Welcome to the Planner Pals Podcast, a podcast with two true
planner pals. My name is Mark or Mark your
pages. And I am Jess or Jessie Curran.
And I knew when Mark approached me about doing this podcast that
this topic was gonna come up eventually.
Did I expect it to be as soon as it is?
No. But today, yes.
We are talking about fountain pens.
And if the title didn't already give it away, one of us is an
extreme lover and the other one might be a hater.
I'm so excited for this podcast. You don't?
I was. It's like you don't have an
idea. I think everyone knows and has
an idea about it because this is like one of my favorite topics.
And I love the fact that you are, like, not into it because I
think that's like the best conversation to have.
It's like when you talk to somebody about planning for the
first time and they're like, I don't get it, you're like, grab
a seat, my friend, and a notebook and a pen.
We're going to have some fun today, so we're going to have
some fun today. We'll see about that.
We'll see if you can convince me that this is a good idea,
because right now I'm not convinced.
Before we get into our topic today, we just want to take a
moment and thank all of the listeners, our commenters over
on YouTube, on Spotify as well, and just everywhere last
episode. We know it was a long one, but
thank you all for listening through.
It was such a great conversation and we had such amazing comments
from that as well. Jess, I'll tell you, I think the
biggest things that I saw, I'm curious like if you saw the same
things are different. I think perfectionism was the
one that a lot of people said, like that's what's holding me
back the most or has held me back in the past with planning.
Did you see anything else on that you felt like was a hot
topic? I think that that one really was
the big one. And I really like the fact that
people highlighted like, it's not just perfectionism in the
sense of, oh, I'm going to share this on social media.
I want it to look a certain way, but it's also just for like own
personal enjoyment in terms of journaling, like, oh, I don't
want to write this down if my handwriting looks bad.
Or oh, I put a sticker for people who use stickers in the
wrong place and now my spread is ruined kind of a thing.
So it's nice to know that all of our planet powells, we're all in
this together and we can kind of share in that fact that
sometimes perfectionism does hold us back.
I'll say that the other thing that I saw a lot of people that
shared their approach to planning and that a lot of them
are bullet journaling. And we talked about this, when
someone tells you like you're not bullet journaling, if
they're like, look, I just don't use these things, they don't
make sense to me, therefore I don't use them.
They would cause more mental anguish than they are providing,
which I can very much respect. Yeah.
And I think it's also because a lot of our community, or at
least a decent chunk of it, they're not beginners anymore,
right? They've they've gone through the
ringer. They know what works and doesn't
work for them in terms of their bullet journaling practice.
So it has evolved to a point where it does look distinctly
different from the original method.
And I think that that's actually a very valuable thing.
That's a good thing. We want you guys to be planning
in ways that actually work for you.
Yeah. And that's a really great segue,
Jess, into today's topic, because I feel like fountain
pens are the ever with writing, especially with an analogue
system. Not saying that everyone has to
use one, but I've personally gotten a lot of enjoyment out of
it. I found communities of people
who have as well. And if it wasn't for bullet
journaling, I can say that I would have honestly never been
introduced to fountain pens, at least the way that I have.
So let's start off 1st. I'm just curious, you know,
let's just start from Ground Zero.
Like, what do you know about fountain pens, or even care to
know about them? Oh gosh.
Because I was kind of thinking about it before we started.
I don't know, even musing on this episode.
Like what even is a fountain pen?
And I know that sounds probably to sound like a super dumb
question, but I was trying to think of a way to explain it and
I could not come up with any kind of satisfying answer.
So in my mind, OK, a fountain pen.
Well, it's a pen. That's a pretty good start, but.
I always. Think of it.
Thank you. I tried here.
I always think of it in terms of that kind of like diamond shaped
nib. So in my mind I'm like, OK, it's
got a diamond shaped nib, then where does the fountain kind of
come into it? So I feel like that has to be
part of it, but I don't really understand how that relates.
I don't know the full, like background history.
Like I'm not like a fountain pen historian by any means, right?
I'm definitely a modern new age fountain pen user with a great
appreciation. I would guess that the fountain
kind of come from like the idea of a fountain is continuously
right, pushing water out of it. It's a similar way to think
about fountain pens. A fountain pen is continuously
feeding ink to your tip or your nib, right?
That your diamond pointy thing at the top of your pen so that
you're continuously writing. It's, you know, an evolution
from that classic dip pen that we see a lot and like history
where they're, you know, running with a ink and a quill.
I mean, that's the original way that things were used,
eventually upgrading to dip pens with metal nibs, right,
Calligraphy nibs or things like that that we're seeing a lot of
now. Glass nibs are really cool, not
for a fountain pen, but for dip pens as well.
What I love about it is the different styles that you have.
When it comes to fountain pens, Definitely the inks.
The inks to me are like the most fun because it's there's so
many, there's so many different flavors.
Not taste flavors, but flavors visually.
Don't drink the ink. Even if it smells like fruits
and there are some out there that have smells to them, don't
drink the inks. I would just go to say like the
main parts of your fountain pen really are going to be your nib.
Now not all of them are diamond and pointy.
There are a lot of different types of ones out there and
materials too. I know this is probably blowing
your mind right now. Yeah, I like, I OK.
I the only ones I've seen have Iridium stamped on it.
So I was like, OK, it's Iridium. That probably means something to
somebody. But then to think that there are
ones out there that have like different metals.
Like in my mind, yes, it makes sense that not all fountain pens
are going to be made from exactly the same stuff.
But I haven't really given it a lot of thought, I suppose.
There's some really fancy ones out there that are made out of
gold because gold is very soft right in nature, even though
it's like can be hard and running with that is like ultra
smooth like gold Nibs are like creme de la creme of niceness,
especially with smoothness of writing.
Maybe that's what I need because yeah, like pure gold, it's kind
of so malleable that you can crush it with your fingers type
of a thing. So to think of a pen nib being
made out of gold kind of gives me a bit of a worry point, like,
oh gosh, I'm gonna like ruin my pen.
But I assume that you have like different degrees of gold
percentage to actually make it so that you could write with it.
Yeah, but well, also on top of that too.
I mean, you can definitely damage the nibs of your pens.
There are some terrible horror stories of people who were the
pen rolls off the table, falls nib down, and just like destroys
it. And especially for some of these
pens too, There's a really cool one that I have called a
Vanishing Point. It's like a retractable pen, but
it is a fountain pen. And that nib, when you see that,
it's like, well, that's built into your pen.
Like in a way you kind of have to buy a new pen, or at least
the new nib. So on top of that as well,
you've got like, the barrel, right?
So that's kind of the outside of it, what looks so very cool, the
different styles, different materials.
Again we'll talk all about that later because I've got some
really cool favourites out there as well.
Then you have like the pen cap, so multi use pen caps as well.
There are some out there that help keep your pen from drying
out. I mean honestly that's the real
purpose of the cap is to keep your pen from drying out.
But some companies are actually building in technology, also
known as plastic, into their cap to help.
Also known as plastic. Well, it's like fountain pen ink
drying technology or whatever. I'm like you put plastic on the
inside of your cap to keep it extra fresh.
Let's let's calm it down here. I like that idea of like the new
and improved kind of thing. It's like you see it on a lot of
different products. Like toothpaste is one that
always comes to mind. Like how many improvements in
toothpaste can we really make? Like, I know they've got purple
ones now. Like, that was probably an
improvement for some people. But I don't know how much.
Can we really improve on a fountain pen?
Probably a lot. Please don't at me.
Oh my gosh. Oh, be prepared for the fountain
pen. Gatekeepers of Reddit like
they're scary people. Again, you have you appreciate
what they know, but there's definitely areas where people
who that make custom made pens are like, don't you dare buy
that commercial crap and other people who are like, well, I
can't afford a $200 custom made pen.
