I find that they’re great for headings, titles, dates, etc - a little emphasis in my notes. With that said, my pilot metropolitan’s stub nib has also always been really scratchy too, and hard starts a lot. It’s always been one of my most disappointing pens.
One of my favorite stub nibs is a Jinhao 80 (Lamy 2000 clone, usually sub-$10). I swapped out the Jinhao nib for a Lamy 1.1 stub, and it writes like a dream!
Nice - I had misread this as Diamine Earl Grey at first, and was very confused (“I’ve used this before and don’t remember any orange tones!”). But it does look beautiful!
Saddle Brown also looks very nice and versatile. Do you think that you need a medium nib to get the full spectrum of shading? I’ve sometimes been disappointed with browns that are too light with an F nib (bought a sample of Robert Oster Caffe Crema, but it really was too light for my daily use unless in an M, B, or stub).
Follow-up - I bought this and it works great! And yes - it is really thick. I think the reams of the usual printer paper at the office are going to develop an inferiority complex. Thanks again for the recommendations!
Mostly Leuchtturm, mainly because I really like their notebooks and the variety of them that are available. The paper is fine, but not like tomoe or anything like that. I mostly write at work during meetings etc., so the notebook is equally important to me. Open to other suggestions though!
This sounds a lot like me! Though I’m closer to 8 or 9 inked at a time. Lots of notes in meetings; I have a few stub nibs inked up that I use for headers, then rotate (less systematically) through the other pens throughout the day. The changing colors for each meeting help to provide a good visual separation between meetings in my notes. Plus, it’s a nice little change of pace to “reset” between meetings by choosing a new pen.
I’m US based so unfortunately there’s a mismatch in size. I’ll probably just drop some sheets in right before I print, definitely not going to pay to replace everyone else’s paper!
I found the new FP user intro stuff over there very useful, and many of the guides (eg guide to Chinese fountain pens, etc) were great. If we could recreate some of that, would be awesome!