April 6, 2025

Dip pens

This is how it all started. Students used to learn to write with a "dip" pen and an inkwell. Sometime in the 1930's fountain pens pretty much replaced dip pens.

My interest is having a dip pen to quickly and easily try out different inks (and papers) without cleaning and inking up a fountain pen. One fellow writes that he can write about 1/2 of a page without re-inking, which is much more than I might have thought.

Interestingly, both Pilot and Sailor (and probably others) offer dip pens. You generally get a steel nib. I have also read about handles that will accept a Jowo nib (and feed perhaps). The Sailor dip pen can be fitted with an optional feed (for $3). These are inexpensive and look like fun.

Videos

I ordered the Sailor Hocoro with a fine nib from Yoseka for $16 and added the feed ($3). Along with $6 shipping, I am paying $25 to try all of this out. It is here now!! Note the Guridrops glass pen from Guri Koubou studio. They sell for $86

The Vintage route

The above article is great. He points out that "almost all ink-to-paper from 1830-1930 was done with dip pens." He recommends Esterbrook 048 Falcon to start with. It's a good compromise medium point, medium flex, holds a lot of ink, and it outsold all other US pens. He also mentions the Esterbrook's 788 Oval Point.

Huge numbers of these pens (what we call today a nib was called then the pen) were manufactured. There are plenty on Ebay. I have a nib holder I bought back when I thought I might try to learn calligraphy. I plan to see if an 048 Falcon will fit into it and go from there.

Feedback? Questions? Drop me a line!

Tom's Pen Info / tom@mmto.org