Review: Sheaffer calligraphy pens

Sheaffer calligraphy pen

I confess to owning several of these now. I vastly prefer my handwriting using a calligraphy pen - perhaps because I write more slowly; perhaps because the broad edge just makes my writing better - and possibly at least a third and closer to half of my pens are calligraphy ones. Of those, 5 are Sheaffer (NONE are Lamy Joyless - the one I had (and hated; see here) got sent away to someone else!).

So why do I keep coming back to them?

Well, I can't deny it, they're cheap! They are fairly easy to find online with a price tag of between £4 and £10. I also bought converters to use mine with bottled ink. They are perhaps less easy to get, but Cult Pens for one sells them (no affiliation).

The Sheaffers also have pretty decent nibs, considering the price tag! I've never had one that skipped or dried out. They write more smoothly than some of my Parker italics (which can gouge into the paper sometimes) and there is always good shading with the inks.

They're never going to win any beauty prizes though.

The pens come in three nib sizes and the barrel of the pen are colour-coded: red for fine (1.0mm), yellow for medium (1.3mm) and orange for broad (1.8mm). It used to be that the barrel was black and there was a colour-coded sticker on the end that said what nib was in the pen. They are now 'new, improved' versions and the whole of the barrel changes colour (and the colours are not the same as the old coding...). Thankfully, the nib size I like to write with is 'fine' and that's the red one. I'm not sure I would want either the yellow or the orange.

There is a 'viewing window' in the barrel so you can see how much ink is left. This is essentially a hole in the barrel and it does have quite harsh edges which can dig in. I just either tighten or unscrew the barrel slightly so that the holes are rotated away from my hand.

At the writing end, there is a rubberised grip which I find very comfortable. I'm not a fan of pens with a ridge just before the nib and even less of a fan of a moulded grip! All of my favourite pens are just round at the grip, with no ridge.
The rubberised grip can slide up and down a bit, but is easy to slide back if it moves when you're changing ink/cartridge etc. When the pen is assembled, the grip doesn't move at all; it's only when you're changing ink to be honest.

I don't know what the 'improvements' are, other than making them look worse by changing the black barrel for red, yellow and orange. The nibs feel the same to me.

The packs I bought were also supposed to contain two cartridges - one black and one blue, but when they arrived, one pack was missing the black cartridge. I don't mind at all as I don't use the cartridges! I contacted the seller and they have promised to pop a 'goodie' in for me as compensation, next time I order from them. (I did tell them that I wasn't bothered by the lack of the cartridge - I was only telling them so that they could check their other stock and contact their supplier if there were more occurrences).

No black cartridge

Both cartridges present and correct

Anyway, the main reason that I bought another two pens was because I have also succumbed to the J Herbin 1670 sparkly inks (post still to come on them!) and wanted to have a couple of cheap pens that I liked as dedicated 'sparkly ink' pens in case the gold/silver dust in the pens jammed anything up. The Sheaffers are perfect for this as they show the shading well and have a good ink flow. And if the sparkles clog them up, it won't break the bank to replace them!

Do others have a favourite brand they return to again and again? And does anyone else have 'dedicated pens' like this (whether dedicated to sparkly inks or anything else)?

Review of Lamy Joy Calligraphy Fountain Pen

I have had a disappointing experience with Lamy before (see here) but I decided I would give the brand another go and get myself one of their calligraphy pens in the hope that I would get on okay with it and that it would fit in the pen loop of the leather covers (see here for my review of them).

Fail.

Fail.

I neither got on with it nor did it fit in the pen loop.

Am I the only person in the universe who hates Lamy pens? They seem to get rave reviews everywhere and people saying they would have a zillion of them, yet I find them designed for a hand that does not match mine.

The Lamy “Joy” (it was no joy for me...) Calligraphy came in a somewhat oversized box, with a blue cartridge. I also ordered the converter that allows you to use bottled ink as I have a lot of lovely ink and a dislike of most blue cartridge ink. Duly excited by a new pen, I loaded it up with some Poussière de Lune by J Herbin and had a go.

Pen and over-sized box

It was horrible. The moulded area near the nib was too far back for where I want to hold the pen and it dug uncomfortably into my fingertips. The weight was okay and the flow to the nib was good, but, the grip... I tried valiantly, writing a couple of sides of A4 with it and then gave up with sore fingers and scrappy-looking writing.

