The best pens for you

Pens carry an interesting history, it was originally invented in Ancient China for jade carving as the ink from the pens were used to clean the jade. They are all known as the ink fountain pens which probably doesn’t have the best connection with fountain pens at all, but they do look cool.

From then on, as the writing instruments got more refined, the need for a more modern pen came into question, it was much more convenient to simply pop out the ink rather than refill and the first cross fountain pen was produced in the late 19th century. The four top point nibs, for the rest of the series you will need to look at the back of the box to work out which nib you need.

Most of the popular models today use ballpoint or gel ink and the thin slender nibs are difficult to pull off accurately, this is especially true if you intend on doing any nice lettering work with them.

Your next pen?

A Montblanc pen set and a refill to take with them would be a fine gift for any person who spends a lot of time writing letters, letters from business people who work late into the night to go home to bed would be perfect.

Pen sets are usually very expensive with each pen getting its own special blend of ink, a fountain pen set with each model of pen being as expensive as a proper set of fountain pens with their special blend of ink. If you wanted to go one step further, you could create your own set of fountain pens and even customise them with inks that suit your own writing style, it is also worth keeping an eye out for deals where you can buy individual refills with a unique personalised ink of your choice.

Parker fountain pens are also very popular amongst enthusiasts of the craft, Parker’s has a similar range of nibs and writes in a finer but still very smooth and durable kind of ink.

Versilitatilty like no other

An Artist’s Pwakkerman Lamy safari fountain pens will probably give you the closest definition of the ink that is on the page or card you are working on and is the most expensive of the three, once you’ve dipped in the nib to write on a piece of paper, the top of the Pwakkerman Lamy safari fountain pens stays warm and does not go back to a normal state, it is to give you the highest quality mark possible and Parker have recently developed a range of Artist’s Mark pens which incorporate a knurled knob which becomes engaged on the point of the pen when you write.

There are several other good options out there as well, Montblanc are probably the most popular brand but have a huge range of quality pen sets available, as do Pilot who now include a wide range of nibs and inks in their fountain pen kits and there are also some nice alternatives from Lamy and Kershaw. A lot of artists like to design their own ink bottles and fillers, you can get a set of inks together with a set of refills for a very reasonable cost, there are also a whole range of colours in the refills that you can colour with your own unique colouring pens.