Thinking Out of the Box

Yesterday we went shopping, my wife and I love shopping! Who doesn't? We wound up at Fisher Hawaii again, the best office/school/art supply store in Honolulu.



I knew they were clearing out some pens so I took a look at the counter where they have the higher end pens. Voila, can't go wrong at 70% off!



The above photos were taken with my new iPhone 4s and I must admit I'm pretty impressed!

I don't recall ever purchasing a Sheaffer Pen before though I do have a nice vintage Snorkel. But for that price I did get a two nice pens that we'll put aside for gifts.

A nice blue roller ball. Well actually the box said Frosted Lilac!



And a really nice copper/brown roller ball.



But hiding below the counter top and upper shelves I spied an interesting pen. The sales person took it out and it was a fountain pen. She dipped it in a bottle of Cross blue fountain pen ink and I gave it a road test...sold!



For some reason I think whale shark when I look at this pen.



Solid gold nib for well under $50.00



It was a clearance item and there was no box or instructions with this pen. I've never seen a filling system like this and it took a bit of disassembly, reverse engineering and trial and error to figure it out. It's a piston type converter but it operates without removing the cover from the pen and fills almost like a piston filler pen.



So I filled it with Private Reserve Cosmic Cobalt blue ink and gave it a whirl! I'm not comfortable writing with a stiff fine nib.



I'm not so sure, need to do some writing to get comfortable with it. I think I'll use this pen for writing in my Moleskine notebooks hoping for less bleed through.

Years ago B.K. (before kids) when I was able to purchase pens almost freely, I was concentrating primarily on acquiring flexible nib fountain pens both vintage and modern. So most of my pens are fine flexible nibbed pens and a few medium nibs. But in my opinion aside from the Pilot/Namiki Falcon the only flexible nib pens that work well are vintage pens which need a bit more TLC than modern pens.

So now I'm trying to think outside of the box of flexible nib pens and write with non flex nibs like with this Sheaffer. But what I really would like is a nice double broad oblique or maybe stub nib on a hefty pen that fits like a glove in my hand. One that flows ink well and leaves a line of ink that you can see height to it! I don't think I will find one like this Sheaffer under $50.00 though.

Who knows, I may start writing with roller ball pens too!

I think this may be my last post for 2011. I hope I can come up with more interesting posts more often in 2012.

To everyone please stay safe and Hau`oli Makahiki Hou!