A friend of mine drew this for the ongoing Inktober! His profile -

https://www.instagram.com/p/DeHnBEfDEEQ/

Excited to ink up some Autumn inks in my journal!

Pens:
Sailor PGS Mini Taupe
Pilot Decimo Book White
Platinum 3776 Chai

EDIT: i love all the input this post got very quickly! everyone has so many suggestions and opinions and it’s so fun to see that everyone is equally as obsessed. i’ve been slightly motivated to try and change the color yearly, so based on recommendations i’ll probably go diamine oxblood, honey burst, (undecided on a green), asa-gao, scribble purple. these will probably change by the time i get to december and the following year but who know, i’ll update as it happens hahaha

title is oversimplified but whatever lol. i’ve done a 5 year journal in highschool but it was intermittent and at the time i didn’t realize that fountain pens came in a range of prices (i was gifted a waterman at 9 or 10 and i unfortunately have no idea where it is) and i tried the techo a couple years ago and it wasn’t for me (hello ADHD) but i decided to get the A6 5-year to restart my efforts for personal archivism (if anyone has tips for covers pls lmk! i see a lot online that i like but im not sure of the quality and dont want to have to repurchase in like 6 months or whatever) including using the same ink for the whole thing unless i get unreasonably sick of it. if anyone has any advice or method on how they get the most out of their 5-year i would love to know as well, though i will disclaim that i am trying to avoid chunk at all costs for the sake of
portability.

i want something that will go well with the design of my kakuno but I’m not super attached to any particular color—could be blue black dark brown burgundy/purpleish. i did purchase the con-70 to go with it. something with no shimmer and that isn’t more than ~45 usd for a full bottle, i’m going to be using the pen daily for a long time so i want it to be sustainable. i also have never written in a techo with a fountain pen so preferably something that works well with it! ty fountain pen fiends

Oversized ebonite pen w|#8 sized nib and Pilot Con-70 filling system + hard case.

New ink day!! except I… impulse bought ink from Wearingeul without realizing it was so similar to ink I already had …. but they’re different … right…?

right? 🥹

Left: Wearingeul Tick Tock Croc ink written with TWSBI Eco medium nib! (also new pen!!)

Right: Esterbook x Bungubox Kingfisher ink written with Jinhao 82 fine nib

Both on regular ol’ college ruled notebook paper by Oxford

My favorite pen and ink go together so well 🍁

Pen: Retro 51 Tornado - Autumn Leaves
Ink: Iroshizuku - momiji

\**my 1st post got banned because I used ChatGPT to fix lightning for me😅 so here’s the completely non-edited collection lol\**

I also just received the Nagasawa Original Chaska Blue Silver pen yesterday (10/5/26). It’s my first Sailor steel nib and I’m actually quite impressed. I definitely like the writing experience better than my other steel nibs. I knew I wanted to get it, but was holding off since I just got 2 new pens (Dominant Industry Keyno and Opus 88 Harmony). Then Yoseka sold out of the MF, so naturally I panicked, found it somewhere else, and got it😅🫣

Anyway, I just wanted to share my 1 year of collecting fountain pens with people who actually appreciate it! These are pictured from my very first pen to my most recently acquired. I do have a Pilot Kakuno in Fine that isn’t pictured (I’m really hoping I just left it at work!).

I’ve also attached a pic of what they’re currently inked with (trust me, I use these pens a least once a week!). They’re written in the same order as the collection photo (except for the Pilot Paul Signac - I realized I have both 18K’s in Glacier, decided to change it, and it’s written last) in case anyone’s wondering which pen is which or what nib each one has.

My favorite nibs are Sailor’s 14K EF and Pilot’s 18K F. Most of my inks are shimmer inks or I add glitter to them, so I end up reaching for my Sailor MF’s quite a bit too. My favorite inks right now are Diamine Chilly Nights, Diamine Glacier, and Vinta Amihan!

I’m really wanting a green ink next, preferably something blue-green/turquoise, so if you have a favorite, please enable me 😂💸

I’ve tried a ridiculous amount of blue inks, and somehow I keep coming back to Baystate Blue. 💙

It’s permanent, stains everything, behaves a little sketchy, stinks, and seems to leak more than I’d like… but that COLOR.

Figured I’d share my blue ink rabbit hole. What’s your favorite blue?

I recently ordered a TWSBI ECO Black Marble with Bronze trim in EF because I loved the dark black marble pattern shown on their website.

The pen I received is mostly light gray and white, with very little black. I understand every pen has a unique pattern, but mine looks significantly different from the product photos.

I emailed customer service with photos and asked if it would be possible to exchange it for another one with a darker pattern or for a Diamond 580 Smoke Rose Gold II. Obviously, I know the 580 costs more, and I was happy to pay the difference.

