Glass Dip Pen

Never heard of "glass dip pens" before? Neither had I until recently. Now I am the proud owner of a beautiful, handmade pen (made to order by a man in Bundaberg, Australia) and a matching Italian-made ink well. I have to say that the photo does not do them justice. The pen has a glass nib, which you dip into the ink (hence the name) before writing. From my research I expected to only write a few words between "dips", but my pen lets me write about 1-2 sentences at a time. To clean the nib, I simply dip the pen into a little water and dab it onto a tissue.

One of the benefits of using a dip pen (as opposed to using a fountain pen) is that you can swap ink colours anytime you wish. I haven't tested that yet, as I only have blue ink (so far). But I can see how easy it would be. Oh no, I can feel the world of inks, pens, wax seals and beautiful paper beckoning me....