ChrisR

Chris' blog

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  • About Me
  • Entomology
    • Collecting insects
    • Identifying insects
    • Malaise Trapping
    • Neotropical
    • Annotated tachinid glossary
    • OPAL
    • Parasitica
    • How to buy a cabinet
  • Ukiyo-e
    • Researching ukiyo-e
    • Ukiyo-e ID reference PDF (2023-01-25)
    • Buying ukiyo-e – what to avoid
    • Edo period illustrated books
    • Special effects in nishiki-e
    • The different subgenres of nishiki-e
    • The Fukuda publishing family
    • The signatures of Kunichika
  • Misc articles
    • Whistles
      • GSW – Adie Bros
      • GSW – Alfred De Courcy
      • GSW – J. Hudson & Co.
      • GSW – Richard A Walton
      • GSW – unknown
      • GSW – William Dowler & Sons
    • Holidays
      • 1989 Ecuador
      • 1990 French Guiana
      • 1991 Venezuela
      • 2000 French Guiana
      • 2009 England
      • 2009 Moscow
      • 2010 Moscow in May
      • 2012 Italy
      • 2011 England
    • Ancient Chinese coins
    • Japanese Incense
    • Sloe gin & other liqueurs

How to adjust the tines on a fountain pen

ChrisRPosted onMarch 19, 2025March 19, 2025

Sometimes you’ll come across a fountain pen that feels slightly scratchy when you use it – the nib might write smoothly in one direction but…

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Buying pens from Japan

ChrisRPosted onJanuary 20, 2025January 20, 2025

Many people find that buying pens, inks and paper from Japan is a good way to both save money and access a wide array of…

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What is the truth and why is it important?

ChrisRPosted onJanuary 15, 2025January 20, 2025

The world we live in has become full of highly charged opinions competing for your attention but what should you believe? What is the truth…

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Evolution

ChrisRPosted onSeptember 18, 2024September 18, 2024

The subject of Evolution keeps coming up in discussion between scientists and religious devotees and there have been some repeated misconceptions that really have all…

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Restoring Pilot Super series pens

ChrisRPosted onAugust 30, 2024December 5, 2024

Background Back in the late 1950s & early 1960s Pilot made a series of pens called the “Super” which eventually morphed into the single-letter E…

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Are gold nibs better than steel?

ChrisRPosted onAugust 26, 2024August 27, 2024

This is a question that gets asked a lot in the fountain pen world and I’ve given it some thought and seen a few really…

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Nib units

ChrisRPosted onAugust 25, 2024August 25, 2024

Fountain pen nib units have always been a bit of a mystery to me so I decided to start an article where I bring together…

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Pocket pen nib types

ChrisRPosted onJuly 25, 2024December 8, 2024

Nibs are some of the most distinctive design features of any fountain pen – they are the part we connect with the most because they…

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Sailor pocket pens

ChrisRPosted onJuly 21, 2024December 4, 2024

Here are some of my Sailor pocket pens, in date order … or as accurately as I can achieve.  From 1960 – 1971 date codes…

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Pilot pocket pens

ChrisRPosted onJuly 20, 2024December 4, 2024

Here are some of my Pilot pocket pens arranged in manufacturing date order. I thought it might be interesting to photograph each one in a…

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Dismantling vintage Japanese pocket pens

ChrisRPosted onJuly 15, 2024November 25, 2024

In early 1960s Japan office fashions changed and male workers started to wear the newly designed “Hong Kong shirt”, which combined a formal collar with…

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What happened to the insects?

ChrisRPosted onJuly 7, 2024July 25, 2024

This year we’ve witnessed a massive reduction in the number of insects nationally – to such an extent that even the national media have been…

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Identifying things

ChrisRPosted onJune 8, 2024June 8, 2024

One of the most fundamental things we do is to work out what things are – it’s a very human interest. We like putting a…

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What’s in a name?

ChrisRPosted onMay 29, 2024May 30, 2024

There’s always a lot of debate in the wildlife world about common names vs scientific names so I thought I’d try to sum up some…

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Chinese pens – fakes, clones or homages?

ChrisRPosted onMay 25, 2024May 26, 2024

There has always been a bit of negativity surrounding some Chinese pen brands because some people consider many of their pens to be “copies” of…

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Fountain pens that write first time

ChrisRPosted onMarch 23, 2024May 26, 2024

It might seem a simple thing but when you own a good pen you want to be able to pick it up and write, first…

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Japanese pocket pens

ChrisRPosted onMarch 5, 2024March 20, 2024

I’ve been interested in Japanese pocket pens since I bought my first Pilot E95S from Amazon Japan back in 2023. Fountain pen enthusiasts consistently rate…

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Key to the identification of Montblanc Classic pens (1960-2010)

ChrisRPosted onFebruary 24, 2024April 28, 2024

Identifying exactly which slimline pen you have can be quite tricky, with the numerous small changes and subtly different models available from 1959 to 2008.…

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Label writing pens

ChrisRPosted onJanuary 25, 2024February 17, 2024

Recently I’ve been looking at the possibility of using fountain pens to write my specimen data labels. These are small labels pinned under a specimen…

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Montblanc Classic pens (1960-2010)

ChrisRPosted onJanuary 10, 2024May 25, 2024

Between the years 1960 and 2010 Montblanc produced a range of slim-bodied fountain pens in a new sleek and modern design. To this day they…

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