I'm gonna get this one for $6. Yeah, I mean even just hearing
you talk about these kind of initial things, it's I I kind of
appreciate in a way like being so new to this and not really
knowing what's going on and like all of the jargon and stuff like
this, that's how people probably feel coming into things that
like I'm an expert in like you know, bullet journaling.
And if you're kind of getting into that for the first time,
you know what what is a log? What what is the this?
Daily, weekly, rapid logging, whatever else.
It gives you an appreciation, I suppose, for like, how a newbie
looks at things, especially in spaces that you're already quite
familiar with. So I I feel like this is still
valuable for me, even though I'm just like, what?
Yeah. Well, I think if anything, the
information will be good because if you haven't really been
introduced to it before or had a lot of experience with it, I
mean I was there at one point. There is new terminology you
need to use. You will likely use it wrong.
And people for the most part are very kind in correcting you and
being like, well, that's not actually called this.
I still do it now because when you say a cartridge and a
converter, I exchange those words very often, but they mean
two very different things and we'll get into like terminology
and what a converter versus a cartridge and how to use it.
I guess first, you know, I know you don't have a lot of
experience. You have deemed yourself a
fountain 10 new, but do you have any experience with either a
fountain pen or even like dip pens or anything like that?
Well, I guess it kind of shows how much experience I have
because when you said dip pen, I was like, oh, that's a different
thing. I mean, yeah, it is a different
thing or theory, yes. Well, you see that?
I guess that's the thing. It's like when I think of
fountain pens along with the the diamond shaped tip, which now
I've been told it doesn't even have to be diamond shaped, so
way to ruin my day. But I I always kind of thought
that a dip pen was kind of the same thing.
I kind of lump fountain pens in the same space as like, you
know, dipping a feather into ink and like scratching it onto a
page. I don't, I do not think that
that's what they are actually like, but those are the kind of
things that come to mind. I know I must have at some point
used a fountain pen, and when we floated the idea of this
episode, I kind of went on like a a mental hunt.
Like when was possibly the first time that I used one.
So when I was like 10 years old, something around there, and I
can't tell you specifically, I got a calligraphy set.
I do not know who from or why, but I was very excited about it.
The idea of hand lettering was something that was very exciting
to me, and I do think that it must have come with something
similar to a fountain pen. It had the little plastic
bottles that you like click into the pens, screw them around.
Cartridges. Yeah, I was thinking like I
don't want to use it wrong because you just said the thing
about the converter and I don't want the purists to come and get
me. Please be be kind.
That was probably my first experience with a fountain pen,
but it obviously didn't make too much of A lasting impression
considering I can't really remember a lot beyond the fact
that there was 1 bottle of purple ink and one bottle of
red. And I remember putting the ink
down to the paper, feeling very excited about it.
And then my handwriting didn't look like it did in the
calligraphy books and instantly gave up on it.
When you're trying a new skill and there's that kind of like
startup of like you have to like kind of suck before you get
good, I'm like absolutely not. If I'm not a natural born
talent, I'm not gonna do it. Well, I think a lot of people
actually came across calligraphy pens, which are different than
fountain pens, very similarly, because I was the same way.
Now, I'm a lefty, so a lot of this stuff has never been sold
to me. Ever.
You know, like a lefty with a fountain pen or a calligraphy
pen. You are a Unicorn, and not in a
good way. You're poking someone with the
horn, and no one's gonna like it, and it's gonna get messy.
So it is very much. I did the same thing.
You see that you're like, oh, look at that beautiful script
lettering and all of this. And you're like, all I have to
do is just dip my pen into the ink or put the cartridge into
the back of the pen and just start writing.
And it's going to come out like magic.
And it comes out like hot, stinky garbage.
And it does that for a really, really, really long time.
And sometimes if you have old ink, it will smell like old
stinky garbage. So it really is full circle.
I know that you do have to have that period of getting used to
something. Like we're allowed to be
learners, we're allowed to take time to learn new skills.
But still, every time I embark on a new thing and I know that
fountain pens, if I ever get into them, are going to be like
that. There's going to be that kind of
suckage period, and I'm just going to hate every second of
it. Well, the good thing about
fountain pens, and this is the major difference between
calligraphy pens and calligraphy nibs, which are different too.
So like a fountain pen nib, for the most part, unless it's like
a very, very flexible nib, it's almost like writing with a
regular pen. There's really no difference.
You don't have to write in cursive.
You actually don't press down hard on a fountain pen, really,
because with a calligraphy nib or even some of those other like
dip ones, the whole idea with like those sticks and the thins,
it was all about the pressure that you're pushing on the nib.
So with probably the calligraphy pen that you got, I'm guessing
when you press down, did the nib kind of like open up a little
bit? Like was it very flexible?
You have literally just unlocked core memory right now because I
do remember pressing down on it. I remember being more rigid than
I was expecting. But I was thinking like, oh, if
I press down, I should get a thicker line.
And I'm pretty sure I bent the tip open.
It was like a little spread eagle, fountain quote, fountain
pen kind of nib. So yeah, I probably didn't do
it, any good things or any kind of service.
It's probably user error but. It happens with everyone.
I think that's been something that scares a lot of people away
from it because you hear fountain pen and ink and nibs
and all of that and I think your brain instantly goes to with
those calligraphy nibs and what I've really found and what I've
really loved about it. And I was in the same boat as
you. So I don't want to say like I
was born in the fountain pens. No, like this definitely was.
I saw people using it. Christmas was coming.
I mean my very first fountain pen and my fountain pen.
I used no lie or had and say I used it for like 2 years, but I
only had one for about two years.
It was a Christmas gift from my sister-in-law.
It was Alami. I knew nothing about it.
I got. I was like terrified.
It really wasn't as scary as can come across.
So I think let's do this. This might be would be a really
good thing to do is what assumptions do you have about
them? And then maybe I can like thumbs
up or thumbs down them and see if that works out.
Because I find this is like the best way to educate, ask stupid
questions and I'm going to give you stupid, funny answers.
OK. So I guess like the first one
would probably be that they are difficult to use because I kind
of think about it in terms of the pens that I typically use.
Favorite would have to be Papermate, Inkjoy.
I know it's not the topic, but I love it and it deserves the
shout out. And you're probably just like,
OK, Jessica, yes, that's great, You're $1.84 pen, such a, you
know, high quality piece of equipment, but I love it.
I could just pick it up and write with it, you know, click.
In the end it's ready to go. I don't have to do anything.
There's no startup cost. There's also no maintenance that
goes with it, like outside of. Maybe the end gets a little
scungy and I wipe it off on a separate piece of paper.
I think with anything that's really nice, especially with
pens, yes, there is kind of a startup where you have to put
the ink into the pen and that honestly can take you less than
10 seconds to do so. It isn't a very long process
necessarily. Kind of get it up and running
and get into it. And then once you have it with
ink inside of it, you write with it until the ink is gone, the
same way you would do with your ink joys as well.
Eventually they will run out of ink and that's why you probably
buy them in bulk, right. And you have a pack of 20 or
more, you know, off to the side and in a drawer, similar to to
what happens with a regular ink or gel pen, as well as like the
tip can get stuff on it, right? And you do the same thing, you
just wipe it off and it's really kind of it Now, it still will
get extra inky, right? There's still maybe some of that
goes on. But I I look at it very similar
to any type of pen, unless it's like a fast drying gel pen.
They have fast drying ink that you can put inside of your
fountain pen. So like, there's almost zero
instance where you are smearing ink all over the place.
Like, I have a bunch of it because like I said, I'm a lefty
and it's just naturally just loves ink, loves my hand and it
loves to push against the page and smear everywhere.
But you also learn different ways to write to, like make that
happen or not happen. Yeah, I think that that would
probably be the second assumption that they are messy
because obviously you've got different ways to fill them.
