This pen was kindly donated by Paul of P.W. Akkerman in The Hague for review and giveaway – here’s the giveaway part! This is not required, but to thank the sponsor, please consider giving them a follow on Facebook and Twitter.
Over the course of months, I have received a lot of requests to do a post on my personal collection of fountain pens; in other words, to show the pens I have decided to keep over the years. To be honest, it seems really boring to me to look at someone’s personal collection, especially if that collection contains a number of no-longer-available pieces, but the people have spoken. I have chosen to turn this into a written post; in principle, all of these pens have been (or will be) reviewed, so the interested reader can always use the index at the top of my website to locate the reviews of individual pens that are of interest.
Based on anecdotal evidence, my viewers seem to like anecdotes, so I have tried to give a bit of a backstory to all of these pens. I took these pictures myself, which explains why they’re not of the usual spiffy quality Gourmet Pens provides. I did not create this post to provide eye candy, but to try and explain what it takes for a pen to remain in my collection. Again, if you want to see more of a pen, or see it in action, consider watching my review of the pen.
Now that you’re all sitting comfortably, we can begin.
This is what I consider “my” collection, which means that these are pens that I actually use and ink up. We have more pens, a number of which belong to Gourmet Pens (mainly vintage). As you can see, I do not own hundreds (or, as some viewers appear to think, thousands) of pens; whatever I do not like enough to keep is given away or sold (and before you ask, because some people will, I am not in the habit of giving away Viscontis to random strangers). So, let’s go through these pens in small clusters and see what they are all about.
Left to right: Conway Stewart Winston, Stipula Etruria Volterra, Parker Akkerman Duofold, OMAS Paragon
Yes, I have altered the order a little bit with respect to the group picture. From left to right:
Conway Stewart Winston, 18k broad nib. This pen was sent to me by John from the UK, and I absolutely love it. It’s stunning celluloid over a brass liner, so it is a pretty heavy pen that is rock-solid. The nib required quite some work to make it write exactly to my liking, but now it is perfect. I don’t like the filling system (a kind of built-in converter/faux piston), but the size, weight, and feel of the pen makes up for that.
Stipula Etruria Volterra, 18k italic nib. Another beautiful celluloid model. Just a humble cartridge/converter pen, but the nib is stellar. A juicy, crisp italic that allows for superb line variation and that wrote exceptionally out of the box. I ran into this pen at Akkerman in The Hague and I couldn’t resist.
Parker/Akkerman Duofold, 18k italic nib. Not only is this a beautiful fountain pen (the orange and black really works), but it was a limited edition to commemorate the 100th “birthday” of Akkerman in The Hague. What adds to this pen’s appeal is the nib: a vintage stub nib that is no longer in production. One of the things I dislike about modern Parker pens is their boring nibs (in my neck of the woods, the choice is typically rock-hard fine or rock-hard medium; broad is hard to find, and only the Sonnet nibs have a bit of yield, it seems), but this nib is really something else: crisp, excellent flow, and beautiful line variation.
OMAS Paragon in Arco celluloid, 18k fine nib. Who says I only use broads or italics? This pen is not only made of one of the most gorgeous celluloids I have ever seen, but it has a stellar nib. The fine nib on this pen is among the smoothest nibs I have ever used, flow is rich without gushing, and the entire pen is just massive without being overly blocky or heavy. The facets of the pen really highlight the celluloid.
From left to right: Yard-O-Led Viceroy Grand, Visconti Opera Elements Fire, Visconti Kakadu, Visconti 25th Anniversary Urushi, Visconti Australis, Visconti Opera Master Demonstrator, Visconti Opera Master Tobacco/Tortoise/Turtle
Yard-O-Led Viceroy Grand with Victorian Finish, 18k broad nib. This pen was sent to me by John too. Years ago, I was in London for a course, and I walked into Fortnum and Mason, an old department store where the shop clerks still wear coat and tails. The store has a nice stationery section that stocks Yard-O-Led and I held this pen model. I was blown away by the pen’s size and, particularly, its weight. Being constructed out of solid Sterling silver, the pen weighs a lot. At the time, I couldn’t bring myself to spending that much on a fountain pens (“The times, they are a-changin'”, so quote Bob Dylan), so I passed it up – and I regretted it ever since. So, when John offered to send me his because he was thinning out his collection, my heart rate went through the roof. Too break it down simply: this is pretty much a perfect pen. Its weight, size, finish, and performance are all top notch. A juicy nib, a perfect balance, and visually, the pen is perfect.
