If I’ve seemed a bit absent from the pen internets lately, it’s not without good reason: I’ve spent much of the past two weeks either traveling to pen shows or finalizing taxes, like everyone else here in the States. While I do have an accountant to help me finalize any submissions, I’m in that weird spot where my business isn’t large enough to justify the expense of a regular bookkeeper, so I still do much of the work myself, and a lot of it requires manual review of invoices, reports, and related documentation.

But enough about the nuts and bolts of tax prep. Nobody really wants to read about that, and those of you who aren’t serial procrastinators probably finished your taxes weeks ago. Every year, however, I always plan to write a post about what pens (and pencils) I use to make it through the first weeks of April, and never get around to it because the entire experience burns me out and I don’t want to even think about taxes more than I have to. But this year is different! 2024 tax season overlapped with an interesting vintage acquisition that I made at the Arkansas Pen Show, inspiring this morning’s post.

Penco Prime Timber, Caran d'Ache Fixpencil, and Parker 51 Flighter laid out on a desk — Three pens/pencils for tax season: The Penco Prime Timber 2.0 leadholder, a Caran d’Ache Fixpencil, and a vintage Parker 51 “Flighter”.

Vintage Extra-Fine Nibs and Dagger-Sharp Leadholders

If there’s one frustration among those of us who naturally have very small handwriting or or work in professions where we regularly annotate documents or take smaller notes, it’s the absence of (1) truly “extra fine” fountain pen nibs that write consistently small out of the box and (2) reliably good pencils - and sharpeners - that can hold a point for any substantial length of time. Sure, all of these things do exist, but mostly in import products and on the higher-end of the price spectrum. The standard steel “fine” or “extra-fine” fountain pen nib from Bock and JoWo - ubiquitous in modern pens - isn’t small enough for the type of notetaking I do regularly, so I have to rely on custom-ground needlepoints and Japanese gold nibs like the fine and extra-fine nibs from Pilot and Sailor.

Parker 51 and Pilot Vanishing Point Extra-Fine Writing Samples, Compared — This particular Parker 51 almost gets me as fine a line as I can get out of my Pilot Vanishing Point extra-fine nib.

This wasn’t always the case. Back when most bookkeeping and accounting work was done manually, it sustained a market for truly “extra-fine” nibs (preferably ones that were stiff to allow you to write very, very small with consistent inkflow, and which you sometimes see designated as “accounting nibs”). Case-in-point: the extra-fine nib on this Parker 51 “flighter” fountain pen I picked up at the pen show last week. I own a lot of Parker 51 fountain pens, and most of the nibs are standard fines or what I would consider a fine-medium: nothing like the smooth extra-fine nib on this one, which so far has held up wonderfully with reliable inkflow. I wouldn’t go so far as to call this pen a “needlepoint,” but it writes a line comparable to the extra-fine nib in Pilot Custom 74 or Vanishing Point, which I consider the most reliable, readily available, and reasonably priced writing experience for those looking to write very small with a fountain pen.

Otherwise, for very small writing I’m using a mechanical pencil, a .5mm low-viscosity ballpoint, or if I’m looking to keep things interesting, a leadholder pencil. One thing that I love about leadholders like the Caran d’Ache Fixpencil or the Penco Prime Timber is the ability to put an extremely sharp point on them, making them a favorite for art, drafting, or - like me - writing absolutely minute script. The 2mm and 3mm leads that these pencils use often sharpen better than the standard cores used in woodcase pencils, and you can easily change the hardness of the graphite to adjust point retention. In my experience, leadholder graphite tends to run slightly harder than its designation, so even a B or 2B drafting lead can get you both a very sharp point and a dark line.

To get the best point on a leadholder, I’d recommend you invest in a stand-alone lead pointer with replaceable blades, as the integrated sharpener in the cap of many leadholders isn’t of the highest quality. Sure, it’s serviceable in a pinch, but you won’t get the needle-tip that you see pictured here.

Leadholder Pencil Writing Sample — Properly sharpened graphite will almost always get you a finer line than a pen.

Takeaways and Where to Buy

I’ve been using my Penco leadholder and new 51 nearly exclusively for the past week, and recommend both as excellent tools for everyday work. Unfortunately, finding a suitable vintage nib for your needs likely requires a trip to a pen show or some back-and-forth with a reputable vintage pen dealer. Parker 51 nibs typically aren’t marked, and I’ve noticed a lot of variability in size between different pens that supposedly have the same nib, so I almost always like to write with them before I purchase. I acquired this particular Parker 51 from Danny Fudge at The Write Pen, who has become my go-to resource for all things vintage. The Penco “Prime Timber” leadholder is sold in our own shop - it’s an inexpensive quality leadholder that includes an excellent lead pointer in the packaging. We also have a selection of Caran d’Ache Fixpencils and graphite refills, as well as the ultra-sharp M+R Brass Lead pointer, which has holes for sharpening two different lead widths and replaceable blades.

