Reynolds Ministere...an unexpectedly good looking FP...and a good writer too...

I didn’t know the existence of this Reynolds fountain pen, though Reynolds is well-known in India for their ball-pens. It is also ironic because quite a few traditional fountain pen makers in India attribute the shutting down of their units to the soaring popularity of Reynolds ball-pens. I remember seeing a Reynolds fountain pen-ball pen set long back in a stationery shop here, but the FP did not impress me much (I later found out that it was called Reynolds Accent). A couple of years back, Reynolds (India) opened their showroom in Hyderabad in Prasad’s Multiplex. I had gone there to watch a film and I had some time to spare and decided to go in and see what they stocked. I saw this very good looking fountain pen available in 2 colours, marbled green and marbled blue. The price was not too high, so I decided to buy the green one. They said that this FP was an imported piece!! That settled the matter (ha ha ha…)…No model name was written on it anywhere. I came back and tried their website to get the name of the pen…no luck. The Indian Reynolds site doesn’t list this pen at all…the French Reynolds site was under construction (and still is)…Anyway…I started using this pen and I was very pleased with its performance… It looked good in my shirt pocket, especially if you are wearing a light coloured shirt…the gold plated clip and bands gleam with glee!!! This FP is not available in other pen stores; you have to buy it from their showroom, which is called ‘Write Site’… and the Reynolds India site lists the locations in India… and I visited the Hyderabad Write Site recently to buy a similar pen for my friend on his birthday…I bought the brown one for him… he is mighty pleased…and it was after a couple of days later that I happened to read the payment receipt and noticed that this pen was listed as ‘Reynolds Ministere’… I again tried to cross verify on the web… no reference anywhere to this model name… I don’t know if this is the model name of this fountain pen…but, it writes well…and looks good…

And since Prasad’s is a place that we visit on and off, I was there a month back and ‘sneaked’ in to Write Site and bought the marbled brownish coloured FP…I was looking for the marbled blue, but it was not in stock…it is really stunning...

Jayasrinivasa Rao

Camlin Trinity Fountain Pen-a handsome pen

I had written in one of my earlier posts that I had visited this town called Malappuram in Kerala …and the most pleasant surprise was finding a Camlin Trinity fountain pen on the first day of my visit itself…

Camlin is a long-standing pen and ink and other stationery manufacturing company in India and makes inexpensive fountain pens…and for most of us the first fountain pen that we got to use was usually Camlin…and many of us also have lots of memories of our first Camlin FPs…

I had seen a photo of Trinity pen in the Camlin website and from among the fountain pens featured in the website, this was the most good looking and the most expensive (Rs.70/-; around 1½ dollars) (of course, I didn’t know that Camlin had already brought out their signature pen called ‘SD’ in honour of their founder Sharad Dandekar which costs Rs.600). I couldn’t find this pen in the big pen stores that I usually visit in Hyderabad, and therefore it was a nice surprise to see this pen in Malappuram. It must have been a left-over pen or a never-bought pen because of its price considering the size of the town. Anyway, I bought this pen and the pen looked really good for its price. And the cardboard box in which it was housed said, ‘FIRST TIME IN INDIA: 3-IN-1 INK FILLING MECHANISM.’ Ink can be filled through a convertor (comes along with the pen), or a cartridge can be used or the pen can also be used as an eye . This could be the reason why it is called ‘Trinity.’

Looks-wise and considering its cost, the Trinity looks really good with a brushed steel cap and a black plastic body. Cost-wise, I would grab the pen just as I did as soon as I saw it. The most interesting part is the clip, which is gold coloured and not very wide. The clip originates from the centre of the upwardly tapering cap and kind of flows down till just above the company and model name engraved at the cap lip…like a tuft of hair flowing down from the top of a shaven head…the name Camlin and TRINITY are engraved at the cap lip.

