Thanks to the help from C.H., a Singapore Fountain Pen Lover and a friend of mine, I got my hands on this interesting Lanbo 008 fountain pen (temporarily). He had borrowed it from his colleague who also agreed to lend it to me to play with. Don’t be intimidated by the dragon’s head embellishment on the clip – the fountain pen itself look relatively simple and harmless. As usual, let me start by talking a bit about the pen and its design, before going into the cleaning mechanism. It is black with gold accents and the barrel has a nice lotus flower design that is placed in the centre, but does not take up a lot of space on the barrel. The only other interesting design on the pen is really just the dragon on the clip, gold with ruby-red eyes. Not real rubies, of course. On the cap, between two gold bands, is the brand name in Chinese. 蓝泊 (pinyin: lán pō) translates somewhat to “blue berth”; “berth” as in the place where a boat stops. The other side of the cap shows the brand name in English, “Lanbo”. The nib is a two-tone gold and silver coloured nib. […]
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Why is this nib “rare”? It’s been about a year or two since Pelikan has discontinued nibs larger than broad. In the past, they used to have special nib sizes such as oblique broad (OB), double broad (BB) and triple broad (3B). Now, they have discontinued them and are down to extra-fine (EF), fine (F), medium (M), and broad (B). Isn’t it a disadvantage for Pelikan, as there is one less selling point to attract their customers to buy their pens, precisely because of their wide range of nib choices? Anyway, sometimes we don’t agree with the decisions that companies make, and while I don’t agree that the big nibs – especially the obliques – should be discontinued, I did not rush out to get one for myself. I don’t know what I was thinking. However, Mike, a nice friend of mine, has lent me his OB nib which flew to Singapore all the way from Europe, and stayed with me for a good many months before I actually came down to reviewing it. I put it onto an M1000 body for the purpose of this review. The Pen The Pelikan Souverän series of fountain pens is one representing the premium pens […]
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When I saw this pen on eBay, I knew I had to get it! This is a Peter Pan fountain pen made in the old days by a company called Salz Bros. Inc. (New York). I don’t really know why they call it a Peter Pan fountain pen – with its mega-petite size, I would more likely call it a Tinkerbell fountain pen instead! Let’s not wait anymore, I want to present the pen’s vital stats to you now, so you know how small it is! Vital stats: Length of pen when capped: 6.6cm (including the ringtop) Length of pen uncapped: 5.5cm Length of pen posted: 8.8cm (including the ringtop) Have you ever seen a pen so tiny before? This is my first time! Salz Bros. Inc. was a company that made nice little pens and this Peter Pan is probably the world’s smallest fountain pen, if I may dare to attempt this statement. The best part is, despite its size, it is supposed to be fully functional, although I cannot imagine how much ink can actually be contained within it – 2 drops? You may guess that the Salz Bros. Inc. is no longer in existence, as they went […]
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I am actually writing this quick post in a huge rush – I’m flying off to Vietnam for a business trip (with extra fun on the side after all the meetings!) in a few hours, and I do need to get some sleep before going to bed. I could have gone to bed, like, right now, but I am so excited and eager to share with everyone about this new pen that I received, thanks to a nice friend, that I absolutely have to blog immediately. As you might see, I had no time to adjust the quality of the pictures, nor add my watermark, nothing. This is how excited I am about this pen. This is a Platinum Pocket Pen, or a “Long-short pen” if you prefer (this name always makes me laugh, what an oxymoron). The model is probably that imprinted on the red sticker – it says “PKA-500”. It’s a pen produced during the 1970’s, when this design got really popular. There are many similar pens with this huge-cap/small-barrel feature from makers like Pilot and Sailor. I doubt they actually sell or produce such pens anymore, which is why I am so excited about it. I browsed the web […]
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by Nancy Olson A company’s archives always provide a wealth of information and frequently fascinating finds. Such was the case when the co-owners of Curtis Australia—during a bout of fall (yes, it’s fall in Australia) organizing—came upon an amazing discovery. “We noticed a sealed padded bag hidden in a far corner of our vault, underneath a large quantity of paperwork,” says Heather Curtis of a find she and her husband, Glenn, recently made. “When we opened the mysterious bag we found 60 sterling silver Abraham Lincoln pen overlays we had produced. Needles to say, we were absolutely stunned,” she continues. “It was like uncovering buried treasure.” Treasure indeed. The mold for these overlays had been publicly destroyed at Fahrney’s pen store in Washington, D.C. in July of 2009, insuring that the number of pens produced would be clearly limited. There are 1,809 pens in the Lincoln limited edition, reflecting Abraham Lincoln’s birth year, and while this new discovery will not affect that number, additional—and unexpected—pens are now available. Coinciding with the 12 Oscar nominations Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln received, as well as the Best Actor award it garnered for Daniel Day-Lewis in its title role at this year’s Academy Awards, this […]
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Hey dear readers, I am back on track with blogging! Sorry I have been busy for the past few weeks (yes, in my “Hiatus” post I wrote “two weeks or so” but it ended up almost 1 month, oops!), but I would like to give a huge THANK YOU! to all my readers who have been constantly checking back on my blog. I seemed to have also gained a couple of new readers in the process. Hmm, maybe I should have more “hiatuses” like this! Kidding! I do miss blogging, though. The pen I will be writing about today is a nice grand pen. “Grand” here is used loosely, as in the overall feel and experience with the pen. Not imagining a diamond-studded Mont Blanc now, are you? The pen in question is much simpler-looking than that. Granted, it isn’t a fountain pen, but it is good enough to deserve some attention to it too. It is a… The pen is medium-big, black, rollerball, and silky-smooth. That’s probably the most apt sentence I can ever speak of about a pen. I bought this pen in a furniture shop in Singapore called King and King Wong, at the shopping mall […]
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The review today will be about the only two wooden pens that I currently own. One of them is a fountain pen of an unknown brand, and the other one is a ball point souvenir pen from Chamonix Mont Blanc (French Alps, not the German luxury brand), both of which my boyfriend has gifted me last year. As you can guess, both pens are very precious to me! I love how they look against the grass and under the sunlight. I guess being made of a natural material and aligned with the grassy theme of nature, they look even more gorgeous. Like how a puzzle fits into the correct space. And when aligned together like this, they look like another pen couple. If you’ve read my matchmaking post of my kikki.K pens you’ll be familiar with this concept. For those readers who have never seen such kinds of grass before, that’s because you are not from a tropical territory, or you have always lived in your home without ever coming out, or you just never looked. Here’s another wedding shot: Let me first talk about Mr. Unknown fountain pen. I had been very unwilling to ink it and write with […]
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