You've got the cartridges, but then you've also got the
bottles. I've seen the bottles, they're
beautiful, so I assume you must be getting the ink out of the
bottle somehow. But I always would worry that I
would make a bit of a mess trying to set them up and then
use them. That is another one that's like
a hard It can be messy, especially if you're doing it
wrong. If you knock over a bottle of
ink, which I have done multiple times, that is like the worst
feeling ever in the entire world because it's multifaceted.
One, you're like, oh crap, there is ink everywhere, all over my
desk. Two, that ink cost money and
you're like, what do I do? And you find a way to suck it up
in some way. I've done that before as well.
After I clean this up, how do I clean myself up?
Because not only is that going to be covered, but like, it
touches your skin. It's there for a hot minute, but
for the most part, there's actually not a whole lot of mess
that needs to happen. I guess I can put it that way
because a lot of the pens, especially some of my favorite
ones, everything built into the pen.
So we talked about cartridges before, which essentially is
something you put into the top of your pen.
And it's kind of like the same thing is like a ballpoint pen,
right. Your ink is just kind of in that
like very thin little cylinder. It's the same thing.
So this fountain pen ink, you push it in, you use it till it's
gone and you throw the cartridge away.
Now, if you are frugal like me, you try to refill those
cartridges with ink because you're like, I'm going to make
this last and then you're dealing with like ink syringes
and pushing ink into little containers.
I'm like, that's where that's where a mess can happen.
But for the most part though, when you're dealing with just
the ink bottle and you're dealing with kind of these other
pieces. So the other piece is called a
converter. And what a converter essentially
is, and there's a lot of different versions.
I'll talk about them later. We'll get in deeper about the
specifics. In some cases, you just stick
the tip of your pen in the ink and you turn a little thing and
it sucks to ink up. And then you're done, right?
And then your pen is filled with thinking.
You just go ahead and start using it till it's gone, and
then you just do the same thing again when you need to fill it
with more ink. Well, that's good to know that
then if there there is going to be messy to be a me problem
rather than the Pens problem. I mean, there are types too.
And especially because there are so many different ink bottles as
well. Like, I know it's a little bit
blurry, but I have all of mine set up here, one of my favorite
parts about buying inks, aside from the inks itself or actually
the bottles. Like, the bottles are so
beautiful. Some of these that are out
there, just they're pieces of art within themselves, right?
It's kind of like perfume bottles, you know, like the ones
that are always like super intricate or really cool.
Or my wife has one that looks like a high heel shoe, but it
somehow holds for a few minutes. But like, those look really
neat. So it's something you want to
display and have out, but it also serves a function by
holding on to the thing that is the lifeblood of your fountain
pen. The life.
I love that. Oh gosh, I'm sure that there is
probably someone out there who is writing in an ink that is not
an ink, but. Oh gosh.
Don't get us started on that, Mark.
Don't do it. Well, I mean, there are some
really cool inks. There's one called like Oxblood
that's really cool looking, but it's like very dark and
Oxbloody. Makes sense.
Goes with the name, actually. OK side note, I've been watching
these videos. They've been the algorithm.
It just gets you, you know, when you watch something for too long
and then the algorithm's like, oh, you obviously like this,
We're just going to serve it to you again and again and again.
The worst videos, too. I know, right?
Because the best part about this one is that every like video
that this guy makes is like 5 minutes long.
So of course I watched the whole thing, which means that then I
just get sucked into like 1/2 hour to two hour loop of just
watching all of this guy stuff. But he does like traditional art
forms, so he's out there like grinding stones down to make
inks to put in his like homemade printing press.
It's so freaking cool. And.
Absolutely could not take the time to do anything like that.
I makes me very much appreciate how much easier it is to just
have access to pens and inks and stuff, even if they're fountain
pens and you have to fill them up yourself.
In the same way when you see some of those things being made
and I think even when you use some of them as well, you really
appreciate it. And something in relation to
like fountain pens is I've gotten to know some people that
hand make fountain pens and they are, you know, grinding down
materials. They're some of them are
whittling things, some of them are casting.
I mean, it is such an art form inside of them that you really
do start to really appreciate not just what it can do and how
that tool helps you, but like what goes into making that tool.
Yeah, I will say that even though I am still a little bit
of a fountain pen hater, we'll see if you can convince me.
I do appreciate the craftsmanship.
Like I think that there is a lot to be said about how pretty the
pens are, also the inks and then being able to kind of like
display and store them. Like I can understand why people
would very easily fall into through a kind of collection
space. Like with any crafting hobby,
the collection is a hobby as well as their use.
Everything that I have I can say though is a pen to use, not
necessarily a display piece. While I do display them because
some of them are beautiful, or I have two pens specifically that
I like. They are beautiful.
I don't ever want to use them. I will use them, but I didn't
want to and it's just looks so nice.
But I think what's cool, at least about my collection, is
that I could take any of these pens out, fill it with ink at
any point, and I don't have to use it the whole time.
I'm a really big proponent of, you know, if you want to switch
pens, especially if you have a collection like I do, which is
probably small compared to some others, you can just empty out
that ink, give it a quick little clean, store it away and pick
out your next pen and fill it up and go.
And you can do all of that in, you know, under 10 minutes.
Yeah. As said, I can really appreciate
the artistry of it. Like inks, pens, they're all
very pretty. But then I think that I guess
another assumption that we come with that is that because you're
getting something that is probably better quality,
possibly that there is going to be a larger cost associated with
it. As said, the pens that I use,
they're like $1.84 per pen and that's if you get like the
expensive set. So the idea of spending more
than like $5 on a pen is like ludicrous to me.
Even when I buy a tombow in my country, a Tombow is like $8 New
Zealand, which I think is like $5 US or something.
That feels like too much to me. Like absolutely not.
Can't spend more than that on a pen.
I feel you on that and that's how I felt early on.
But I think as I started to use them more and appreciate them
more, I've definitely upped my personal budget for them.
So like a pen that I'm using right now is by Platinum and
it's called the Preppy and this pen costs about $5.
There are some that are less expensive.
I actually went to there's a store in the US called 5 and
below which is like the dollar store but it's $5 and below
instead of $1.00 and below. And I was in there one day and
they had a set of 2 fountain pens, 4 or $5.00.
So technically you can get them for even less.
They don't have to be expensive. They can though.
And that really goes down when we were talking earlier about
like the materials, the nibs, like when you're getting a 24
karat gold nib for instance, more than likely that is in a
titanium bodied pen and you're dealing with like higher quality
materials. Or if it's it's being handmade,
even if it's in something like resin or resin block and it's
being grounded down or trimmed down, I don't know the right
word for it. That's someones time that goes
into that and that kind of UPS the cost as well.
I'm somewhat frugal with the pens that I'm buying, so I'm so
I usually block and its S and that was like kind of a limited
edition. I had to have it.
It was super cool. It was a it's a twisby.
Twisby is one of the names of the brands that I actually
really love. And it is the whole fountain pen
community's fault for getting me into those because they are like
fountain pen snacks because you get one and you're like, oh, I
love this color. It's so nice.
And then it's like, OK, now we're coming out with this
sunset limited edition version. You're like, but I love this
yellow color. Like that's made out of like
premium materials and they're like hey we're going to
introduce you to rose gold and something else and you're like,
but I have to have that one too. And then it kind of continues
on, but it's because I really like the pens and they look
really nice. But I will say so.
The most expensive pen I have in my collection is from Walton and
it is it's made out of titanium. It's like German made steel Nibs
and that pens Retail cost is $440.
Oh my God, no. It was gifted to me, so I didn't
pay for that. But let me tell you something
about it. While I appreciate the artistry
and the materially of it, I actually made a video about this
where I tested my very inexpensive.
Actually I used my 5 and below pens and I used the $450 pen and
I'm going to tell you there was not a lot of difference in how
it wrote. I love an underdog story.
Good job, $5 pen you go you. But that is so many plates of
sushi. Oh my gosh.
