Images are appropriated from various locales and may not accurately reflect pen in question. In other words, I need a digital camera.

Visconti Van Gogh
Medium-nib 14kt (writes like a broad); swirly acrylic mold meant to imitate Impressionist color-patterns; Excellent spring-clip; silver grip; screw-in piston filler. Current flagship pen. Writes beautifully. Somewhat annoying to Fountain-Pen Hospital

h2. Sheaffer Balance
Medium-nib 18-kt “Feather-touch” nib (large, flexible); Speckled tigers-eye-ish acrylic barrel; concave grip; exceedingly, enfuriatingly fragile cap threads. Sale on Levenger.

h2. Cross Radiance
Fine-point steel nib; red-and-black plastic body. Despite having absolutely no special charactersitics to reccomend it, this is one of my best pens—durable, user-friendly, inexpensive, dependable. Cross no longer manufactures it, sadly. Purchased at a little stationery supply place on Broadway where I was sent for labels while I worked at BayCES.

h2. Sheaffer Calligraphy
Five-dollar steel stub nib; translucent plastic body. Fun to write with, though grating. Purchased at the CCAC art store.
h2. Sheaffer Prelude
Surprisingly smooth and flexible steel nib; excellent contoured grip section; my first real pen; brass barrel; finish resembles old-fashioned green desk lamps, only smokier. Purchased on Shattuck

h2. Waterman Expert II
Similar in many respects to the prelude (nice steel nib, smoky green finish, brass barrel) but longer, with somewhat shinier accents; dissambels into, like, twenty pieces. Screw-in piston converter. 18th-birthday gift from Renee.

h2. Rotring something-or-other
Nib is incredibly rigid, steel; not the most fun to write with. Pen is durable (Levenger likes to run it over with Volvos), brass with aluminum finish; cap has interesteing springy-gripping mechanism that makes it the most secure for carrying in hip pocket; extremely heavy. Purchased at Amsterdam, I think.
h2. Sensa Roller ball
The original black-black design. Pretty comfortable. The refills cost so much that I almost never buy them.
h2. Namiki Vanishing Point
One of my earlier pen purchases (2nd? 3rd?). Simple, uninteresting green plastic body (beveled unlike the VP II) conceals a delightful clicky retractable point (14kt). Wrote brilliantly before I tragically dropped it. Amsterdam.
h2. Parker VP
Weird. Features a fill device meant to be removed from pen before filling, and a contoured grip with rotatable nib. Doesn’t operate at all full efficiency just yet. Some jerk (Specifically, “Herman Karlan”) had his name engraved on it. Double-jewel. Nib tends to rotate of its own accord when you write, which is annoying, to say the least. Gift from Susan, found at garage sale.

h2. Parker 51
Beautiful. See CmR:PinochleAndPens. Probably 1948; silver cap; writes well. Needs polishing. Same source as last.

category:nick