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Author: Anders Kristiansen

Nibby Sunday – Ballpoint pens I actually enjoy using

Nibby Sunday – Ballpoint pens I actually enjoy using

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Us fountain pen enthusiasts have a small tendency to look down on ballpoint pens, but personally, I’ve found that both pen types have their uses. The fountain pen isn’t always the best tool, and in some situations the ballpoint pen is just better. In any case, there’s no reason to pit the two against each other. On the contrary, they actually complement each other quite well. When the ballpoint pen came on the market after the war, it was quickly able to replace the…

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Nibby Sunday – Report From Pelikan Hub 2023

Nibby Sunday – Report From Pelikan Hub 2023

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Last Friday (September 22), we had the pen event of the year, Pelikan Hub, and over 30 fountain pen enthusiasts flocked to Tudos’ premises at Frysja in Oslo to share their experiences, try each other’s pens, exchange inks, and talk about this and that. Pelikan Hub was initiated by Pelikan in 2014, and has in relatively few years grown to become an annual event that many pen enthusiasts around the world look forward to. The aim is to bring together people…

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Nibby Sunday – 10 Thing You Shouldn’t Do With Your Fountain Pen

Nibby Sunday – 10 Thing You Shouldn’t Do With Your Fountain Pen

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Fountain pens are amazing writing instruments, and as pen enthusiasts, we know that a good pen can be a powerful tool. But with great power comes great responsibility. You have to take good care of your pen, be kind to it, treat it well. If you do, it will in return give you years of writing joy. But if you’re mean to it, the retaliation can be swift and merciless: ink leaks, scratchy nibs, bad ink flow and much more….

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Nibby Sunday – Milestone Pens

Nibby Sunday – Milestone Pens

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In my own collecting, I’ve had several pens that I like to call “milestone pens”; that represent a shift, or the transition into a new stage of my fountain pen hobby. These are the pens with special significance in my fountain pen journey; the pens that changed me, or changed my perception of fountain pens, or the way I approach pens as a hobby. I think it’s good to be aware of these milestone pens, to sort of mark out…

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Nibby Sunday – How to have fountain pens as a hobby without emptying your bank account

Nibby Sunday – How to have fountain pens as a hobby without emptying your bank account

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It’s bothered me a little in recent years how the focus in the pen hobby is very often on constantly acquiring new pens and inks. This can make the hobby unsustainable over time, both for the wallet and for the environment. The eagerness to test new things can quickly lead to losing control over your spending. I have definitely experienced that myself. Many of the most famous and popular blogs, YouTube channels, and others within the pen community probably also contribute to reinforcing…

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Why you should write by hand

Why you should write by hand

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Many people see handwriting as old fashioned, impractical and unnecessary. You can sometimes wonder why it’s still important to be able to write by hand, to be able to communicate and make yourself understood with handwriting, and to use handwriting to note things down for yourself. Why is this necessary in a society where we have smartphones and computers, Siri and Google Assistant? For many, handwriting may seem cumbersome and slow, but part of the reason for that is precisely that they…

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Nibby Sunday – Tolkien and the Fëanorian Letterforms

Nibby Sunday – Tolkien and the Fëanorian Letterforms

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Yesterday, September 2nd, marked the fifty year anniversary since the death of my absolute favorite author, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. I thought this would be a good time to dedicate a blog post to Tolkien, and write a little about my own relationship with him and his stories. In the second half of this article, I will look more closely at Tengwar, which was a set of letterforms, a script ​​he developed for his mythology. My interest and fascination with Tolkien’s writings…

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Nibby Sunday – Why do I almost never use vintage pens?

Nibby Sunday – Why do I almost never use vintage pens?

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Exploring vintage fountain pens from the first half of the 20th century is often an important part of the pen hobby, and there can be a lot of exciting things to find from the golden age of the fountain pen. I have quite a few old pens in my own collection, and have also spent a lot of time learning how to restore them, but for everyday writing I almost always prefer modern fountain pens. There’s a lot of cool stuff…

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The fear of missing out, and why I stopped collecting the Conklin All American

The fear of missing out, and why I stopped collecting the Conklin All American

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This blog post was originally published in Norwegian at Pennen er mektigere, on March 14, 2021. FOMO – The Fear of Missing Out, is a term that’s used in many contexts, including by many in the fountain pen community. But what is FOMO? Why do we feel FOMO, and how is this fear exploited by the market? We will take a closer look at that in this blog post. This phenomenon was first described by Dr. Dan Herman in a scientific article titled…

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The two brothers who started a pencil factory each

The two brothers who started a pencil factory each

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This article was originally published in Norwegian at Pennen er mektigere, on May 8, 2022. In this article you will read about fish theft, arson, tax and insurance fraud. It’s about the demolition of a district in the capital, and about being on the wrong side in a war. We will meet a non-commissioned officer, teacher, organist, writer, merchant and factory owner. Yes, and an opera singer! And we will hear about a couple of brothers from Senja who moved to Oslo and each…

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