fountain pen

by Tony Thomas I have been checking out Franklin-Christoph fountain pens lately and decided it was time to own one. I am impressed that they are made in the USA, are CNC machined out of resin, and are very attractive with a somewhat understated appearance. I contacted my friends at Pen Chalet and they were kind enough to assist with providing a pen for this review. As a result, I now am the owner of the Franklin-Christoph Model 02 Intrinsic Pen Chalet Special edition fountain pen. That certainly is a mouthful! The pen has a smoke brown translucent demonstrator finish with an inside that appears to be covered by a thin sheet of ice. The body of the pen tapers towards the end, allowing for the cap to post very deeply. So deeply, in fact, that the posted length is almost identical to the capped length (5.75" capped vs. 5.85" posted including the nib). The body width varies from .55" to .445" as it tapers. The cap diameter is .61" and the section is .44" at i...

by Tony Thomas I have really big hands.  As a result, I need a really big pen to write comfortably for long periods of time.  I am always searching for capable daily writers that can serve my needs.  My Edison Collier and Noodler's Ahab have served this purpose well but I wanted to add another pen to the rotation.  I looked through my growing pen collection to see what pens would be good candidates with a bit of modification.   I finally decided to use my hand made  Ranga Duofold ebonite pen from India as a starting point.  At $35 shipped, it is an unbelievable value.  The big drawbacks are the simple ebonite feed and scratchy Wality nib that ship with it.  While you can order this pen with a Jowo or Schmidt nib, a modern feed and a converter, they add quite a bit to the price.   This pen is really big: About 14.6 cm (5.75") long when capped, 13 cm long when uncapped, a 12mm section width and 14mm wide body width.  It is very comfo...