Anyway, for fullness of review, I’ll describe the pen. I ordered the black version, with an aluminium lid. The barrel has a ‘squared’ design, with two of the sides flat and the other two curved and the barrel tapers from tip to nib-holder. There is a firm screw connection between the nib-holder part and the rest of the barrel. There is an ink-viewer window in the barrel. The nib-holder is moulded and it was the end nearest the nib that did for me as the moulding is quite chunky and with quite sharp edges. I ordered the 1.1mm nib. The pictures below are taken from the Bureau Direct site to try and show the moulding.

Here is a comparison of my writing with a variety of nibs (both calligraphy/italic and normal). I vastly prefer my writing with an italic/calligraphy nib but given the choice between uncomfortable italic/calligraphy or comfortable non-italic/non-calligraphy, I would go for comfortable every time.

Overall:
No stars as I can’t use it. Maybe one star for the look of it, but that’s being generous.

Review of Sheaffer Calligraphy, fine nib

A while ago, I reviewed the Sheaffer Calligraphy pen with a medium (1.5 mm) nib. In that post I said that I would consider getting a fine nib for everyday writing (as the medium nib was too broad for my smallish handwriting).

Well, not long afterwards, I went ahead and bought one. They are fairly widely available, but I got mine for just under a fiver from Amazon, including P+P.

It comes in a card-backed blister pack and the pack contains the pen and two Sheaffer cartridges (which are different from both international standard and Parker cartridges) – one black and one blue. However, once I had opened the pack, I moved the cartridge I had in the medium-nibbed Sheaffer calligraphy pen (which had been filled with Diamine steel blue ink) and cleaned the medium nib (it is really too big for everyday writing. I will ressurect it if/when I start doing calligraphy again).

Blister pack

Unpacked. Top (L-R): black cartridge, blue cartridge, nib, cap
Bottom: barrel (showing cut-away)

The pen is lovely. Like the medium-nibbed version, it has a rubberised grip and is extremely light in the hand. There is a cut-away so that you can see how little/much ink is left in the cartridge. The nib is 0.8 mm wide which is a perfect width for my (admittedly quite small) writing. Here you can see a comparison of the medium nib and the fine nib:

Top: medium-nib (1.5 mm)
Bottom: fine nib (0.8 mm)

There's no denying it is a basic pen – plastic barrel and no presentation box (though sometimes, the presentation box is so not worth it! Yes, Ohto Tasche, I'm looking at you), but the nib lays down enough ink even with my fairly rapid writing (unlike the medium-nibbed version) and it is smooth and comfortable to write with. For less than a fiver, it is a great little pen!

[I have no affiliation to Amazon]

Review of Sheaffer Calligraphy pen and Diamine Steel Blue ink

Ah... Stationery, stationery. Second only to running as a passion for me. And since I have been ill and unable to run for what feels like forever (but in reality is about 2 weeks), stationery has been the #1 recently.

As you'll all know, I have put in a lot of few orders recently and I am way, way behind on reviews. Anyway, today it is the turn of a Sheaffer Calligraphy fountain pen filled with what is rapidly becoming a huge favourite – Diamine's steel blue ink.

I think that I bought the Sheaffer from Amazon when I decided I wanted to learn how to write calligraphy (a while ago now!). As I recall, it wasn't at all expensive (and a quick check online has shown me that you can get them from between £4 and £8 roughly). I (sadly) have barely found the time to practise calligraphy, but the pen seems beautiful for the task (at least as far as my hand is concerned). My problem is that I get a bit too impatient, and start writing at my normal speed (which is not at all what is involved in calligraphy!) and then the nib skips. You certainly have to write fairly slowly and carefully with this nib.
The Diamine Steel Blue ink came from The Journal Shop in the last stationery haul.

The Sheaffer Calligraphy Pen (M nib - 1.3mm):
This has a plastic barrel and cap, with a rubberised grip which is extremely comfortable to hold. The barrel has a cut-out so that you can see how much (or little) ink there is remaining in the cartridge. Sheaffer have their own style of cartridge. That said, I usually refill most cartridges from bottled ink using a syringe and needle, so the fact the cartridges are different is no major issue. [If I didn't refill cartridges, then the fact that this pen differs from most of my others would probably bug me enough to buy a piston converter.]
The cap attaches with a very satisfying and firm click. As you might expect, the 1.3mm nib lays down a significant amount of ink, so this couldn't be used on flimsy papers (but why would you be doing calligraphy on flimsy papers?). The balance of weight in the pen (unposted) is perfect for me. With the cap posted the weight is too far back in my hand. Unposted and about half-full of ink, the pen weighs 10g (14g with the cap posted).

