I have been so busy with work lately, that I’ve let my blog languish! I couldn’t let Leap Day go by without a post, however.
A couple of months ago, back when I thought I’d still have plenty of funds left over for a planned trip to the Little Rock Pen Show in March, I decided that after 10 or so weeks of GRUELLING holiday hours I deserved a treat. This is the Conklin Duraflex Limited Edition “Sunstone” pen, by way of The Pen Chalet. This was a Pen Chalet exclusive, and not only were they running low on them at the time, but they even had them on sale. It was increasingly a “now or never” thing, so I ordered one.
Mine turned out to be #1186 of the 1898 Conklin made. The sale price on it was good enough that it’s cost fell just below the threshold for Pen Chalet’s free shipping service, so I added a bottle of ink that I thought would look good with it. This is Monteverde’s “Canyon Rust” ink. It doesn’t shade as well as some of their other offerings, but it’s a nice color. I’m partial to rich brown shades, and an ink like that makes a great match for this pen’s rich golden honey brown “tobacco”-ish color.
“But John, you eloquent and classy connoisseur of pens and inks,” I hear you say, “how does it write?”
Here's a close-up of the really pretty nib. However...sadly...this pen didn’t fare as well in that department as my last Conklin did. The omni-flex nib in it is scratchy and prone to running dry, so you have to re-prime the feed every so often, especially if you flex it much. It may end up getting shipped off to Yafa’s warranty repair center in California, and it won’t be the first time I’ve had to send a pen off to them for repairs.
I'll mention that Yafa seems to have thrown in the towel in regards to their issues with nibs and have begun outsourcing them with Jowo. You can buy an entire replacement Jowo nib unit for most Conklin pens at Goulet Pens.com. However, the omni-flex nibs are still made by the original manufacturer and when you get one, you’re purely at the mercy of the gods of pens and whimsy on whether or not it works. Here’s a writing sample (click the photo for a bigger, more zoomed-in image). The paper was Tomoe River A5 blank paper, in the Ivory or Cream color; not that it's easy to tell in my mediocre photo:
However, the flexing, when the pen is all primed and inked and all, is really nice. Here’s a close-up of the flexing in action. The ink was still wet. I wouldn’t recommend the reverse-writing thing with it; I’m not sure why that’s even a “thing”, but to each their own.
I did indeed say “I thought I’d still have plenty of funds left for a planned trip to the Little Rock Pen Show”. I’ve never been to a pen show before, and the closest one to me is via a day-trip to Little Rock, Arkansas, USA. I’ve been planning a vacation to go see this, as well as the increasingly-famous Vanness Pen Store (also located in Little Rock), since August of last year…since about 7 months ago.
About 3 weeks ago I took my car in for a routine oil change, only to be told that the last place where I'd done that had stolen easy-to-miss parts from underneath my hood (come to find out, they'd done this to my brother as well), and I was suddenly out $100.00 to replace them before their absence could cause long-term damage to my car. That of course had to come out of my vacation budget. But, I figured, I could still carry on, if were extra-careful with travel expenses.
Then the following weekend, just a couple of weeks ago as the big day was getting closer, my car decided that it's wreckage of my vacation plans was not yet complete. The alternator in it went out & left me stranded on the highway 20 miles from home on Sunday morning. I did eventually get home with some help from my brother in law and a set of jumper cables. Repairs cost more than I had left in my vacation budget, so this quite neatly hammered the final nail in the coffin of my long running LR Pen Show plans that had started all those months ago.
Perhaps 1/2 an hour after the repair shop called me a few days later with the soul-crushing news of what the new alternator installation was going to cost, I get an email from work replying to my original vacation request I'd submitted seven months ago, saying: "Your vacation has been approved!"
The universe spits in one's eye, like that.
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