Top 10 Fountain Pens from the Collection! - It's time to judge all the pens from my collection till Feb 2026, from all the pens reviewed in the fountain pens category. This time I have filled in the ink in all of them to show how it writes.
The notebook used is the Oxford Signature Smart Journal from Sandton Stationery & Print.
Fountain Pen Inks used are some of the ones we reviewed and some of the samples we received at the Pen Meet in Johannesburg on 21-Feb-2026 by Paizley Pen Roll and WriteGear.
My Top 10 Fountain Pens from the Rest of the World. In this video, we are showcasing all the other pen manufacturers like Lamy, Online, Parker, Platignum, Kaweco and many more.
Parker 25 Stainless Steel Fountain Pen comes with a steel medium nib and a silicon ink converter. This one has been out of the market since 1989, and it has just been replaced by the Parker Vector fountain pen, now in the modern world. As I was writing with the same, I could feel that it's just a similar writing experience to my Parker Vector fountain pens. The nib design is also similar as it's curved on the end where they are joined with the feed.
Moonman, a brand from China, also released its own version of this body design called Moonman B25 Model in the fountain pen range. The same is available at WriteSpoke in Johannesburg, South Africa, for around ZAR 350 each, and the ballpoint version is for ZAR 300 only. Link - https://www.writespoke.co.za/online-store/B-Series-c180610766
I have been a fan of Premium Pens and when it comes from a brand like Parker, I have bought numerous pens in all shapes and sizes from them. Here is a look at one of the pens from the Parker Urban Premium Pens series. This is a ball pen and I bought it for its premium Purple colour from Onedayonly online retailer. I am a big fan of fountain pens but that's top-of-the-range pens so goes really fast in a sale. Enjoy and subscribe to my channel, this is one of the most seen videos on my channel from the Stationery playlist.
This is one of the best-looking pens I have had in my arsenal for the past several years. I bought the same in one of the daily deals from the online retailer - One Day Only in South Africa. I really love the metallic grip and the purple body with awesome texture.
OneDayOnlyCoZa usually has a stationery sale once or twice a fortnight and they are selling various local brands along with the esteemed Parker Pens. This used to be my most expensive pen as I had never bought such an expensive pen before.
If you love stationery products, do check out my channel where I am bringing all the brands from around the world in the writing instruments and notebooks space. I have plenty of videos scheduled daily going forward. The channel has now more than 115+ videos on the channel only related to various Stationery products.
I bought this pen in the sale and I don't remember the price now but it must be around ZAR 500 which I must have paid but the actual price is much more than that. Keep watching for the items that you want in your life and can then grab them as their price drops.
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I have always loved the Parker Pens and Jotter has been on my list of items to own since the start. I have owned it at various points in my life but for many years this is the only one I have. I have not used it at all and is in mint condition only for the video to be shot. I totally loved the click sound but when someone else is making it, it's very irritating.
Check out the same as this is also medium tip 1.0 mm which I don't like much but don't know if there is any other variation available in the Parker Ballpoint pens. I bought it from Onedayonly online sale but now the pen is available at various stores for ZAR 99 each whereas the one-day only charges a courier fee of around ZAR60 on top of the price of the pen.
This pen now comes in so many colours that there is a special package as well where you get 36 Parker Jotter pens in all different body colours. I can review the same if Parker Pen UK sends me the same.
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Parker Pens have been my favourite since time immemorial and I still remember that I won one Parket Beta in my favourite Yellow Colour from a contest in Saket, New Delhi from NIIT. That was a ball pen and it really glued me to the Parker quality. Thereafter I bought many Parker Rollerball pens and also some fountain pens. Overall, I had 3 Parker Vector Fountain Pens in three body colours that I really loved. They all had ink converters inside of them and also I got some ink cartridges as well.
