This evening, I made a foray into College Street to check out College Pen Forum. Wanted to see if there were some interesting new or old fountain pens. The trip itself was a bust since the the gentleman there thought that showing me various pens would be a waste of time and waas focusing his time on selling those inexpensive ball points and gel pens that were flying off the shelf.

Interestingly, amongst all those bulk pens, he had a winner of a fountain pen – the Pilot Justus 95. It has a very interesting mechanism that can turn the nib from hard to soft (and various settlings in between). Basically you turn the edge of the pen and as you do so, a metal plate comes out on top of the nib split. By controlling that fulcrum point, you control how much the nib will “give”. Very unique mechanism. That would set you back by over $320 in the USA or about Rs 25,000 in India.

However the most interesting experience was noticing that sign you see in the middle of the picture. You probably remember from your school days how you bought your notebooks (to write on). They were priced per notebook or might be by the dozen. That is how we grew up. That sign says you can buy by the kilogram – meaning the weight of the notebooks you buy. So, you pay by the weight instead of the count! I checked with my brother. And he confirmed that is how he buys notebooks for the nephews!

Never knew this!