I showed my young apprentice, er, my colleague, my collection of ink swatches, figured out her preferences, and then realized she’s ready to move to the next phase.

I’ve mentioned before how my frequent display of my abundance of fountain pens has led my colleague to experiment with fountain pens. She started with cheap Chinese pens, including a LAMY knock off endorsed by the Well-Appointed Desk. Today I tried to figure out what kind of ink she likes. This led to an hour or so long discussion about the properties of the various inks. I’m especially pleased that she’s not distracted by pretty swatches full of sheen but instead focuses on how the ink actually looks when it’s put on the page by a fountain pen.

At one point, she tried to find one of her cheap pens that seems to have vanished, but she couldn’t find it.

Her main problem, at this phase, is that she doesn’t have a proper pen case which has led to her pens being scattered hither and thither.

This means she’s ready to enter the next phase: penphenalia, which includes pen cases and snot suckers used for cleaning.

First I’ll introduce her to Nock. Co., but I suspect Japan has enough goods on hand to store her pens.

After that, we’ll see how far down the rabbit hole she goes…