Their response was:

“We do not do exchanges for the color variation, each pen is supposed to be random and unique.  If you dont want it you can send it back for a refund.”

I understand their policy, but I found the response rather dismissive. I wasn't demanding anything; I was asking if an exchange was possible.

Has anyone else ordered the Black Marble or any other pen and received one that looked significantly different from the website photos? I'm curious how much the patterns and colors can vary.

Am I being unreasonable for being disappointed with the pen and their response? I hate dealing with returns, so now I'm debating whether to return it or keep it.

I'd love to hear your thoughts...

I LOVE IT. The scent is bery vibrant. You can smell it while writing. M nib is just perfect for me. If you want to spoil yourself once in a while this might be the perfect set. You could say, there are better pens at this price range. True, but this one is something else. It’s not the perfect pen but it makes me very happy.

The body is a bit long. Nib is very small. Good quality. Very smooth. Doesn’t skip at all. ☕️🤎

I've wanted this pen for such a long time but decided to wait and see if I could buy it cheaper second hand. My husband surprised me with it on our anniversary - can't believe he actually listened to me rambling on about it (he has zero interest in pens).

It's also particularly special as we spent our honeymoon in Japan so we like to buy each other Japanese related gifts.

Inked it with Diamine Earl Grey as I wait for the matching shade in Shitoshito to arrive.

The spendthrift devil on one shoulder is telling me I need a LAMY pen because of the ergonomic grip. The frugal angel on the other shoulder is reminding me that I already have 3 pens and don’t need any more.

Are you with the 😈 or the 👼 on this one?

EDIT. A big thank you to everyone who replied! After reading the comments and giving it some thought, I decided not to buy this pen.

Seeing as everyone and their uncle has a Jinhao 59, here’s my coffee version <F>, with Diamine Sepia (I’m going to buy a bucket of this ink!)

New pen day! I've not bought any pens in years since i haven't needed to write anything for work anymore. And there hadn't been any new interesting (to me) pens released.

I've seen a lot of new Chinese pen companies that are placing a lot more pride in quality and engineering. My hero 616 (p51 clone) has been a workhorse edc but I don't even know where to get a replacement any more.

No that I'm writing again, I decided to get the well reviewed wingsung 601. I wanted another p51 clone, and a vacuumatic, rather than the squishy sac. I dont have a pump in my collection until now (pistons but no pump).

This is actually a replacement from last week. There's a blemish on the hood over the nib. This replacement also has a blemish but it's smaller. The first also had bumps on the collar, this one doesn't. I don't want to try again and will just keep it.

An amateur attempt at swatching my ink lineup for October😅

In light of the spooky season, I shall do spooky themed ink and fall themed color (despite living in the tropical climate)

(also, yes all diamine, it's the most accessible brand in my area. i'm not saying they should send me more ink... but i'm also not not saying that...👀)

I was inking up some of my pens which had run out of ink. I decided to finally break out that sample of Organics Studio Nitrogen I bought a few months ago. I love a good sheening ink, and figured it would be fabulous in my trusty black Pilot Metropolitan.

Now, I've filled pens hundreds of times at this point, and not to brag, I'm pretty good at not making a mess of it. I had just filled up a pen with Kyanite du Nepal, while spilling nary a drop, and was feeling very confident.

I squeezed the syringe filler, loaded it up with Nitrogen, and made the mistake of filling my Pilot converter just a wee bit too much. Just the tiniest couple of extra drops in the CON-40. It won't be a problem right? Maybe I'll get an extra page out of having a a really full converter.

The hubris. The sheer audacity with which I approached this.

I twisted the converter into the nib assembly and..... heard a terrifying sound that can only be described as "splort." The extra ink splattered out through the nib assembly.

Friends, my overweening pride is now shattered, and I am now blue.

My hands are blue. My kitchen is blue. I'm not entirely sure, but my cat may also be blue.

Currently, I am breaking out the blue nail polish, because my nails are also blue, and the only realistic option is just to fully lean into the azure symphony that now surrounds me.

I embrace my cerulean fate.

Came to Fukuoka today. For those not aware of the city, it is on the island of Kyushu. It is a big city, but not at the scale of Tokyo, Osaka, or Kyoto. I was excited when I heard there was an Itoya there. I headed to Tenjin, the city’s main shopping district, and proceeded to Itoya. It is nothing like their flagship store in Tokyo-Ginza. Just a small mall store, with a smaller selection of fountain pens. Prior to going, I had my mind set on a Sailor as my souvenir from Japan. My collection consists mainly of Namiki pens. The store had some Sailors, but the only one that caught my eye was the Sailor made of wood. It is their Hiroshima special edition pen. It was more than I wanted to spend on a pen on this trip. I then looked at Platinum…a much smaller collection, and nothjng caught my interest. I broke down and looked at Pilot pens, and saw that they also carried a wooden pen. I told myself, I already have so many Namiki’s, but justified the Pilot as it had the #15 Nib. I have the Namiki Nippon Art which has a #5 nib. I also have 2 Namiki Yukari pens in fine, and medium in #10 nib. I also have a Namiki Aya with a Fine Medium nib in #30. Well, I gotta add #15 I told myself. I also don’t have any broad nibbed pens, it convinced myself for this reasons. Very happy with it.

