Inky Pursuits is my sporadic series of monthly round-ups, featuring snippets of my stationery news. These might not necessarily be blogworthy on their own but are presented in the hope that together they may be greater than the sum of their parts.

Pen Purchases.

This month, there has been only one purchase and even that was not for myself. I have been enjoying regular use of my Tom Hessin “Revolution” fountain pen, and bought a second one to send for a friend’s birthday. This gave me the opportunity to test it first and enjoy its Ebony barrel (mine is Walnut). The pen is now in transit to Australia.

New Pencil Day.

The favourite of my mechanical pencils in recent years is probably my Pentel GraphGear 1000, 0.7. However, I have long been curious to try a Rotring drafting pencil. The opportunity arose when I spotted the Rotring 600 at a good price online. Fortuitously, the colour body that I liked the most (a dark burgundy) was the lowest price option.

I am delighted with it. Compared to the GraphGear 1000, (weighing 20g) the Rotring is shorter and has a body that is mostly hexagonal save for the knurled grip section and is slightly heavier at 23g, despite being smaller. The most common criticism that I saw in the reviews related to its non-retractable lead sleeve, which is 4mm long and (a) makes the pencil less convenient to transport and (b) can be easily damaged if dropped. However this seems a rather unfair objection to raise when a fixed sleeve is almost a defining feature of a drafting pencil. Furthermore, it took me only a few minutes to discover that if travelling with the Rotring 600, a plastic cap borrowed from a Bic Crystal fits perfectly.

I have enjoyed using my new pencil. It feels reassuringly solid and high quality. I am not a draftsman or somebody who uses one for hours on end but from my experience so far, the weight and balance are just right.

Musician sketching.

Over the last few months, I have attended a large number of orchestral concerts in London. From this, a new hobby has gripped me, namely the sketching of musicians at work, in pencil, fineliner and watercolours. I take a few photos during the final applause (not during the performance) from which to select individual members or sections of the orchestra to draw. I find this very absorbing and enjoyable. It is also strangely addictive: the more I practice the the more I am encouraged to continue. There is so much scope for improvement! I am happy if proportions look about right: achieving a likeness is a challenge well beyond my ability at present.

Pen temptations.

Although I have largely resisted the urge to buy more fountain pens, I was tempted and intrigued recently by a pocket pen from Tom’s Studio, that I saw in Peter Jones, Sloane Square. It was the Wren, a diminutive fibre tip pen that is refillable. Interestingly, it has a capillary filler system and is filled by removing the barrel and dipping the capillary filler in fountain pen ink, to allow the ink to rise up to the tip.
This is similar to some early models of the Parker 61. The pen itself felt nice to the touch and the cap posts to make it a comfortable length for writing or drawing. I have not bought or tried one but have read some favourable reviews and may yet succumb. I imagine that cleaning the pen before changing ink colour may be difficult.

Another benefit of blogging.

And finally, a lovely thing happened this month, which may not have happened but for this blog and Instagram. I was contacted out of the blue by a lady from Florida, inviting me to join her and her family for breakfast at an east London cafe. We had been in touch several years ago when she asked my advice in selecting a fountain pen as a special gift for her older daughter. It is always flattering to be asked for one’s advice. But without knowing much about the daughter in question, her taste and preferences in pens and a budget, it was difficult to advise. I recall writing a long letter with a list of general possibilities, with pros and cons of several well known pens and covering a broad spectrum of prices. I had concluded with a “tl;dr” suggestion that a Pelikan M600 might be suitable as a special gift. But having said that, I told her that the pen that I was currently using daily at work, was a humble Cross Bailey Light. I learned later that she bought both!

Fast forwarding to the present, she messaged me to say that she was in London with her family for a vacation in Europe and to visit her younger daughter studying at University in London for a year on an exchange programme. I had not met any of the family before and it was wonderful to finally do so whilst they experienced a full English breakfast.

Following on from this, the younger daughter told me that she was thinking of purchasing a fountain pen from her favourite stationery shop, Choosing Keeping. Did I have any suggestions? Once again, I found myself trying to summarise a lifetime’s fountain pen buying experience into some useful advice for a young lady about whom I knew little other than that she liked writing. I looked online to remind myself of what pens they sell, although I had browsed in the shop myself only a few weeks earlier.

How do you advise? It is one thing to come up with a list of pens that I would consider buying (if I did not already have most of them) but hard to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, from a different continent, generation and gender. I emailed a few factors that it might be helpful to consider such as the size, material, nib width, whether looking for a gold or steel nib, what filling system, any brand or country of origin preferences and most importantly, budget. I then suggested a few of the available pens from Choosing Keeping, to try out.

But having set out these pointers for her, it occurred to me later that perhaps I had overlooked the most important and useful piece of advice that arguably, takes care of many of the other considerations. This is to write with the pen and ask yourself, “Am I able to produce my best handwriting with this pen?” If the answer is yes, it implies that the pen is comfortable, it is a suitable size, shape and weight, it is writing smoothly, that ink is flowing and that you are feeling relaxed and enjoying the writing experience and want to keep writing. Conversely, if your writing is scrappy and hurried and not looking its best, it suggests that you are not enjoying it and cannot wait to put the pen down. At least, this little test seems to work for me.

My wife and I met up with my young friend once more, for lunch in Chinatown a few days before her return to Florida. She was considering a Pelikan M400 White Tortoise but had a few questions about piston fillers versus cartridge converter systems. This felt like when sitting an exam and your favourite question comes up! However I imagine that nowadays AI is pretty good on these sorts of questions. Opportunities to advise the younger generation, particularly if asking about fountain pens, are to be cherished. I hope that I may have been of some help.