As I was randomly visiting the CNA store in Sandton City, which is now closed as well permanently, I found this Parker ink going for sale from its market price of ZAR 150 to ZAR 50 at a 67% discount. I immediately thought of buying the same. Once the ink entered my home, it took me around 4 years to finish the 57ml Blue Ink bottle. The next one I bought I got for ZAR 75 at a 50% discount again.
Till that time I only had some fountain pens and not like today when I have a lot in my collection, so I can say this ink brought a lot of pens into my life and took away a lot of my hard-earned money. Coming back to the colour of the ink, Parker Quink Blue is a different kind of blue, it's dark and has a little bit of red sheen. It's not a brilliant blue or sky blue kind of colour but much darker than that. It doesn't match with any of the other blue inks I have in my arsenal. It's a totally unique ink that can get you started in the fountain pen world. I have filled so many pages of journalling with this ink. I feel like it's a mixture of grey ink mixed with blue colour as it's not darker on the paper. Overall, this is the biggest amount of ink I have used as an adult so I will definitely love my first love but you can decide on your first ink with your first fountain pen for sure.
I have not tested the Parker Quink Ink in Black Colour as yet because they never go on sale, I don't know why and I am sure not I am not going to buy it as well as I have Noodler's Black Bulletproof ink as well along with Camlin Syah Black, Montblanc Mystery Black and Lamy T52 Black ink bottle.
Thanks to CNA Africa Sandton City Store for the annual sale, I got this ink for only ZAR 50 for a 57ml bottle. I will also finish the first bottle of fountain pen ink used or consumed to write using the Parker Fountain Pens. Thanks and enjoy the video.
If any ink brand wants to send us their inks, please contact me at editor@thelifesway.com. Even if they cannot ship to South Africa, I can provide them with the Aramex Global Shopper Address where they can send the same to their local country address as well and I pay the courier charges to get them to South Africa.
I bought a lot of fountain pens last year from several brands like Lamy, Pilot, Amazon Basics and Parker as well though I have been using Parker Vector Fountain pens for more than 20 years. I have had three in different body colours.
The Parker pens I had came with plastic piston ink converters along with some cartridges as well. I have always thought that the cartridges were as expensive as compared to the converters. But slowly and steadily all kinds of converters develop some kind of leakages etc and are no longer fit for use as it happened recently in one of my Vector Foutain Pens from Parker Pens. But it's understandable as I was using the said pen for the last 15 years so the quality has lasted a long time. Immediately I switched to the Parker Cartridges I have available with me.
My Pilot Metropolitan Fountain Pen I bought last year from a Stationery & Print shop in Sandton city came with a squeeze converter. I am sure most of the Pilot fountain pens come with the squeeze converter or the cartridge. When I bought it despite my gut feeling, I bought it with the squeeze convertor option though the cartridge option was also available at the store. I have had a long history during school time with squeeze converters as it has wasted my valuable time sorting them out instead of studying.
Since the time I bought the Pilot Metropolitan fountain pen, I have been delighted by my purchase and went on to buy some more branded fountain pens as well. Some days back, when the ink finished in the Pilot Fountain Pen, I saw that the rubber has contracted and joined at some places. I have never put the pen in sunlight and it's always under the desk where no light reaches. I have had the misfortune as the rubber expended or contracted and started touching the barrel of the pen. It led to the whole socket coming out of the tip of the fountain pen.
I tried to wash it and blow it up with air but it didn't bring the rubber back into its original state. I also tried to refill it but it also didn't work as now it was taking much less ink like 5-6 drops. I immediately went into some kind of experiment mode as I didn't have Pilot cartridges available with me and I have to use this pen daily for my journaling.
There were some options available to me -
The easiest option was to replace the squeeze convertor with the Pilot pen original fountain pen cartridges. I didn't want to buy the cartridges from the South African stores as it's costly here (ZAR 50) for 5 compared to ZAR 20 in India. Also, I will have to go to the store and get them from there. The pen cost me only around ZAR 200 and now I can not spend ZAR 50 for just 5 cartridges.
