#penmanship

I love gray and similarly neutral envelopes, it looks equally beautiful in white or black ink, and both give a different ‘feel’ to the envelope. Plus it is so classic and elegant, and elegance is always a good thing.

Someone asked me how long I keep using a nib, well..

I keep my nibs in the holder and do not take them out, but keep the actual nib tip clean with water. So in time ink goes into the flange and crusts up and that’s why this holder looks in such bad shape, though it is still perfectly usable and one of my favs. It just needs a little TLC!

On the left is a pic of a nib that I’ve been using for I think months now. It’s so rusted and crusted that I can’t tell what nib it actually is. I think it may be a Spencerian 1 or 604EF, not sure, the words are completely blackened out, so I placed two new nibs of those next to the old one. Still can’t tell what it was.

You can see the tines are even kind of sprung, and it no longer produces fine lines, but since it is a vintage nib I just can’t bring myself to keep changing so I tend to run my nibs down to the ground like this after months and months of use. It works fine for writing large letters though, and I finally replaced it when it started to skip more than usual.

It is recommended to keep your nibs and holders clean though and replace em often.. don’t do what I do!