One of my first pens was two Parker 51 pens that I inherited from my parents. Iβve always loved the form factor of the hooded nibs (and semi-hooded nibs) so when I read of the announcement of the 2017 Aurora Duo Cart re-release just 63 short years since the pen was first released in 1954, I became very interested in the pen. When Pen Chalet gave me the opportunity to review this pen I was eager to try it.
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My Pen Collection
I mentioned, when sharing my ink collection, that I had 58 pens and this will be a tour, of sorts, of all 58. It's an eclectic array of pens; from a cheap Noodler's Creeper to the now rather pricy OMAS Paragon Brown Arco Celluloid, my pens are hardly unified. I haven't really got a focus with the collection (though I haven't had, in the past, much of a focus with inks either!). I am, however, keeping an eye out for Sailor Store Exclusive or LE pens that catch my eye but in general I'm merely acquiring pens that I like a certain feature of (such as a nib or material) or a set of features. The closest I am to any form of organised collection is to complete my Visconti Wall Street set (I just need Blue) and I am, more generally, a fan of stacked celluloid.
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637 Bottles and 33.47 litres of Ink
It took a while but I finally cleaned the space around my ink shelf and and arranged the bottles somewhat to take a photo of the entire collection. The title is a bit untrue because as of these photos, 619 bottles of ink were on the shelf (well, one I forgot was on my desk) but I have 18 bottles of ink that are on the way as well making for a total of 637 bottles (593 if you discount the 44 duplicated). That's around 33.47 litres (8.84 gallons) of ink. I have an additional 99 samples and swatches of 165 inks that I have neither bottles nor samples of. In total I have 858 swatches of unique inks.
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