Rotring 900 Fountain Pen With A New Nib

Some years ago a very close friend died and I inherited her Rotring 900 ballpoint pen. It's a beautiful piece of sleek matte German engineering; the pen is larger than most and has an amazing knurled barrel. The pen is no longer manufactured, but I did find some selling on eBay--including fountain pens, which I kept an eye on hoping to snag one for less than $100.

And so I did, a slightly used 900 fountain pen with a broad nib. Which is when I discovered I'm not a fan of broad nibs, and wanted a fine point or, at most, a medium. I asked around on StyloForum and read through Fountain Pen Hospital, waiting until after the holidays and the post office crunch to get in touch with Daniel Smith at Passion du Jour to talk about having the nib ground.

What I thought would be an easy request on my part of going from a broad point down to a fine took a turn when Dan mentioned a cursive italic nib. While I'm usually plain vanilla in my choices, suddenly the thought of having a slightly exotic nib at my fingertips was very appealing. After a few emails, I sent the pen off to Dan and waited.

In all, it took a little over a week to get my Rotring 900 with the cursive italic nib. It's amazing, Dan did a wonderful job on it in no time at all and I love writing with it. While I never cared much for italic pens before I'm absolutely thrilled with this, and can't write enough. I'd recommend Dan highly for anyone looking for help with a nib. My Pilot Custom 74 is very scratchy, and I'm planning on sending it to Dan for some finishing.