I love analogue things. It stemmed from the joy of handcrafting leather wallets and has spread into other areas of my life, and my most recent obsession, fountain pens.

The heartwarming thing I find when picking up a new hobby like this, is the wonderful community of folks who are making content, building businesses or passionately creating products for the community. It's also delved into a wider joyous dive into the world of stationery, but more on that in another post.

Part of the fun of having this personality that picks up more hobbies than an average person might, is that I end up doing a crash course on everything someone might want to know about said hobby in just a few weeks completely immersing myself into the world of whatever that thing is.

One minute I'm watching a YouTube video about technology overuse, then I stumble across a notebook review*, and before long I'm three hours deep into a six hour YouTube binge watching people comparing highly respected Japanese pens with their chinese-made counterparts.

Why the deep dive into fountain pens?

I am so bored of writing everything on my laptop.

Tip tapping away on this keyboard, staring at letters pop up on the screen. Sure, it's efficient. But where’s the beauty? The craft? Boy, we are crying out for some beauty right now.

Also, the speed I can type is often quicker than the speed I think. Good for brain dumping, not good for brain thinking.

Writing by hand allows me (you) to slow the fuck down. Think about what you're actually writing. Process your thoughts. We tend to neglect this. And it shows.

It's hard at first because you want to go quicker and your hands hurt, but as you start to relax your mind into it, something starts to change in your brain. When I'm writing by hand, I can go into a often trance like state. It feels nice.

But James, why not just do it with a Bic Biro?

Eugh. I can't believe you'd even suggest that. A Bic Biro is fine if you're at school, but we're adults here, in the real world. And if you're going to write something down on paper you may as well do it properly.

When you have the perfect fountain pen, ink and paper combo, seeing your thoughts flow from your brain, through your body, your arm, your fingers, into the pen and through the nib is a special thing to witness. I mean, you could argue the same about a Bic Biro, but it doesn't have the same panache.

*btw, no shade on the bic. It's iconic.

The starter pen

The first pen is the hardest. I wanted to get this right. A pen that carefully straddles the ridge of quality and affordability. The writing implement I discovered fit the bill perfectly - a true workhorse in the fountain pen world, the Lamy Safari (medium nib). I popped to a store locally to pick this up, used the existing cartrige and away I went.

The second pen

At this point I've bought something for £20, I've liked it, and I'm sold. But I've heard different pens have different characteristics. And if you go on eBay you can get some vintage options at a fraction of their original price. Sign. Me. Up.

But it's the sequel to the first pen, what if I don't like it as much? Maybe I need something new, tried and tested. Time to do some research, I think.

Ok. I'm stumped. I don't actually remember what my second fountain pen was. Maybe I loved the Lamy Safari so much, the other pens didn't come close to matching it?

I know my mum bought me a Scheaffer 100 with a medium nib, which is one of the smoothest pens I've written with.

Oh, actually, I do remember. It was a Kaweco Sport I got from a local shop in Whitstable. I didn't like it so gave it to my sister. But it came with a nice tin. I still like the tin.

I do love that Kaweco tin

The descent into insanity

Then there was a third pen, a fourth, a fifth. Discovering cool new brands like Tom's Studio, reboot brands like Esterbrook, historic brands like Yard O Led, and despite my fear of becoming mainstream, I couldn't overlook Mont Blanc.

Thankfully, I never strayed over about £30 for a pen, but I was considering it. And I did buy rather a lot of £30 pens...

Every new town I went to I discovered where their stationery shops were, spending hours walking around and discovering new fountain pen brands.

My poor mother, sister and girlfriend were all subjected to multiple hours of me showing them around my favourite shops, explaining how the smoothness of this gold japanese nib was something worth spending £150+ on.

My favourite example of this was when I travelled 10+ hours to New York to see my stunning girlfriend for the first time in weeks, only to leave her almost immediately to go to the Goods for the Study location just a few blocks from her apartment on the Upper West Side.

I then spent the next hour speaking to the terrific fellow pen nerd there, also called James, who showed me the most extensive collection of all the pen brands I'd seen online but not yet in person. I walked out that day the proud new owner of a TWISBI ECO (a fan favourite under £50) and a Pilot Metropolitan (which despite being a cheap pen, has become one of my most used).

Goods for the Study on the Upper West Side. Photo by ilovetheupperwestside.com. Might get my girlfriend to go get another pic. Babe, if you see this, could you do that for me please? Love you x

My rankings

Thankfully (or not), my descent into fountain pen madness slowed down and I settled on a few favourites.

  1. Pilot Metropolitan (F nib)
  2. A vintage Creeks N Creeks my sister got me off eBay (M)
  3. Sheaffer 100 from mumsy (M)
  4. Jinhao 82 (EF)
  5. Lamy Safari (M)

Oh and a bonus for my favourite ink: Diamine Turandot (red) I got from the Scriptum stationary store in Oxford (some cool Harry Potter coded store).

Wrap up

Descending into the madness of hobbies is one of the great joys in my life. It can look odd from the outside, but I am trying to embrace it instead of worrying what other people think of me. Sometimes that’s hard when the 7th fountain pen arrives within two weeks.

It's been a lovely hobby to get into. I'd recommend if anyone is struggling with the amount of time they are spending in front of a screen, pick yourself up a Lamy Safari, a Clairefontaine notebook (the paper is important) and find yourself enjoying the process.

What's the next hobby I should try?

I've heard model aeroplanes are popular.

You'll often find me replacing ink like this

References

*If you clicked this link, you’ll see it’s dunking on Field Notes for being poor for fountain pens, giving you some alternatives. I’ve since collected a rather lovely collection of Field Notes, and keep one on me daily, not using a fountain pen. There is space for everything.