Visconti Opera Elements Fire, 14k medium nib. Regular viewers of my videos will know that this is one of my favourite pens of all time, and that is because this was the first “serious” pen I ever bought. If this pen would not have performed the way it did, you would probably not be reading this, because SBREBrown the fountain pen reviewer would not exist. This really was a pivotal pen. The celluloid is stunning, and the nib is perfect: springy, juicy, and just an overall perfect performer. Also, I bought this pen with some of the inheritance left to me by my granddad, a life-long fountain pen lover, so there are some emotions at play here too. Furthermore, this was the first serious purchase I made from La Couronne du Comte, which has evolved into a great relationship with the store’s owners.
Visconti Kakadu, 18k medium nib. A limited edition for the Australian market; just a little bigger than the Opera Elements, but a bit smaller than the Opera Master. This is a great pen, that’s actually a very deep blue and not a black like the picture suggests, which has a nice brown swirl. I love this pen so much that I took it to my PhD defense to take notes. The pen writes perfectly all the time, every time, and it is a great size. Also, being a power-filler, it holds a serious amount of ink.
Visconti 25th Anniversary Urushi in Rose Gold Finish, 23k palladium broad nib. Gourmet Pens spotted this pen for me at the 2015 Tilburg pen show and I could not resist getting it. Ther are 25 of these, as they were made for Visconti’s 25th anniversary. I love this pen because of the Urushi lacquer, which makes it ultra-black in a way that is pretty much undescribable. I do think it is more of a bronze finish than a rose gold finish, but I do like the contrast between the black and bronze. Also, the nib is perfect: juicy, wet, and it does not skip or hard start.
Visconti Australis, 18k medium nib. Another exlusive for the Australian market. Made of “lucite”, it is a nice, shiny black. Being Master-sized, this is a large pen, but because of the material, it is remarkably light, making for a very pleasant, non-tiring writing experience.
Visconti Opera Master Demonstrator, 23k palladium double broad nib. This was the first Opera Master I found (also at Akkerman in The Hague) and I immediately fell in love with the model. Big, heavy, perfect shape, perfect filling system (power-filler). I love this model, and I think it is a great writer.
Visconti Opera Master Tobacco/Tortoise/Turtle, 23k palladium double broad nib. I saw Bertram Oser from Bertram’s Inkwell use this pen in a video that was recorded years ago, and I immediately wanted one. I couldn’t find one for years, but then Gourmet Pens found me one. I got it, and I absolutely love it: this pen has such a magnificent finish; a deep, warm hot toffee-brown… Just stunning. This pen is always inked up.
Left to right: Visconti Opera Master Demonstrator, Visconti Opera Master Tobacco, Visconti Carbon Dream, Classic Pens LB5, Pilot Parallel 6mm.
I’ve covered the first two pens in this shot already, so we will have a look at the other ones, starting with the grey one.
Visconti Carbon Dream, 23k palladium medium nib. I bought this pen on my birthday (again, at Akkerman in The Hague; do you see how dangerous this shop is?). It’s a big, heavy pen, with a carbon fibre-finish. What you cannot see well in this picture is that the barrel is transparent, so the dark bits you can see between the carbon fibre Vs is actually ink. This pen has a relatively stiff palladium nib, but it is superiorly smooth and I absolutely love using it. It is very wet and it just writes beautifully. This pen is always inked up.
Classic Pens LB5 Kaen, 21k Nagahara Cross Point nib. This is as close to perfection as any one fountain pen can get, I think. The finish of fusion-bonded acrylic is stunning. To be honest, I have no clue what fusion-bonded acrylic is, but let me tell you: pick up one of these pens and you will be blown away by the depth of the material. Also, I got this with a Cross Point and that makes for some extreme fun in writing, as it ranges from extra-fine to about triple/quadruple broad depending on the user’s writing angle. Gourmet Pens gifted me this pen (obviously, a magnificent gift) and she purchased it from my friend, the One Man Penshow Sarj Minhas. This pen is always inked.
Pilot Parallel, 6 mm steel nib. This is not a joke; I actually use this pen. I like doing (or, more accurately, attempting) calligraphy and I like it big… So I love the 6 mm Parallel. These pens are great to add some flair to a postcard too.
