Wrote it on the customized pad Nikita and I had made with a dip pen with glass tip!

If you found my fascination for fountain pens to be too quirky, this will make me seem even more weird. The background is the following – I was visiting the Dallas Fountain Pen show with Larry a few weeks back when I ran into a person who was selling wax seals. He taught me how to put a wax seal on an envelope.

Came back home and sent him my personal logo (the one you see in the picture in yellow and blue). It took me years to settle on this logo. Eventually, sitting at the bar of Milton’s Cuisines with Sharmila one Sunday night, I had hit upon this design – it has two “r”s – for my initials.

A week later, I had my first personalized wax seal delivered. Now, not only can I write letters with fountain pens, I can put a wax seal too to complete the totally archaic process of communicating. Now, if only I could find a compliant pigeon… 🙂

(BTW, you can spot a newbie error straightaway: I had not aligned the seal correctly with the direction of the envelope flap!)

Turns out I forgot to put 2 more when I took the picture. In any case, Stefanie, here is the answer to your question:

1. Fountain pens with metal nibs: 90
2. Glass pens with glass nibs: 10
3. Quilt pens with metal nibs: 2

#maximalist 🙂

Used it for the first time to write a letter. This is one of the three that I picked up from the Dallas Fountain Pen Show.
Used brown ink. The ink flowed very well…

Four standard nib fountain pens and three glass nib pens. My total is now around 85 standard nib pens and 8 glass nib pens. The rightmost pen is unique in that it is an “eyedropper” fountain pen. Which means, it does not have an ink filling mechanism (like cartridge or ink piston). Like we used to do in India, you just pour the ink directly into the barrel (main body of the pen).

The show this year was a little more subdued (Covid, I guess) bit still there were thousands of beautiful fountain pens. The array of ink colors available was impressive. Larry was taken aback by the shelf with different color ink pots. And that is just one of the shelves!!

He insisted on getting up on the ottoman (I had to remove all my paraphernalia) to check what was going on with the paper and the pen…

After a long time, accepted a dinner invitation this weekend. (I usually do not enjoy parties). Which meant, of course, writing out a Thank you letter. That is the most fun part of any party to me.

Brought out a pen I had bought in 2014 from the Atlanta Fountain Pen show. The body is a mix of light yellow and green. Went with green ink for this letter!

For a fountain pen aficionado like me, I was intrigued that I was not aware of the existence of these things. I have used dip pens in the past – you know with nibs in the end and usually a holder or a quill at the other end. But these are very different kinds of dip ink pen.

First, they are made of all glass. Second, the nibs are not flat. They are all cylindrical or bulbous! I was wondering how the ink would flow. (Usual nibs have that slit between the tines that has the ink flowing due to capillary force). Turns out the ‘nib’ has intricate shallow trench like etchings that wrap around like the threads in a screw. The ink, when dipped in, is held in those “trenches” and slowly flows out.

Fairly unique! Got a few delivered from China. Was never aware of this. Were you? Wrote the first letter to my niece using this!

Zoom in to the pen. This is no ordinary fountain pen. This is a quilt pen. Like the olden times. Natasha had gifted this to me quite some back. It took quite some practice – but I still do not believe I have quite gotten the hang of it.