1st Goulet Pens haul

With this post I'm almost up to date with blogging about my fountain pen and ink purchases. I know that I should probably review what I already have but since some of the pens I got at the beginning were filled with inks that I got later, I wanted to outline these purchases first.

Goulet Pens is a wonderful business run by a couple who are passionate about inks and fountain pens: Brian and Rachel Goulet. Their customer service is outstanding and they give a personal touch to each transaction that is almost unmatched in today's corporate-controlled market. What attracted me to Goulet Pens apart from the stories of excellent customer care was the fact that they offer a complete range of Noodler's inks (well, at least the ones that are currently being produced). Since I have quickly become a big fan of Noodler's inks, the Goulet store was the obvious place to shop.

This first haul was a significant one, if not necessarily in terms of cost, then definitely in terms of items.

Going from left to right and top to bottom, I have the following:

A 4.5oz bottle of Noodler's Nikita ink. I wanted a red ink and, after reading a bunch of reviews, this one seemed perfect, especially since it comes with an actual Noodler's fountain pen. The artwork on the bottle is a hoot.

A 3oz bottle of Noodler's Gruene Cactus Eel ink. This would become my "main" green ink. I planned to use this in the Sailor HighAce Neo fountain pen that I discussed in my previous post regarding my 2nd JetPens haul.

A bottle of J Herbin 1670 Anniversary Rouge Hematite ink, or in other words, another red ink. This is my most expensive ink to date and I decided to buy it despite the cost due to its unique bottle and even more unique shading properties. Oh and also because it is supposed to be a limited edition and I didn't want to miss out on it.

A bottle of Diamine Orange ink. I struggled a lot with the many choices one has when deciding what orange ink to buy and all I can say for now is that I don't regret buying this ink one tiny bit. In fact my very next review is likely to be of this ink.

A bottle of J Herbin Vert Olive. I wanted a lighter shade of green that I would use more for shading when drawing. Yeah, I'm not an artist but I sometimes pretend to be one.

A J Herbin glass dip pen. I bought this pen because I thought it would make it easier for me to quickly sample an ink without having to ink up a fountain pen. In this aspect it is very useful. On the other hand its writing qualities aren't much to speak of.

Next is the Noodler's fountain pen which came with the 4.5oz bottle of Noodler's Nikita ink. This is an interesting pen because not many people know about it. Usually Noodler includes Platinum Preppys in their 4.5oz bottles but this is an exception. This fountain pen is also an eyedropper so I promptly filled it with Nikita ink. It also has a "creaper" nib which in Noodlerspeak means that the nib doesn't have a breather hole.

Finally, there's my first true Noodler's fountain pen with a piston filling system. It has a non-flex nib and in retrospect I regret not getting the flex nib for the same price, especially since now they have been (and will continue to be) out of stock for a long time. In the photo it is filled with J Herbin Vert Olive ink.

I won't give any spoilers but suffice to say that after using all of the above for a few weeks, I am nothing but pleased with each and every one of them. To tell the truth, the dip pen is the only thing over which I'm not ecstatic, but given the choice, I would buy it all over again.

Rest assured that I will review each and every one of these purchases going forward, if all goes well. In fact, the next review that I have scheduled is for the Diamine Orange ink, so stay tuned.