OK...I’m weak. I just ordered a pair of “just released on Dec. 3rd” TWSBI ECO pens. Both with stub nibs. They are transparent green and red. A fabulous addition to my transparent blue ECO with the medium nib. They’re about $30 at your favorite pen boutique.
I just picked up a Monteverdi demonstrator in green from Pendemonium for $20 shipped. Kind of a fun pen with a little flex. Takes standard International cartridges, a converter comes with it. Or even eye dropper fill for a ton of ink.
Those TWSBI pens with the plunger fill look they would also hold a lot of ink. Must be a demand for quality, inexpensive demonstrators. With these priced like this. Why would anyone use a ball point?
Nobody (largest % of population) cares about quality. You hardly even see anyone use a pen that has a refill. And since schools don’t use them to teach good penmanship (except in Japan) no one is ever introduced to them. It’s the artists and aficionados that buy fountain pens
Your Monteverdi sounds like the Monza. I have one in kind of an Amber and like it very much. If you want one that’s identical (they really are the SAME pen) try a Jinhao 992. You can literally get them incl. shipping for under $2. No...they are not just really similar. They are the same item with different name tags and engraving, etc. They’re made by Jinhao under contract to Monteverde. I have several of these too.
Just google JinHao 992 and you’ll find ‘em in a bazillion great colors on eBay.
Well darn it blackhorse I just had to checkout those jinhao 992’s. I had to order 3or 4 to get a discount so I ordered 7. With the the discount and free shipping from China it was $7.55. I figured I’d get the wife a couple of pens to play with too. But she’s not getting my Conklin durograph I picked up the other day. That ones mine lol
Just curious as to what inks you find that work better in your jinhao’s maybe this will help cut some of the trail and error and messy spills out some. If they tend to lean more towards a wet thin smooth ink I really don’t see a need to try and feed them a dry scratchy thick ink or vis-versa.
My current favorite ink of the moment is Noodlers Walnut. Gorgeous rich brown with the best manners of any ink out there, I’m sure. It really is wonderful stuff. And Noodlers prices are good.
There are so many out there with different properties which lend themselves to different purposes. I like good shading inks mostly. Google something like “best shading inks” and see what Brian Goulet has to say. If I knew what general color you had in mind I could be more specific. Like my favorite red is Diamine Red Dragon. Blue? Diamine Majestic Blue. Kon Peki is great too. Best sunset color with the best shading of any ink...Apache Sunset. Etc.
The Vanness store online is a good place to look at inks.
Do yourself a favor and check out the uTube reviews of VittaR. Look at her “go to inks” section. She knows her ink. Link below:
Lastly: Any of the Pilot Iroshizuku inks are highly favored by me. Typically very good flow...but not gushy. With the change from hand made to factory made bottles the prices (Amazon Prime) are very, very good. Just pick a color...any color. Me? Yama Budo, Ku Jaku.
Thanks blackhorse for all the info I’m definitely going to check all that out. The inks I’ve been using have either been blue or black. They are the cartridges for the Lamy Safaris. Just their standard color doesn’t really popor stand out but they work good. The pilot metropolitan came with one black cartridge. It’s a nicer black than the lamy black.
I got a bottle of ink when I ordered the Conklin durograph. It’s at the top of the page for some reason. I haven’t tried it yet. But that brown you described sounds really nice.
I did get 2 I k samples from Goulet pens. One is a violet-blue the other is a dark green I think. I haven’t tried them either.
Since I have 7 of those 992’s on the way I guess I need several more inks to play with. And I thought PAD and TAD were bad. Now IAD is almost worse.
