I bought a Sheaffer Copper Legacy from Jim Gaston early in my fountain pen collecting days. The pen is now with a dear friend, and Jim Gaston’s site has now been turned over to the family resort; nothing on the front page links to any of the beautiful Sheaffers he used to sell. When Dennis …
Oh wow, a new video. It only took me 3,249 years to do a new one. The soundtrack is from Sarah 100’s There and Back Again Lane, Â “The Joy of Living” by Blueboy.
It almost didn’t, actually, because it had been mailed to my old office address. Luckily my secretary is persistent, and she intercepted it at the EMS office on the day it came in. The nib is a Nathan Tardiff (he of Noodler’s fame) special, retipped with what seems to be a fistful of iridium. The …
These vintage Conway Stewart pens will be the wagging finger in my face. “Leigh, you said you were going to focus on Japanese pens. You said.” I will eat my words. I always do. This pen is too pretty. Produced between 1957 and 1963, the 85L has a slim, tapering profile and a single band …
One of the best things about working in advertising is I can shoot myself writing in my notebook during internal meetings when only 4% of my brain is required.
I sold my first Waterman Carene Deluxe. It was dependable, it wrote even if I’d left it inked and unused for weeks, it was deep blue and sterling silver, it was… well, it was the kind of guy you married, I suppose, as guys like that usually come with medium nibs. I dislike medium nibs. …
Stubs are the smartly-cut jackets of the pen world. They can make anyone (and their signatures) look better. Stubs make broad vertical strokes and thinner horizontal strokes. Unlike italic nibs, the corners of the stub nib are rounded, so upward strokes don’t bite into the paper. Here’s a sampler of my stubs. They’re all factory …
A friend sent me a surprise in the mail. It was a Frankensnork. There are at least five different Sheaffer Snorkels in this Sheaffer Snorkel, and it makes me smile every time I pick it up and write with it. (On the permutations of “Franken:” in my line of work, we’re used to cobbling together …
This was my first Danitrio. I haven’t seen another pen similar to it, so perhaps it never passed the prototype stage. The entire pen is ebonite, except the feed. The barrel features sterling silver inserts: one engraved with a phoenix, the other with a dragon. I’ve had it a couple of years, and it shows. …
Back in the day, you didn’t have to change your pen if you became bored with how it wrote. You just bought another nib. Vintage Esterbrook pens are affordable and easy to find, and offer new-to-vintage fountain pen collectors the joy of interchangeable nibs. (Esterbrook.net is the online destination for Estie information, pictures and more.) …