Write Like a Miskatonic Professor
The HPLHS is pleased to present our own line of Miskatonic University fountain pens. Lovecraft himself handwrote his stories and thousands of letters with his trusty fountain pen. We've embraced that tradition with our own Miskatonic University branded fountain pen. With the Miskatonic logo handsomely emblazoned on the barrel, soon you too will be writing in classic style.
Our fountain pens comes packed in a very nice black drawer-pull style gift box, with both an easily replaceable black ink cartridge and an installed converter for easy refills from an ink bottle. We're currently offering two styles:
- The Armitage - black and silver, and is named in honor of Henry Armitage. The pen is about 5.5 inches long and 1/2 inch in diameter, with a .38mm nib.
- The Peaslee - black and gold with a bit more heft, the Peaslee is about 5.5 inches long with a 5/8" diameter barrel. Named in honor of Prof. Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee, this fine writing instrument is well suited to larger hands
The box contains a small sheet of instructions for how to fill the pen with ink for those who don't normally use fountain pens. We include a standard international ink cartridge that will enable you to write with it right away, and it also comes with a converter so you can fill it with any color of ink you choose. Bottled ink and ink cartridges are readily available at numerous other retailers, but please make sure you get ink designed specifically for fountain pens. (India inks, drawing and alcohol-based inks may damage the pen and/or clog the ink flow.)
We use fountain pens all the time here at HPLHS headquarters, and here are some inks we like:
Absolutely lovely. A nice fine top and flows well. Great to make my keeper notes for Masks with. Very easy to use piston, better than many brands.
What a joy it is to wield this new fountain pen from HPLHS. This new model has a real weighty presence to it, yet is so sleek and elegant to use.
Disclaimer : sorry for the syntax mistakes as english is not my native, nor my everyday language.
The box is gorgeous with a nice retro looking label. The pen in itself is of a elegant classic "cigare" shape. Well, this is consistent for a pen of the 1920's or 30's (wich is what interested me with this instrument).
It's a rather small pen more like a "lady" or a "mini" model from this period. Too bad it doesn't open with a screw thread like the pen from the early 20th century. The black shiny color is usual for a classic retro style pen with a printing and is really classy.
The printing is a bit too small. During the 1920's and 30's the printing were large by our 2020's standards. Remember the varsity letters at this time were huge for instance.
The converter is very good and seems to be really qualitative. It's the best option to use your prefered ink. The "international cartridge" supplied with, leaves me doubtful because the size is between the small and large international cartridges we have in Europe. Maybe it's international because it's americano-canadian ?... :) lol ! But you can feed this pen with small international cartridges without trouble.
The pen is a bit small in the hand for me, despite my rather small (men's) hands. But this make it a real unisex pen and for all ages too.
I suggest not to use it posted (ie. the cap plugged at the back of the pen) because so the pen is unbalanced and the writing is unpleasant.
The nib is a medium (M) but tended to be on the finer side as usual with asian made pen.
The writing is really smooth directly out of the box so even those not accustomed to fountain pens will be pleased.
So for a good retro looking fountain pen to show your interest to HPL but also to support the HPLHS and wich writes well... go for it !
This pen is a classic. The design is restrained and gentlemanly which I am sure would have met with Lovecraft's approval. Thank you, Mr. Branney and HPLHS.
My MU Armitage Edition fountain pen has been my everyday writer now for about a month, I love using it so much I went and ordered a second one.
So far for the first one I have used the following inks along with the black ink cartridge that comes with it: Speedball Black ink cartridge, Manuscript Black ink cartridge, de Atramentis Dark Document Blue (via converter), Noodler's Blue Eel (via converter) and Monteverde Smoke Noir (via converter). I do have some other samples of ink that I am excitedly waiting to try out. One ink that I do have a sample of some shimmer ink that I am currently debating to try or not, as Shimmer ink requires more maintenance due to the shimmering "mica" powder that is added to the ink, and as such sometimes requires the nib to be removed from the feed when flushing the ink out to remove all the shimmer particles, which if not careful can clog the feed. I haven't tried to see if the nib is a friction fit in the grip section or not.
On cartridges vs converter, Cartridges are more convenient for ease of refilling and clean up, where as converters you either need to dip the nib into ink with the converter attached, dip the end of the converter into the ink or use a ink syringe/pipette to fill the converter, all of which can be messy. Downside of cartridges is the selection of ink colors, where as when using the converter you have a plethora of colors available as bottled ink ranging from regular inks to inks that have a shimmer effect, scented inks or even inks that are chromashading inks (where the ink displays different color properties where the ink pools due to more ink saturation).
I have also successfully used the a couple different standard international converters (the Slide piston that comes with the pen, a manuscript pull piston, and a twist/screw piston converter) in the initial pen with no issues. Note to those new to fountain pens and using converters, it is normal for you to have an air bubble in the converter when filling using the converter attached to the grip section of the pen where the nib is, as when you draw up the ink you will have some air in the feed part of the pen.
I do recommend in addition to using water to flush the old ink out using a pen flush/cleaner such as the Goulet Pen Flush (available from gouletpens.com), the Dr. Ph Martin's Bombay Pen Cleaner, or the Speedball Pen Cleaner, all of these will help dissolve/break up any dried ink in the feed and on the nib. One thing any fountain pen users should be doing it following a regular cleaning/maintenance routine for their fountain pens to help keep them writing smoothly and the ink flowing without interruptions due to clogs from dried older ink.
