A serious question, while I wait for my reed pens to arrive, what qualities do you find make for a good pen? What makes your favorite pen your favorite?
It depends. This is 3 separate sets; 2 of them are modeled like European fountain pens, 1 is made for Arabic calligraphy (the ones with the shorter, flatter nibs). I find that the fountain pen style nibs produce bolder lines but smudge more easily, especially after they've just been dipped. The flat
nibs are better at fine detail without smudging, but need to be re-dipped more often because they don't have a slit and pool in the nib to trap the ink. The Phragmites pens need to be broken in a bit before they start writing well. The fibers are coarser, so if the ink runs out in the nib pool, the
two sides of slit start to produce double lines like this. Once the fibers are sufficiently "seasoned" by the resins in the ink this behavior will apparently stop. I've never had this problem with the bamboo pens.
I might try to recut the Phragmites australis nibs myself to be flatter and less like a fountain pen, but I don't trust myself to do that properly yet 😅
Bamboo is a reed! Most of these pens are made out of bamboo, and almost all mass-produced reed pens today are made of bamboo since it's cheap and widely available. But throughout history many different species of reed have been used to make writing implements, depending on which reeds grew locally.
Oh, I didn't know that! I would've known had my mum not needed me to do something for her. There was an episode of some show, and it was about calligraphy and writing companions, and the history of them.
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