Montblanc Ladies Edition Pearl Pink Marilyn Monroe

Montblanc has been on a streak of releasing reds and browns and blues and more and more colors all at once. It's a little overwhelming because I can't get them all at once! Alas, I was excited about this one because I love pink.

Together with new Fine Stationery, Montblanc introduces the Ladies Edition ink bottle 50 ml. The Pearl Edition is one of two Ladies Editions with three pearl necklaces and a white inside cover. The Pearl Edition is inspired by the design and colour of Marilyn Monroe animation. - Montblanc

Grief. What an awful description. Thanks for taking the time to write up something nice, Montblanc. I was expecting a fluorescent or vibrant pink type pink but I actually love this sweet bubblegum pink. The clear bottle highlights the soft pink ink color. The fluting on the bottle is all glittery and cute, which will appeal to everyone, I'm sure. Very elegant, classy presentation that suits the ink name and theme well although it is not special aside from the theme.

This bottle does not actually belong to me, unfortunately. As I write this post, I am regretting not having my own. I took just a little bit from a friend when it first was released and I love this shade of pink, so I'm not sure why I don't have a bottle of my own. It's around $35-45USD, depending where you buy it. Not a terrible price, especially compared to their newer Elixir line up. Compared to non-Montblanc inks, it is much more expensive.

I don't have any other pinks that are similar to this one - most are much more saturated, not the right shade of pink (uhhh, aside from PW Akkerman x Gourmet Pens Pink, obviously), or so heavy on sheen that it's hard to see the base color. I like Pearl Pink because it shades really nicely. It reminds me of the soft baby pink that some pearls are. It is legible in finer nibs but it never really gets dark, even if application is quite wet. It's super easy to clean and washes out with just a few flushes, one of the perks of inks that aren't super saturated! Flows well, dries pretty quickly, overall it is well-behaved and did not give me any issues. I did not find it watery or too wet, if such a thing were possible.

Since it is such a light color and it is not archival, I did find it fades pretty easily - a discovery I made when I left a writing sample out for a few months. It did not fade in the closed notebooks. None of this is surprising, I guess I just noticed it more because of the lightness.

In comparison to Montblanc's original Pink, it's much lighter, less saturated, no sheen. The newest Montblanc pink is Pop Pink so I guess that will be a post for another day. This one came out first and I had access to this one first. I have a little bit of Pink left, thank you to a generous friend (hi Gerald!) for gifting me their bottle.

Obviously the real issue, aside from not having any left, is that I don't have the perfect pink pen to match it to, so I guess that's my next project.

Conway Stewart Model 100 Fountain Pen

Thank you to The Pen Family for loaning me these Conway Stewart Model 100 fountain pens so I could share them with you! I love love love the colors and the gold-plated steel nib writes really well. They're really comfy and I'm quite pleased with them. Alas, they will go on to the next reviewer. Enjoy!

Pelikan Souverän M1000 Raden Fountain Pens

Years ago when I lived in The Netherlands, I would regularly visit P.W. Akkerman in The Hague, in the historical Passage. It's a beautiful place and the store itself is truly to-die-for! I loved going there and it's one of the things I loved the most and miss the most about living there. In a time (two times, actually) of obviously questionable financial decisions, I ended up with two Pelikan Souverän M1000 Raden fountain pens - the Sunlight and the Sunrise. I didn't need either. The M1000 is a large pen and I already had one anyway, and it's such a big pen in my hand that I don't use them for long writing sessions. I don't post them, but I still find them comfortable enough for a little while. And they have killer nibs that are irresistible, so for that alone, having an M1000 is worth it. I have an old-style BB, a BBB, and an O3B.