It is a lot and I think overtime to, I mean I definitely can come
to appreciate it, but I have my times too where I'm like I
really like the way that pen looks, but I'm like I don't know
if I could spend $220 on that. So like, that's when you become
an affiliate with a stationary pen company and you get store
credit or, you know, you kind of work through that.
And I do believe that you can have too many.
I think if you're not really going to use them a lot or all
of them, it can get into a weird spot.
But I think if you're buying pens, especially if you have
like one or two good pens, I personally think it's worth the
investment. And I can share with you some of
my favorite towards the end of the episode.
We'll go through that because I also want to like, recommend
some for you, Jess, as I do, but also if other people are
listening that are interested in getting into it.
No, I've been around the block for like a second.
I haven't been around as long as some other people have, But I
think I've got some good picks for you.
Well, I look forward to hearing them.
Because if if you can, if you can convince me that it's a good
idea, and if you can, you know, recommend me one that doesn't
sound like a $400.00 pen, then I might.
Emphasis on my I might get one. We'll see.
No promises. I know that you're a big fan of
the rainbow. There are a number of pens that
are iridescent rainbow. I mean, we can get you into it
because I know your personality and that's one of the things I
love about fountain pens is like, you can literally reflect
your personality with the pen that you use, and it doesn't
have to be an ink joy. What?
My ink Joy. It's OK.
He didn't. He didn't mean a baby.
It's fine. I mean, personally, not my
favorite non fountain pen, but you know, whatever you do you
bill. Yeah, no, I have so many
different black pens because I feel like any time I do a pen
test in a journal, I want to show like all of them, even
though, like if one of them doesn't ghost, most of them
don't ghost. But it's good to show, yes, your
specific pen that you like to use.
Dear viewer, it works in this notebook.
I think that one of the best assumptions I have about it, and
I hope that it's correct because I feel like this is like a
benefit. A true benefit of using a
fountain pen is that they would be more environmentally
friendly. Like every time I use my my poor
baby Inkjoy when he starts to get to the end of his days
pache. I do try to get every last drop
of ink out of that because I don't feel good throwing them
away. So I would expect that a
fountain pen would be a little bit better for the environment,
hopefully. Yeah, I definitely think that
that is a big benefit and a number of our listeners actually
commented when we asked them about like what questions do you
have or what would you want to know or let Jess know about this
is that they can be better for the environment.
The thing is, is that there are a lot of fountain pens too.
If you're not into ones that you have to fill with ink and even
use cartridges with. There is actually a number of
brands out there, very popular ones that have fountain pens.
So it's like the nib, the feed, the whole deal, but it's all
self-contained and it's disposable.
No, Zebra makes them as well, a lot of different colors.
I don't use them all the time though, because I have other
fountain pens and actually that's a big reason why I don't
use those is because I know that once they're gone, I'm throwing
them away. I'm not like a big like save the
environment person, but I'm also not like a destroy the
environment person when it comes to that.
Happy Medium. Exactly.
Yeah. Don't come for me on either end
of that spectrum, but what I do like about the fountain pens is
that you are refilling them and you're reusing them.
And even with this cartridge, just like I said, you know it is
a little piece of plastic and most of the time when you're
done you throw that out, probably less plastic than like
a full pen I guess you would get rid of, but there still is
waste, you know when you come along with it.
So it's not completely like eco friendly save the world type of
approach to it, but there definitely is some environmental
benefits to it from a standpoint point of not throwing that pen
inside of the trash. I'm sure someone will say that
there's not environmental benefits to digging up pigments
as well and then you know natural resources.
But let's move on to your next question before we get ourselves
in trouble. So this one is going to be hard
to explain because I feel like it's it's both ends of a
spectrum because I both assume that a fountain pen is less
comfortable in the hand, but then also more comfortable in
the hand. And by this I kind of mean like
I look at a fountain pen. I'm like, you're so chunky.
I feel like it would be like writing with a crayon as a
three-year old where they're just like not made for your
hands eyes. But then I can also understand
how uncomfortable a super thin pen can be.
So I assume there's nuance to it.
I just am too beginner to know what the nuance is.
That's actually a a really good assumption to have because every
pen and certain brands make them to kind of fit a certain niche.
So if you're the type of person that likes like a very thin, you
know, minuscule kind of pencil, there are fountain pens out
there that are very teeny tiny, especially like old vintage
ones. And this again, I'm I'm sharing
this as, oh, just putting this out here, not my belief, but if
you go to like pen shows, they'll have some vintage pens
that are like a fountain pen for the ladies.
And it's like a very thin, skinny, little like metal pen
that you can put inside of your purse.
Those are very small and very tiny.
Those feel like you're running with like the little tiny itty
bitty pencil and you're just like scratching across the
paper, right? Then there are kind of your
normal everyday like even the one that I was saying that I'm
using today. It just feels like holding any
type of pen inside of your hand. There are some that like one of
my favorites. I actually bought this one for
my girls. It's actually one that I'm
recommending for you later as a great introduction Pen is 1 from
Pelican. It's called the Twist and what's
cool about it is actually made for good hand positioning when
holding a fountain pen. So you actually can't hold the
pen wrong because it's literally designed to kind of fit in your
hands as you use it now. I say that last weekend we were
out and the waitress was writing with her pinky, her thumb and
her ring finger, like on a piece of paper.
So, like, if that's the way that you like to write, then it might
not be the pen for you, but like she was writing very, very, I
know. Try it.
Like this? Like this, you can't see a
singing of the podcast, but both of us look like idiots right
now, trying to hold a pen as if I don't know which.
I actually forgot to ask you this question.
And this is, I mean to like generalize because I know that
you're not like in Europe, right?
But a lot of people that are like in Europe, I think a lot of
people were from Germany. I think a handful of people from
the UK have let me know that they were forced to use fountain
pens in grade school when learning how to write.
You grew up in Australia, right? Not New Zealand.
You live in New Zealand, but you grew up in Australia.
Yeah, no, we were not forced to use fountain pens.
We have a like a school camp where we went and got to use
fountain pens but that was something special that wasn't an
everyday like we learned how to do cursive and then eventually
you got your pen license. Like you know you've proven to
the teacher that you can actually write like a person,
not like a gremlin. So you can have this official
piece of official quote, quote, piece of paper that says yes, I
am allowed to use a pen. Now I don't think I ever got
mine, so I'm out here doing illegal moves.
I love that idea. How cool would that be to be
like pass this pen writing test to get your pen license going?
To bring that stamp out. Yeah, you have to renew it every
few years to make sure that you're still writing, OK.
Yeah, Make sure you're not writing hateful things.
That's what it is. And I'm sure the ones that you
know kids were using way back in the day were not made for their
hands or probably your standard issue, whatever.
But there's definitely pens. You can get there more
comfortable. You can get some that have like
a rubbery or spongy grip. You can really kind of go all
over the place with it. I would say for the most part
you can find it and that's comfortable in your hand.
You have to try though. Go to a pen show you can try
before you buy I. Do like the idea that you can
kind of pick and choose with what kind of works for you.
And I suppose that another assumption that I have which is
kind of related to that would be that you have a lot more
flexibility I assume in terms of ink colors because obviously
you've got a bunch of different ink brands and such, but then I
assume you possibly could mix them.
I assume there's also then things you might need to
consider with that like the type of ink or what it's made with
and whether they would actually mix properly.
I'm very much thinking like oil and water here.
I know that most people don't write with oil and or water,
but. I mean, there are some people on
Instagram that fill their fountain pen with water right
with it and then like, dip ink into it to, like, watch it do
its thing. It's very magical.
I'll have to send you the reel because I'm obsessed with those
videos. I went from having one bottle of
ink, and I actually had catalogued all of my inks
because I have so many. And also I want to have a
digital catalog, and I catalogued all my pens, too.
I have a whole video on that as well.
But I went from having one bottle of ink, and now I have 80
bottles of ink. And I will.
I will never use every ounce of ink that I have in these.
I know it, I'm not going to, but I like to have options.
