…but this forum increased my awareness about pens, and steered my collection towards quality specimens recently. Also, not everything I write can be jotted down with graphite, and on many an occasion I need to leave a more permanent mark on paper.
Combine this with a couple of lucky strikes I managed to secure over the last months, and you get the picture below, where my beloved Pentel Hi-Tec G4 is surrounded — almost sieged — by my other favourite pens. Apologies for the picture, I reckon it’s not that great, but I think the content compensates a bit.
It’s a mixed bag of new and old items, classic all-timers and uncommon oddities, which peacefully reflects my habits when it comes to collecting. I assume most of you can spot and recognise the different pieces on the fly, though some are far less common than others.
The striped, capped pen in the upper half of the image is a weird franken-fountain pen I had custom-built around a supr-flexible nib I chanced to find at a local pen-show in May, and is possibly the only hard-to-figure-out one in the gang.
I present this picture to the Knockology community as a tribute to what you people have encouraged me to do (both in terms of searching for new directions, and becoming a more skilled negotiator). Also, allow me to use this post to send you all my best wishes for Happy Holidays, and a hopefully more than fantastic 2024.
Now back to the pencils, as they might feel neglected after all this attention dedicated to their inky relatives…
I like that Porsche pen, probably nicer than the Lamy Unic (… i wonder…) and I had no ideia that the staedtler concrete was such a massive instrument. Well done! Happy Holidays
I’m jealous of your TOMBOW Mano!
I have a number of terrific rollerball/ballpoint pens. My top 2 in rotation right now are a Spoke Roady XL and an OHTO FLAT-C. Fountain pen wise, a Raden Namiki (Pilot) Vanishing Point is one of my keen favorites, but top billing is still the M90 (it’s an improved version of the venerable MYU from the 1970’s).
Yeah — love the Flat-C, one of the nicest BPs imo. I use a Lamy Unic and a FLAT-C all the time — but most of the time I stick with an Aurora 88 Nera, which has been my favourite fountain pen for a long while now. Also a Yellow Jinhao that cost me 1€ and is wonderful! (apparently one of the few Jinhao models that wasn’t a knock-off)
(oh and there’s another fave pen that I regret selling —I generally regret selling stuff bc I have to not bc I want to — the OMAS Ogiva Vodka Lemon. Maybe I’ll be able to replace it in the future, idk)
For me it started with discovering the GraphGear 1000 Ball early on, and then the existence of the rOtring 600 and thus began looking for technical style pens for my collection. Before the rOtring 600 revival in 2012, it lead me to obtain the Retro51 Hexomatic and also the TWSBI Precision.
Wow! Glad to see so many interesting replies: I plan to provide more details to some of the previous posts over the next days — the story of how I ended up getting my Tombow Mano is probably the best I have regarding my pens — and I begrudgingly yet happily admit that some of you are really playing in a completely different league, and have my utmost admiration, attention, and curiosity.
Also, I noticed that many of your pens seem to be compatible with fineliner cartridges like the ones I use in my G-Tec-C4, and I’d really like to find pen bodies with great form factor which can accommodate those cartridges with super-precise tips. I’ll ask for some suggestions soon on this theme.
In the meantime, thank you once again, and keep on posting great pictures, I really need to take notes on the next items to search for.
I believe most of the hype is over now but a couple of years ago almost every pen project on kickstarter had these guys making pens that accommodated almost every refill you could think of. Some were really cool. I suppose most of them are now hard to get or you have to contact the teams’ stores and check if there’s any stuff left. Others became full fledged pen makers and have running businesses
At the time I funded and received this Takumi pen:
Which is one of those pens that can use over 50 different refills… just by adjusting a small screw at the back of the pen. Still use it quite a lot, last time I put a OHTO Fude refill on it and it was great… A great refill that has now disappeared
OHTO is one of those brands that “probably” has a different refill for each model, it’s crazy, and they’re always changing the names or they simply stop making them and it’s a real mess.
It is indeed a ‘lava’ type textured finish. But it is an unbranded pen made by an unknown OEM. I found it by chance while searching for ‘Knurled ballpoint’ on eBay – seller was from Spain.
Yeah, I spotted that when @drifand posted about it a couple months back and inquired immediately… bummed that it’s a fleeting, localized offering in Spain.
I got a little disappointed with a rapid pro (2mm)… As I was using it, the grip section would repeatedly feel detached from the red plastic ring and then all the front of the pencil would become noticeably wobbly… I bought 2nd hand so maybe mine was defective and all the other ones are fine. When I got it, I was quickly convinced that the Rapid Pro is their best 2mm so far.
The problem is that the red glossy plastic connector piece attaching the grip to the body has a moderately high petroleum content. Therefore there’s no natural friction imparted from the plastic. It will tend to loosen. There is a way around this. If you have a semi-flexible adhesive like EC6000 or “Shoe Goo”, take a small amount of it and smear some on the screw threads. Then screw it back together. It will be hard to take apart, but doable… while also preventing unwanted loosening.
This is something I’d like to try: I have a couple of very nice pencils I’d really like to work with, but their mid-barrel joints tend to dangerously unscrew when the item is left in the pencil pouch, even if in a dedicated slot, and this makes them almost useless. Thank you very much indeed @cytherian!
