It’s Big Balloon Drop Week™ around the world, so why not give away a LAMY Balloon Fountain Pen? This giveaway is for the Asian market exclusive LAMY Balloon Fountain Pen in Blue, with an Extra Fine Steel nib. And the winner is:
Congrats Mary! I’ve sent you an email to collect your shipping address.
2026 Year of the Kakuno who says no?
Using what you have is going to be a recurring theme this year, as already expensive fountain pens have been hit with the most aggressive price increases we have ever seen. No one knows how this is going to play out, but I do know that many of us will be looking at what we already own and making sure we get the most from it.
This episode of The Pen Addict is sponsored by:
Pen Chalet: Check out this week's special offer, and to get your code for 10% off.
(Kimberly (she/her) took the express train down the fountain pen/stationery rabbit hole and doesn't want to be rescued. She can be found on Instagram @allthehobbies because there really are many, many hobbies!.)
First of all, a very Happy New Year to you! I hope that you’ve had a good holiday season. I have been thinking about new year intentions and while I haven’t nailed down everything that I want to focus on in 2026, I do know that one of those things is sending more letters, aka snail mail. At one point, I had over a dozen penpals and was writing/sending letters almost every week. I’ve fallen off that wagon big time - I think I might have sent 1-2 letters in all of 2025. Eeek, time to write more in 2026!
While shopping at a local bookstore in the mountains of Colorado, I found these cool letter kits from UK-based Pigeon Posted. Each pack has 6 “pigeons”, which you fold up into its own “envelope” - just slap a stamp on it to seal it and it’s ready to go!
Pigeon Posted in Bookstore (upper left), Hop on Board (upper right), and Wonderfully Wild (bottom.)
The back shows the designs included in each pack.
The white space is for the recipient’s address. (From the Hop on Board pack.)
On the back, there is a blank space for the sender’s address, but some sorting machines (in the US, especially), can’t tell the front from the back, so it might end up coming back to you.
I love that Pigeon Posted uses artwork from a variety of artists, which they credit on the backs of the notes.
Unfold the pigeon and you’ll see more of the artwork.
A decent amount of space to write a short letter. There is a small white space in the upper right - some sets say “From:” (like this tone), and others it’s blank. I used that space to write the date and where I was sending it from, like “the mountains of Colorado”.
I didn’t know if they would be fountain pen friendly or not, but I decided to take a chance on a few packs. I figure, at worst, I’d bust out a Pilot G-2 or other standard pen. Let’s see who should be my first guinea pig…
A sampling of fountain pens used to write a short note to the Bossman. Hey Boss! Don’t read this letter too closely cuz you’ll be posting this article before this gets to you in the mail, hah.
A closeup of writing from the Pelikan Ineo (blue), Pelikan M800 Italic Broad (green), and Platinum Plaisir (pink). As juicy and thick as the M800 is, the paper handled it pretty well, but there is a bit of feathering, which is not surprising.
For the letter, I used a Pilot 823 Medium with Papier Plume Secondine, Pelikan M640 MCI with Diamine Golden Brown, Platinum Plaisir 03 with Platinum Pink cartridge, Pelikan M800 Italic Broad with Papier Plume Marina Green, and Pelikan Ineo Medium with Robert Oster Sydney.
You can see that the M800 had some ghosting and slight bleed through on the other side.
After writing my note, I re-folded the letter and sealed the corner flap with the stamp (I swear the skunk stamp was a random pick!). Not shown, my return address label which I stuck on the upper left, above the Boss’ info.
As mentioned earlier, it’s best not to put your return address on the back, so I put cute washi stamps on the back in that space.
It was so fun to get a quick note done, that I may have gone a little crazy and used up all 18 notes!
While I wouldn’t necessarily use these for actual pen pal letters because y’all know how wordy I can get, lol, it’s great for a short note or letter. While not exactly expensive (about $11 for a pack of 6), it’s not very cost effective if you have a lot of people to write to. That said, I enjoyed it so much that I went back to the bookstore and bought 5 more packs :-)
More Pigeon Posted packs - there are even more on the Pigeon Posted website.
I bought the Pigeon Posted packs at indie bookstore Next Page Books, but you can find them at various Pigeon Posted stockists, or directly from Pigeon Posted.
PS. Happy New Year! May 2026 be kinder to us all and bring us continued inky fun!
(Disclaimer:I bought the Pigeon Posted packs at regular price at Next Page Books. All pens used are my own.)
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