May 2025. Finally, after several years of debating with myself about which gold nib fountain pen to add to my collection, and all the research I had done, I decided to purchase a Lamy 2000. It fit beautifully in my hand. I loved the weight of it. I went with a broad nib. I looked forward to a smooth writing experience. I wasn’t disappointed. For the most part. It tends to skip/stop writing. Not because of the angle I hold the pen at but because it naturally rolls to the left in my grip even if I use the little nubs on the sides as a way to keep the nib oriented correctly.

To be completely honest, I’m not entirely sure that I don’t do this with other fountain pens I write with. I haven’t really paid much attention since this was the first pen that I actually noticed it with. I could very well rotate all my pens when writing but for whatever reason it’s never been an issue before. Someone somewhere on a forum suggested that rotation is more common with a hooded nib because we take visual cues from seeing the whole nib and adjust accordingly. It was also suggested that the rotation occurs because of learning how to write with a pencil and that we unconsciously fall back into that rhythm. Regardless, the Lamy 2000 was cleaned out and put back into its box after having written one or two letters to pen pals and hasn’t been used since. As much as I love everything about the Lamy 2000 it turns out that it just isn’t the gold nib pen for me*. Something I wouldn’t learn until the beginning of 2026.

December rolls around and I am listening to all the chatter about the coming price increases to the fountain pen world due to price increases to gold and various other factors. There were some significant increases being predicted and of course anyone looking to get something particular should probably try and get it before those hikes hit.

I don’t remember why I looked up the Pilot E95S. I’d seen it mentioned randomly here and there over the years and for some reason thought it out of my reach. In truth I think once I found out about the Lamy 2000 I had sort of tunnel vision regarding gold nibbed pens. But there I was looking at the Goldspot website’s listing for the E95S. I always thought the Burgandy and Ivory version looked really nice and clearly influenced by all the chatter; I went ahead and made my last pen purchase of 2025 – an E95S with a fine nib.

The pen arrived in early January 2026 and I inked it up (with Pilot Iroshizuku Take-Sumi) almost immediately. When I say the writing experience with the E95S was the same yet different than the Lamy 2000, I’m not talking about the line width difference going from a broad to a fine nib or that it’s a pocket pen. The E95S glides across paper with ease and nary a skip to be had. It fits comfortably in my hand, perhaps a little more than the Lamy 2000, and I have to consciously slow my hand down or my words might skate right off the page. I enjoyed writing with the E95S so much that I actually wrote it dry! I do not think I have ever written a pen dry before. Left a pen sitting with an ink cartridge to dry out? Sure. But writing one dry? Nope.

The E95S has in the past few weeks become the pen I most often reach for when I am sitting at my desk in the studio for most, if not all, writing. And, as long as Take-Sumi is being produced that will likely be the ink that it gets filled with. (At least until I feel brave enough to put De Atrementis archival black into it – if ever.) And it will be a while before I feel comfortable taking it out of the house even if it is a pocket pen that’s supposed to be carried about. That’s just a me thing.

-C

*I am not the type of person that needs to have more than one gold nibbed fountain pen. While the Lamy 2000 isn’t the pen for me I am sure it is for someone else. If you are interested, I have listed it here for sale.