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In this week’s episode, I give you a preview of the Pilot Con-40 converter, I pontificate how many pens it would take to reach the moon, and I tell you the best inks that no one ever talks about.
New/Upcoming Products – (4:17)
- Visconti Rembrandt – Special Ops
- Montegrappa Fortuna – Copper Mule
- Montegrappa Fortuna
- Visconti Homo Sapiens – Florentine Hills
- Delta Dolcevita Masterpiece
- Pilot Decimo
- Lamy Safari – Dark Lilac
- Visconti Homo Sapiens Dark Age
Pens/Writing – (11:26)
1) @pens_and_tea- Twitter – (11:28)
What are your thoughts on the newly designed pilot Con-40? Have you had a chance to test it out yet?
- It’s kind of a wash for me
- ink capacity is the same
- build feels a little less solid
- the main benefit is that it’s thinner, so it fits the E95s and older Vanishing Points (I think), basically anything that takes the Con-20
- slightly quieter agitator
2) Amy P.- Facebook – (15:30)
Just getting into the whole fountain pen thing and I would like to use different inks more often. What’s the best way to switch inks? Only put in a little when you fill it? Can you put unused ink back into the bottle/sample vials? Are there small capacity pens?
- you can use a dip or glass pen if you’re just testing a sample
- cartridge/converter pens are handy, you can flush them with a bulb syringe, and if you only suck in up into the feed, you don’t dirty up a converter!
- dip test a pen with fins in the feed
- pretty much no matter how little you fill it, you need to clean it fully, so the type of pen matters
- One of the best to use is a Lamy, especially with swappable nibs (what we do for ink reviews)
3) Agnieszka P.- Facebook – (21:36)
After falling in love with the metropolitan (purple retro pop) compared to my first purchase of a Lamy safari (ef nib) what would be the next step forward in the fine/ef range – the vanishing point? The customs? Where do I go next?
- Pilot is a great brand to “scale up”
- Perra, but the nib is the same as the Metropolitan
- Vanishing Point is great
- E95s is great
- Custom 74 is great
- Stargazer is great
- Platinum Cool/Balance
- Faber Castell has a nice EF
- Faber Castell Loom
- TWSBI Eco/580 (slightly broader though)
Ink – (27:29)
4) Cathleen C- YouTube – (27:31)
I use multiple pens when I’m studying and tend to just leave the caps off my pens as I’m switching between them. I was using my Lamy Al Star with the cartridge that came with the pen and it seemed to tolerate having the cap off for a little bit. I just switched to the converter with Noodler’s 54th Massachusetts and it doesn’t seem to tolerate it as well. Could you recommend some black, brown-black, or blue-black (or even just straight up blue) inks that are a bit more tolerant to having the cap off for a few minutes? Is there a term that refers to this property so I can search for it on your site? Thanks so much!
- 54th is a permanent ink, which almost never lasts as long exposed to the air as conventional ink
- lubricated inks will usually last longer on the nib
- Monteverde, Noodler’s “Eel” series, Pilot Iroshizuku, Aurora generally
- Aurora Black or Blue
- Monteverde Black, Blue, or Blue Black
- Iroshizuku Shin-Kai, Take-Sumi, Tsukushi, Yama-Guri
- J. Herbin Lie de The
5) Bruce Sinn-Brown- YouTube – (32:12)
We always hear about the most popular and favorite inks, but what are some of the “not well known” or “understated” inks in your opinion?
Also, what are the top five LEAST popular inks from your store?
- J. Herbin Poussiere de Lune (Brian)
- J. Herbin Lie de The (Brian)
- Lamy Turquoise (Brian)
- Noodler’s Squeateague (Jenni)
- Noodler’s Nightshade (Drew)
- De Atramentis Jane Austen (Jessica)
- De Atramentis Sapphire Blue (Kelsey)
- Noodler’s Kiowa Pecan (Ross)
- Rohrer and Klingner Verdigris (Zippy)
- De Atramentis Aubergine (Susan)
- Pilot Iroshizuku Murasaki Shikibu (Anna)
- Monteverde Green, pretty much all of them (Madigan)
- the stuff that doesn’t sell at all, we usually drop
- Most Stipula ink is unpopular, except MusK Green
- Pelikan Brilliant Red, other pinky reds like that
- Many of the highlighter inks
- Delta ink (recent drop)
- Most yellow inks
Business – (41:33)
6) Agnieszka P.- Facebook – (41:37)
I’m curious to know if all your staff are fountain pen addicts or do you “convert’ them?
- just about no one knows anything about fountain pens when they start here
- it’s often an asset that way, because then we get to teach them ‘our way’, and get immersed
- definitely a conversion-type situation
- there are varying degrees that everyone falls for them, but it’s pretty hard not to when you’re around them as much as we are!
Personal – (45:48)
7) @motorrader1- Twitter – (45:53)
If you put all the pens you own end to end, would they reach the moon?
- haha, no
- distance to moon is 238,900 miles (1,261,392,000 feet)
- Average pen is maybe 5.5” long
- I own about 400 pens, which would be 183 feet high (.035 miles, .00000145% the distance to the moon )
- Number of pens needed to reach the moon = 2,752,128,000 pens!
- I’ve collected 400 pens in 6.5 years, 61.5 pens/year
- so at this rate it’ll take me 44,750,049 years until I have enough pens to reach the moon
8) Jennifer Dubay- YouTube – (48:49)
What are your top 5 Strengths from the StrengthsFinder?
- Futuristic- I live for future possibility
- Command- I step up and take charge
- Responsibility- I take accountability
- Achiever- I want to get things done, hard-worker
- Activator- I get things going
- Is any of this a huge surprise?
- Rachel have basically all of our top 8 in common, our team rounds out a lot of our ‘lowest strengths’
QOTW: What are your favorite “underrated” inks that are not often talked about? – (01:02:01)
Thanks so much for joining me this week! You can catch up on any old Q&A videos you missed here.
Write On,
Brian Goulet
