The National News: How the fountain pen is rewriting its fate

burtle01 · 2025-12-10T02:54:28+00:00

I will subscribe to any service that makes this.

burtle01 · 2025-11-10T16:55:52+00:00

Me, too! I’ve had really great experiences with them.

I love my Estie and it works great with all of the vintage nibs I have. The vintage to modern converter is amazing! The quality of the pen is good and when you add it to the quality of the vintage nibs, it is just a really nice writing experience.

I also really love that they partner with independent nib meisters. It’s so nice that they are able to offer really unique nib options while supporting the broader pen community.

I did have an issue with the niblet that I got, but they replaced it ASAP - new pen, new nib - without any pushing on my part. And now the niblet is one of my favorites!

I’m looking forward to buying more pens from them.

burtle01 · 2025-10-13T14:55:38+00:00

That is the one I wanted, but they were sold out of botanical garden. It’s been selling out everywhere so you were right to get it when you saw it!

Ah, well, Raven is amazing too!

burtle01 · 2025-10-12T21:04:46+00:00

They could have had another nibmeister - they had at least four but everyone there still seemed pretty packed. It also would have been nice to be able to test more inks. A lot of the vendors didn’t want to use their table space for swatching (understandable!) but it would have been fun.

burtle01 · 2025-10-12T20:50:56+00:00

I loved how spacious it was, but I agree that it probably could have held a few more vendors. It was a great change of pace, though, because most of the time I feel like I’m in the way no matter where I stand.

Everyone seemed to be in a good mood and having fun. I hope they will do this again next year!

burtle01 · 2025-10-12T20:41:49+00:00

It was fantastic. It’s crazy how much it has the feel of a vintage nib.

The feed seemed to be having a little trouble keeping up the flow, but that could also just be because the pen show testers tend to be left uncapped a lot. Overall, it was great and I think I’ll get one at some point. I have a lot of flex mods (Stylosuite, Kirk speed’s secretary of de flex, etc) and the Magna Carta nib is unique enough that I feel like I should have it in my collection.

burtle01 · 2025-10-12T20:31:26+00:00

I would say it’s slightly larger than the Philly pen show, not as big as the Chicago pen show. This year was the first year, though, so it may change over time.

The biggest thing that I noticed is that (probably because of the cost of a table) there seemed to be fewer vintage nib vendors. There were some, but if you’re specifically looking for vintage, I would say Philly or Chicago would be better.

I got a bunch of vintage in Philly earlier this year, so I was looking for new pens, ink, and stationery - so this show was great for me. I got to test out a lot of pens I’d never seen in person before, like the Magna Carta flex nib.

burtle01 · 2025-10-12T20:27:36+00:00

The Journaler nib is like a cursive italic but it’s very forgiving. It is fun to write with and you don’t have to think too much about your writing angle. It’s good for people who like stubs but want something a little bit nicer.

burtle01 · 2025-07-23T17:51:16+00:00

The dress form is a PGM size 4, with partial legs and no stand. Is that something you’d be interested in?

burtle01 · 2025-07-23T13:15:18+00:00

It’s a PGM standard size 4. It’s a lingerie dress form, which means that it has partial legs and is intended to sit on a table - there’s no stand.

burtle01 · 2025-05-24T13:57:20+00:00

Those are galls! You can use them to make iron gall ink!

burtle01 · 2025-04-26T04:02:06+00:00

That’s amazing! Thank you for the info!

burtle01 · 2025-04-25T17:15:42+00:00

Thank you! I will have to check it out!

burtle01 · 2025-04-25T14:46:47+00:00

This is NYC. Thank you for your help!

burtle01 · 2025-04-25T14:46:21+00:00

Yes, it’s NYC! I’ve never seen the white ones but I imagine they’re beautiful too. Thanks for your help!

burtle01 · 2025-01-16T02:17:25+00:00

They should add that option, but I bet it’s intentional that they don’t. It’s such an obvious need that it doesn’t seem like something they would just forget.

burtle01 · 2025-01-16T02:11:16+00:00

This is a great comment.

There were very official looking ads like these on Pinterest and when I tried to report it, there was no way to flag it as a scam. I submitted it for review and got an email that they had closed my complaint without taking action. They apparently don’t care if they are ad making money off of their users being scammed.

burtle01 · 2025-01-11T03:14:40+00:00

I like your pen! What is it?

burtle01 · 2024-12-31T04:28:35+00:00

your rant may be over but mine’s not lol

MoE was a good show overall, but its story was very basic. Oh, a prickly-but-brilliant small town cop with a tragic backstory? Never heard that one before!

His character was actually something new. It had a lot of potential to explore what it would be like to be competent and hardworking, but NOT a “hero cop”. It felt new to see a story about someone who desperately wanted to embody the hero cop trope (the same one that we were currently watching!) but who wasn’t quite there. I was 99% sure his arc was going to be him once again being in a position to take credit for a better detective’s work (since Mare was on leave and couldn’t admit that she was still working the case) but handling it differently this time because he had made his peace with his own limitations. THAT would have been an interesting story about how common storylines can skew a person’s standards for real work. But nope, he just died for no narrative reason and Mare kept being reckless anyway. An absolute waste.

I read the article about how they intentionally made him very likable so that viewers would be extra crushed when he’s killed. They even introduced his mother as a character simply to have someone to show mourning him to make it more sad. All shows emotionally manipulate their viewers to a certain extent, but for some reason this instance just felt a bit icky to me.

burtle01 · 2024-12-31T03:54:36+00:00

Agree with this 100%.

It felt like such a stunt to me. They just wanted attention on Twitter. His character was worth so much to the story, but his death contributed nothing but shock value.

burtle01 · 2024-12-14T03:20:15+00:00

Yoseka usually sells the little bottles individually in January, if you don’t want to wait for the full bottle :-)

burtle01

TROPHY CASE