New Fountain Pen

I received my new fountain pen yesterday and today I had some time to test it. The pen is Cross Bailey with an "M" nib and cost roughly 35 euros from Pen Heaven from UK. In addition to the pen I bough also the screw-in converter which is essential in my opinion. I have still one shipment on the way to my address from Pen Heaven and the arriving pen is a bit more expensive with an F-nib but it is another story that you'll hear (read) later.

I loaded the pen with Diamine Sherwood Green ink and tested it on my Leuchtturm 1917 notebook. M-size nib appears to be too braod for me but on the other hand notebook has 5mm dots so the text is written too tight. Also the paper of Leuchtturm is not what I think a fountain pen friendly notebook has but I can compare the papers after the next Pen Heaven shipment which includes a fountain pen friendly notebook.

This ink dries in 5-10 seconds unles it is a wet spot which dries longer, naturally. I really like the color and the tone of the ink. This is very close to the green tone I like. The pen is good to write, a lot better compared to the Lamy Safari (also from Pen Heaven). There is nothing to keep the pen in a correct position so my bigger than regular hand was very happy to hold the pen. The writing was natural although the biggest problem is that I'm a novice with fountain pens.

I don't see any feathering so the ink works well with the paper. The ghosting is minimal and I can write to the other side of the paper without problems. The remarkable thing is that a blue ink Diamine Sargasso Sea has a visible ghosting but it also won't affect to the writing to the other side of the page. Neither of the inks has bleed through, not even the wet spots. These inks combined with this fountain pen won't work with Moleskine paper because there is simply too much of ghosting but for example Lamy Blue-Black written with Lamy's LH nib works well with Moleskine. The pen has a little audible feedback when writing on Leuchtturm but still it glides almost without friction between the nib and the paper.

The motto in the end of the writing is associated to my life at the moment. A very close member of my family is terminally ill and we are waiting for the sad phone call from the hospital. The situation is such that according to the doctors the chances are 0% but today we received some very positive information that raised hopes until the reason took control again and we remembered what the doctors have told us. This is a part of people's life but you never want it to happen to you or to the ones close to you.