orange is by far the most vibrant though (a lot of the greens are dark and a lot of the blues lower in saturation).

A little surprising for me that Silver Trim has a noticeable lead over gold. I very loosely and contextually actually prefer gold trims and to muddy the waters even more, I really like silver trims on Sailor Pro Gears but only have one (with two more on the way though). Blue, Yellow and Purple are from the Candy Safaris I’ve ordered.

Brands

Including ordered pens, I have the same amount of Lamy pens and Sailor. 17 for each, the next highest is six for Franklin-Christoph and then Parker and Pelikan with five each. Quite a gap there. Of course most of Lamy’s comes from Safaris while all bar one of Sailor’s pens are Pro Gears.

All Individual Pens

Region of Manufacture

Not unexpectedly, German and Japanese pens make up close to two thirds of the pens. Japanese and German pens are some of the more popular pens and brands out there and there is a huge number of pens to choose from. So many staples are from Germany and Japan and the standard for quality control is also generally high.

Filling Mechanism

Close to 50% of my pens are cartridge-converter pens with piston pens coming up second and 10 pens that are either cartridge-converter pens (or cartridge pens) that can be eye-dropper or are actual eyedropper pens. For example, the Franklin-Christoph Model 65 I often eye-dropper but the Franklin-Christoph Model 46 I always use with a converter. The PenBBS 469 is just and eyedropper pen. These are difficult to categorise.

I’m quite happy having mostly cartridge-converter pens. Sure, piston and vacumatics are fancier and more interesting but I find cartridge-converter pens to be easier to clean and I also prefer filling up pens only a little bit; half a converter at most because I’d prefer to swap inks more frequently. For me cartridge-converter pens work well.

Purchase Condition

Also interesting is almost two-thirds of my pens are new. I expected closer to fifty-fifty!

Now let’s look at the pens! I’ve organised them in groups and listed these groups alphabetically.

N.B. the following photos should not be used as a comparison between pens! The scale is not accurate between pens!

From Asia (other than Japan)

I’ll that admit the PenBBS 469, while being a good writing pen, is a pen I bought for the novelty of it. I don’t actually write with it much at all. The Narwhal Piston Filler has a nice fine nib and is a newer pen that I’m still playing with but it’s quite nice on first blush. The Coffee Brown Picnic OPUS 88 (which was sent to me by Pen Classics NZ and which I reviewed here) has a fine nib and the Koloro did have one but I swapped it with a friend for a lovely broad nib. Of the TWSBIs the Vac Mini probably gets the most use. I haven’t used the ECOs much and might move them along except for the Rose Gold (which is a colour I’m quite fond of). None of these pens get that much use because they all hold a lot of ink and as mentioned above, I prefer smaller amounts of ink and changing inks more frequently.

Look how pretty the colour of the rose gold TWSBI is! That said, even though it’s a steel nib, the PenBBS nib look great; lovely shape too.

Franklin-Christoph

I do like Franklin-Christoph pens (and the Model 02 was one of my very early pen purchases) but for me the reason I keep going back to Franklin-Christoph, apart from their lovely materials and designs like Antique Glass or Italian Ice etc. is the custom ground nibs. I have a bunch of Masuyama nibs from Franklin-Christoph as well as two of their own in-house SIG nibs. The SIG that is on my Italian Ice Model 46 is exceptional and one of my favourite inks from the whole collection. The Model 65 has a Masuyama Needlepoint (which I adjusted slightly to make slightly wetter) and I have another Needlepoint on the Antique Glass Model 46 but this time from Nagahara.

The reason the 45 has a “ghost” section is because I managed to break my “Lavender Pearl” section and so I bought a replacement section for it from Franklin-Christoph.

The music nib is the standout nib here by far! It has a more interesting and less generic nib design but the magic in all these nibs is the grind rather than the look.

