The Moon man/Majohn B32 is not an original design, but a replica of a 1970's German pen that had a 925‰ Silver body and cap (Montblanc 1266). The B32 is a steel body and cap, plastic (likely acrylic) section, piston pen, that set me back 33,21€ (including everything). It is what I consider a middle size (ø11,5mm - L137mm), middle weight pen (26,6g - 17,6g full of ink, with and without the cap respectively). Its cap is both friction fit and clipped, a bit of an odd system that I don't fully understand. The ink tank is rather small for my taste: I have not done a proper measurement of its capacity, but I can say it's smaller than a Waterman cartridge by quite a bit, I would estimate it to be around 1,0±0,2mL based purely on feel. The feed at least, is designed properly for a piston filler: no nostalgic fins, but a smooth surface on the back of the nib, that allows as clean a feel as a piston pen can offer, and incidentally, also low ink waste, which can't really be attributed to Majohn.

The section is easy to take apart, and allows for a proper cleaning, so there is no need to stick to safe inks. And on the topic of the section, mine got pretty awfully scratched right away (it was pristine out of the box, so I did all the damage myself, but not from egregious treatment on my part), it is a part that worries me to a point that I contacted the seller to know if they can source spare parts, and as of right now, no, and due to the steel spring inside the cap, it will get worse and worse. The piston filler is rather typical: it works but it makes the task of getting a 100% fill with it impossible. I just refill mine by inserting a needle tipped squeeze bottle into it because it avoids a lot of what I hate about piston pens (the need for a deep enough ink container, and for cleaning the dipped parts) and it allows for a 100% fill in one go.

The nib is very smooth, rather broad for size (equivalent to a steel Waterman F), rather wet, I would say 6/10, but I have not tried inks that shift color with wetness so this is only an estimate. The grind on mine offers no line variation, but I don't know if mine is the norm or an edge case as it has very little tipping material, and pictures that I have seen so far seem to show that all nibs have that little. It is rather good at erasing paper texture, but it is also good at conveying paper smoothness. It takes a surprisingly long time to dry out uncapped. The nib has a slight springiness to it, albeit a useless one. The pen feels average in size and weight, thinner than it looks even, it is well balanced, but it has the slightest bit of top weight, barely noticeable. It can be posted, but can't realistically be used like that due to the balance.

I have put three full converters through it, and am now on the forth fill (1x 10% v/v concentration Ostrich 555, 1x Waterman Encre noire (old formulation Waterman black), 2x J. Herbin Perle noire), so I have used it a bit now, and I am surprised by how normal it feels. I can't quite put it into words what would make a pen normal, nor why this one wouldn't be. Though what I can say is that Chinese pens feel Chinese, they lack this sort of natural feeling when writing that most of my European pens have and that some of my Japanese pens have. I am talking about that feeling that everything comes together: weight, balance, shape, size, tightness of the parts, overall rigidity, smoothness and feedback in all directions, but also something unquantifyable that makes me trust the pen; all of that to form a whole greater than the sum of the parts. This one, this B32, it is the first Chinese pen I have used that has that feeling, despite numerous of the Chinese pens I own being very good pens. It is a pen that gets out of the way and lets your write. Again, that is what pens are supposed to do, and usual they do it just fine. I suppose that what I'm saying is that it feels rather European. Make of this what you will.

Overall, this is a very pleasant pen to use, it has interesting aesthetics, even if Majohn can't exactly be praised for that either; it offers more colors than the original, yet only offers one nib size for the assembled pen (both F and EF size are available as spare part, in silver or gold finish). It is on the expensive side, even if I got mine for 33€, current typical price seem to be 44-50€ now. I am a little ambivalent about whether or not I would recommend it, I tend to stay away from piston pens as they are less practical than cartridge pens, though this one is designed properly, and this one is pretty expensive for what it is. I supposed if you love the looks like I do, it's a good pen, but one that has an uncertain lifespan due to the steel on plastic interaction on the section.

Writing samples compared to Waterman steel F nibs of very similar size:

The is the Jinhao 59 with an EF nib, in the "wine red limited edition", all included (shipping, duties, etc.), it cost me 8,19€ to get it. It is fully made of plastic, except for the trim ring, clip and section plug that are made of steel. The whole pen weighs 17,2g with a full converter, it is ever so slightly top heavy, likely due to the clip. It is 118mm long closed, 148mm posted, roughly 13mm in diameter and the section is around 11,5mm where I hold it. The converter sits deeper than in the Elite 95S, closer to a Sailor 21, the mouth is ø3,4. It is not particularly small compared to non pocket pens, but given the fact that I don't care for the pocket aspect, I can't speak for its usefulness as such.

