three makes a collection: twsbi eco
Sweltering hot weather isn’t a very good companion on days you cannot leave the house. The computer has been trying to render an animation for the past three hours and it has barely made it through halfway. It overheats often in the house where the slightest breeze barely moves the curtains. You have to be there when the computer shuts down to cool to reopen it. The struggling fans of it and the Carmen create a symphony in the background. But that is life in the spring, when the only thing left to do is to wait for even hotter days and holidays to arrive.
TWSBI ECO was one of my first fountain pens. The cheerful yellow one from last year’s limited edition colours. I filled it up with TWSBI black ink, the darkest solid black I could get my hands on at the time. It reminded me of a bee, buzzing around, working. I used that pen a lot, it was my main note taking pen and I would easily go through a full fill in a couple of days, even with an extra fine nib. I love all of my TWSBI pens, even though the yellow Eco has the most special place in my heart.
Eco’s also kickstarted my love of bottled ink. The transparent body shows the ink moving around beautifully. In 8am lectures, when the world is still very dark outside, I gladly play with anything interesting and fun to keep myself awake. Even when it’s not, the pen changes its character slightly every time you put a different ink in it. Which, for me, didn’t mean much at the beginning, I only put the darkest black ink I could find.
But then the grey version got released. I didn’t care about it much at first, I thought it wasn’t a very interesting colour. Even then, I couldn’t pass it when a great deal showed up. Again, with the extra fine nib. I filled that one with Diamine Blue Black, to give some colour to my notes by highlighting the keywords. So much for putting colourful inks to the one demonstrator pen I had. The pair of them got used the most often though. Apparently colourful inks don’t get used as much in my rotation.
The last one I have is this year’s Jade. I couldn’t possibly pass this one. Not a single chance. Green is my favourite colour and the pastel green is too good to pass up. It is also a similar to the Leonardo Momento Zero Jade that got announced around the same time. So… I got two new green pens. When some of your most used pens get used in green, it is very hard to not want them. In return, I filled this pen with Vinta Sea Kelp Leyte 1944. Did I tell you enough times that I love green?
Due to the built-in piston filling system, you don’t have to fumble with converters, filling old cartridges with syringes or waiting to get the feed saturated before writing. It only has three -one of them is optional really- steps. You put the nib to the ink bottle, turn the knob, wipe the nib. The pen is ready to write. When I had first discovered this pen it had changed my world. I could just ink my pen up and write without waiting. Quick fills and the large ink capacity makes this pen great for long writing sessions anytime, anywhere. For the longest time Eco with the black ink was my journalling pen and lecture pen and the pen I took out when I wanted to lecture outside. Which wasn’t very often, since Covid was pretty new at the time and I was scared away from home. But I wouldn’t be lying if I said fountain pens and writing didn’t help. How can you not smile when your pen looks like one of the gigantic bumblebees that visit you every now and then? It doesn’t buzz very loudly too.
A good nib, a piston mechanism that works smoothly, fun plastics and a demonstrator all in one is a hard bargain to miss for me. I try my best not to collect different colours of the same pen, but it is getting difficult with Eco’s. Especially after the Jade edition. It looks amazing and it writes at least as good as it looks.
These days lower priced pens are so good that I genuinely think that you can only get a pen like the TWSBI Eco and find the one pen you love in it. It gets used more than most of my other pens, even the TWSBI 580. Some of that charm comes from it not being very expensive. I tend to carry them without worrying too much. I have all three of them inked up at the moment. I was going to say “and probably for much longer as well,” but I decided that the Cement Gray one might be due for a cleaning. I only cleaned it once, after it arrived to me. That’s way too long ago. Still works perfectly though!
I will end this with a minor horror story that gives me anxiety days after it happend. I had taken the grey Eco to school for a lecture, and we had to do a group project afterwards. One of the people in my group asked me to use my pen to sign his name off from the list. I just froze. I couldn’t possibly give my lovely pen to this… this… stranger? Can I? I said no. Smiled afterwards. At least I think I did. It might’ve not been the kind, apologetic smile I was aiming for by the looks of the guy stepping away from me. At the end of the day, I saved my pen from a possible doom. That’s all that matters.
Thank you for reading!
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