Hooded nib and Semi-hooded nib pens

All of these pens will be repeated below but they are their own category and deserve to be showcased as one. It’s strange, large fountain pen nibs are the biggest distinctive (visible) feature of a fountain pen compared to ballpoints etc. and they’re often very aesthetically pleasing. Semi-hooded and especially fully hooded nibs remove that distinctive feature and look much more like a ‘normal’ pen. But they have a classic and minimalistic look to them which I’m a big fan of. The Lamy 2000 was my second ‘big’ pen purchase and it’s still one of my favourite pens. It has a lovely smooth medium nib (with a large sweet spot). I also picked up a second Lamy 2000 (you can tell because it is more matte than the old 2000) with a nice Fine nib. My desert island pen would be either a Lamy 2000 or a Sailor Pro Gear, difficult to pick! The Montblanc 22 is a lovely soft broad nib. The softness doesn’t add line variation but it’s an excellent nib that feels super smooth and bouncy. The Aurora 88 from the 70’s I bought for comparison with the Aurora Duocart review I did. It’s a soft fine nib with some feedback. The Aurora Duocart I still like a lot. It only comes in a Medium and it is a steel nib but it writes great (and a steel nib hooded nib doesn’t feel any different from a gold hooded nib apart from the ground). The rolled gold Parker 45 and the 51s were my parents’ old pens. The 51s are awful to clean but they are classic pens that I enjoy using.

I’m not sure about the vintage nib size name so I’m guessing for some of them! Most of these nibs are really semi-hooded nibs with only the Parker 51 being truely hooded nibs.

In-laid nib pens

Similarly to hooded nibs, in-laid nibs are also unique and deserve a showcase (and it’s the only showcase of the Waterman Carene). The Sheaffer is another pen that’s difficult to clean but the nib is great. The Waterman Carene Rose Gold is also a lovely smooth nib but it does sing a little! The Pilot Myu has a Medium Fine and the Elite a crispy Fine nib. I only recently received the Platinum Manifold and I don’t have any Platinum cartridges to put inside it yet but it also has a fine nib. The pen is almost identical to the Pilot Elite. The both cap’s fit each pen and the Pilot’s barrel also screws onto the Platinum!

The Pilot Myu certainly is the most definitive ‘inlaid nib’. The pen is the nib! The Sheaffer takes the cake for prettiness for me! A classic look too.

Italian pens

The first four Italian pens are, to me, my most attractive pens. I love stacked celluloid and here we have three Viscontis with stacked coin celluloid in white, green, and red (which look like skyscrapers at night to me) and then the OMAS with that beautiful Brown Arco Celluloid. I used to have a Paragon with silver trim and Brown Arco Celluloid, but that pen was pretty huge and I never used the pen much. This Spina di Pesce has an Oblique Double Broad, which is a nib I also don’t use that much, but the pen is the perfect weight and balance for me. It’s a delight to write with. I also liked that this pen has the Arco Celluloid cut horizontally on the (as opposed to vertically like the Visconti but the same as my old Paragon) but also as an angled cut on the barrel which gives it the fishbone (“Spina di Pesce”) look to it. Beautiful pens! The Viscontis have fine nibs and they are good writers. The pens are quite difficult to clean properly so I tend not to use them as much as I probably should!

The Aurora Optima is a lovely medium nib. I actually really like this pen. Comfortable weight and size. I talked about the Aurora Duocart and 88 above and here.

I love the design of the Aurora Optima. It’s a standout silver finish nib for me (out of all my pens). It’s difficult to choose between the Viscontis and the OMAS but I think I’d pick the Visconti, personally (for aesthetics).

Kaweco pens

I’ve had more Kawecos over time but these are the ones I’ve kept. The I have the Sport Classic Green because it was one of my early pens, and the Skyline Macchiato because… it’s Macchiato… I have to have it! The Liliput lives in my Lochby Pocket Journal. It fits perfectly so I generally have the pen on me all the time.

