Posts filed under Fountain Pens

Previously Owned Pilot and Edison Fountain Pen Giveaway

I have a batch of reader-supplied giveaways to get to, so let’s get this first group of fountain pens off my desk and into your hands!

There are three pens available this week:

Pilot Custom 74 in Deep Red with a Fine 14k nib.
Pilot Custom 74 in Dark Blue with a Medium 14k nib.
Edison Nouveau 2019 Winter Edition with a Fine steel nib.

All pens are used, and well loved. I’ve cleaned them up for giveaway, and will ship protected, but not in their original packaging. If you have always wanted to try or test out any of these pens, now is your chance. I have three giveaway boxes below, one for each pen. Enter to win one, two, or all three!

My thanks to Patrick, who runs the photography site The Color Grey, for donating these pens for giveaway.

Posted on January 18, 2022 by Brad Dowdy and filed under Giveaways, Fountain Pens.

Platinum Desk Fountain Pen Review

I love the concept of desk pens. Not in the literal Platinum Desk Fountain Pen way, but rather, in the “these are the pens that live on my desk permanently” kind of way.

Desk pens in that latter category usually have specific jobs to do. They may not be in heavy rotation, but they are ready and available at a moments notice to jump into action. Pens that fall into this category are fineliners (like the Kuretake Zig Mangaka,) micro tip ballpoints (like the Jetstream Edge,) wide rollerballs (like the Retro 51,) and highlighters (like the Pentel Fitline.) Pencils are in this category as well, both wooden and mechanical.

Yes, I have 20-30 pens and pencils within arms reach at my desk at all times. Probably more, but who is counting!

While those are my desk pens, the Platinum Desk Pen gets the MF Doom-esque caps treatment of its name. What exactly is a Desk Pen?

As you might imagine, it is a pen originally designed to be used at a desk. Normally in a stand or holder, next to an ink bottle for easy dipping, writing, and then dipping again. Fountain pens weren’t always the portable writing wonders that we now have.

The long, skinny barrels are a holdover from quills, I’m assuming, giving desk pens their unique look. The length helps when reaching across the desk to grab one for use, and provides a good feel and balance when scratching out dozens of signatures on the day’s proclamations. Huzzah!

Modern desk pens, while still available with matching pen stands, are often designed to use ink cartridges or converters. And, I see them used more frequently in artists hands, not by the lords and ladies of the manor. There is something brush-like about the pen handle that works for a wide range of motions.

Despite its more vintage look, the Platinum Desk Pen is firmly in the modern pen camp. It even sports Platinum’s popular Slip and Seal cap design to keep the nib from drying out for a long period of time without use. Platinum says up to a year, and while I can’t verify that with this pen, I can report it has sat for weeks between uses and fired right up on uncapping.

That’s even more impressive since I choose to use Platinum Carbon Ink cartridges with this pen, and I suggest you do too. This pigmented, water-resistant ink is perfect for artists, but great for the rest of us, too. The lines are pitch-black, and almost glossy on drying, giving a unique look on the page. You can buy it by the bottle as well, if you choose to use a converter.

Why do I like the Platinum Desk Pen so much? Platinum’s steel nibs are great, the barrel is lightweight and comfortable, and the overall design makes me feel cool. That’s right, I like how I feel when I use it. That should matter, and it does to me.

At $11.50 from JetPens, it won’t break the bank by any stretch. It is available with a Red barrel, along with the Black one I use. You can add on the Platinum Desk Pen Stand for $20 if you want to go full powdered wig mode, but you will lose the modern amenity that is the Slip and Seal cap. I’d stick with the standard cap, and add in a 4-pack of Platinum Carbon Black ink cartridges, putting you at $15 all-in.

I enjoy using the Desk Pen as a desk pen. It makes for a great note-taking, doodle-sketching, low-maintenance workhorse. I can’t recommend it highly enough it you want to try something different in your writing arsenal.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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Posted on January 17, 2022 by Brad Dowdy and filed under Platinum, Fountain Pens, Desk Pen, Pen Reviews.

Pen Cleaning Day

(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Twitter. And check out her latest book, Out of Water, now available where books are sold!)

Fountain pen cleaning. It’s the part of our hobby that’s more like a chore, right? And who wants chores for a hobby? Cleaning pens is probably one of the main reasons a lot of folks don’t want to use fountain pens at all, and I get it. It’s maintenance. Some of them are high maintenance. But for a lot of us here, it’s worth it. Some of us weirdos probably even enjoy it.

I do not enjoy it. But I recognize it as a necessary evil and a small price to pay for writing with a nice pen. The trouble starts when the definition of “necessary” gets a little fuzzy.

My family jokes that I have no back burners, that I just have 50 front burners going at all times. The same goes for my priorities. I have a lot of top priorities. My priority list has at least five number one spots on a good day. And like just about everyone on the entire planet, my priorities got massively scrambled over the past few years.

In the past year, cleaning my fountain pens got bumped to a low-priority item. Because it is, turns out. And that means it hasn’t gotten done–not since about September 2020. Basically, what I’m saying is let’s pretend 2021 didn’t happen.

Anyway, I often stick my to-be-cleaned pens in a Sinclair case on my desk. A few months ago I realized I could not fit any more pens into this case, and shared a pic on Instagram of my poor Sinclair that looks like it’s drowning in pens. Trouble ensued. Brad threatened to ban me. I was compared to Myke Hurley. The horror! I vowed to clean my pens as soon as I got a chance.

That chance would not come for several months because you know what? It still wasn’t a high priority, not even under the weight of so much scorn. Not in 2021 or 2022, or as long as this panini panorama continues to usurp my priority list.

But I had some free time this week. So I did the thing.

I was pretty surprised to see that I only had 29 pens to clean. I did have a few that were regularly re-inked and reused in that time, like my Wicked Witch Sailor that has been re-inked with Bungubox Witch of the West three or four times and has stayed in rotation pretty much since I got it. Same deal for my Spoke Axle with Robert Oster Fire and Ice, and my Gravitas skulls with Diamine Writer’s Blood. Those three have dedicated inks and a permanent place in my rotation, so that helped keep the cleaning pile from getting worse than it was.

It still took me over four hours, though. Because yes, some of those pens have been sitting since September 2020, and I had a row of cups soaking stubborn nibs and feeds. Everything did come clean, though, and all the pens are now bathed and happy. I put the cats in the basement, put on an audiobook, dragged a chair over to the sink, and knocked it all out.

I left one pen inked–my Schon DSGN Ultem Peek-a-Boo. And I have since inked up two new pens for review purposes. But other than that, everything is put away. It feels good.

I can’t say it won’t happen again. 2022 is not giving me “you will regain control of your life and your priorities” vibes. I think we’re going to stick with survival mode for a bit longer, here. Which means enjoying my pens without worrying about them. Because they’re fine! Everything’s fine. Everything’s. just. fine.

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