Left to right: Lamy Safari (for size comparison), Visconti Opera Master Tobacco, Yard-O-Led Viceroy Grand, Visconti Carbon Dream, Visconti Speakeasy, Guider Super Zimbo.
I added this shot mainly as a size comparison of some of my favourite pens next to a Lamy Safari, but the final two pens have not yet been covered.
Visconti Speakeasy, 23k palladium medium nib. This pen is huge, the celluloid is stunning, and it has a hidden booze compartment (and I do not even drink!). The nib is stellar and springy, and I love the pen’s looks and feeling. However, the ink capacity is pretty useless: it only fits a microscopic converter or standard international short cartridges, and those cartridges do not even fit in easily without scraping the plastic off of their sides. Still, the imposing size of the pen makes up for a lot. Oh, and this is yet another one picked up at Akkerman in The Hague, during a short stay in a wonderful beach hotel in Scheveningen (close to The Hague), so whenever I use it, I am reminded of some beautiful summer days filled with relaxation and great food.
Guider Super Zimbo, broad steel Laban nib. Yup, this one is pretty affordable. Its size is absurd, and it is way too fat to be used comfortably for longer writing sessions. That is why I keep this pen inked up with water-resistant iron-gall ink to address envelopes or fill out forms.
And there you have it: my personal collection of fountain pens, by public request. Clearly skewed towards the Italian side, and it does not include a lot of 20-dollar pens. Bear in mind that this is my collection of pens that work for me, not a list of pens that I think anyone should own or rush out to get. For example, if you have smaller hands, you will probably be unable to use 90% of the pens shown here.
I have spoken.
In this episode:
00:46 Why does my converter empty itself immediately after filling it?
03:22 Talking about titanium nibs.
06:22 Does a fountain pen adapt to your handwriting?
08:59 Is there such a thing as a fountain pen that is particularly suited for people with arthtritis?
11:40 Is there such a think as Serious Sloshage of ink in a demonstrator?
13:50 Why are the bottom corners on the pages of some notebooks perforated?
15:08 Why do some pens dry out after a few weeks of non-use while others don’t?
16:34 Why don’t all medium nibs have the same line width?
19:28 Are there pens that don’t have a slippery grip section?
21:08 Why won’t my pen write when I rotate the nib a little bit
22:23 Would you recommend fine or medium nibs for everyday use?
24:10 How can the same ink be darker or lighter in two different pens?
Thank you to Appelboom Pennen for lending us this pen to review!
Mia (Twitter | Instagram) drew this and has granted permission to use it as the SN image!
Check out my review.
Check out GourmetPens’ review.
See other episodes of Serious Nibbage here!
If you’d like to sponsor an episode of Serious Nibbage and would like us to review a pen/nib/ink, etc, contact me through the contact page, or via email.
Thank you to La Couronne du Comte for providing this pen for review and giveaway! THE GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED; CONGRATULATIONS TO WINNER DAVE BUSSE!
Use code: BROWN10 for 10% off your purchases, excluding Montblanc!
Mia (Twitter | Instagram) drew this and has granted permission to use it as the SN image!
Check out my review.
Check out GourmetPens’ review.
See other episodes of Serious Nibbage here!
If you’d like to sponsor an episode of Serious Nibbage and would like us to review a pen/nib/ink, etc, contact me through the contact page, or via email.
Introduction
I thought that, for a change, I would not do a video but just write a traditional blog post. I would like to talk to you all about a nastier side of doing fountain pen reviews, or in more general terms, publishing my work publicly. Today, we will talk about abuse, its consequences, and how to deal with it.
As my channel grew in popularity, I have faced increasing amounts of abuse. Sometimes, abuse is posted by trolls: people who create accounts on any given platform (in my case, YouTube) with the sole purpose of annoying, bullying, and offending people. Such comments often do not grow in eloquence beyond “you suck”, and those types of comments are usually fairly easy to deal with: the user is blocked, and I try not to give any such comments more than a minute of my time. After all, these comments should be taken for what they are: bullying in an attempt to provoke the recipient.