Pen capped

Pen uncapped. The blue next to the nib indicates that it is the M nib

I had to write slowly and carefully with this pen, otherwise the line broke up and there were missing parts to the letter. If I was using it for calligraphy, this wouldn't be a problem as I would be writing slowly and carefully! For an everyday pen this would drive me insane. That, along with the fact that my writing is twice its normal size as a consequence of the breadth of the nib.
However, fishing this pen out to fill and review has made me want to find the time to practise calligraphy more, it's so lovely to write with. I couldn't use it for everyday writing but I would happily consider trying a fine nibbed one for that as the pen is so light and comfortable to hold (I vastly prefer my handwriting when using an italic/calligraphy nib!).

The Diamine Steel Blue ink:
The ink is shown in a variety of hues on different websites, with some showing it as more blue and others more green. It's certainly a tricky beast to describe and photograph! I would call the colour  turquoise, but a dense, darkish shade, to my eyes fairly evenly balanced between blue and green. It was a nightmare to photograph.  Below are a selection of pictures to try and show the colour of the ink and the shading seen with the calligraphy nib. It is an absolutely gorgeous colour and has almost instantly become the ink of choice for me. The paper written on is standard printer paper, 80gsm. I have used the ink (in a different pen) in a Clairefontaine Age Bag A4 notebook and it is the same colour and shading.

[All of the pictures are showing as more blue than the original ink; the last picture is possibly the closest]


Overall – the calligraphy pen is great for calligraphy but would not suit me for everyday writing (but then, it's just doing what it says on the tin!). The Diamine steel blue ink is drop dead gorgeous. Treat yourself.

New dividers...

…but not for the Aston, despite all the charming, pretty card I have.

Why???

Because I am approaching planner fail and because this post on Philofaxy inspired me to be more creative with making dividers for the Holborn, ready for when I well and truly hit planner-fail and move back to the personal size.

I may post soon on why, exactly, despite loving my little pocket Aston, I am reaching planner-fail with her, but today I wanted to do a quick post to show you my new dividers for the Holborn.

Many of you have seen/commented on the calligraphy in my filofaxes before and I too love the crisp lines and beautiful blend of simplicity and complexity – they look simple on one level, but the more you look, the more you see how complicated and intricate they are. A bit like people sometimes... Most times.

My set-up is fine – that isn’t why I am reaching failure with the pocket – and so I have recreated the same set-up but on cream card, which I think looks divine with the brown leather. In fact, the crispness of the designs with the dark brown leather are a small slice of ecstasy for me when I open the binder!

I decided to try and be a bit more clever with the dividers this time. I read this post on Tommes-S blog where he had put a mirror-image of the picture he was using on his dividers on the reverse side – quite rightly pointing out that when you open the filofax at the divider, you see the reverse side and not the front! I also wanted to print the labels on the tabs, rather than hand-write them in afterwards.

I am rubbish at being able to draft things out accurately enough to be able to print onto card first and cut later but thankfully my little printer will take filofax-sized paper/card without bother, so my first step was to cut two sheets of lightweight cream card into three pieces, each 10.5cm x 17.1 cm.

Next was to do the arty bit in a word document, sized to 10.5cm x 17.1cm. For each divider, I chose one of my calligraphy pictures (gathered from various corners of the web) and chose the picture settings to be centred both vertically and horizontally. I then re-sized each picture until it was a decent size.

For the labels, I made text-boxes, fixed their size as 3.4cm (I always use 5 dividers and 17cm/5 is 3.4cm), rotated the text and then positioned them on the far right-hand edge. Getting them in exactly the right spot was tricky (and I haven’t for some) as I was having to use a ruler against my laptop screen since I have not mastered the skills of text-box placement the ‘correct’ way, using the placement settings! Nonetheless, I can cope with them. The text isn’t perfectly centred now that I have cut the tabs, but they will work!

