Our pen club met on March 29 at the usual William’s Coffee on Wellington. The theme selected for the week was “desert island” pens and accessories. In other words, you are being sentenced to spend the rest of your life on a desert island - what are the 2-3 pens and accessories (ink, paper, etc…) that you would take from your current collection. Of course, some people took this literally (read: too practical) while the rest grasped the spirit of the theme.

So, off we go with ladies first. Our sole lady member, KR, provided me with her list as follows (I will not add to her comments; she can write quite well on her own behalf!):

1. MB 149 because if I leave it lying around my Mother will pinch it. That and I love it. Ink in this pen: PR Orange Crush because the pen likes it and the cheerful colour will make me feel better when all I have to look at is sand and green stuff.
2. Caran d’Ache Ecridor Retro (with matching pencil) because it is indestructible. I may need a hammer or a drill or a stabby (ed: sharp?) weapon. Plus, I love it. Ink in this pen: Noodler’s Old Manhattan Black because it is the best ink in the known universe and it is bulletproof. I will need something enduring to write my memoirs with, should anyone ever run across my ink stained corpse in a cave.
3. Visconti Van Gogh Midi Vanilla because it looks yummy and when I am starving on the island I can lick it and pretend that it is a frozen treat or a stick of swirly white/milk chocolate. I will then feel better. Ink in this pen: MB Season’s Greetings (brown, smells like cookies) because it will add to the fantasy. Plus, it looks really good coming out of this particular pen.
4. Paper: Ecojot looseleaf, Apica notebooks and G. Lalo deckled edge Ivory Correspondence cards with matching envelopes (for birthdays, thank you letters, invitations….you know. For all of my imaginary friends I will find on the island as I go slightly mad.)

There are two additional posts that follow which detail the desert island items selected by the men of our club.  Enjoy!

Of course, I have to write on behalf of the men in the group as they do not possess the imagination or the same writing skills as KR (with a few notable exceptions including the present company, of course!).  I would not want to call them lazy!

So for the men, I will simply list what they have provided to me (with a few editorial comments where appropriate).  The numbering of the pens in the table below has no significance.

Last but not least, are my desert island pens and accessories (Me) and for those gentlemen who were away at the time, my best speculation as to what they would pick.  Enjoy the final post on this subject!

I recently test dipped a number of grey/gray and black inks for comparison.  The paper is Rhodia notebook graph.  Of particular interest is the relative blackness, if you will, of the Noodler’s Heart of Darkness (HoD) ink.

In my own opinion, Aurora black (which has been my favourite until now) is a worthy competitor; however, Noodler’s HoD is the black ink that I prefer.

Sorry for the delay in posting this.  I have included in this post a scanned copy of two pages of Herbin inks that were made using a glass dipping pen.  The inks scanned represent the different colours that our members ordered from PenandCo .

All in all, I think everyone was happy with their ink purchases.  There are a number of very nice and interesting colours in the scans - and Herbin makes quite a few more as well.

Some of the most popular inks are made by J. Herbin - I have used their cartridges and bottles (you know, the demi ones with the pen rest) for years.  My personal favourites are eclat de saphir and poussière de lune; my youngest daughter’s one and only favourite - rose cyclamen.  I am looking forward to trying Vert Empire and Lie de Thé.

Interesting to note that the top selling inks made by Herbin include Perle Noire, Violette Pensée and Bleu Myosotis.  You can find out this information, as well as the history, manufacturing, download an ink chart and more from Pen And Co.’s Herbin ink pages, starting with the history page.

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I had purchased my Conklin Crescent filler from Jean Elie at Pen And Co. - with excellent results.  Well, in reviewing the Pen And Co. website after my pen purchase, I discovered a number of other goodies, including the best kept secret on the internet (hopefully not for long!).  Pen And Co.  sells Herbin inks here for the incredible price of just under  6 Euros per bottle and free shipping with a minimum order of 3 bottles (about $22 Cdn).  I don’t know anywhere that you can get this price and service!

I have been on a bit of a quest, if you would like, to round out my modern pen collection with examples of “classic” vintage pens, like the Parker 51 and the Big Red, etc…  Of course, no such collection would be complete without Mark Twain’s pen -  Conklin’s Self-Filling Pen or better known as the Crescent Filler (aka the one that won’t roll off your desk!).  You can read more about Conklin and Twain here.  The Crescent Filler was invented by Roy Conklin of Toledo, Ohio, USA around 1897 and was the world’s first practical self-filling pen.  In fact, the Crescent Filler was the top-selling self-filling pen on the market by 1913.

Just a brief aside about Mark Twain’ association with fountain pens.  Almost everyone knows about Twain and his love of Conklin fountain pens.  But have you ever seen this

http://www.twainquotes.com/FountainPens.html ?

Back to my new-to-me (vintage) pen.  Like my Crescent Filler, the early models had slip-caps and most are black hard rubber with a nice wave-like chasing pattern.  The chasing is worn somewhat on both ends of the barrel - from the capping of the pen and posting the cap.  

The particular model that I acquired from Pen And Co. is an S3 according to the trademark imprint near the top of the barrel.  The imprint in the bottom half of the barrel - which is relatively easy to read with the naked eye - reads ”Conklin’s Self Filling Pen, Toledo, Ohio, USA” followed by the patent dates.  What I am having difficulty establishing is the origin and nature of the clip (which slides on and off the cap).  It appears to be made of nickel or similar metal and is stamped “Modern Pat’s 5 25 00/6 22 09″ .  The nib is a #3. 

 The patent for the pen is here:  Conklin Patent for Self Filling Pen 

To fill a crescent-filler, the C-shaped hard rubber lock ring has to be turned so that its opening is under the crescent. You then press the crescent and flatten the ink sac. Put the nib in ink, release the crescent, and count to ten to allow the sac to fill.  Mine fills correctly.

 Below is a picture of my black beauty, taken by Jean Elie of Pen And Co.

It has been so cold lately.  How cold is it?  Well, it’s been so cold that … (you fill in the punchline).

Some are fortunate to have been able to escape this harsh Canadian winter by taking a nice trip to the Caribbean (if you live in Eastern Canada) or Hawaii (for those in the West).  For the rest of us who are labouring away in the dark from morning until night, there is always a little visualization (courtesy of the fortunate travellers) in the form of a postcard.  People don’t send many postcards anymore.  Too bad.  I love getting them, especially when they look like this:

I will edit this post to add more description shortly but I wanted to get the scan of the inks up for everyone to see.  The Herbin Vert Empire did not make it - when we opened the box it turned out to be Larmes de Cassis.

Now, we had a comment that the Dragon’s Napalm appeared too pink like “Hello Kitty”.  I certainly would not say that it is pink, on the other hand, I would not say it is a burnt orange that I associate with fire breathing dragon’s.  It looks like mercurochrome did (you can’t buy it anymore, at least not in Canada (China, perhaps?)).  Here is another scan of only the Dragon’s Napalm on lined Rhodia paper.