nothing to say: twsbi diamond 580alr

The clouds drift in the sky, obscuring the sun for a moment. Then that moment passes, and the sun warms your skin again. It’s a cold day, the type of day that necessitates a thick coat in the shade; but when the sun comes out, it’s too warm for it. You sit on the floor, in front of the large windows to soak up all the sun you can. Another cloud races over, obscuring the sun for a moment, its edges lit up, lining them in silver. It passes. A dust particle floats in the air, sparkling under the sun.

I currently have 14 pens inked up on my desk, almost all of them are from different brands. Except for the 3 TWSBI pens, among them the TWSBI Diamond 580ALR Prussian Blue, equipped with a fine nib that’s on the wetter side. This pen is a favourite for many and I’m no exception. I love demonstrators, piston fillers and blue pens. I can see the ink sloshing around, the piston mechanism working. The ribbed grip gives the pen a good tactile feel, even though I never have sweaty hands. Blue aluminum parts give it a charm most completely transparent pens lack. The nib worked perfectly out of the box, it shows shading on most of the inks. Easy to clean, easy to change parts, easy to fill. There is nothing I dislike about this pen.

Prussian Blue was one of the first pens I got. I can even list them: first was a Lamy AL-Star, followed by a Kaweco Sport and TWSBI Eco. My fourth pen was this. I loved it since I saw the slightly greenish blue of the pen, and the faceted barrel that catches the light. I even love the shape of the nib, how the shoulders curve slightly, and the nib gets narrower towards the section. It is beautiful, still one of my favourite nibs to admire. Even other people that try it are in love, we currently have 3 TWSBI Diamond 580 pens in our household. All of them get used regularly, cleaned and then refilled again instantaneously.

Mine is currently filled with Robert Oster’s Sodapop Blue. It’s a nice mid-blue, not too bright or too dark. Considering that half of my pens are filled with some form of blue ink, it’s not too surprising, but this quickly became one of my favourites to use. It shades with this fine nib, and sheens a pretty pink on good paper. Flows smoothly. One upside is that it matches the colour of the blue anodised parts nicely, so when the ink is sloshing around the barrel, the whole pen is blue. Robert Oster inks aren’t very common in here, and since I found a vendor that sells them I’ve been wanting to try out more of their inks.

To be honest, I’ve been wrecking my brain trying to find more things to say about this pen because I don’t like to leave posts very short. But there’s nothing. It’s that good of a pen that I have nothing to say about it. Every time I pick it up, it writes and it writes good. I can’t ask more from a pen, can I?

Wait, I can.

This pen still delivers everything I ask for.

I was still at the beginning of my fountain pen journey when I got this TWSBI, but it helped me a lot to learn about what I like and what to expect from a good fountain pen. Before I got the Lamy 2000, I compared all the pens to this one: “What can that pen give me that the TWSBI Diamond 580ALR cannot?” The answer varied, but if it was “nothing” I did not buy that pen.

Maybe that’s the reason I have been procrastinating on writing about this pen. I started to write about it a couple of times, and it felt short and not enough. It is so good that I am a little speechless. It had blown my mind when I first got it. Now, I don’t think it’s the perfect pen for me, or exceptional. This is a good pen, but it’s so good that I cannot stop using it.