The Sunlight has a black base with thin blue-purple-green abalone strips and the Sunrise has a crimson red base with wider green-pink strips. They show fingerprints pretty easily because they're so glossy, so they do require regular wiping with a soft cloth. I'm okay with that. I don't really carry these pens around too often. Since they wear such broad, special nibs, they are reserved for all my fun writing - hand lettering, quotes, testing inks, and other super fun pizzazzy writing. As I said, the M1000 is a large pen so I don't post them and I don't use them for lots and lots of writing - I wouldn't write a super long letter to a pen pal, but I do manage well enough. The writing experience of the M1000 nib is totally different to the rest of the Souveräns so it's worth the extra effort to me.

In case you were wondering, the M1000 nibs are not flexible nibs. They are large, soft, nibs that can be sprung easily, so don't expect them to be flexible and bounce back. They're not meant for that. A very light touch is all you should need and if it's over polished and hard starting, hand it over to a nibmeister to fix up for you.

They are not inexpensive pens. Shall I tell you a disturbing story? I once dropped the Sunrise piston-down on a concrete floor. It was horrific. I was so lucky that the only damage was to the piston turning knob which got dinged up. The rest of the pen was miraculously unscathed. The piston was then swapped out by a friend for their M1000 piston so that mine would be undamaged.

My Sunrise has now gone on to live with a good friend but I still have the Sunlight, the original one I purchased. I like that the Sunrise lives close to me so I can still see if I feel the need. Guess who it went to live with? The same person who swapped out the piston for me from their pen! Realistically, I was able to convince myself I didn't need two of them.

Pelikan has now released the new version of the M1000 Raden series - the Green Ray. It's really pretty with its black base and wide, green strips. Tempting...but I shall keep my cool and stick to fantasizing about it.

Raden is a traditional Japanese decorative craft. Working with small pieces of precious shell material, the master artist creates a unique and distinctive striped fountain pen which is an impressive piece of art. Our latest limited edition Souverän® M1000 Raden enchants through the fascinating wide green colored mother of pearl stripes on the surface. The stripes on the fountain pen glisten and shimmer in the sunlight, that creates a fascinating interplay of colors in green, blue and purple hues. 

The first step to create the fountain pen is to give the surface a deep black impression by using the special Japanese Urushi lacquer. Then the traditional stripes are made with particles from Australian abalone. In the next step the mother of pearl of stripes are fixed to the cap and barrel by coating of lacquer. Finally, the artist individually signs and numbers each fountain pen with the Maki-e technique. 

Each individually produced piece is crafted by hand and truly unique. The Souverän® M1000 Green Ray will be available as from March 2020 in a limited edition of 400 pieces worldwide.

Image from Pelikan

Oddly Satisfying Writing with a Vintage Music Nib Fountain Pen

Two vintage fountain pens with music nibs: a Waterman 94 and a Waterman 42.
I used two inks: PW Akkerman Royal Akkerman Blauw and Montblanc Oyster Grey.
Notebook - I can't remember but I suspect a Rhodia pad.

Just some fun scribbles to test inks, play with paper, make a mess.

Diamine German Exclusive Sheening Inks

In addition to their massive range of inks, Diamine also collaborates with stores all over the world to create exclusive colors. Five of these exclusives were made for the German market and I was lucky to get bottles from Papier & Stift - so a big thank you to Anja for sending these to me! Otherwise they're a bit tricky to get your hands on! Each 80ml bottle is about €9.00 each, which is pretty reasonable.

• Diamine November Rain - this one is a deep forest green, very saturated, with a dark red sheen. 
• Diamine Smoke on the Water - A wild dark teal with a blazing red sheen.
• Diamine Purple Rain - A dark purple-black with a golden sheen.
• Diamine Calligraphy Passion - the odd one in the bunch - this one shows off its yellow green to light green shading best instead of sheen.
• Diamine Skull & Roses - a gorgeous dark blue with that intense red sheen.

These inks look wild on the page. They sheen so easily that you don't even have to go hunting for the perfect combination of nib and paper to see it. It just glows on the page. With finer, wet writers, the base color is harder to see and you mostly get sheen. With wider nibs like stubs, you can more clearly see the base color as well as the sheen. Calligraphy passion looks great in wide stub nibs, like when you're practicing broad edge scripts. Delicious. 

