I dunno about others but I was at school when they still had dip pens and ink wells in desks.
Ink monitor brings back a memory, I digress.
I started with a standard steel nib on a stick and progressed to a nib with it's own little inkwell on the back of the nib.
There was a choice for a modern child of flat broad, left or right tilt Italic once your choice was made you were stuck with it.
It was actually noted in the register whether you were left or right handed.
When we moved to Stevenage (best days work my dad ever did was getting us out of London) we had the marvellous Mentmore factory on our doorstep making Platignum pens.
Pens for all was the rule of the day with a much larger choice of nibs, the shops carried a range of nibs and the bestest most prized one was a highly decorated solid gold.
Now nothing else will do, it has to be a cartridge fill, medium fine, all that Italics is right out the winda I do joined up and scribble it with my solid gold nib.
Point of this rambling is it weren't just me, it was certainly the whole town and maybe the whole generation.
Led to believe that gold would wear quickly to your hand improving speed neatness and comfort, gold because it is the ultimate soft metal.
The finer the gold the softer it will be to write with, only the finest nibs were decorated with a filigree, the more decoration the better the quality.
That may well be a total fallacy but as I said previously I have noted people look at the nib and then chose to use it or not.
None of this affects any decision you will arrive at but does show I have given the matter some thought so if nothing else you are being provocative inti?
