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Last week, I posted a link to Richard’s Pens informative article about the difference between stub and italic nibs. As I own a few fountain pens that fit this description, I thought I’d put them altogether to see the differences. I own a Lamy Studio with a 1.1 mm italic nib, a Kaweco Sport with a 1.1mm italic nib and a vintage Esterbrook with a # 2442 nib known as the fine stub.
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In the close-up above you can see that the Esterbrook nib is much narrowe than the 1.1mm nibs that flank it. If I had to guess, I’d say that the Esterbrook is half the width of the other two.
In the writing samples at the beginning of the post (or click on the photo to see a larger version on Flickr), you can see that the character of the writing is different with the italic nibs versus the stub. The italic nibs create much sharper angles between its wide lines and its fine lines — it could almost be described as crispier. The stub softens the variation of the line widths but still allows the shading from the ink to show.
All three of these pen models easily allow you to swap out the nibs at a fairliy reasonable price. Have you considered a stub or italic nib? Do you like it?
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Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