There is another type of abuse too, though, which is much more personal, and much harder to ignore. A few days ago, I received this public comment on one of my latest videos:
The final sentence concerned my accent, which made me sound “like an immigrant” (some derogatory adjective was added, but I forgot which one. I replied with, “Then why are you watching my videos?” and I received this reply:
It became clear to me that this person has a serious personal grudge against me and was now starting to get really offensive, so I reported him as abusive on YouTube, which led to removal of his comment and an inquiry was started (and, of course, his comment was not found to be in violation of community guidelines – YouTube’s stellar algorithm once more failed). The next morning, I found this comment on another video:
I’m sure you’re getting the point. Once again, the user is blocked, and I am trying to forget about him. Now, let’s discuss this phenomenon in a bit more detail.
The Problem
The problem seems clear to me: I try to provide the fountain pen world a service by sacrificing hundreds of hours of my free time to provide interesting, engaging, entertaining, and informative content. I do so voluntarily. Yes, I have Patreon supporters and I am deeply grateful to them, but bear in mind: the financial compensation I receive for doing this videos does not even amount to a part-time salary; we’re talking pennies here. Welcome pennies that allow me to invest in equipment, reviewable pens, pay for giveaways, etc., but definitely not an income I can live off of. If it is not the money that makes me do it, then it must be something else: my enjoyment of the hobby and my desire to help out others in that hobby, be they beginners or advanced collectors, in trying to make decisions. Explaining that Japanese mediums are like Western fines, etc. Last January, I entered my fifth year as a fountain pen reviewer, and I still have fun. I do owe deep gratitude to anyone who has offered me kindness, be it in the form of nice comments, letters, surprises in the mail, etc.
However, facing a continuous stream of highly-personal abuse is slowly throttling my enthusiasm. I get personal abuse like this at least monthly, but usually biweekly. Just a short while ago, someone commented, and I have to paraphrase here: “Terrible review. All I get to see is your sweaty face. Stephen, we really don’t need to see your lame attempts at growing a beard.” That is personal abuse. It exceeds “you suck”. I asked the person why he kept coming back to watch my videos, then, and his incredible response was, “Yes, I know it is hard to take constructive criticism, Stephen.”
That is the problem right there: the internet has given everyone a stage. Everyone feels like they have the right to insult people, tell them how terrible they are, call them names, and so on and so forth, because they have the right to do so. I used to check out the fountain pen subforum on reddit, but I stopped. The amount of people there who were downright offensive really put me off. Of course, all of these people use anonymous screen names, and I assume they would not even have the guts to look me in the eye if they’d run into me at a pen show, but they say the meanest, most offensive things about me (if you want an example, the interaction between Azizah and myself in Serious Nibbage was described as, “Absolutely disgusting”). It is the same thing: these people all feel entitled to offend others, because they have the right to express their opinion. What I find most shocking is that some of these people actually believe that their offensive remarks are constructive criticism, as was the case for the YouTube commenter I quoted earlier.
The Solution
The simple solution, and I know that it is in the minds of a number of readers, is “just ignore it”. That’s really easier said than done. If someone tells me that I suck, without any further reasoning, then yes, I can ignore it: block and delete. However, when someone gets offensive – sorry, that’s not something I can just ignore. It affects me. Of course, in the words of my dear soul brother Eric Orozco: “You have to look at who comments.” Yes, of course. But even that doesn’t take away the bad feeling straightaway. Not when I invest so much time and effort into helping out others and in return, I get called a cunt.
It affects me and I notice it. I notice I get snappy sometimes. Imagine reading someone’s comment, in which you are attacked for doing terrible reviews and only showing off your “lame attempts to grow a beard”. Then ten people ask you questions that are answered in three seconds by google (“Can you tell me where I can buy a TWSBI Eco?”, “Is the Montblanc 149 a cartridge/converter pen?”, “What’s the difference between a fine and a medium nib?”; these are all actual questions of the kind that I receive on a daily basis). Sometimes I just snap. That’s not fair and I know it. But it’s the proverbial one rotten apple that ruins the basket. And of course, that leads to more negative comments on reddit, like, and I paraphrase lightly, “I once asked him a question and I got the rudest answer ever. Fuck that guy.” I do apologize to everyone I have been curt with: you do not deserve it.
Now, how do we resolve this? I think the solution consists of a few parts. First of all, of course everyone is entitled to their opinion. Of course! But that you are entitled to have an opinion does not mean that you need to vent it. If you do decide to vent it, try to be civil about it. More specifically, there are many fountain pen reviews out there. Jason Wan has subscribed to the Pen Habit’s YouTube channel. Clearly, those reviews work for him – so perhaps he should just watch those reviews then, instead of calling me names. Just an idea.