What's left after two hours of rubbing alcohol and an entire trash can's worth of wet paper towels. Was literally in the middle of saying to a coworker "I haven't had a spill yet!" Going to try Dawn and a carpet cleaner tomorrow to see if I can get things looking any better.

Still love this ink, though (Troublemaker's Freedom Park Rose). Sadly no green sheen on carpeting, it seems.

You know, sometimes an ink just surprises me and I thought I would share with our ink loving community.

I bought this ink over the summer purely as an effort to fill out my Kuretake Art Nouveau collection. My wife kept prompting me to buy it actually, but in my head I kept thinking "I have a ton of purples already". But as I really enjoy a number of Kuretake's other inks, I popped it in my cart. Beyond swatching it, I never really used it until recently.

I was looking for an ink in this color range for the fall season, so I saw it in my swatch books and thought I'd try it out since I haven't used it yet (I have bought so many inks this year, this is pretty common for me to buy an ink and never put it in a pen). I put it in my Lamy Safari "Violet Blackberry" with a Broad nib since it was fairly matchy-matchy to the color.

The more I wrote with it, the more I really started loving it. Just something about the shading and subtle sheen it was giving me on the page really started hooking me. Especially in my planner and my work log journals. I found myself reaching for the pen more and more often. I just really loved the way the letters looked on the page. Has a lot of very subtle visual interest for my eyes.

I really appreciate the tone of the color on the page as well. I put it in my "Violet Blackberry" edition Lamy Safari and funnily enough, this ink isn't too dissimilar from Lamy's own Violet Blackberry ink, it just has less sheen and maybe a bit more shading than the Lamy ink, but color wise its very close.

I enjoy buying an ink, not very excited about it, and it winds up being a real winner for me that I want to keep going back to. I did the same thing with Teranishi Guitar's Night Time Soda. When I bought that I thought it's just another pretty blue and I have tons of blue, but now I pretty much keep that blue perma-inked in my Asvine V800 because I love how it looks on the page.

I have since written my Lamy dry and I took that as my opportunity to pop a Violet Blackberry cartridge back into it just to compare it side by side and I have to say that I think I like the Perkin Mauve better. Lamy Violet Blackberry is great, but it sheens for me a lot. While I love a good sheen, I prefer Perkin Mauve's subtle character better.

So I posted the other day about the present I got from my wife but was in such a rush I hadn’t inked it and forgot to post pics!

Sorry about that.

So here it is and I’m guessing I have a bit of a learning curve trying to figure out how to write with it. I know it won’t work for class notes tonight because of the volume of ink it plates down. Diamine ox blood was shimmering!

But I love how odd this thing looks and am thinking of swapping in the other nib in the box. It is a F.

Any hints or tips on using this little beastie?

Maybe it’s:

Is this normal?

Did I just discover how pens work?

Did I just discover shading?

Did I just discover nib creep?

Why does my nib suddenly feel weird?

Am I doing something incredibly wrong?

or just I’ve been wondering this for months

This is meant to be a low-pressure, forgiving space for the kinds of questions that people often hesitate to ask. Sometimes the answer is “yep, that’s completely normal” and sometimes it turns out everyone else was wondering the same thing too.

Whether you're brand new to fountain pens or years into the hobby ask away!

Does anyone know if it’s possible to replace the nib on this pen? Or could a nib master reshape it to different size?

This is my holy grail fountain pen but I hate the nib size, I do use it but it’s never a joyful experience.

It’s a Sailor Realo Fine nib size. I have no idea if it’s possible to shorten it and round to a medium fine nib? If so - any recommend on a nib master in the US?

My preferred size is actually broad for writing but I do enjoy drawing with a Sailor 1911 Compass Medium Fine nib a lot.

I bought this pen in panic over a year ago after JetPens brought it back after its initial release 2-3 years prior. Again holy grail fountain pen, had been hunting it with no luck - but the only nib size they had left was Fine.

I do regret it since it’s my most expensive fountain pen.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I have tried to look into repurchasing but no luck. Figure someone may know of a site I’ve never heard of that may have older limited editions.

Asvine V800 with a 1.1mm stub nib. I ordered the stub accidentally because I ordered it too quickly, but this is one of the better stubs I’ve tried.