Once the pen is uncapped, you see gold coloured trimmings at the neck of the section…and a gold coloured nib…the nib doesn’t have a hole (kind of an 'eyeless' nib...I got this tip from a fellow FP enthusiast on FPN) , though there is a faint circular indentation at the end of the slit on the nib…the nib itself is smallish and is curved on both sides half embracing the feeder…only half of the feeder can be seen and it has got horizontal fins running around the feeder (this kind of feeder has a technical name, I am sure). A gold coloured ring forms the border between the section and the barrel…this ring is not fixed, and therefore comes loose whenever the barrel is opened. The pen has a snap cap. It is 5 ½ inches capped; close to 6 inches posted; and close to 4 ½ inches uncapped.

I filled the convertor with Sheaffer Skrip Black ink. The nib is tipped ‘fine’ and lays down a fine wet line while writing with a hint of writing whisper. The nib is not ‘butter’ smooth, but is not scratchy either. The flow is smooth and looks like the feeder is functioning well. I wouldn’t take back points for lack of ‘butter’ smoothness. It is a really good, inexpensive and handsome pen for everyday use...

My dazzling Jinhao FP

I never thought I’d own a Jinhao FP one day…I had read about and seen pictures of Jinhao FPs here on FPN and was wondering how on earth am I going to get one of these fab looking pens…I browsed around the net and saw that isellpens.com sold Jinhao FPs, but I was not sure about how I’d go about ordering them from India and whether the pen would reach safely…then this happened…a friend of mine, Anuradha, was posted to China…I have known her for the past 15 years… she had come home to Hyderabad for a brief holiday and was talking about her work in China and I asked her what had she got for me from China…she said she didn’t know what I wanted and if I specified what I wanted, she’d try and get it the next time she came to India…at that moment, I didn’t know what to ask for…I told her that I’d let her know…a couple of months after she’d left, I was again browsing the net and ogling at FPs…it suddenly struck me that I can ask Anu to get me a Jinhao FP…I immediately sent her a mail, thinking that Jinhao FPs would be available in all Chinese cities and it wouldn’t be difficult to buy one…there was no response for quite some time and I again asked her whether she’d been successful in bagging a Jinhao FP…she wrote back telling me that she had tried in her city and that the shops there didn’t know that such a thing called a Jinhao pen existed…that came as a surprise to me…I then scoured the net again and saw that Jinhao has a website…almost 90% of the information available there was in Chinese, but I found the address written in English and forwarded the URL and the address to Anu…she then sent both to her colleague working in that city and asked him to buy a pen for me…As I couldn’t specify what model I wanted, and Anu too didn’t know which model to buy, it was left to the discretion of her colleague to decide and buy what he thought would make me happy…Anu told me that her colleague called her up to find out which model he should buy and described some of them to her…and said that a particular model came in with a wooden box…Anu told him to buy the one with the wooden box…and that’s how I came to proudly own this Jinhao…after Anu returned to Hyderabad, I went to her house to collect the pen…and before this Anu had called me and told me that she’d come back and that she’d come home during the weekend and give me the pen… both Shruti and I had to go to our places of work on that Sunday for some reason and Anu couldn’t come to see us…it was not until another week that I finally could see this pen…and all the while I had this feeling that if I didn’t go soon and take possession of the pen, Anu would start using it…she said so to me, and also told me over the phone that the pen was so tempting that she had half a mind to keep it with her…I was scared…and I could breathe a sigh of relief only after I could hold the box in my hands…

Now about the pen…it is a beautiful pen, no doubt about it…it shines brightly…but I don’t know the name of the model…the website and the brochure that came along with it were of no help in identifying the name, because as usual, most of it was written in Chinese…I tried isellpens.com again…there were similar looking pens, but none like this one… the only thing I know for sure is that it has a 14 kt gold nib and it writes like a dream … I haven’t filled it with ink yet… and the pen looks so rich that I need to wear it with something suitably ostentatious, which I don’t have at the moment…and therefore, it stays in its velvet pouch in the box… the box is beautiful, with its Chinese inscriptions on the lid as well as the inside lid… there is also a scroll, which actually is like a mat, made of bamboo or wood flats linked with a thread…the inscriptions on the box lid, inside lid, and on the scroll are all in Chinese, I can’t make head or tail of what is written… there is an engraving of a Chinese lady on the lid and a Chinese man on the scroll…I don’t who they are…maybe the man is Confucius… the engraving on the clip and on the cap lip is again in Chinese… there are 2 characters on the cap lip, which might stand for ‘Jinhao’… and the clip has 4 characters… and they are engraved very clearly and look very good… the feeder looks plain without any striations…and the design engraved on the nib extends to its sides too… the nib too looks very good, not too broad… and the pen has a piston filling mechanism…