No, I completely understand the same idea with me in my
notebooks. Like by the time that this comes
out, the giveaway that we're running is already done.
But I did a count up of the number of just A5 notebooks that
I have that aren't used. And that doesn't include any of
the travelers or the square or the basics or the ASICS or
anything. Just A5, not yet used like
haven't put any ink in it. I have 91 journals.
I'm not going to use those. I I mean, if I was going to, if
I was just sticking with them, it would take me like 20 years
to use all of those. I have in my collection one more
A5 than you do. I counted all of mine up.
I have 92. Scandal.
I need another notebook. Well, the only reason is I just
got the Archer and Olive subscription box and there was
one in there. So I I don't actively buy any
more a fives because last time I did my count and I had that
many, I was like, Mark, you have a problem.
You have a problem. I did mine.
I said exactly the same thing. I'm like, Jessica, stop.
And then the little like devil on my other shoulder was like,
but you like square journals, Mark.
You should buy more square journals.
So now I just buy Square journals.
I know it's 100% a problem because I've obviously built out
my rainbow. Like we can see my rainbow of
notebooks and I was like, OK, we've got them in the A fives
now, so now we're gonna start building a rainbow in every
other colour. Oh no.
I mean, it's a fun project for absolute sure.
And so in that respect, I can kind of understand where people
get into like, you know, collecting their inks,
collecting their fountain pens, because obviously I have a
collection. I collect two things.
One is notebooks and the other one is pictures of card number
plates, like the ones that people have customized
themselves that are kind of fun and quirky.
That one's a lot cheaper, though.
Oh, license plates. License plates, they call number
plates here. Do you not have letters on
yours? Yeah, now they think about it,
there are definitely letters. That's a really odd name for
them. But registration plates?
That's not right either. No license plates, but no, I
like number plates. Look, there's a lot of stuff
that probably makes sense to you.
I think the Always One is like, where do you park your car?
And you're like in a driveway. You're like, no in the car park.
Oh yeah, a car hold. Or a car hold.
Yeah, we call it very different things.
I've never seen your number plate collection.
Now I wanna see your number plate collection.
But I thought that was gonna finish it.
I've never seen your number plate.
I'm like you never will, you creeper.
Stuffy. Weird.
Get back to talking about stationery and pens and
notebooks. This one is less of an
assumption and more of a thing that I feel like I know to be
true. So it's gonna be really awkward
if you tell me it's not. But I do not think that they
work in all journals. Yeah, that's true.
And they're also very finicky. So I did a video where I tried a
bunch of fountain pens in Archer and olive journals because
people used to say to me all the time, mark, I can't use fountain
pens because I use Archer and olive journals.
I'm like, well, that's not true. I've been using fountain pens
for years in mine. But what turns out is that there
are different types of pens and different types of inks, And
sometimes certain types of inks don't work well in certain types
of pens inside of certain types of journals.
If that's not confusing enough, So over time, essentially what
you do is you're like, OK, I have this fountain pen ink in
this pen and you'll write with it in a journal and it'll like,
bleed through the page or it'll feather or writer or do
whatever. And you're like, OK, that sucks.
I'm never using that again, obviously.
And then you forget, I'm sorry, I'm speaking from personal
experience here. You forget that either one of
those things didn't work, and then you put a different ink in
the pen and then it works really nice.
But it really does come down to the the different types of pen
and the different types of inks that you're using.
I would say that one of the big things, especially for Archer
and Olive notebooks, and I would say this is true for a lot of
them, is that you don't want to go with like a really broad
nibs. So like there's different levels
of nibs that I'll go through in just a little bit when I talk
about like things to look out for when you're, when you're
buying pens. So you've got like your extra
fine and fine, which are, you know, very thin.
It's kind of like your .38, you know, very little regular pen,
right? I don't mean it like that, like
your little regular pen, but, you know, a regular gel pen.
And then you get broader and broader and then you get to like
the, you know, the 1mm and 3mm and even bigger.
And that's kind of what those nibs do as well.
And the whole idea with that is the larger the nib is, the more
ink that you're putting down on your page.
So you know you can use a certain pen and ink inside of
your journal may find but that you like up the nib size.
And then suddenly you have problems because the paper is
like not today. Mr. We are not dealing with
this. Go back to your little baby thin
pens. I think that the last one isn't
so much an assumption, but more so something that possibly
intimidates me about fountain pens.
Maybe that's why I'm not as into it as others, but there's just
so many different components that you can kind of like tweak
or change or do differently. Like you've said, like nib
sizes, what? And then the barrel and then all
of the other different parts. And then I have to pink an ink
color and then I have to consider paper.
Maybe like it just feels like a lot of thought that needs to be
done. For me personally, and I think
for a lot of other people that like fountain pens, that's kind
of the fun part about it, right? Is trying different pens, seeing
what you like, collecting different inks and kind of going
through there What I was thinking I could do, maybe this
is a really good point, is I'm going to basically prove your
point correct and maybe we can talk about just things to
consider with your pens because there are a lot of options.
There's no doubt about it whatsoever.
There are a ton of options. But I think if you're aware of
what they are, maybe it feels a little bit less nervous, you're
less nervous about it or like less like not interested in kind
of going into it or anxious about it.
But let me know as we go through if you're like, what in the hell
talking about Mark? This is exactly why I will never
do this. Then I'll just stop it because
there's a lot we can kind of go into here for sure.
I think it's one of those. It's a combination of
build-a-bear and you don't know what you don't know.
So it's like there are a whole bunch of different pieces that
you can pick and choose from, but I don't know what any of the
pieces are, so please enlighten me.
Yeah, so let's go and start with the nib first, because this is
one of those things that you pick as you go through.
Most of the pens, at least the ones that I get you, don't
really replace the nib. There are some pens, however,
where you can. So like for instance, my first
pen that la me that I got, my sister-in-law, got that for me
in a medium nib, which is, you know, middle of the road.
It's not super thin, but it's not very thick.
And at that point, instead of my bullet journal, I was only using
like .28 and .38mm pens. So this looked like ultra bold,
odd by page. And so I went online and I was
like, I don't know about this, I didn't know anything about it.
But like Lamy for instance, sells the nibs and you can
replace the nib. You just literally pop it off
and then you put on the extra fine or fine nib and you can
still write with it that way. But there are a lot of different
sizes and I've mentioned them a handful of times that we've gone
through the technical term for it, even though I haven't heard
a lot of people call it, this is called the grinds is what it's
called because they are made out of metal.
There are people out there that will custom grind your pen nib
for you, which is really awesome.
I think it's really cool. I've never had it done because
I'm cheap. You go out and you're like, OK,
what does this look like? So most of the nibs are going to
kind of have like a sphere on the end.
You could probably, if you ever look at the bottom of any type
of kind of pointed pen, you will see that.
If it's kind of that circle or whatever that looks like, think
about like a ballpoint pen for instance, right?
It's the ink that's coming out of there, right?
And it's just kind of like moving the ink around on your
page. And so there's different sizes
of the nibs, so they start with something.
The smallest I've ever seen is kind of like an an EF, which is
extra fine. There is also another one called
an XF, which is always very interesting to me.
It kind of looks like a needlepoint instead of like a
regular pen nib. And I always love the way that
they look. And I have a few of my
collection. And then you have the fine,
which is like a little bit of a step up.
Honestly. A lot of the times I don't
notice a huge difference between like an extra fine and a fine.
And then you have medium which is kind of I would say probably
run of the road like .8 millimeter ish and that kind of
say .7. I guess if I'm relating it to
that, you have broad which then goes into like the boulder.
You have stub nibs which look totally different, like a lot of
the stub nibs are like big, huge thick.
You use them for titles essentially.
Or my my wifes uncle says you get a stub nib because that's
what you sign your name in. It's just a, it's a, it's a
statement. Would you use like a broad nib?