Second, is to use the empty cartridges of the Pilot Hi-Tecpoint 0.7 Cartridge System which fits easily into the fountain pen as well. This is a unique design for all fountain pens. If you are using any of the refillable rollerball pens from Pilot, that is definitely a fit for the fountain pens as well. I bought one in India and my daughter was using the same here. She finished the same and it was there in one of the giveaway charity bags I saw it there and immediately it was a brainer to use it. But then fountain pen ink will waste this pen as it can be refilled with its own cartridges and ink that's not available in South Africa.
Lastly, is to use the Parker pen cartridge using some jugaad that I did to make a cartridge that fits the Pilot pens perfectly well without any leakage. I did deploy this arrangement because this was the easiest one and can be done at the same time. I have empty cartridges available to me because Parker Fountain Pens come with a casing to keep 3 cartridges in a travel case that came free with the Parker Vector pens. I have had 2 of these cases for a long long time and somehow remained there till this time ready for the jugaad to happen.
The whole process is explained in the video I shot and available on my YT channel. The steps are simple take a knife or cutter to cut the blue portion out and then from the cartridge take the blue portion leftover ring out. Fill the ink with a syringe (1ml) that's available in the market for ZAR 2 only at Dischem. Push the cartridge into the fountain pen body and your pen is ready to write again as much as you want.
Let me know if you like these kinds of temporary arrangements leading to saving money as a whole. I have used these kinds of jugaads all my life so many things in life.
Thanks, Aashish
Cheers!!!
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I have been using a desk since the last June 2020 when I shifted to rental accommodation and since then I have tried to make the best use of my small desk as compared to what I was using earlier for the past 3 years in my old house. I was putting my Acer monitor on the top of a circular gift pack to raise its height to suit my neck ergonomically as well as various other JUGAAD technology on the go.
Since the last year when I shifted to this home a lot of accessories have been brought into the play on this small desk setup. In this blog post, we will go one by one through the items I am using on my desk.
1. Deskstand Wavy Sit-Stand Laptop Bed Stand - https://www.thelifesway.com/2020/05/thelifeswayreviews-thedeskstand-wavy.html - It's a really nice laptop stand I bought last year but soon it got broke and the company sent me another one for free during the lockdown. You should definitely try out their products. I bought the one for R395 on 25th Sep 2018 during one of their month-end sales.
2. BOSE Companion II Multimedia Speaker System - I bought them in clearance sale from Incredible Connection long back (7 July 2014) for around R600 only. Since then I have been using them on a daily basis, and only now there is a hissing sound when not being played or connected to a source and even after connected to the sound is prominent. Otherwise, the audio quality of Bose speakers knows no introduction and I totally love these.
3. Asus VivoBook S15 Laptop - Asus VivoBook has been my laptop of choice since my Dell XPS L501 laptop became too slow for my liking and then I shifted to this Intel Core i5 8th Gen powered laptop with NVIDIA GEFORCE. I also upgraded the same to 1TB of SSD (for around R3188 on 23 July 2019) as compared to 1TB of Hard disk drive it had and since then the laptop switched on and off in no time.
4. Acer KA220HQbid Black 21.5'' LED Monitor - I bought an external display for having bigger size screen and this was my first LED monitor which was on sale on Acer Online store for R1300 and I was given R500 discount coupon by Acer South Africa to buy anything from their store so it costed me R800. I bought the same on 31st August 2017 and since then it has been my monitor of choice and during the last years work from home it has been my main display.
5. Leroy Merlin DESK LAMP WITH CLIP E14 1X25W METAL + PL - I bought the last piece available on display (priced at R149) from the Edenvale store and the manager offered me a discount as I got it for R100 only. As this was the last piece and I wanted it badly, so I didn't check the quality of the clip which I feel has a missing rubber. Overall, it has a long cable so can reach all the sides of your study table and can even be clipped to your bed as a nightshade. I want to install a Wifi enable colour LED into the same so as to enjoy various colours of lights on the go. I have stopped searching for any other table lamp since this has come into my life in the month of September 2021. Thanks, Leroy Merlin for the great products and discounts from time to time. Your service is excellent.
