It’s mid-September and I’m home alone, but preparing for a trip to… Myanmar! For the very first time! However, I’m going there for work and not for business. Still, I wonder how the fountain pen community is like in Myanmar. Do people in Myanmar use fountain pens? Any Burmese readers around? Share your experiences with me, please!
Burmese fountain pens?
I did a quick search online and found a thread in the Fountain Pen Network, showing photos of vintage Pilot fountain pens made in Burma in the 1970s. How intriguing! You can have a look at the thread right here. Interesting that Pilot manufactured pens in Southeast Asia in the past. The pens in the photos remind me of a crowd favourite: the Pilot 78G, which is also one of my personal favourites. The Pilot 78G is quite the workhorse pen – lightweight, nice nib, very affordable. I’ve written some notes about my 78G experience in this post here.
Pilot 78G fountain pen nibs
Noodler’s Burmese stuff
If you’d like to take a look at Noodler’s products that are linked to Mystical Myanmar, they have the Burma Road Brown ink, as well as the Burmese Ruby Ahab.
The Burma Road Brown ink is a relatively darker and more muted ink, which may sit with well some users but not others. Peninkcilin has done a review of the ink, commenting about why they do not quite like the colour. On the other hand, Gorgeous.Ink seems to like it quite a bit, which we can see in their review over here. As for me, I haven’t yet tried this ink before, but from screen colours, it looks more like a dark olive green than a brown to me. I might be wrong, as screen colours could be misleading. Would I try this ink? Of course, if for the purpose of a review. Would I use such a colour in everyday writing? Hmm… not quite. Maybe you can tell me your views?
The Burmese Ruby Ahab is a bright red fountain pen that Noodler’s has made, as part of their Ahab fountain pen series. If you hadn’t already known, Myanmar has a large ruby industry, and has been for many years the world’s main source of rubies. Rubies are very valuable gems, and Myanmar used to produce great amounts of rubies of high quality, but the quality has since dwindled over the years. For some reading about Burmese rubies, here’s one article. Now, those of you who own a Burmese Ruby Ahab fountain pen, didn’t you wish that your pen was made of real ruby instead? 😉
~~~
That’s all I have today for the Noteworthy piece. It’s a bit short, but I hope you’ve enjoyed it or at least learnt something new today!
I am the founder of this website.
Chemist by day, slacker by night, fanatic of stationery all the time.
I write with my left hand, but can also do the same with my right hand – it just won’t look very pretty.