When I showed this pen to my colleagues, some of them told me that they are contemplating turning into pen thieves…

Sheaffer Imperial TD and other recent acquisitions

From left to right: Hero 329, Sheaffer Imperial TD, Hero 849, Sheaffer No Nonsense
From bottom to top: Hero 329, Sheaffer Imperial TD, Hero 849, Sheaffer No Nonsense
From left to right: Sheaffer No Nonsense, Hero 329, Sheaffer Imperial TD, Hero 849
Jinhao FP (beautiful...no?)

Hi folks…

Last weekend was eventful…Hari was in Hyderabad for the weekend on official duty…and finally after a lot of hits and misses, we finally met on Saturday in my house for dinner…and as usual our talk centred around fountain pens…I showed him my FP collection…he was fascinated by the recently acquired Jinhao (I will post just one photo now)…he had promised to buy some pens for me and true to his word, he got 4 fountain pens…the most cherished one among the 4 is the Sheaffer Imperial TD…a dream pen for me…though it is a pre-owned one (otherwise, I wouldn’t have got it for the price I paid!!!), it is good enough for an impatient starter like me, who wants to have all well known (and affordable) brands in his collection as soon as possible…the pen has a 14 KT gold nib…the famous inlaid nib…I have started using it and it writes well and looks good in my shirt pocket…the other pen that Hari bought for me is the Hero 849 FP integrated nib…the body is of beautiful blue lacquer and the nib looks extremely unusual…I just want to say that the same pen is being sold in Hyderabad and the price mentioned by the retailer was 125% more than what Hari paid for the same pen in Bangalore…that is the problem with monopoly…so much for pricing and fleecing…Hari also got me two more pens…the Sheaffer No Nonsense FP and Hero 329 FP…this No Nonsense is of an unusual colour…some kind of a thick pink colour and opaque, unlike the earlier transparent No Nonsense that Hari got for me during his last visit…the Hero 329 is an old favourite…I like the cap, and I already had one, which is damaged, so I said ‘yes’ when Hari made the offer…

So…it has been a good weekend…my FP collection has grown…and thanks a lot to Hari for thinking of me when he was buying FPs and taking the trouble to go all the way to buy FPs for me…

Chinese Chakkar - Pendemonium

Hero Fountain Pens - Nibs close up
Hero FPs - Capped
Wing Sung FPs - Nibs close up
Wing Sung FPs - Capped

Hi everybody...