For sure. And then you can go into like
italic and cursive nibs and parallel nibs, but I haven't
ventured down there just yet. They have nibs to specifically
write italicized. I actually just today I got
another pen order and where I ordered a medium italic nib.
No idea what it does just yet, but I was like, I don't have
that in my collection so I'm going to buy it.
Because my my natural handwriting tends to be
italicized, I don't typically use my natural highland writing
in my journal. Like, I write everything in all
caps, kind of like you do when I first started with a very
strange concept because it is not what I'm, you know, used to.
So the idea of having a pen specifically designed to write
italicized is intriguing to me. It's interesting.
And they don't give you a pen license to write at all caps.
You definitely need to get a different certification for that
after you graduate from school. The cool thing about all of
these news is that you, for the most part, right?
Probably. I don't know.
I'll see what happens with this italic one that I bought.
I'm just going to write normal with it, my normal regular all
caps, handwriting, all of those nibs that I mentioned there you
can use that way. Now the materials that they're
made with though are what kind of add some of those variances
inside of there. Like I said, there are a few out
there that are just made with different types of, you know,
stainless steel. There's like German made steel
versus like other types of steel.
There's titanium. I always say it wrong, but
Palladium is another one that's out there.
That one is like a very bright white.
It gives the look of platinum, but it's for the frugal people
out there that don't want to spend a lot of that money.
The golden nibs like we talked about and there's some out there
that are called flex nibs and those are the ones that look
like those calligraphy dibs where if you press a little bit
harder, you know the tip of it will like spread a little bit.
What did you call it? I would say like open leg, but
that's not what I'm thinking about.
Red Eagle pen. What was that?
You're on a Mac, aren't you? I am what just happened.
A balloon just went I. Think it's when you do a peace
sign, it does like balloons or something.
Or it's a thumbs up. Or one of the two, yeah.
Oh my gosh, has it never happened to me before, I swear.
Obviously there's not a lot of things to thumbs up or peace
about. We're talking about spread it.
Yeah, it's a party now. If you're on, if you're watching
us on the video podcast right now, both Justice and my face
are probably beat red and we're crying right now from what I
thought you said earlier about your nib, which is not correct,
I don't even. Remember I probably said spread
eagle? That sounds like that's what it.
Was that's the same. That means the same thing here,
so. No.
My God. OK Oh my gosh.
Oh my gosh. I don't hope this is an OK
tissue. Here we go.
Cry, cry. I hope it's an OK tissue too.
I was. Just sitting out on the bench.
So I'm like, I probably use this to clean a ruler.
I'll just like in it with black smudges on me.
But anyway, so if you press too hard, your nib will go spread
eagle and you'll get fix and thins on your page.
So there's that. Let's go ahead and move away
from this topic now. All right.
So moving on from that, because I will never think about my nibs
the same way ever again. The other kind of thing to think
about too is the feed. Now, this isn't something that
I've actually come across a lot because I don't actually pay a
lot of attention to this, but it's the feed.
So the feed is literally what it is.
It's feeding the nib of your pen, whether it's Spread Eagle
or not, with as much ink as possible.
No, it's it's kind of making sure it's going through that
idea of the fountain pen always being available.
Some of them are made out of plastic.
I honestly feel like most of them are probably made out of
plastic. I have seen some that are made
out of rubber and those are probably some older ones and
probably the reason that we've done away with those is because
after a while they can dry rot, right, And you have to replace
them and replacing anything in a fountain pen, it's a part of the
maintenance. It will happen sometimes that
and that's a messy thing to have to do.
We already talked about the grip, but something to pay
attention to for sure, depending on how you want your pen to feel
in your hand. It does make a really big
difference. I've written with pens that I
hate holding in my hand. I think that they just they hurt
like they are not comfortable and nobody wants to use a pen
like. That I always find that after
I've written quite a lot because of the way that I hold my pen
and I hold it quite like vice grip.
I have a a kind of is it a knuckle?
Yeah, it's a knuckle that has like a little kind of like.
Like a callus on it. A callus.
And it's it's after I've been writing for a long time.
The callus is just like angry face.
Why did you do this to me? I do worry, I suppose, with the
way that I hold a pen because I know it's not what you're
necessarily taught in school in terms of holding it because I
rest the barrel of my pen against what would be like your
right hand ring finger. And that's not necessarily
typical. A lot of people will hold it so
that it's resting against your middle finger.
I guess it would be kind of like finding a grip that that still
feels comfortable to have that many kind of fingers around the
barrel of the pen without it being like, I don't know,
awkward or weird. Oh, so you're only one finger
away from my waitress? Yeah, exactly.
We're, we're, we're, we're closely related.
That was bad. OK, I don't think I can make any
further jokes about this. So let's talk about the barrel,
The barrel of the pen. Honestly, this is something to
pay attention to be cut. Well, gosh, here we go.
There's sometimes they're shorter, sometimes they're
longer, and you have to find what feels right in your hand.
Who knows that fountain pen talk could be so phallic like.
Maybe. That's probably why these were
created. People are like to see that
guy's pen. Pretty chunky pen.
It's like it's got a good stroke to it, like.
Exactly. So but the barrel overall, I
think a lot of the time maybe the barrel really is what holds
everything. So like if you have a converter,
it sits inside of there. If it's your cartridge, it sits
inside of there. But really the barrel honestly
like that's the material that it's made out of, right?
That's kind of what you see the most because it's for the most
part the longer part of the pen and what you're doing.
What is interesting about the shorter barrel.
So there's things called pocket pens out there that are small.
It's kind of like what I what I talked about before like the pen
made for the ladies. Really what those are are just
kind of a shorter barrel and then you have to post, which is
another term to use posting is when you take the cap and sit it
on the back of your pen, right. And so by posting that it then
makes it a full size pen. There are definitely different
types of caps as you go into that too and like how they
connect. There's the ones you know like
the platinum one that I have and like most pens too they're just
the slip on they just you put them on there, you're right with
it. You pull it off, you put cap
back on the same way you do for any type of capped ballpoint pen
that you would use. Same exact kind of thing there.
There are other ones too that have like A twist inside of
them. Those would be called like
threaded caps. It would be the name of them is
what you would call them. But what the deal with that is,
is like to close your pen, you have to put the cap on it and
then you have to twist it a few times, right?
And then it holds it nice and secure.
Those I find really great, especially if you're travelling
with pens and if you're ever nervous about a pen cap coming
off and getting on your clothes in your pocket or like in your
luggage or something like, those are really good to have.
But the problem is, is that when you post those, some of the pens
have the threads on the back end of it.
So you're literally like unthreading it to take the cap
off, resetting it to put the cap on the back.
And then if you're like, OK, I'm done with writing for right now,
you have to go through that process again.
And it's just a lot. Yeah, it's it's a lot.
And no one likes to do that. But if you really like your pen,
you put up with it. I like that there are actually
benefits to having the threaded ones, because in my mind I'd be
like, oh, how inconvenient, like the screw top my pen to actually
write anything. But like you said, with travel,
and if you want to store it like in your pocket while you're
walking around and everything, you just want to make sure that
you're safeguarding your pets from any mishaps like it makes a
lot of sense. But also, if you're the person
that loses caps of pens, it's one thing.
If you lose a cap on a ballpoint pen, you're like, whatever,
throw it in your bag. Not a big deal, but you can't
lose the cap of your fountain pen because, well, it'll dry
out. But also on top of that, you
have to worry about it getting on things as well, because
again, that feed is continuously feeding ink.
So if that's touching your clothes, if that's touching any
type of fabric, it's literally just over time, just dying,
whatever it is that's there. So definitely I prefer the slip
on the slip offs just for easy writing.
It works really well. I don't mind a threaded cap, I
have a few of them, but I know what I'm getting into when I
choose that pen. I know that it's going to be a
little bit more of a pain in the butt than the others are, but I
deal with it because I like the pen.
