Currently Inked: Three Fountain Pens and Three Inks Worth Writing With

Introduction

Some months call for a modest, practical inked lineup, and this selection leans into exactly that: three usable pens paired with three characterful inks. The theme here is reliability with a bit of personality, from a budget vacuum filler to a gold-nib demonstrator, plus a few of the shiniest inks around. Here is how the picks break down.

How These Picks Were Chosen

The guiding idea was simple: pick pens that will not cause trouble and inks that make everyday writing more interesting. That means favoring reliable nibs, generous ink capacity, and colors that work at a desk but still offer something extra, like sheen, when the paper allows.

Asvine V126: The Reliable Daily Vacuum Filler

The Asvine V126 in the blacked-out smoke matte finish with black trim is the kind of pen that quietly earns its spot in a rotation. It is a vacuum-filler, but the section unscrews, which makes it easy to syringe-fill to an absolutely full capacity and just as easy to clean. Instead of pumping the barrel over and over to flush it, you can unscrew the section and rinse the whole barrel at once. It also has a shut-off valve for travel: leave it open for desk use, screw it down when the pen goes into a bag so it does not burp ink.

This particular example carries a European extra-fine steel nib that writes wetter than most extra-fines, paired here with Diamine Majestic Blue. The nib has proven dependable, with no real hard starts or drying issues, and the build quality feels far better than the roughly $25 price suggests. It is a pen that can be tossed in a backpack and trusted to write every time, which is exactly what a daily writer should do.

BENU Euphoria Earl Grey: A Wet Writer With Real Tea in the Resin

The BENU Euphoria in the Earl Grey material is a first BENU, and it makes a strong impression. Actual Earl Grey tea leaves are mixed into the resin, which gives the grey, sparkled material a genuinely fun story. It comes stock with a fine Schmidt nib, the smallest point BENU offers, and it writes extra smooth and wet. In fact, this is an absolute fire hose of a writer, laying down so much ink that a dark purple ink can read almost black.

One honest caveat: this example may have slight over-polishing at the nib tip, occasionally hard-starting on the first letter after a full page of writing. That is a small, fixable quirk rather than a dealbreaker, and professional nib work is a straightforward remedy. The wet flow is the real headline, and it makes this pen a natural partner for heavy-sheening inks.

Nagasawa Kobe Proske Skeleton Antique Gold: A Gold-Nib Showpiece

Made by Sailor for Nagasawa Kobe, the Proske Skeleton is essentially their branded take on the Sailor 1911 Standard, and the antique gold trim version is a looker. The clear skeleton body shows off the internals, and the trim sits in a warm brownish antique-gold tone with a matching converter and matching nib. The 14K gold extra-fine nib carries a small engraved design plus the Nagasawa marking, and it looks genuinely special on the desk.

Writing performance is classic Sailor: a fine, slightly sharper nib with audible feedback, but not scratchy, and it writes consistently in every direction. Paired with Kobe No. 51 Konan Midnight, the dark blue ink against the bronze trim is a handsome combination, and testing a Kobe ink in a Kobe pen felt like the right way to run it.

The Inks: Diamine Majestic Blue

Diamine Majestic Blue is a very nice blue with a serious amount of reddish-bronze sheen, and it is the kind of ink worth committing to a full bottle. In the wet Asvine V126 it shines especially hard while still keeping that rich blue color. It behaves well in higher-capacity pens and has served as a reliable, office-appropriate daily ink all month.

Lamy Violet Blackberry

Lamy Violet Blackberry is a limited-edition ink in the squat bottle style with blotter paper, and it is a deep blackberry purple with a lot of golden sheen. In a drier nib the purple shows through clearly, but in an extremely wet pen like the BENU the ink goes down so heavily that it can look nearly black with gold sheen, which even reads brownish from a distance. One thing to watch: this ink is very wet, and this combination has shown mixed results on bleed-through, behaving perfectly on some papers while going through others, even thicker 100 GSM stock. On smoother, thinner papers it has been totally fine, so paper choice matters with this one.

Kobe No. 51 Konan Midnight

Kobe No. 51 Konan Midnight, made by Sailor for Nagasawa Kobe, is a dark blue that leans subtly purple and almost reads black at a glance. The surprise is the sheen: on the right paper and pen combination, this blue ink sheens green, which is an unusual and genuinely fun trick. It is not a heavy sheener, more of a subtle one, and it did not show much green on this month’s test paper, though Tomoe River-style papers tend to coax it out.

Practically speaking, it is an office-appropriate blue-black for all occasions, with just enough hidden personality to keep things interesting at home. Kobe inks also come in the classic squat Sailor bottles without the ink reservoir, which makes filling larger-capacity pens easier.

Buying Advice

If you want maximum practicality per dollar, the Asvine V126 with Diamine Majestic Blue is the easiest recommendation: big capacity, easy cleaning, and a dependable nib for very little money. If you enjoy a wet, glossy writing experience and like materials with a story, the BENU Euphoria is a joy, just budget for possible nib tuning. The Nagasawa Kobe Proske Skeleton is the pick for anyone wanting a gold-nib pen with real visual flair, and Kobe No. 51 Konan Midnight is the safest ink of the three for everyday use, with Lamy Violet Blackberry rewarding those who pair it with the right paper.

Conclusion

This lineup proves that a usable rotation does not need to be flashy to be satisfying. A budget vacuum filler that never lets you down, a resin pen with actual tea leaves in it, and a skeleton gold-nib showpiece, backed by two heavy sheeners and a sneaky green-sheening blue-black, covers a lot of writing ground. Match the ink to the pen and the paper, and each of these earns its place.