Currently Inked: Four Fountain Pens and Three Inks for September 2026

Introduction

This month’s rotation covers late August into September, written up in the Maruman Mnemosyne A5 dot grid notebook. Its mostly white paper does a good job of showing true color, sheen, and shading, which makes it a reliable testing ground for any ink or pen combination. The rotation leans heavily blue and brown this time, which happen to be two favorite colors to write in, and it includes one long-serving daily pen, one grail-adjacent executive pen, and a pair of well-priced writers that just work.

Maiora Impronte in Terra

The Maiora Impronte in the Terra colorway is a pen with real history behind it. Maiora and Leonardo share DNA: when Delta Pens wound down, one founder went on to start Leonardo and the other started Maiora, which is why the designs look so similar. The cracked acrylic here works especially well because the cracks sit over a contrasting background color, and the metal converter gives the pen a pleasing heft. It uses a standard steel fine nib with a blind cap for quick priming, and the grip section is notably comfortable.

Ink of choice for this one is Diamine Majestic Blue, a well-behaved high-sheen blue. It is a strong pick for anyone curious about sheening inks who does not want to jump straight into the messier, smear-prone extreme sheeners. If a damp hand passes over fresh writing it can smear, but among heavy sheeners it performs very well and works for both journaling and office use.

Faber-Castell e-motion Dark Brown Wood

The Faber-Castell e-motion in the dark brown wood and smooth metal finish is a chunky, well-weighted pen that sits securely in the hand and is easy to control. Faber-Castell has been around since 1781, and the company makes some of the best steel nibs in the game, alongside Diplomat. This example has an extra fine steel nib that writes reliably and has never failed.

The pairing here is KWZ Honey, filled from a sample. It is a decently wet writer and an excellent shader, shading well even through the extra fine nib. It smells pleasantly of vanilla, which is unobtrusive at finer nib sizes. The only hesitation about a full bottle is that the color sits very close to another favorite brown, so a large bottle of that one already covers the niche.

Cross Peerless 125 Palladium

The Cross Peerless 125 in the palladium finish is the most premium fountain pen Cross makes and one of the flashier pens in this collection, complete with a Swarovski crystal on the cap top and a distinctive Cross clip. It is a big, executive-style pen. New examples are hard to find and can run close to a thousand dollars, which makes a good secondhand deal the sensible way in.

The selling point is the 18-karat gold nib made by Sailor, from the era before Sailor commonly offered 18-karat gold. This one is a fine, and it writes like a dream, with a slight audible feedback character that fans of Japanese nibs will recognize.

Its ink for the month is Iroshizuku Tsuyu-kusa, a fairly wet, calming medium blue from a nearly finished sample. Honestly assessed, it sits very close to Pilot’s standard blue, just slightly lighter and brighter, which is a fair reason the color was discontinued. It shades a little, shows no real sheen, and even reads like a pleasant blue-black when mixed with residue from a previous fill.

Pilot Vanishing Point

The Pilot Vanishing Point is the trusty daily carry of the group, used daily for two or three years straight, which explains the dents and dings. Picking it up again feels like putting on a favorite jacket. This one has an 18-karat fine nib, smoother and wetter than the extra fine Decimo, though the Decimo’s extra fine line width is also appealing. It writes super smooth and wet with none of the Sailor’s feedback, possibly aided by years of breaking in.

Inked with Diamine Majestic Blue again, it makes an excellent chuck-in-the-backpack office pen, which is exactly what the retractable design is built for. This is a rare Japanese pen that runs a touch broader and much wetter than typical Japanese fines.

Thoughts on Ink Rotation and Samples

A couple of ink habits are worth stealing from this rotation. The first is working through one bottle a year, starting with smaller 30 ml bottles, to keep the shelf honest. The second is using up old samples before buying anything new. Samples are the cheapest way to learn whether an ink deserves a full bottle: finish a sample quickly and it earns a spot on the list, take a year or two over it and the sample size was always enough. Many of the remaining samples are discontinued inks, which makes using them up bittersweet but worthwhile.

Conclusion

Three or four pens is a sensible maximum for a rotation, and this month’s picks show how small changes refresh a lineup. The Maiora Impronte brings character and shared history, the Faber-Castell e-motion is the dependable workhorse, the Cross Peerless 125 is the special occasion writer, and the Pilot Vanishing Point remains the honest daily tool. Paired with Majestic Blue, KWZ Honey, and Tsuyu-kusa, it is a blue-and-brown month that proves the best rotation is simply filling your pens with whatever you feel like writing.