February 2025 Currently Inked Pens

Time for some housekeeping before heading to California Pen Show

It felt good to restore my stationery desk to some degree of order since the frenzy of New Year and the holidays. Inspired by my culture’s superstition about needing to clean up the house before the lunar new year, I reviewed all my currently inked fountain pens (some inked since October 2024) and gave some a good rinse. It’s time to refresh my current rotation of fountain pens.

Continuing my tradition of tracking currently inked pens and their content (which helps me refresh my memory about what ink brand and color I’m using), I took advantage of spare pages in my Take a Note Planner to track. The final count before I head out on another work trip is 13 pens in my arsenal.

Let’s start with the workhorses:

1. TWSBI ECO Fire (F nib) is currently inked with Bungubox’s Mikan orange ink.

You can’t go wrong with a TWSBI, and the F nib is the perfect size for a daily writer. With its fiery orange exterior, it feels wrong to put any ink color other than orange in it. Bungubox’s Mikan ink is made by the Sailor brand and performs smoothly and consistently. A lot of people say orange inks tend to dry out and clump at the feed, but the tight seal of a TWSBI Eco seemed to solve this problem.

2. TWSBI ECO Persian Green (M nib) is currently inked with Pelikan’s 2024 ink of the year: Golden Lapis

I love the combination of these two TWSBI colors — it reminds me of a retro diner with a contrasting hue. It makes me feel as if I’m sitting in a cushioned booth, ready to devour some greasy burgers and a large soda. The TWSBI Eco is also the only fountain pen I trust to handle shimmering/glittering inks, it never clogs! Not to mention I can easily take apart the nib and feed to clean it thoroughly. I just have to remember to give the pen a good shake before writing to distribute the shimmer elements.

3. Pilot Custom 823 (F nib) is currently inked with Nagasawa’s Bitter Chocolate

The sepia-like brown feels more interesting on the page than black, and I’ve been using it consistently with my PLOTTER planner against its cream pages. I’ve pretty much decided that the Pilot Custom 823 is my favorite fountain pen; the nib size is just the right size and weight for my writing habits (I’m a lateral quadrupod gripper and the longer nib length helps me reach the paper surface without too low of a grip)

4. Pilot Custom 742 Renga (M nib) is currently inked with the 2023 San Francisco Pen Show ink Golden Gate Bridge.

This pen was a special conquest mentioned in my previous travel log: Averaging 14,000 steps a day in Tokyo as a stationery addict. I love the subtle texture on the pen body that made holding the pen an even more tactile experience. The rich brick red is the perfect color for describing its namesake, the red bricks that made up the Marunochi building in Tokyo. I paired it with the SF Pen Show ink which starts out as a bright red when wet but dries to a muted dark red.

5. Pilot E95s (F nib) is currently inked with 2023’s California Pen Show ink Sunset.

The Pilot E95s was my first pocket pen, and I love the smoothness of the cap and Pilot’s gold nib. Although this nib is fine, the yellow of the ink dries to a readable mustard, so it is still a good pairing and good for annotation and accents in my journals. I do plan to take it to the California Pen Show this February to have someone help me take a look under the loop to see if I had accidentally misaligned the tines after a recent drop.

Ahh, my green babies.

6. Poesie Bungu’s Sailor Pro Gear in 三色団子 “Sanshoku Dango” (M nib) is currently inked with Bungujoshi’s event ink Bungujoshi Lavender.

This is my first pen acquired through DM and Paypal, as the Japanese seller Poesie Bungu sells them through their Instagram page to overseas buyers. The name evokes lovely scenes of spring, and as a dango and mochi lover, how can I resist this pen? This pen mimics the coloring of the sanshoku dango (green, pink, and white) frequently consumed during the cherry blossom seasons. A bright and cheerful purple from the Bungujoshi Event (a women-focused stationery festival held in Japan) is the perfect pairing.