The fine nib on the Liliput is pretty good; nice and smooth, decently thin. Same with the Medium on the Sport and the Fine on the Skyline (though if memory serves, this has more feedback)

Lamy pens

Apart from Sailor, Lamy is the big winner in my collection. I have twelve pens currently in my possession and five more on the way. The Lamy 2000 is one of my favourite all time pens. It might even be my desert island pen?! The Lamy Dialog is a chunky beast but it’s fun and interesting and the Studio, even with it’s slippery (for me) section is a nice place for a gold nib. I’m definitely team Safari I am getting suckered into buying the Safaris each year now! The Candy and the Terracotta/Savannah combos are both ordered. I don’t mind having multiple Safaris now though as I have decided, moving forward with my ink reviews, that I’ll be using Safaris (or AL-stars or Vistas) as the review pens. They are consistent, I have lots of them and I can test multiple nibs with a single pen. That was I can even more consistently talk about wetness and dryness because the nibs are the same each time and I can also do more reviews at the same time with many pens being potentially inked.

Lamy 2000 nibs have had a reputation for small sweet spots but that isn’t the case for either of mine (maybe I’m lucky or maybe others are unlucky and thus more likely to discuss it, I don’t know)! Regardless I love the medium and the fine is nice too. I can’t ever love oblique nibs because I don’t like rotating the pen but the oblique medium on the Dialog is still nice gold nib and the Masuyama Broad Cursive Italic grind on the Studio is excellent. For the Safaris I have a heap of different nibs including some nibs with different characteristics. The Extra Fine I currently have is nice and wet but the Fine is quite dry. The 1.5 stub is wet but the 1.1 Stub is on the drier side. The Broad and Medium are very wet. All of these provide some nice but consistent variances that I can use in my reviews.

The excuse that I just now came up with to justify my buying of the new Safari each year is that if I used the same few Safaris for every review that would get boring and wouldn’t necessarily be able to colour match… right?

Montblanc pens

All my Montblanc pens are second hand. The 1912 was my first Montblanc; it has a Masuyama Broad Cursive Italic on it. I reviewed the pen here and it’s a fun pen that isn’t necessarily the most practical of pens. The Montblanc 146 was picked up after and it has a broad nib on it. If I’m honest I’m mainly keeping this pen because it’s a good pen to have around for comparisons and a good yardstick. The Montblanc 22 was picked up from eBay (I can’t remember why I looked to buy it). The plastic doesn’t feel as premium as the other montblancs but the pens is excellent to write with.

The nib on the 1912 is a touch dry for my preference (which I find a lot with Masuyama’s grinds) and somewhat sharp but the grind has huge line variation and is extremely smooth if you don’t rotate! The broad in the 146 is smooth and stubby. The 22, however, has an amazing nib. It’s super smooth, its very springy (though just because it’s springy doesn’t mean it’s flex; there’s no real line variation from the springiness). Really excellent nib.

Parker pens

Most of my Parker pens were given to me by my parents. The two Parker 51s and the 45, to be precise. The only thing I don’t like about the 51 is how awful they are to clean. You can’t pull them apart easily and they always seem to be dirty. The 45 isn’t the best with cleaning either but at least I can use a bulb syringe! The Parker Duofold International is a little thin for me (I should get it’s bigger brother some day I think). The Parker Vacumatic, which I think is from around the late 30s, unfortunately has a cracked nib which I didn’t check when I bought it from a booth at the Melbourne Pen Show, sadly. The crack starts at the back though so it should be relatively simple to fix compared to a crack that starts at the breather hole!

The Duofold nib is smooth but rock hard, the definition of a nail! The Vacumatic has some feedback and has a touch of softness to it. The 45 isn’t a nail but isn’t soft. It is also a fairly fine nib. The 51s were both fairly dry, which I fixed, and the fine nib was fairly scratchy, which I mostly fixed (it is a little difficult to fix a misaligned nib in a fully hooded nib).

Pelikan pens

My first Pelikan pen was the M200 Café Crèma which originally had a broad steel nib in it that I subsequently upgraded with a gold M400 nib. The Black with silver trim M200 was picked up second hand, as was the MK10. At one point I had an M800 Grand Place which I sold to purchase the M805 Ocean Swirl. The Ocean Swirl has had complaints that the “pretty” part doesn’t wrap all around the pen and I don’t understand the complaint from this point; the OMAS Paragon is a rather boring simple brown from the side view. I do, however, understand that the advertising may not have portrayed the pen accurately but I still love this pen and it’s look. My ‘perfect’ pen weight and size is the Sailor Pro Gear and Lamy 2000 type sizes and I generally don’t like heavier and bigger pens as much but for some reason the balance, feel, size and weight of the M805 feels really nice in my hand.

