Sailor Lecoule Fude de Mannen Tsukigumo
セーラー レクル ふでDEまんねん(月雲)
I may have gone feral and jumped on buying this a bit too fast 🙈
I bought this directly from Sailor's online shop and used Tenso to deliver it to me in Canada. These Fude de Mannen pens were released as a pair, Tsukigumo's nib is bent at 55° while Yuugumo's is bent at 40°. I think it's cute that these pens were created with a cloud theme in mind, Tsukigumo = moon cloud and Yuugumo = evening cloud 🌙⛅
The colours in Sailor's stock photos are more accurate. My phone can't seem to capture the blue of the pen quite right, you can definitely tell that the blue in Tsukigumo is more yellow-leaning when you're looking at it in real life. It's not a deep, navy blue like my photos 🙇♀️ The white parts of the pen is semi-transparent and is pearlescent, which goes really well with the "moonlit cloud" imagery.
I only bought Tsukigumo since I already have two pens that have a 40° fude nib (Hocoro dip pen and Yurameku Profit Jr.)
I think it's because I hold my pen pretty upright when I write, I like the feel the 55° fude nib more, I experience less "scratch" and barely have to adjust my hand as opposed to when I'm using the Hocoro fude nib, it takes me a while to find that "sweet spot" when I'm using the Hocoro.
Below are some writing samples of the Hocoro fude nib (40°) and the Lecoule Fude de Mannen (55°). It's very easy to get thicker lines with the Lecoule without straining my wrist. Most people would probably use a fude nib for calligraphy but I'm excited to draw and doodle with this pen!
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Disappointing side effect to losing most of my Sailor fountain pen collection* at the very beginning of this holiday: realising that France, despite being a fountain pen country, has a rather mediocre fountain pen market. Can’t find Sailor pens on any physical store. Same goes for inks: can’t even find Diamine inks.
*either lost it at the airport, on the flight here or had it stolen on the flight. I’m in mourning, long lasting shock and disbelief
Also known as the most popular fountain pen ever made. The original production run lasted from 1941 to 1972 and sold at least 20 million pens.
As simple as it looks, it has some features that were groundbreaking at the time. The cap is a slip cap, when everybody else was using screw threads. The nib is tube shaped, making it especially rugged. Said nib is protected by a plastic hood so that only the point sticks out, to minimize drying when uncapped.
And the plastic is acrylic, which has stood the test of time. No cracking, no shrinking, no weird discoloration. Look at this sleek little bullet of a pen!
It's a nice size, lightweight and well balanced. And it writes beautifully.
Also, fun fact, this was Queen Elizabeth II's favorite pen. She had a red one.
I think in any industry there's a model that just works. Like, all the engineering comes together in such a way that you get exactly what you were aiming for. There are prettier fountain pens than the 51, and many more expensive. But the 51 is pure Fountain Pen in the best way.
Beautiful pen. My first nicer sailor, second 14k nib. Been fun to write with. The nib is stiff, gives some feedback. I have to use it gently, it doesn’t like pressure much.
The Celadon Cat by Diamine ink I used is a bit too light for this thin of a nib. Definitely thinner than western style medium nibs. Probably 0.3-0.5mm line width.
this Sailor Fude De Mannen has a bent nib, which looks weird but gives a ridiculous amount of line variation. Fude comes from the Japanese for Brush, and while i don’t think this is a substitute for a brush pen, it’s definitely a nice, unique experience.
Someone on reddit asked about my journaling supplies so I thought I’d share here too!
Traveler's Notebook is my only journaling system, I started using it in 2017 and have been loving it ever since!
The 4 fountain pens shown are my current inked pens that I'm cycling through, the Sailor Pro Gear Slim is my newest baby 🥺🤧
Having both the Kodak Mini 3 Retro and Mini 2 Retro is probably unnecessary but it’s nice having options of printing my photos in either 3x3" or 2x3". The 3x3" sometimes take up a lot of space on the page, and the 2x3" is perfect for that spot on the inside cover of a TN insert. The Kodak photo paper is also less bulky than Fuji Instax films!
The Kokuyo Dotliner is super handy for sticking photos and ephemera on pages without using liquid glue or a glue stick, and I think it gives my pages a cleaner look as opposed to taping them down
The rest of my supplies are watercolours, assorted washi tape, markers/mildliners, fineliners, stickers, etc