Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Looking for Advocate fountain pens...and seeing Sheaffer and Lamy too

Hi world…

Yess…I went pen hunting yesterday…but did not go where I thought I should go…Hari had put up some great photographs of Advocate fountain pens on FPN and I was tempted…I already had a black ebonite Advocate FP…actually, my first FP after this FP bug bit me…I bought it the moment I saw it…this was at the Secunderabad branch of Deccan Pen Stores…In fact, Deccan Pen Stores are the manufacturers of Advocate Pens…I must say that this is one of the best pens in terms of utility…as Hari says 100% utility value…the amazing fact is you can keep it away for a week and pick it up and start writing right away…no pen shaking…no ink drying…just how an FP should be… and not to say, it holds so much ink that it is like one of those early Hero Honda ads…fill it…shut it…forget it… so…yeah…the photos put up by Hari tempted me to check out if the Sec’bad branch of Deccan Pen Stores had the other Advocates…I had called them earlier to avoid being disappointed and also to avoid the risk of buying some pen which I don’t want just to keep the disappointment away temporarily…they said they had them and I went there yesterday evening and they had two Advocates…the black ebonite body with steel cap and mottled brown ebonite body with steel cap…I bought the mottled brown ebonite one with steel cap…and another FP which they said is manufactured by them as well…which has a black ebonite body, but the surface is slightly different…not shiny like ebonite…has a slip cap I think…(I am slowly learning the FP jargon!!)… not an Eye Dropper like the other Advocate pens…but a cartridge-wala FP ( I will post the photos of all the Advocate pens I have very soon!!)…I kept these two aside and generally chewed the air for some time with the person there… I forgot to ask his name…very genial and helpful…tempted me with many more pens…a good looking old fashioned Sheaffer FP with the trademark white dot on the clip, which he said the company had stopped manufacturing…a funny looking Lamy FP…and a Pilot FP, which I thought was too expensive for its looks…I was tempted by the Sheaffer…but I had to keep a watch on the wallet…and stored it away in my ‘wish list’… and so I came away with two FPs yesterday…I have started using the ‘other’ pen and it writes beautifully… something else came in the mail yesterday… but will write about that tomorrow…hopefully…

Till then…take care…

Jayasrinivasa Rao

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Great to read of the FPs you bought. I too am out hunting for a good FP, ideally with a calligraphic nib, and have scouted all the possible places in Sec'bad. Am not too lucky yet. That is why the attempt to take Google's help, and saw this post by you. Hope you are enjoying the new acquisitions !! Regards, Shirin.