Aside from Calligraphy Passion, the other four inks are super heavily saturated. You can expect sheen on the mouth of your bottles and in the threads of the lid. I would recommend wiping all the threads down with a wet paper towel before you close the bottle. Otherwise, if the sheen builds up, it can prevent the bottle from sealing and you can get leakage. Trust me, you do not want these inks to leak. If they splatter on your sink, they take a heck of a lot of work to clean up properly. Drying times are long and if you have a super wet ink application, you still might get smudging in the saturated sheening spots. They're a lot of work. They're also really spectacular and make handwriting and lettering pop off the page. 

To maintain your sanity, do not let these dry out in your pens, especially if you are brave and put them in a pen that is harder to clean. Flush, flush, flush. These inks do really well in Pilot Parallel calligraphy pens and they're super easy to clean so they're a match made in heaven in my books.

Montblanc Great Characters Walt Disney Fountain Pen

Thanks to Appelboom for loaning me this Montblanc Great Characters Walt Disney Fountain Pen. Get yours at Appelboom! If you use the discount code 'friend', you will receive 10% off your purchase but Montblanc excludes their products. Useless to share it on a Montblanc post maybe, but perhaps you'll see something else you like.

Montblanc Elixir Calligraphy Inks - Black & Yellow Gold

Montblanc is always launching new stuff - pens, notebooks, accessories, inks, all that stuff. They've really been pumping out the inks lately and it's hard to keep up. One of the coolest things they've done as of late, in my humble opinion, is the Calligraphy line up. I've done a video of the Meisterstück 149 Calligraphy Flex pen before and I show the inks but at the time, the focus was really on the pens.

To complement the Meisterstück Calligraphy Collection, two permanent inks, inspired by the old India ink, one of the oldest and most durable pigments, have been created. Permanent ink contains more solids than other inks, which build up inside the fountain pen over time. The water in the ink, which causes it to flow, evaporates, leaving behind soot and sediment that line the capillary grooves of the ink regulator and the fine capillaries of the piston filling mechanism. For this reason, it is important to clean the fountain pen with lukewarm water after every use of permanent ink to keep it in perfect condition. - Montblanc

Both inks have an awesome matte finish. The black is a really solid black color for those that love a pure black for their writing. Shading is virtually non existent and it offers some solid coverage. The yellow gold is a very pretty color, showing some shading and still holding that matte effect. Both inks have the kind of flow you would expect of a "sootier" ink - they're a little slower to flow so I was not expecting either ink to gush from my pens. I ended up putting it in a higher end piston-filler (see below - the actual Montblanc Calligraphy flex pen!) and it was not as difficult to clean out as I expected. I was just sure to use the pen daily and not let the ink dry out. As soon as it ran dry, I flushed it out - no leaving it in that to-clean pile for days. Or weeks. I wasn't worried about putting it in pens I could disassemble to clean. Sometimes the simple systems are best! Yay eyedroppers!

I like the appearance of the boxes and bottles. Super clean and classy. Stack and store easily in drawers and on shelves. They're not flashy. The bottles are easy to fill from because they have nice open mouths and deep bodies.

They are pricy as heck. You're looking at around $60USD per bottle. They are certainly unusual and unique, and offer a completely different writing experience and effect. They do take some extra care and attention. I appreciate having the opportunity to give them a shot - thank you to Appelboom for providing these bottles to me. You can browse the Montblanc inks at Appelboom here!

Oddly Satisfying Handwriting Sailor King Eagle Fountain Pen

Sometimes it's just fun to use your fun nibs for, well, fun! The goodies I use are listed below. Some of them are hard to find, in case you're looking. Hope it tickles your fancy!

Fountain Pen: Classic Pens LB5
Nib: Sailor King Eagle
Inks: Caran d'Ache Caribbean Sea, Robert Oster Green Olive Ink, Robert Oster Peppermint

Music: BenSound