Messages

1

Everyday Handwriting | Penmanship / Re: Different tools for different writing

« on: May 16, 2016, 04:03:25 AM »

It's good to know I'm not the only one who enjoys stub nibs for everyday writing. Maybe it defeats the point a little but I actually find that some are more to my liking after I've sharpened up the edges on crocus cloth or a very fine grit waterstone. My personal favorites right now are a rikkers 15 which I polished up to a mirrored writing surface and, for tiny italics, a slightly worn in Esterbrook 509 that I use for my everyday scribbles.

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Everyday Handwriting | Penmanship / Re: Flex fountain pen

« on: May 14, 2016, 06:08:46 PM »

Heyo! I am making a bunch and am bringing them to IAMPETH. I ask $30. Feel free to PM me, I have a video I can forward you.

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Introductions / Re: Hi from Sunny California!

« on: May 12, 2016, 01:16:35 AM »

Hello mimi!
Sunnyvale. You will likely end up meeting Sandy and myself eventually I think. Great to meet you!

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Open Flourish | General Discussion / Re: Straight Pen for Righties?

« on: April 26, 2016, 01:33:09 AM »

Thanks Moya, I was under the impression it was a phase but the more I've done things the more I've become attached to doing it this way.

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Open Flourish | General Discussion / Re: Is Chat gone for you as well?

« on: April 15, 2016, 12:43:18 PM »

The chat is indeed gone but I would like it to remain, if possible, as I have used it several times.

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Tools & Supplies / Re: Vintage nib prices on ebay

« on: April 15, 2016, 10:33:56 AM »

Hello everyone! Looks like I missed out on the party- I put a bouple bids on the 956's but was absolutely shocked they ended up going for that much. They are, in my opinion, a bit better than the 556 due to that silver plating but I would've guessed they'd top out at $120 or so at most.

Yoke's dream nib auctions have some boxes that I'd suspect might go well into the multiple thousands. Unfortunately I feel that it's a safe bet that they'll all go straight into the hands of prospectors and I suspect I will see several new "$35-50 ZANERIAN FINE WRITER! Dream Nib!" BIN's in the near future. For anyone interested, I am now in contact with a guy in France who has Andrew's level of interest in nib history and has collected for many many years. He has offered to wholesale me gigantic (20+ gross box lots of French nibs for very reasonable prices). I may end up taking him up on the offer, especially for popular ones like the 2552 etc. This may be worth it if there's interest for me to split a large order like this on the forums.

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Open Flourish | General Discussion / Re: The Post Office thinks they know me...

« on: April 14, 2016, 07:12:09 AM »

Great post Erica. I don't get calligraphed mail that often (though the mailman in my area does know that I get a crapload of boxes filled with tiny things that rattle- NIBSSS....)but I do send out a whole lot of stuff and am now being referred to "Oh, you're that guy that writes things!" when I visit the post office to send off stuff- which happens at least twice a week. Maybe given a couple more years...

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Open Flourish | General Discussion / Re: Straight Pen for Righties?

« on: April 13, 2016, 10:26:14 AM »

If you start someone with chopsticks and then introduce a fork, they will most likely prefer the chopsticks. And vice versa. Is one or the other better or easier? It depends on the person using them. When you're full up, can your stomach tell which tool you used? No.

I personally can't get enough food in my mouth in one go using chopsticks so I use a fork. 

P.S. If you search this topic, you'll see all my boring explanations on why I prefer the oblique and recommend it for those starting out. But nothing changes the fact, it all boils down to what works best for you.

Sounds like you need bigger chopsticks Erica lol.

I do something that might be weird - I prefer to write my scripts with oblique and flourish with a straight. Am I the only ones who does this?

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Open Flourish | General Discussion / Re: Iampeth 2016

« on: April 13, 2016, 09:44:59 AM »

Will be attending IAMPETH and bringing with me my dizzying array of nibs

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Open Flourish | General Discussion / Re: Straight Pen for Righties?

« on: April 13, 2016, 08:03:38 AM »

Late to the party (as usual) but my personal philosophy is based on the whole "tools do not a craftsman make" ethos. I started my trip down the rabbit hole with a straight holder and used it exclusively for both broad pen and pointed pen scripts for at least 9 months when I started. When I finally took the dive and purchased an oblique the use of it came naturally but I have continued to alternate between the two for practice sessions. If I'm not mistaken, many of the schools of penmanship in the 1900's taught and advocated the mastery of both. Idiosyncrasies like Paul Antonio's idea of copperplate with straight and Spencerian with oblique may develop over time but in theory neither of the tools prevent scripts from being executed, it's just a matter of how. Among my personal collection I have a number of original pieces from the Zaner-Bloser school as well as other, less known, American schools of penmanship. Close study of them and my own practice has suggested to me that various penman and scripts favor the use of one tool over another though, unsurprisingly, masters like Zaner and Lupfer obtained such a high level of skill that I believe they were able to execute virtually every pointed pen script with either option.

To this end I would recommend that you continue to practice with both if for no other reason than to have options. One of my prouder achievements was giving a letter in copperplate to my teacher and asking if she was able to tell where I had switched holders and nibs. She couldn't tell (probably because it was all equally illegible lol). Plus variety never hurts- I could use walnut ink all day... but there's sumi of various colors... and oak gall... and sparkly shiny things in this one... and this one is blue! No... slightly different blue than the other ones I have... Whatever, I'm using it. Variety helps keep practicing fun and exciting- that's never a bad thing. Plus, if you should ever need to travel you already know what an absolute pain obliques are to pack versus straight. So there's that.
 