You. Know you said you don't have to
worry about a ballpoint, but you totally do, depending on where
you're storing it. I had tied my hair back once,
put a pen in the back of it because I was just like doing
something with my hands. I did this out of the way,
forgot that it was there, and then put my hoodie on.
And then went about my day, walking around doing whatever
got home, and the pen had drawn scribbles all through the back
of my one hoodie that is not black.
Oh my God, I was going to say what color is your hoodie
because. That everything in my wardrobe
is black, except for this one hoodie, which now has big
scribbles all through the hood of it.
Like, oh, that's a nice decorative piece that you added
there, Jessica. Well, that's your artsy hoodie.
Now you know when you're going to do like art, you put on that
artsy hoodie. That's right, don't stifle my
creativity. Leave my scribble alone, she
said to herself. So the other thing that we're
going to chat about too, we talked about like the ink and
things like that. How you get the ink into the pen
is something you definitely have to think about.
I think that nib is a really big deal, obviously, because that's
what you're writing with. That's what it's going to give
you, the comfortability of the lines, kind of all of those
things. The way in which you fill your
pen. The the ink filling mechanism
though, it's very interesting, it's very cool.
And I actually have all of these because I was like I have to try
that. So the first one we talked about
was the converter, cartridge writer, cartridge converter.
I use those words together. But essentially, you're either
putting a converter into the top of your pen and you're sucking
ink up into it or it's a cartridge that goes on to there
that has the ink already inside of it.
So we've talked about that a ton.
The other one, which I really love, and this is actually,
well, a lot of converters are these, They're called piston
fills. And so essentially what that is,
is there's this little tiny piston that's inside that you
lower and then you bring it back up and it kind of creates that
suction, right, is what you're doing with that piston to get
the ink into your pen. There's a lot of different ways
to do this. So there are some that are just
extra on the side. So like, I actually have a whole
lot of these just around because whenever you buy a pen, usually
they'll come with cartridges or a converter because they give
you options. Some pens are actually made with
it built in. So the Twisby's that I talked
about before, there's some from Pilot.
I think almost every major brand has pens like this where it's
built in and all you do is you stick the top of your pen into
your ink and just on the backside of the pen.
Like where before you put the cap on top of it, you twist it
and then there's a piston inside that goes up and down depending
on however much ink you want to put inside of there.
So is that done without having to like unscrew the barrel or is
that like you take things out of the barrel and then you pull it
and then you put it back in? The converter is the barrel, so
it's all built in, so you never have to take anything apart with
that type of a pen. I don't want to say you never
have to take anything apart because if you're doing a
thorough cleaning, you will usually take your pen apart to
get like really, really cleaned out.
But you don't have to. You can just do like a flush is
what I call it, which is just, you know, sucking ink and
pushing it back out with water instead of ink.
Those are just really great. Those are all in ones.
I actually recommend one of them for you that we'll get into
next. And it's just because it's so
easy to make. There's no real maintenance with
it because you're just using everything that's already inside
of there. The other really cool one, this
one visually looks cool. I find it to be a little pain in
the butt. So it's called a vacuum filling
system. So this is like a piston, but it
has this really cool action that basically turns your pen into a
vacuum to suck the ink up inside of it.
So usually there's like a plunger mechanism that happens
with these essentially. So you would.
So you unscrew the top and you pull it up.
And then what you do is you press it down and when it gets
to a certain part, there's a little gap in the pen and
basically it goes past it and it creates a vacuum and it just
sucks the ink right up inside of your pen.
If you're watching on YouTube or if you watch on the video
podcast, I'll go ahead and like overlay it over this part so you
can see it. So if anything, you know, come
to this part of the podcast. But that just looks so cool.
But the problem is, is you can't always fill that all the way.
And sometimes you're there like two or three times.
You're like, Nope, it's never going to fulfill past here.
I'm done with it. But it looks very cool.
And I have to say that like of all of my pens that I feel, I
always thoroughly enjoy and always make reels out of that
when I feel that pen because it's a moment, then the last one
that's out there, it's called like aromatic.
Sometimes it's called a bladder filled pen and essentially what
it is, and I have one, but I haven't used it yet.
It's essentially like a small rubber bladder that's inside of
your pen that you basically have to like press and then like you
let go and like it sucks up. So you know if you're squeezing
your bladder, things are going to come out.
I don't know what the OP, I've never seen anyone do the reverse
of a human bladder, but essentially your fountain pen
can do that and that's how you get the ink into there.
But the problem with those is that usually they're made out of
rubber or some of that have material that over time will
need to be replaced or could potentially fail on you.
So I have one that's a Mark Twain is what it's called.
It's a really cool looking pen. Again, I'll overlay it on the
video here if you haven't seen it before, but it has a really
cool mechanism to it. But the way in which you fill it
is using that bladder sometimes made out of plastic too.
I think that's what mine's made out of.
More modern ones are made out of plastic.
OK. So it's like a plastic sack
that's kind of attached to the. Yeah, there we go.
So it's like a plastic kind of chamber that's attached to the
nib and then you press it down to like push out any of the air
and then you put it into the ink and release it and then it, as
it expands, pulls the ink into it.
Were you a Were you a science teacher at some point in your
life? Because I'm sitting here
thinking like, Oh yeah, like titrations.
Like when you're trying to like get a particular aliquot of
whatever you're doing and stuff. Like, I don't know what we call
them. I just call them the bulb.
Because it's effectively like a bulb that you evacuate the air
out of it, you put it on the end of your pipette and then you
release it and it sucks things up into the Errol of the
pipette. When you were going through it,
I was just like, I I know what this is.
I understand. Kind of.
Yeah, See, so there's a lot of very cool ways that you can do
it, but there's a lot of different things to look into.
Do you have any questions about any of those things?
So I feel like I talked for a really long time about all the
different pieces of something. Most people probably heads are
spinning right now, eyes have rolled back.
Hopefully they're not driving while listening to this podcast,
but anything in there that was interesting, minus the bladder
conversation and obviously the very weird place we went with
the Nibs. So there's obviously a lot of
things that you can consider, and you're gonna give me some
examples of maybe newbie friendly ones, which I'm excited
for. But with all of these different,
I don't know, pieces that you can be considering, the
different materials, the different styles of nib and ways
to fill the pen and all of that, What kind of price range are we
thinking when it comes to pens, 'cause I know we kind of touched
on the idea that it doesn't have to be expensive.
What kind of a range are you looking at when you're looking
at your valve pens? So for me personally, I think
once you get into this space, you're looking at spending
anywhere between $5 for some inexpensive pens, but still good
quality. And I would say probably up to
like 65 or $70.00 is usually where I personally stop myself.
There may be like a really special one where I'll be like,
OK, this is, this means something to me or there's a
material or it has a meaning to it.
There are some really cool pens from Bennu is the name of it.
They have like these themes of things.
So if you're into like talismans or things like that, they
actually have a whole collection where the resin pens and inside
the resin are pieces of materials, flowers, Tiger's eye,
things like that that are really cool that you could kind of get
into there. Now those tend to be a little
bit more expensive and for that I'll say I'll treat myself, but
I would say most of the time between 5:00 and like $65 high
end, I think you can stay within and then I'll still give you a
really good quality pen with some special features that that
you might like. Because then I suppose you also
have all of the other one of like pen paraphernalia, like
your little like pen stands and your little ink stands and all
of that kind of thing. Your like dedicated Swatch book
for all of your inks. Yeah, thank you for minimizing
my stands and my holders. Do you have one that's like a
crab? Oh, I have a pen holder that's a
crab. I love that.
Oh, this is my favorite, my octopus.
Oh, that's pretty. The pen paraphernalia world is
intense. We have a lot of pen friends.
Maybe like, we can have like, a pen friend on for like one of
the episodes. Because after this I feel like
you're gonna be like Mark. I love fountain pens.
Let's talk about this more. Yeah, you need to have somebody
here to, like, support you and your enthusiasm.