I purchased a spare M800 nib for my old Grand Place (I can’t remember whether the Medium I sold it with or this Broad was the spare I bought though). I don’t use it, currently, because my Ocean Swirl is a silver trim but I definitely haven’t ruled about buying another M800 eventually! The Medium nib on the M805 is a very smooth lovely nib that’s somewhat fat. The Medium M400 on the M200 Café Crèma writes more like a double broad but the Medium on my M120 writes more like a Fine! Both of these have a touch of very pleasant feedback. The is nice and wet and actually writes like an Extra-Fine! All of the Pelikan nibs are a little different from each other in feel but all of them are excellent nibs that are all a joy to write with. However there is definitely some inconsistency with the real nib size and what’s written on the nib. The EF is an EF but the three mediums are very different from each other.

Pilot pens

My personal experience with Pilot is that I’ve had less pleasant results with broad nibs. Two Capless pens, this Custom 823, and a Custom 91, all with broad nibs, have been somewhat ink starved or have had some soft of flow issue. For this reason all my nibs from Pilot are now less than Medium (with one exception)! I was able to order the clear Pilot 823 from Rakuten when they were still available there. I’ve gone through three Capless pens before settling on the Fermo and more recently the Capless White Carbonesque. I grabbed the Myu because it’s such a unique pen. I don’t actually use it as much as I should but I’m glad I have it!

I sent the 823 to Dan Smith and he turned the standard Broad into a stunning Broad Cursive Italic (and fixed the flow). It’s not quite as sharp as the Masuyama Broad Cursive Italic on the Montblanc above but it is a wetter flow. Both capless pens have wet and lovely fine nibs. Great flow, fine line.

Platinum and Nakaya pens

The Nakaya Decapod was a pen I wanted for a long time (and it did take a long time to get! Ten months to be made and shipped to me!). I reviewed it here. It’s a light pen that I really enjoy using but it’s a pen I deliberately use rarely because I use it as a special pen. The Platinum Century #3776 I recently received back; it was a pen I gave to a friend but after they noticed I wanted to buy a Century #3776 again as another yardstick comparison pen they gave it back! The Platinum Manifold pen I picked up recently via a friend. I haven’t inked it yet because I don’t have a platinum cartridge yet!

The nib from the Nakaya is a broad that writes a little like a medium. It was also a little dry out of the box that I made wetter. The Soft Fine on the Century #3776 is a nice fine writer but I’m terrible at writing with flex or semi-flex nibs!

Sailor pens

Sailor Pro Gears are the focus my my collection. I much prefer the flat ends of Pro Gears to the round ends of 1911s/Profits. I have three more in transit from the cocktail series (Apre-ski, Blue Lagoon, and Kure Azur). I reviewed Sailor Pro Gears here. Since writing then I have four more in my possession including a Pro Gear Realo. I so also have a Standard 21 which is a Maroon standard sized 1911/Profit but while most would be a 14k this is a 21k nib. I use this pen as a bit of a daily driver so it does have a few scuff marks.

Sailor Pens have some of the most consistent writing experiences in my experience and I’ve used a lot of them. Two close pen friends also collect Sailors and I have fewer pens than either of them. They all have what I consider pleasant feedback and they are all within a decent margin of the nib size that they claim to be.

With regards to gold content though the difference between a 14k and a 21k in the smaller size is unnoticeable. The bigger 21k nib on a full size pen is slightly softer than the smaller nibbed 14k but both smaller 14k and 21k feel the same.

I have four nibs that aren’t the standard sailor nib. I also, surprisingly, only have one silver trim (though the two pens on the way are both Silver trim). The PenPoint Ayame is a lovely custom nib that I prefer to the Kingdom Note The Tale of Genji Momiji no ga Realo. Both the Nagasawa’s with the Roosters are nice but they are busy. I love the silver trim and looking forward to the two more coming!