Then came the sneaky bit of having the same design on the reverse side. I flipped the text again and then moved the text-box over to the far left-hand edge and reprinted the card. If I moved the text-box by only using the left-arrow on the laptop, then they were at exactly the same height as on the original side. I needed to nudge a couple of the images to the side as now bits of the design were over-lapping with the label (the elephant trunk etc.) but otherwise, the images are in the same places and just the labels have swapped sides and orientation.

So, here they are… (before I trimmed them up).

Fronts…

Fronts of the dividers

And reverse…

Reverse side

I then measured where the tabs should be and trimmed them up by hand. I also shaved another 1.5 mm off the width of the tab, just because the text had ended up a little far away from the edge and it looked better.

Finally, I put some squares of clear, sticky-backed plastic over the tabs to protect and strengthen them and popped them in the Holborn:

Ta da!!!

What do people think?

Fountain pens and italic nibs

Those of you who know me, will know that I like to write in fountain pen. I don’t know if it’s because I slow down and focus on my writing more when I write with one or whether other writing implements like biros just do horrible things with my writing, but in fountain pen, my handwriting usually looks relatively nice and with biros it doesn’t. Of course, the exceptions make the rule – I have one Parker fountain pen that can make my writing look like a spider has scrabbled across the page after taking a dip in my ink bottle and a few biros can make my writing look okay.

My favourite pen (for years – I shudder to think how old this pen is now, since I had it in school!) is an Osmiroid. I think it was bought as a pen for left-handers and it has a gold nib. I’m not left-handed, but I do put more pressure on the left-hand side of a nib than the right, from the way that I hold my pen. Anyway, for whatever reason, I adore this Osmiroid.

Over the summer, I also became interested in calligraphy (after a wonderful trip to Iona) and bought myself a Sheaffer Calligraphy pen. I’m not very good at calligraphy (I don’t have enough time to practise) but I do like the look of my ‘normal’ writing in it. However, the nib is far too broad for everyday use and so I wondered about getting an italic nibbed fountain pen. I mentioned it to my Dad at the weekend and he had a boxed set of a Parker fountain pen with a broad italic nib and a standard italic nib (and a non-italic nib) which he gave me along with a huge box of cartridges! (Thanks Dad!)

Well, here is my compare and contrast. The standard width italic nib is fitted to the Parker.

The different nibs and what they do to my writing

As you can see, I have several Parker pens (mostly gifts from people who know I like writing with a fountain pen!). Apart from the one fitted with an italic nib, they all have the same “Medium” nib (allegedly), yet my handwriting is very different with them.

The first of the ‘other’ pens is the one I like the least. It’s a Parker Vector (I think) and my writing is always terrible with it.

The second looks like an identical pen (different barrel colour) – Parker Vector – and again has the same nib (and same ink) and yet looks like a broader stroke and is much nicer to write with.

The last is also a Parker, but I don’t know what kind. A Sonnet I assume (since I do have a Sonnet box, so that would be a decent clue!). This is lovely to write with – it has a rubberised grip area and is chunkier in the hand and is very comfortable to write with. If I was a little happier about changing nibs, I would swap the italic nib into this pen. Maybe DH can help. The other bonus of moving the italic nib to this pen is that it wouldn’t look identical (until uncapped) to the pen I really don’t like!

The gallery!

Left to right:

Sheaffer calligraphy, Osmiroid, Parker with italic nib, Parker that makes my writing look terrible, Parker that’s not too bad, Parker Sonnet which is lovely.

Things I don’t like about fountain pens:

Much as I love writing with a fountain pen, there are three things that can really annoy me.

1. That when you come to use them after a few days away, the darn thing has dried up and it takes ages to rehydrate (Yes, I’m talking about you, Mr Sheaffer Calligraphy).

2. That after being neglected for a week or so, all the ink disappears without trace. You know you left them at least half full and yet when you return to them, they are empty (Yes – you again, Mr Sheaffer Calligraphy. You are by far the worst for this! See final letter of your sample writing for proof!).

3. You start writing with them and they cover your fingers in ink. I’ve found that usually it isn’t really coming from the pen, it’s coming from ink that is in the lid that has then been transferred to the barrel. Application of cotton-buds to clean the cap out (and avoiding dropping the pens) works well, but I usually only remember to do that after I have been covered in ink.