So, if you are going to give someone your opinion of them, and you want them to actually change their ways, make it constructive. It’s not that difficult. Trust me, I have graded hundreds of student papers, some of which appeared to have been written by an inebriated toddler. However, instead of calling those students names, I tried to give them pointers on how to improve their work. Please, do not confuse insults and name-calling with constructive criticism: those are very different things.
Thirdly, beware of the bystander effect. If you see something nasty happening, it is tempting to not do anything about it and just look away. It’s a lot easier to ignore a problem than to actually step up and do something about it. At some point, Matt of the Pen Habit decided to take a break from reviewing pens for a number of reasons, one of them being faced with abuse more than he would like. I made a video to try and offer him some support (and guess what: it got nine dislikes). I’m not trying to toot my own horn here, but I did not ignore the problem but addressed it. Anyone can do that. I recall one guy who stood up for me in a particularly nasty reddit thread – he was not prompted by me to do so; he just felt like stepping in and giving people a positive message about me was the right thing to do. I sent him a pen as a thank you. Not because I felt obliged to do so, but because I felt like that was the right thing to do: if someone steps in for you and actually defends you, especially when you yourself are absent, that deserves a big compliment. I’m not going to send out free pens to everyone, just to be sure :-). But if you ever see something nasty going on online (not just on my channel), feel free to step in and tell someone that it’s not okay to do what they are doing. The recipient of the abuse will be grateful.
Finally, just yesterday, I read this beautiful quote from the Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus (from his Enhyridion, as translated by Thomas Wentworth Higginson), which I want to share with you and which I am trying to keep in mind:
When any person does ill by you, or speaks ill of you, remember that he acts or speaks from an impression that it is right for him to do so. Now it is not possible that he should follow what appears right to you, but only what appears so to himself. Therefore, if he judges from false appearances, he is the person hurt, since he, too, is the person deceived. For if anyone takes a true proposition to be false, the proposition is not hurt, but only the man is deceived. Setting out, then, from these principles, you will meekly bear with a person who reviles you, for you will say upon every occasion, “It seemed so to him.”
Forgive my long ramble here. I will not stop doing fountain pen reviews – but this is a topic that is important to me. To be honest, getting irrational and, I believe, undeserved personal abuse is the one reason that would make me stop doing these reviews.
In this episode:
00:42 Are all ultra broad nibs stubs?
02:38 What is the broadest non-stub you’ve ever used?
03:13 Do M800 and M1000 3Bs provide the same line width?
04:25 Which piston-fillers have the most generous ink capacity?
06:33 Is there a better M or B for lefthanders?
07:48 You have lots of pens. Which two are your favourites?
09:50 How many bottles of ink do you have? What do you look for in an ink?
12:11 What do you use your pens for?
13:20 How should I orient an italic/stub to the paper?
15:30 How do you fill a piston-filler without staining the celluloid?
16:57 Do all CON-20 converters leak?
18:54 What is my (new) pen cleaning routine?
22:55 Are modern iron-gall inks safe for modern and vintage pens?
26:37 Can you recommend a sub $100 music nib pen to draw music notes?
30:42 Did Private Reserve Quick Drying ink destroy my pen?
34:26 Can you recommend some nice everyday inks and an alternative to Parker Penman Sapphire
38:11 How many pens have you broken and could you fix them?
40:22 Can you compare a Pilot Varsity and a Pelikan M1000 in M?
41:30 23k Palladium Visconti vs. 18k OMAS nibs fr everyday writing?
44:11 Can you recommend 10 fountain pen from $100-$400?
44:55 Why do my Parker Sonnets with snap caps get ink on the section?
Here is a nifty little trick to fill up a vacuum-filled fountain pen completely.
In this new series of videos, I answer pen-related questions I receive from viewers. In this episode:
00:07 Introduction
01:54 I cleaned my pen, but now the ink is lighter than before. What to do?
04:03 Can you recommend a good pen under $50?
06:40 Lamy Joy vs. Lamy Safari?
08:02 Can you recommend a good pen between GBP 100-120?
10:20 Can you use all ink brands in all pen brands?
12:52 M800 vs. M1000 for daily note-taking?
15:11 M1000 vs. 149 vs. Dolcevita Oversize?