Sheaffer Prelude Fountain Pen Medium Nib

So, this year marks 100 years of Sheaffer pen manufacture, Walter A. Sheaffer founded his company with 7 employees in Fort Maddison, Iowa in the back of his jewelry shop to capitalise on his idea of a lever filling system for fountain pens, and he we are 100 years later still using Sheaffer pens. So what follows is a review of my Sheaffer pen.

index card test

The medium nib on my Sheaffer writes a very controlled and precise line, thou as with all most fountain pen inks smudging is always an issue, that lays down and assured and accurate line even on the more fibrous/rougher papers, not just the smooth 80-150gsm papers, when using Sheaffer ink, which in this case just so happens to be their turquoise cartridge ink, although this does not seem to have scanned very well or accurately, so please refer to the third picture for a true to life representation of the ink colour.

Feathering test

 On 80GSM plain paper (above) the nib and ink combination does not exhibit any feathering tendency's either when writing or rough sketching, of course this can change from paper to paper as it relies on the paper quality more than anything, but on plain copier paper of 80GSM feathering does not occur, so draw you own conclusions form that for the use your intending.

Ink colour representation

As you can see the ink colour is on the light side of turquoise when flow has been established, when starting a new cartridge the first few strokes are considerably darker, so if consistency through the document is important, a special letter or greetings card message then I would recommend getting flow going before writing.
Generally the ink is very good value, plenty of writing in a standard Sheaffer cartridge, although I must worn the writer of the messier ilk that the ink is very stubborn, more so than many other inks and will take a lot of washing to remove from fingers and clothing, if any little accidents happen.

This particular model is the rainbow colour style, similar to gun metal finishes but with a gold ground to the body and cap.

The pen comes in a nice presentation case, covered in faux metallic gold leather and a standard twist to fill Sheaffer converter for bottled ink users.

The pen itself has a nice feel in the hand, neither too heavy or light, just right, for me at least, a nice firm capped and lidded feel, with very little or no play in either position. The screw barrel also feels very firm when full screwed on, to the point that a couple of times I have had trouble and a bit of effort expanded when unscrewing for cartridge replacement.

The pocket clip is reassuringly firm and will perform adequately in most situations.

The finger grip part of the barrel is finished in plain black plastic, which is comfortable to hold for long periods of time, and perfectly adequate for this every day pen, some like a metal grip but i prefer plastic, it's all about personal choice, so decide what is best for you and stick with it.

 The nib does exhibit a very wet writing profile but thankfully does not seem to lay down too much ink when writing. The ink delivery is the standard and usual plastic veined affair found across a multitude of fountain pens, does the job perfectly well and as expected.

Notebooks...

I have a bit of a thing for notebooks too, the paper kind.

So much so that even I readily admit that I have too many.

But that's not the point, I  use them everyday, not all of them of course, this is just the stock for future use, which is always being added to, and, bar a few exemptions, they are all bargain finds, from various sources, more of which later.

Within these notebooks I also class generic organisers, such as the three in the second from top row in the photo below (#2); the black A5 (petrol station gift), green A5 (Wilkinson) and brown FC Barcelona A5 (FCB shop) examples are my regularly used ones.

There are some other interesting types and paper below, more of which later, examples of paper quality and writing reviews will follow in the days and weeks ahead.

#1 Collection Part 1

Above are some interesting examples (#1), the blue and yellow hard backed A5 books in the middle are actually Miquelrius manufactured notebooks, only ever seen for sale in Barcelona Airport duty free shops, the Warhol inspired hardback A5 in the same row was a discount shop find, many years ago no, with no distinguishable maker, although I suspect it is a named maker as the paper quality is very nice.

Bottom left and top right art punched index card folders, with subject dividers, I'm not sure what I will ever use these for but I've got them for when I do and that's the important point. Top left are 2 packs of punched rainbow index cards, not refills for the two folders, but the smaller 3" inch size, a folder for these was not included as its identical in all aspects other than size to the red and blue examples shown.

Bottom right is a Muji aluminium A6 folio folder, this is what i use when I know I'm going to be making a lot of notes, factual or descriptive notes, not creative notes, Muji refill paper and their notebooks in general I find take a pencil very well, among some of the best pencil notepaper I've used. Top middle are 2 ASDA (Wal-Mart for American readers) A5 black 3 pocketed ribboned cream plain and squared notebooks, two of which are in my daily users, see further below.

#2 Collection Part 2 

Above (#2) second from right on the bottom row are two very interesting new pocket notebooks, from Miquelrius they are marketed as Stonepaper, essentially they are waterproof, so much so that in store displays have example books fully immersed in water, how exactly the stone comes into play is never really explained beyond what can be found on the Miquelrius website, "gypsum, limestone and marble mixed with resin and we have stone paper", check back soon for a paper test with these books, I'm very excited myself to see how they take ink and stand up to water in the real world. More on Miquelrius and these Stonepaper notebooks.

#3 Every day users

#4 The ever trusty Sharpie method of spine labeling

As you can see I have used the ever popular and trusty Sharpie method for labeling the spines, though it's fine for these everyday books I would personally use a labeling machine for long term archiving, mainly because my writing is terrible and even more so when trying to write on a spine.