Well, I'm just like, but this, but that.
I'm an Ellie naysayer. Wah wah wah.
Well, let's go ahead and let me share some of these pens with
you that I feel like we should get into your hands at some
point. I think a lot of these are going
to kind of fit your needs. I think it will fit your hands.
One of them specifically that I've mentioned and also your
personality, and that's kind of a big thing that I like to
really pick when I'm choosing a pen, is funny.
The one that fits my personality in some way.
So the first one is the one that I've mentioned before, which is
the Platinum Preppy pen. Because this is a $6 pen, it
gives you everything you need to get started.
Most of the time these are going to come with a cartridge.
They come with one already and they're inexpensive to purchase,
so they're not really that big deal.
There's kind of very low effort. Now if you wanted to turn this
into a reusable pen, you can do that and make it into an
eyedropper pen, but you need a lot of other materials.
But we're not going to go there $6 Platinum Preppy get one, they
write great and they work wonderfully.
The second one I would recommend to you I mentioned as well was
the Pelican Twist. So that pens about $26.
So it's kind of that mid range one, but that's the one that has
the twist on it on the handle. It's also somewhat rubberized.
So it's very comfortable to use and it really forms to your
hand. Now, I don't know for someone
who writes differently than everyone else with your other
fingers, like you talked about there, but you should try it, I
feel like anyway, and get that the guy I talked to about
Pelican at one of the shows was like, you want to get your girls
into fountain pens. Here's a really easy one to use,
and it worked out wonderfully. And you can get ones in sparkly
colors and different colors too. So there's a lot of different
options. All right, So the next one I'm
going to tell you about, I feel like you would like because it's
a little silly. So these are called Pilot
Cocoono pens. They're about $14.00.
The reason that I have this pen is that on the nib of the pen
there are little faces that are etched onto the nib.
Like happy faces or just like just generally different ones
for different pens from that brand or.
Yeah, so like, literally the ones that just came out, they
are a family of pens. So you have one of the pens has
a little face on it with a bow tie.
One is like a baby with a little pacifier in its mouth.
And then there's like other ones too.
Again, I'll put them up on screen so you can just see them
because I can't show you because, you know, it's like you
have to have a product photo to really see what they look like.
But I like these because they are cartridges as well.
I feel like honestly, getting a pen with a cartridge is going to
be your best entry point into fountain pens because that'll
kind of give you the feeling for it.
They are comfortable. They're made out of plastic, I
guess technically maybe they're resin, but they feel like
plastic. But they also come in a lot of
different colors and they're transparent, so you can see the
ink inside of there too. And that's something else that
you will see if you start looking down this.
Like if you see anything that's called like a demonstrator pen,
that's usually a clear pen. So when you fill it with ink,
you can see the ink color while you're ready with it.
It's like a little X-ray of your pen and it's very cool looking.
And then the last one I'm going to recommend to you, these are
my absolute favorite pens, so they're called Twisby Echo.
So it's Twisby, it's spelled Word, TWSBI and then Echo ECO.
These pens range about $35 and they come literally in a rainbow
of colors. I also love them because they're
the type of pen that has the converter already built into it.
So will you twist the top to suck the ink into it, and you
twist it the other way that pushes the ink out or when
you're cleaning it. But really more than anything
just is all the different colors that exist out there, and you
can get into a real deep rabbit hole with those.
But I think that was the echo is good because it's priced
affordably and if you just buy yourself an ink, you can just
buy one, you just keep refilling it.
So, very little maintenance inside of those pens.
I could go down a lot more, but I think of all of the pens like
those four are definitely like the best place for you to start
with. Because they're easy,
affordable, and honestly come in a lot of different like fun
little variations. Enough to make you know your
personality shine amongst all of your other friends.
I will say that your enthusiasm is kind of rubbing off on me, so
I kind of feel like I might have to at least try 1 and possibly
one of the ones have you actually recommended because it
seems like a reasonable place to start.
Like you hand picked these for me.
I appreciate that effort. So I'm gonna put all of those in
the description box or in the show notes so that if you guys
wanna give your hands on any of those pens then they are linked
down there. Mark, where is your favorite
place to shop for fountain pen? Anything.
Oh, so this is a really good question.
So I personally am a big fan of Atlas stationers.
So if you're in the US, they're my favorite.
They have a really great strong presence on social media, first
of all. And I really appreciate that.
Like when a pen company is making funny reels, I'm all
about that. They're a family owned company.
I'm actually an affiliate through them as well and that
I've just had a really good relationship with them.
I kind of look at like they're like my pen dealer and then like
Archer and Olive is my notebook dealer.
And I work with a lot of other brands and companies too.
So it's not like they're but they just have a really large
variety of different types of pens.
They're really great. Another company too.
I purchased a handful of things from there, but Goulet Pen is
another one that has a really strong presence, a lot of great
education. And those two guys are just,
they're fantastic and they really know all of their stuff.
So there's kind of different ways you can look at.
Those two are kind of like my favorites for a lot of the
education. And except the new pens come
out, they're talking about them, so you can kind of do a lot.
And we also have a lot of pen friends as well that are like
really into it. So like you and I are big
friends with Julia and she is really kind of digging deeper
into that space too. She makes a lot of great videos
too. We'll put a link to her stuff in
the in the descriptions too, so you can check her stuff out.
But she's dealing with pens and inks and honestly, she's like my
pet influencer too. She'll be like Mark, I have this
pet. I love it.
It's amazing. I'm like, well, great, now I
have to have it. Thanks a lot.
Influencer indeed. Well, it's good to know that we
have some starting points for where we can either go shopping
for some fountain pen related things or some people we can
check out to get some influence or excitement around fountain
pens. But do you have a question for
the Planner pals regarding fountain pens?
Absolutely. So the question for this week,
which we would love our planner pals to answer, is that if you
have used fountain pens before, whether you are a fountain pen
aficionado and have used so many, have a beautiful
collection or maybe you have slightly dipped your toe into
there, The question for this week is going to be what pen
would you recommend to someone who hasn't tried fountain pens
before? If you'd like to answer that
question, you can shoot us an e-mail
plannerpalspodcast@gmail.com. We can also check us out over at
Planner Pals Podcast on Instagram or drop your
recommendation in the comments section below if you're
listening to us or watching us on YouTube.
While Mark is notably very excited about fountain pens,
something I'm excited about, and I hope that he is too, is that
coming up very soon. We are both going to be together
at Go Wild. It was absolutely awesome
getting to meet you in person last year, even if it was just
for a little bit. So I'm glad that you're going to
be sticking around a little bit longer this time.
I actually get to spend the majority of the weekend
together. And other people, of course.
Yeah. And also what I'm really excited
about is that I'm actually going to be hosting the Crop, which if
you're unfamiliar with that, I'm going to be working along with
Zebra and we're going to be doing a workshop on Friday
night. And I haven't done it before and
I don't know what to experience. So as much as I know right now
about what I'm doing for this workshop, Jess, I'm going to
need a lot of your help to, like, help us understand the
full experience of Go Wild, because I've seen pictures I was
there for. Like, I don't know, an hour or
two and I it was during a break, so I have no idea what happens.
So I can't wait to hear more about it and share what we're
going to be doing there, which it will not be recording a
podcast. I know a number of people asked
us that we are not mature enough for that just yet.
This episode I think is clearly who knows what would happen if
we were live. We would have, we would get put
in jail, I'm sure if we would offend somebody.
Yep. Cancelled on the Internet
Indeed. So we will not be recording a
live podcast while we're there at Go Wild, but I am very
excited to actually get to see people in person.
You're going to be there, you make sure you let us know.
But on our next episode, we're going to be talking about both
my personal point of view of Go Wild since I've been there once
and Mark's kind of point of view given the fact that he hasn't
actually attended before. So stay tuned.
We will see you in our next episode.
And from your two True Planet pals, thank you for watching.