Do you have a favorite tax-time tool? (Not Turbotax or Quickbooks, sorry, analog only! :)) Bonus points if you still use a leatherbound ledger!

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I have relatively small handwriting, though I’m something of a special case since I tend to change my handwriting depending on what exactly it is that I’m working on. For standard writing and journaling, I’ll adopt a larger hand for which a medium nib is more suitable, but as I’ve mentioned before, a large portion of the writing that I do involves marking up and annotating documents that can contain very fine print. For work like this, I’ll typically need at least an extra-fine nib fountain pen, though this is where I tend to incorporate fine tip gel pens and ballpoints into my workflow.

Extra-Fine Writing Lineup: Ballpoints on a Table — My fine writing lineup, from left: Uniball Jetstream 4+1 Multi Pen, Anterique Brass .5mm Ballpoint, Uniball Jetstream “Tokyo Bike” 4+1 limited edition, two Jetstream Edge ballpoints in .38mm and .28mm, Uniball Jetstream 3 Multipen in .38mm tip size, Pilot Hi-Tec-C Coleto Multi Pen, and the Pilot Custom Heritage 912 with a PO Nib.

How fine can I go? Pretty Fine, But There Are Practical Limits.

On the fountain pen side of things, it’s difficult to get a nib that writes as fine as most .28mm or .38mm gel or ballpoint pens. Even if you’re using the Pilot PO (“Posting”) nib, Platinum’s UEF (Ultra Extra-fine), or a Saibi Togi-style nib, water-based fountain pen ink tends to spread on paper, so unless the pen writes fairly dry or you select a drier ink, you may have trouble obtaining the desired line width. For this reason, most of my annotation work is done with a finer gel pen or, more recently, low-viscosity ballpoint pens. I get a lot of questions about the best pen for “fine writing,” so I thought it might be interesting to talk a bit about the different options I rotate through on a regular basis and what my preferences are:

PIlot PO Nib writing sample — The Pilot PO nib leaves a line that’s roughly equivalent to a .38mm gel or ballpoint, provided you use good paper like the Midori MD pad pictured here.

Fountain Pens. My all-time preferred option for is the Pilot PO (“Posting”) nib, originally intended for addressing mail. It’s a VERY fine, slightly downturned nib that’s relatively dry and, when paired with an ink like standard Pilot Blue-Black, holds a fine line pretty well as long as you are using decent paper. On cheap office paper, however, even this ink tends to spread, which costs you the benefit of the finer point, which is why at the office I always have a gel or ballpoint pen with me.
Gel Pens. I rarely go finer than a .4mm Pilot Hi-Tec-C refill, since below that tip size I tend to run into drying/skipping/clogging issues, plus the writing experience becomes scratchy. My pen of choice is the Pilot Hi-Tec-C Coleto multi pen, which allows me to carry up to four different colors in a single pen body (or three plus a mechanical pencil). Lately, I’ve also added the .4mm Pilot Frixion to the rotation, and have been pleasantly surprised with how well it’s performed. The ink isn’t as dark as other gel pens, but it’s better than it used to be, and I plan to write up a full review of the Frixion once I’ve had more longer-term experience with it.
Ballpoint Pens. Honestly, where I’ve been spending most of my “fine-writing” time these days is in the hybrid/low-viscosity ballpoint category, since I generally find the writing experience smoother and more reliable, even if you go down to the .38mm tip size. I recently posted about my trip to New York City, where I visited Kinokuniya books and picked up a fistful of Uniball Jetstream multi pens, including a .38mm version that I had never seen before. While some claim to have experienced skipping and scratchy writing with the .38mm Jetstream cartridge, I’ve used this pen for years and never had an issue. That said, there’s no denying that a .5mm low-viscosity ballpoint refill is smoother, and unless I need to write really small, my pen of choice is the .5mm Uniball Jetstream (typically loaded into a multi pen) or the one of the .5mm Anterique “Mach Ball” pens.

The Anterique Mach Ball .5mm writes something more akin to a .4mm line - it’s narrower than the Jetstream .5mm despite having the same nominal tip size.

But What's the Absolute Finest I Can Go?

I used to say .38mm, but last month at Kinokuniya I picked up the .28mm Jetstream “Edge”, which features a Rotring-style hexagonal barrel and rounded grip section that some might find more comfortable than your typical technical pen. Check out the difference in tip size from the writing sample below:

Uniball Jetstream Tip Sizes — Comparing the range of Jetstream tip sizes.

The shocking thing to me is that even at .28mm, you don’t lose that much smoothness or visibility compared to the .38mm. That said, I’m not sure that the .28mm gives you meaningfully more versatility than a .38mm refill for actual writing, as opposed to technical drawing or art where the subtle differences between line widths actually make a difference. Even if the .28mm is usable (which it is!), I’m not sure that there’s a benefit beyond novelty for most people. .28mm probably sets the floor for me personally!

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