A new fountain pen and ink

I was given a fountain pen set for a birthday long ago, a lovely slim Elysée with matching rollerball. I've no idea where the latter has gone, but the former hadn't been out of the box much for many years, until I decided I was going to make proper use of it again a couple of years ago. Despite the French-sounding name, Elysée was a German brand which went out of business in around 2000. Sadly, despite still being a great writer, the top doesn't stay on very well any more; it is also very slim and light. It was time for something more substantial.

As usual, I procrastinated about which make, style, etc. and I had really wanted a British pen if I could find one. But nothing was available at a sensible price, so I ended up looking at US maker, Sheaffer. They have a large range of good, solid pens and I did the usual "if I stretch another fiver, I can get this one" a couple of times. Anyway, I settled on a Sheaffer Prelude which I got at First Stop Stationers for quite a lot less than list price.

One of the great things about fountain pens is the huge choice of ink colours that are available, certainly once you leave the world of cartridges behind, and years ago I had dabbled with turquoise and red before reverting to black ballpoints. On my return to the world of the fountain pen I started with black ink, tried apricot for a little while (not a good plan), and then settled on green. Last summer I ditched cartridges altogether and bought a converter and a bottle of ink, my choice at the time being Lamy green, mainly because the bottle has a useful roll of blotting paper in the base - nice bit of design. The colour itself is quite nice, but a little too bright; so, with the arrival of a new pen, it seemed like a good time to try a new ink. I wanted to stay with green, but find something a little darker. I looked at the range of greens including those by Liverpool-based Diamine, but eventually settled on Montblanc Irish Green which is a lovely deep green (but not too far towards black) and comes in some really nice packaging.

So there we have it: Sheaffer Prelude and Montblanc Irish Green.

Early impressions? Well, the Sheaffer seems to run a little wetter that the old Elysée. Both are medium nibs, although the one on the Sheaffer is a more substantial unit. It could, of course, be the ink. It's not a big deal, I just need to allow a little extra drying time before turning the page. The pen itself writes really well and it feels good in the hand.

I should perhaps point out that I'm not remotely snobbish about writing with a fountain pen, I always have a ballpoint on me for when a fountain pen really doesn't work too well. No, it's just that I love the process of writing with a nib, in a colour of my choosing. I like the fact the ink glistens before it dries. I like that it smells when you fill up the converter. It is a lovely tactile experience, added to by having bought a really excellent Leuchtturm1917 notebook. According to the BBC, I'm not alone.

The full set up looks a bit like this.