This happened almost a month ago…

I never thought I'd add Chinese Fountain Pens to my collection...but it so happened that I was kind of on the verge of being duped by an FP dealer who quoted an exorbitant variable rate on an FP that I had longed to buy...I did not buy it, not because I couldn't, but I strongly felt that this person was trying to con me and didn’t want to succumb...I was proved right when a fellow FP enthusiast and friend confirmed my suspicions...but I was angry and irritated at this and the next day, like a angry lover on a rebound, I went looking for this shop which stored Chinese FPs...I had visited this shop earlier, almost 2 years back, to buy an FP...I was not into collecting FPs then...I just wanted a nice looking FP...I found this very good looking metal screw cap big nibbed Hero FP and bought it...but that shopwallah also showed me the entire range of Chinese FPs that he had...I was not interested then and did not buy any more...but now that I had started collecting, I thought, why not...and went to this shop...the ownership of the shop had changed hands and another person was in charge...but they still had those Chinese FPs, not the entire range though...and I splurged...kind of retail therapy... (I added a couple of pens to that initial range...Hero 616 and Wing Sung 727 – double pen, purchased with Hari)... some of the Wing Sung FPs are really beautiful... I have dip tested all of them...and currently using 3 alternatively...all pens write well...at least that part is taken care of... here are the photos...and the names of these pens are...first Wing Sung-s...WS 727 double pen (the one in the centre); Wing Sung 608 Blue and Wing Sung 608 Brown (on either sides of the 727); Wing Sung 606 Brown and Wing Sung 606 Blue (on either ends); and Wing Sung 603 Black lines on Blue (the one that is horizontal); then Hero-s...Hero 616 (bluish green body with the arrow clip); Hero 330 (brown body with gold coloured cap); Hero 60 (light brownish coloured body with half nib); Hero 378 (steel cap with black body and big full Nib); Hero 27A (silver coloured body and cap with full nib); Hero 2C blue; Hero 2C gold...

A beautiful looking 14kt gold nib Jinhao has also been since added to the Chinese range…I tried taking photographs of the Jinhao yesterday, the results were not so good…will have to do it patiently…I will be getting 2 more Hero-s…Hari has bought an integrated nib Hero FP along with a Hero 329 FP for me in Bangalore…he will be coming to Hyderabad shortly…but, I have seen this integrated nib Hero FP and it is really interesting…wonder what they will come up with next…

Jai

to check out what happened during the interim period...

Hi...

It's been long...too long...and the intervening days between my last post day and today were unusually hectic...though there were physical spaces in between, there was no mental space...though I chided myself 'you are neglecting your blog'...I really couldn't do anything...a lot of post ideas did weave in and out and I had already started composing a couple of them...I work in an engineering college and and this is the time of the year when their sessions get over...pending internal tests, practical tests, etc., are all being held to close out the academic year...students' attendance is calculated to check for shortfall...and you hear such pathetic stories of academic and aspiration mismatch, misplaced parental hopes, etc...students are pushed into studying engineering just because there is an engineering college round the corner and you can buy a seat...marginal farmers, masons, small time mechanics, small shopkeepers, along with rich real estate tycoons, businessmen, etc., all want their children to become engineers without having an understanding of what it entails to become an engineer... so everybody goes through this misery... I sometimes joke that parents and students dream that at the end of the fourth year, there will be a long queue of software company owners in front of the college and Nandan Nilekani, Azim Premji, Ramalinga Raju and others are fighting among themselves to grab the golden graduates that emerge out of the college...and so this goes on...

I digressed...well...on the FP front, I got a real surprise...my friend Anuradha got (gifted) me a Jinhao Gold Nib FP from China, where she was posted for almost a year...it is exquisite...the box and packaging is so good that you feel that the FP is only an afterthought...anyway...this is my second gold nib FP after the personalised Ratnam 302...I will post pictures soon...the camera is with Shruti and she is on her vacation...I also bought a black Lamy Safari, A yellow translucent Pelikano Junior, and Pelikan P56...these are all plastic bodied FPs...but I bought them all the same...1. for the sake of representation, as I cannot afford the more expensive and classier Lamy and Pelikan models, and 2. I read a lot of reviews on FPN on these pens and they were good...and felt 'why not'... I also bought a lot of inks...I had only Parker-Quink permanent black and blue colour inks...so I went to Deccan Pen Stores at Secunderabad and bought around 8 different colours - Turquoise Blue, Emerald Green, Ruby Red, Sapphire Blue, Permanent Black, Washable Royal Blue, Crimson Violet (all Chelpark) and an unusual colour and name Laurel Rose from Bril...So, now, I have managed to fill up the ink space too...am becoming a real FP addict...not nice, beta...I have also done up the extreme end of our glass shuttered book case into a FP case...looks good now...I have showcased my faves here...I think, I am doing this to show off...hopefully not...I will post pictures of this too...

Till then...ciao...