USA pens

Most of these pens I’ve already discussed above with the exception of the Retro 51 Tornado, the Karas Customs Ink and the Osprey Pens Scholar.

The Retro 51, an exclusive from Goldspot, I had to by because of the theme! It’s a daily driver for me often in my pants pocket. The Extra Fine nib is very nice and definitely Extra Fine! It’s a touch dry but not the point that I want to adjust the nib. The Karas Customs Ink was the daily driver and pocket pen before I grabbed the Retro 51; the pen is ridiculously solid. The clip alone is stronger and more break proof than almost every other pen! There’s a new version of the Ink that looks very interesting and I wouldn’t mind comparing the new and the old one day. The Osprey Scholar was to be a review pen but I had trouble with the Zebra G nib that was on another unit (the Titanium coated Zebra G nibs do still rust easily). But I still want to review this Scholar with the normal Fine nib. I’m not sure where the nib comes from, it might even be in-house, but it’s a very nice sweet fine nib. Lovely fine feedback.

Vintage pens

The only pens I haven’t discussed in these Vintage pens is the Mabie Todd “SWAN” Self Filler and the Onoto The Pen Junior. The Onoto was found in a local vintage store and I think is missing a clip but I’m not one hundred percent sure about that. It’s a softer nib and writes well. The Mabie Todd is an even softer nib and writes quite nicely indeed. To be perfectly honest, I don’t use the older vintage pens as much because I prefer to use safer inks with them. Safer inks, for me, are also less interesting to use!

Coffee Themed Pens

One of the themes of my collection, apart from Sailor Pro Gears, is coffee. It’s also something I gravitate to in inks. It’s only six pens but it’s a consistent theme that I’m drawn to. The Retro 51 does its best to namedrop different hot coffees, the Hawaiian Ripe represents coffee cherries, the OPUS 88 is, more simply, named coffee brown, the Kaweco is Macchiato, the M200 Café Crèma is a lovely colour regardless of the theme and then there’s the Pro Gear Mocha which is only impersonating a coffee (I kid!).

Nibs

I showed some statistics regarding pens at the start and below are some statistics regarding nibs.

When I first started with fountain pens I defaulted to Medium nibs and also quite liked broader fatter nibs. As much as I still like the look of Broad nibs I find it more and more difficult to actually use such fat nibs in practice. The Medium nibs are still strongly represented but the smaller nibs have overtaken the fatter nibs (ignoring flex nibs and including MF nibs with medium):

Small: 30 (30%)

Medium: 39 (39%)

Large: 28 (28%)

I’ve definitely been buying more finer nibs lately. It’s interesting to see how tastes and practices change over time.

Another interesting thing to see is that the representation of gold and steel nibs are pretty much 50/50. Steel just wins out but only just!

Nib Types:

Spare nibs:

Nib Material:

Custom Nib Grind:

I’ll always pick the Nakaya as my favourite looking gold nib; I’d be interested to hear what everyone else would pick!

Conclusion

I like to think that outside of the Sailor Pro Gears, Lamys (especially Safaris), and maybe the coffee pens that the collections is relatively well rounded and eclectic. I have several of the staples and what I consider yardstick pens and I have some interesting pens. There’s certainly still more that I have my eye on though. I do want another Nakaya (probably a Piccolo), I want to get a Pilot 91/92 as it is another good comparison pen to have, and I’ll still be keeping my eye out for Pro Gears and Coffee themes. I’m also interesting in picking up some more Franklin-Chirstoph pens to try out Nagahara’s custom grinds. Esterbrook is another pen company that I’m looking forward to trying some time with it’s vintage nibs and it’s own in-house grind as well!

What should I do differently moving forward?

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I’ve listed all my inks and all my pens in their respective pages. Please let me know which inks you’d like to review next via the comments, Twitter, Instagram, or contact me directly.

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I was not compensated for this review and everything here is my own honest opinion. There are no affiliate links in this review. Some inks were given to me for review purposes.