It’s been two and a half months since I last cleaned and refilled some pens, so now it was well overdue now. Some of the pens I filled back then have lasted a long time! It was early February, and I took inspiration from the songs on Sleep Token’s album Take Me Back to Eden in my choice of pens and inks. This time I‘ve made it significantly easier for myself. The pen case I usually bring to work holds six pens, so…
It’s been a while since I last wrote a post where I went through my whole pen collection, and I figured it might be time for a little update. So here are some numbers, and a rough overview of fountain pens, inks and other relevant things in my collection. To do the inks first: I currently have 228 bottles of ink. This includes 100 small bottles (30 ml) of standard Diamine ink. I also have an almost complete collection of…
When we were kids, most of us enjoyed drawing. We weren’t necessarily very good at it, but that didn’t matter, because the joy was in the drawing itself, using one’s imagination. We hadn’t yet developed a critical sense that would tell us that what we made wasn’t good. We just had fun with it. This is something that the vast majority of us lose as we grow up. The joy of creating something, instead of the joy (or possibly the frustration) of what you…
A while back, the blog Olive Octopus created 17 ink questions, and over the past several weeks, quite a few others have decided to also answer them. I always enjoy doing things like these, and I think it’s a nice way for you the readers to get to know me and my personal preferences, so here goes: 1. What was your first (memorable) ink? The very first inks I got was a few bottles of quick-drying ink from Private Reserve….
I’ve decided to start drawing again, and I thought I’d kickstart this with a month-long project. I have a Moleskine sketchbook, and will try to fill it with sketches and drawings throughout the month of March. The book is in A5 format and has 192 pages, which gives an average of 6-7 pages per day. It should be manageable, I think, but we’ll see how much else I will also have to do in the coming month. I have a lot of…
This post was originally published in Norwegian at pennenermektigere.no on April 19, 2020. Fountain pen, reservoir pen, stylo plume, stilografica, self-filling pen. Fountain pens are called many things in different languages, and etymologically some of these terms have very different origins. In this post, we take a closer look at the different words used for fountain pens around the world. The Italians call fountain pens “penna stilografica“. Elsewhere in the world, however, a stylograph is often described as a pen where the tip is a…
So you have bought your first fountain pen? In this post, I share my tips for (re)discovering the joy of writing by hand. With your newly acquired fountain pen, the stage is set for you to find this joy. Whereas in the past you may have primarily written by hand because you had to, and with a bad ballpoint pen or pencil, with a fountain pen you may find that you actually want to write. The pen itself inspires to put nib to paper. Why…
Although I probably have 50 fountain pens in my collection that per definition is in “use rotation”, and probably at least 250 bottles of ink (I’ve lost count a long time ago), I have a tendency to go for the same pens and inks time and time again. Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how I can spice up my pen and ink choices, and force myself to use more than just the 10-15 go-to pens and inks. In…
Over the years, there have been several attempts to start up pencil production here in Norway. The most famous examples are Den Norske Blyantfabrikk and Oslo Blyantfabrikk, which I wrote a comprehensive article about in May 2022 (published in English in August 2023). In my research about the two Senja brothers who each started a pencil factory, I also found references to several other Norwegian pencil factories. In this article, I will share what I’ve been able to find about these lesser-known factories. Several…
Last year, Jinhao launched its new pen, the Dadao 9019, and it quickly gained traction in the pen community. Many have compared it to the X159 from the same brand. It’s about the same size and both have #8 nibs, but there are also some notable differences. While the X159 is strongly inspired by the Montblanc Meisterstück 149, the Dadao 9019 rather resembles some of the high-end Namiki pens. It annoys me a bit that Jinhao has chosen a design that is so…