The only good Waterman is a vintage Waterman, unless it’s a Carene with a factory stub, or a Serenité with a cursive italic by Mike Masuyama. The Serenité is an anomaly in the modern Waterman portfolio. Discontinued but still available in a few shops or from online and show vendors, it was the first pen …
Old meets rusty. via Flickr http://flic.kr/p/eTt2ji
Ah, music nibs. They transform lists to lyrics, to-dos to haikus. Or so I would like to believe, even if music nibs on paper are indistinguishable from stubs and cursive italics. In form, they are quite distinct from other nibs, as they have two slits, resulting in three tines rather than the usual two. They …
Stephan LePodd, Explorer Extraordinaire, came upon a most peculiar cylindrical object in his extensive travels. He decided to bring it to Mr. Head, his friend and Puissant Philosopher. Surely it had been machined by the survivors of a long-lost advanced civilization! Perhaps even the famed Atlantis. Why else would it have “Waterman” impressed upon it, …
The first fountain pens were eyedroppers. The entire barrel held ink. I expect this was a relief to scribes weary and wrist-sore from dipping nibs into inkwells. (Centuries before that paper from plants rescued generations of goats from becoming papal bulls. Science, ever forward!) The Waterman 12 is a slim eyedropper. It was quite popular …
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. …
I first had two lists: top ten modern pens and top ten vintage pens. That I had acquired enough pens in 2008 to make two lists plus have others that didn’t make it to either list gave me pause. I decided to stick to one list. That was harder than I’d expected. What about the …
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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 …
I love red rubber. Mottled, woodgrain, ripple, it makes me think of bikers in flames. It’s a classic material in pens, like vinyl in bondage wear. The earliest hard rubber pens came in any color you wanted, as long as it was black. Then manufacturers brought on the bling – repoussé bands, filigree overlays, full …