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Tools & Supplies / Calligraphed nib reviews

« on: April 11, 2016, 12:43:37 AM »

A while ago I got in contact with an ebay seller and antique dealer who I had purchased from. Since he doesn't do calligraphy himself he sends me samples of nibs he comes across in exchange for these, which he uses in his shop and ebay posts (perhaps some of you have seen them already). I will likely continue to do these and trade nibs with him- he has limited access to American made ones and I have limited access to European ones so it works out great. I've kept these because they represent quite a bit of personal improvement over time and, perhaps, they will serve as reference for some of you. If any of you in the USA want some of the nibs here I have many of them listed in the nib boutique.

http://imgur.com/gallery/SbQZV/new

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Tools & Supplies / Re: Quality control with Gillott 303s and 404s

« on: March 30, 2016, 03:00:21 PM »

I'll throw in my two cents: buy your nibs from JNB if you can (and are using modern nibs). They look at each nib (as far as I understand) before shipping them out so I've gotten very few bad ones from them ever and they've been sweethearts about replacing anything wonky. I believe their prices are adjusted to account for the ones they throw out but in the end I figured it was worth it to reduce the PITA (Pain in the Ass) factor.

Also, as a shameless self plug I have a large selection (and quantity) of vintage nibs in the nib boutique under Nik's nibs. While I recognize that many folks here want to stick with modern nibs because they know they'll always be around there's actually a number of vintage nibs I have tons of that are nice. Since acquiring my George Hughes Treasurer pens and Sisson & Parker Educational pens I've brought them to my classes and given a couple out to every member- so far the consensus has been almost unanimous that everyone prefers them over G nibs. If anyone is interested shoot me a PM or or message me in that thread. Tell me which nibs you've tried so far, what you're doing, and what you like. Regardless of whether you end up getting anything from me I can at least tell you a lot of other options (both modern and vintage, I've tried a lot of nibs now) that you can look for. 

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Tools & Supplies / Re: Uh, some advice here?

« on: March 30, 2016, 12:51:37 PM »

Will do Andrew. I too am fond of the old holders you've talked about. Though I prefer Eagle Pencil Co. ones over the Esterbrooks (something about corked holders has never really spoken to me... not sure why- they feel great but then I start using them and I'm sort of underwhelmed and go back to my smooth ones with rubber grips I've added). I'm also fairly fond of the one Palmer holder I have. It probably because I rather like carrot type holders for broad pen work and I mostly use straight holders with pointed pens for flourishing only. I've come across a lot of neato old stuff that I haven't posted here- most recently I found 4 completely new sealed boxes of Osmiroid Master sets (the ones with gold plated caps that came in a set with 8 nibs, a lettering book, and a small quantity of very nice paper). That was exciting. Less exciting but equally useful finds were a handful of lightly used and well cared for Platignum, Parker, and Sheaffers (pretty normal stuff, but cool nonetheless).

I joked around with a calligraphy friend recently that I realized I never really outgrew that love of puzzles, scavenger hunts, and digging for treasure. Before my injury I used to go Geocaching a lot (and I still do from time to time) but knowing what I know now about old writing instruments has multiplied the fun several times over, especially with my ability to contact pickers and antique dealers across the globe via the interwebz.

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Tools & Supplies / Re: cement nibs

« on: March 29, 2016, 03:51:06 PM »

Late to the party but if someone has questions about nibs I'm another possible resource (21,000 nibs and counting now from makers all over the place). So much sciencing of nibs left to be done...

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Tools & Supplies / Re: Uh, some advice here?

« on: March 29, 2016, 03:48:01 PM »

Since I haven't been all that active (besides finally catching up on my nib list in the nib boutique) I'll throw in my two cents on storage- I keep all my nibs in little plastic baggies (larger quantity ones in packs of 25/50/100 depending on size) with a pack or two of silica gel dessicate and then put them into their own respective cubby of a plastic small parts organizers like you have there Andrew- only most of my organizers are much much bigger with around 50-60 individual compartments. I do this because this essentially ensures that if any moisture or anything gets into the box I won't have thousands of nibs ruined (in fact, I'd be surprised if hardly any got ruined even if I submerged the entire thing in a swimming pool for weeks). As with any security or protection system a little redundancy is your friend. So far I've filled up 8 -10 of these. gigantic organizers with my high quantity nibs. I'm currently thinking about making trays with gridded organizer cubbies for all of my other, weird, random, lesser quantity nibs. It might never happen, for now they sit in little baggies (also with silica gel packs) in bigger bags by manufacturer) in a couple shoe boxes. The nibs I use regularly are kept out in the open in a couple of smaller organizer  trays for easy access.

I too recently came upon a huge haul of nibs from a contact I acquired through a flea market- over 2400 various Esterbrooks (nothing too crazy- 968, 969, 556, 048, and 1000's). I told about how an antique toy seller tipped me off about them and how I ended up driving out to a derelict drug store or something 90 minutes away to buy them from the folks who inherited the property . It was awesome being in there, like a store frozen in time- I might go back to hunt for other treasures and post pictures or something- lots of neat things from the early 1900-1940's in there.