6. REDRAGON DRACONIC K530RGB Bluetooth Mechanical Keyboard - This one I also reviewed some days back on my blog post where you can get all the information regarding this awesome keyboard. I need to have an RGB mousepad and another RGB mouse for my setup to be complete.
7. Logitech M720 Wireless Triathlon Mouse - I got this Logitech mouse in May 2017 and since then it has been in my hands and never given me any kind of problems so far. I really love the design of this mouse and the feature that it can be connected to three different gadgets using the small Logitech dongle. Now I want to change to a wireless RGB mouse for my desk setup.
8. Free Dell Alienware Mousepads - I got these mousepads during one of the RageExpo some years back as a part of their expo campaign. Since that time I am using the same and now wants to switch to RGB mousepads for my desk setup.
9. Pens and Stationery - Most of my pens and stationery are free goodies from various events but Pens from Parker, Xiaomi and Pilot are bought by me specifically as I love writing with Parker Fountain Pens (I have Vector and IM series). I specifically love the design of Lamy pens but so far I have not had them. I love fine tips or anything which is lower than 0.5mm in nib size. In Pilot pens, I love the C4 which has around 0.38 mm nib tip in gel pen style which is priced around R60 per piece. I keep them all in the Dell Pen Stand or the Typo Buffalo pen holder.
10. Notepads/Journals - I am still using the Huawei notepads got from one of their launch events and that has been my daily gratitude journal of 5 things to be grateful for. The other notebooks I have are from the movie Godzilla as a goodies bag which is my BuJo (Bullet Journals) and contains all the important information about myself and my days since the past year or so. I soon want to move to the expensive journals from Exclusive books or from Typo.
11. Maxnomic ESL Pro 2.0 Gaming Chair - This was a dream come true gaming chair that I got in October 2017 and since then my posture has improved and never I have faced any kind of back pain or neck pain. A gaming chair of this quality really helps you ergonomically. I enjoy sitting on this chair and since the lockdown last year the PU leather has started to crack as the time spent on the chair increased a lot. I can change it to a leather cover for the chair which will cost me around R1000 to change but I thought I will get it done once the whole piece is gone or not worthy of sitting anymore.
12. Orico Power Adapter - This is one of the simple gadgets to plug in all my devices as well as offering 2 USB charging points. I bought this one for around R150 from one of the shops in 2016 or so and since then has been my favourite charging station. Now I am finding it difficult to insert 2-pin plugs as the adapter is showing resistance. It takes a little bit of power and shakes to insert the power adapters to charge my smartphones. There is no such problem faced with the South African power adapters.
13. Xiaomi Mi Wi-Fi Range Extender Pro- This is one of the cheapest wifi repeaters available in the market and I bought this from the mia.africa.com website in one of their online Chinese New Year sales in the month of Feb 2021 for R150. I bought another one for R100 only during their June 2021 sale.
Other than that there are many things which I have received from the launch events and goodies from the expo which I use for some time before being replaced by the new ones. Also, I keep visiting typo and other shops in search of deals that can make my desk set up a little bit cooler and organized. I am also a productivity fan and follower and always tries to save time. I am one of the lazy persons Bill Gates talks about in his famous quote.
Support me if you like reading this blog post by buying me a cup of tea or coffee - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/TheLifesWay Contact at thelifesway@gmail.com to collaborate and promote your services and products. Subscribe to my YOUTUBE Channel for giveaways, product reviews and mystery unboxings. #TheLifesWay #9YearsofTheLifesWay. Namaste!
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.png "Stationery Review 61: Parker Urban Premium Ball Pen - Executive's Top Choice For ZAR 500")
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