7. Sailor Cocktail Series Apre Ski (M nib) is currently inked with Bungujoshi’s event ink Bungujoshi Green

My memory is blurry but I must have acquired this through a destash via a friend. This was one of the first Sailor Pro Gear (full size) that I own, and I love the larger nib size compared to the more prevalent Sailor Pro Gear Slims. The pale green body is paired with a cherry red on top which is supposed to be a cocktail cherry, but most of the time I imagine it to be a melon soda drink. The refreshing blue-green ink color is another sample from a friend who visited Bungujoshi stationery festival last year.

8. Wancher Matcha (M nib) is currently inked with Kobayashibungukan’s Tono & Lim scented ink in Shizuoka green tea

I jumped when this pen was announced on Wancher’s website because the hue of green is a true matcha color for me. I also like the cream finials, which make it seem like a large matcha milk hard candy in pen form. What better pairing than another ink with a similar namesake: Shizuoka green tea? It’s fascinating how the ink is scented to smell like green tea too. This pen is also a full-size Pro Gear and the nib writes so smoothly (as M nibs typically do).

9. Maruzen Lemon (M nib) is currently inked with Bungubox’s Sanctuary Blue ink.

This green and yellow pen is inspired by the theme of lemon, which is an iconic Japanese short novel that mentioned the bookstore chain Maruzen, of which the latter picked it up to be its icon. The shimmery and clear yellow body is truly what makes this pen stand out as if you just split open a fresh piece of lime. I paired it with Sanctuary Blue because I wanted a mature and deep blue-green to use as a daily writer.

10. Bungubox Sanctuary Blue (F nib) is currently inked with San Francisco Pen Show 2024 ink

On the inverse, I also own Bungubox’s Sailor Pro Gear in Sanctuary Blue. The lazy sea turtle on the finial and the lovely blue-green pen body combo were what sold me. I thought an ink with a watery name would suit it, so I picked the SF Pen Show 2024 ink which is called San Francisco Bay. I got to enjoy views of the bay last fall when I was working an event in the area, and I remember staring out at the giant expanse of water and feeling quite refreshed.

11. Nakaya Cigar Piccolo Heki Tamenuri (M nib) is currently inked with Blackberry by The Wet Pen

When I purchased a Nakaya fountain pen, it felt as if I’d stepped into the next tier of fountain pen obsession and was truly spending adult money. Of the many Nakaya fountain pens I’ve seen, my favorite colorway is naturally the brown and green Heki Tamenuri. It reminds me of an acorn or the natural expression of wood with a little moss. When I write with this pen, it feels as if I’m holding onto a piece of nature instead of a plastic stick (urushi is also a technique involving plant materials).

12. Pilot Custom 912 green (M nib) is currently inked with Nagasawa’s Kobe Ink Hankyu Maroon.

This special Pilot Custom 912 comes in a dark green hue, and if you’ve seen my entire collection, you’ll see that I love the combination of green and gold. This pen is a solid writer and I enjoy journaling with a maroon or amethyst color, so I had to fill it up with the Hankyu Maroon which I’ve acquired at a recent pen show (I forgot which one). The Hankyu Maroon is inspired by the maroon-colored of seat cushions on this Kansai train line in Japan, and each time I’m reminded of my trip to Kyoto and the opportunity to ride one of those older trains.

13. Platinum 3776 Strawbery Latte (EF Nib) is currently inked with Nagasawa’s strawberry chocolate.

I mentioned finding this special S. Korea exclusive pen in my recent travel log to Seoul. The opaque pink and white color combination is so stark against all of my other colorful collections, but I feel like a cheery kid whenever I pick this pen up. I typically prefer a broader nib (as you can see from my collection listed thus far), but they only had the last pen in EF in stock. I enjoyed pairing it with the equally cheerful strawberry milk-like color from the Nagasawa chocolate series inks.

As I swatched all of my 13 pens, I realized that the ink colors formed a range rainbow, and I thought I’d doodle the various pens as well on my swatch page. It was a fun exercise after the tedious chore of cleaning out and refilling some of the pens!

Stay tuned to my next currently inked, probably in three months! How many pens do you currently have inked up?