Size comparison with (left to right) the Hero 1079, Waterman Expert and Jinhao 20

The nib feels the same as the ones in the Jinhao 10 and 20, it's just physically larger: it is rather smooth, especially for its size, well tuned, 3-4/10 wetness (great ink efficiency), but the feed is great at keeping up with fast paced writing and even sketching, doesn't have any directional variation, it is not sensitive to paper texture. It writes slightly thinner than a Pilot F, or Jinhao hooded nib from the 911 and 85. Unfortunately, the nib is not an inlaid one, the section is just cut to look like the Elite 95S' inlaid one, and it looks like it was originally designed for a different nib, but as if plans changed somewhere along the way, especially on the feed side.

The feed seems captive inside the section as the section plug seems glued, so I would recommend sticking to safe inks to increase the pen's lifespan, as well as regular flushes. After a little over 4 weeks of use (and roughly 5,5 converters worth of ink) the section and blind cap have developed microscratches from the friction fit cap sliding on and off, nothing obvious, but something to keep in mind for longevity.

Overall, it is a perfectly serviceable pen, it works perfectly fine out of the box, has no glaring issues (at least with the black colorways), and still looks pretty good under normal lighting. My issues is that Jinhao has better pens for the price (like the 88 or 95), both in terms of quality and durability. Still not a bad purchase.

Since I recommended this ink to someone who was unhappy with Nitrogen from Organics studio, I thought I would try to showcase it properly which is rather difficult for a sheening ink.

This is Ostrich's Sea of Okinawa from their sheen line, it presents as a bright blue with red sheen. They are available in 18mL plastic bottles, or 30mL glass bottles. The glass bottles are a lot more expensive per unit of volume (so I stick to the smaller plastic ones).

The Sea of Okinawa is a very well behaved sheen, and depending on the pen and paper it can even be rather subdued: broad wet nibs show it as a bright blue, as it does from this Picasso 902 M. But in this Pilot Custom 74 F, it shows darker, with no shading and a rather flat sheen. This ink is very well behaved on a lot of papers and barely impacts ink flow in the pens I have tried it in. It is a bit of a nib creeper.

This ink can show tremendous shading and sheen on the right paper and in the right pen, and in that respect, it is rather picky, as it favors broader nibs to show shading and variation in sheen. The Waterman Exception even shows a haloing effect with this ink and its rather broad M nib, that I have not seen with anything [and I stand corrected on that]. It behaves well enough to be used as a daily, in work/professional setting, no problem, as basic copy paper will not show outlandish sheen.

(Oxford Essentials, 90g/m² Optik paper)

On this Oxford "Optik paper+", the Picasso 902 M shows some interesting effects, some very light haloing, though not as much as the Waterman Exception M.

(Oxford Essentials notebook, 80g/m² Optik paper+)

Nib creep on Pilot Custom 74 F

Mild haloing on 80g/m² Optik paper+ from a Picasso 902 M

Sheen from a drop of ink on 90g/m² Optik paper, ink name written with steel nib dip pen

On some papers (Clairefontaine's velum papers for instance), it shows a bright red metallic sheen, on some others (like the Optik paper and the Optik paper+) it shows a little more subtle, but I have not seen it feather or bleed though any of the paper I use, including the super cheap Action notebook (still with decent 80g/m² paper). White paper obviously makes the sheen more noticeable, but it does work well with a broad variety of papers nonetheless, it will just be less noticeable. I have also used this ink in a Picasso 916 with a SEF nib that's thinner than Pilot's EF steel nibs, and it caused zero issues in terms of flow, and still showed sheen.

I apologize for not showing the ink in the Waterman Exception after bringing it up, but I just filled it with some Emeraude de Chivor and I love this ink way too much to waste even a drop of it. If anyone is really curious I can add a sample at a later date, but it's really hard to capture haloing.

Edit: I forgot to mention that Ostrich also has a more saturated version of it (that I have not tried) called Aegian sea. But after my experience with their Glen of the sea, an insanely complexe extremely dark purple that looks black, feathers pink and sheens bright metallic green on anything, including toilet paper, I have been reluctant to try it. Because the Glen of the sea has an extremely hard time flowing in a fountain pen, it crusts up everywhere, smudges (pink) even when dry. Diluting it doesn't really help much, it shows less sheen, but not more color and doesn't even improve the flow.

This is less of a check out my collection and more of a is there anything you would like to know more about, a state of the collection of pens I have accumulated over the more than three decades I have been using fountain pens. I don't have anything particularly special, so most of them are known, but there are a few interesting, less known ones.

I started using them not out of my own volition, but because it was mandatory in first grade. Then, when it wasn't anymore, I still stuck with them, because other pens didn't feel quite as nice, not as smooth, required much more pressure to write, and certainly didn't have the array of colors available to fountain pens. So while I didn't originally choose to use fountain pens, I absolutely chose to stick with them. I do occasionally use ballpoints (BIC cristal and M10) and various gel pens, when I have to, but this is very much occasional.

This is not all the pens I have ever had, I have broken, lost, sold and given away quite a few tens of them, this is only what I have today, minus a Wing Sung 601A which is in my lab right now, but I am not going to go get it because of the heat.. and it is not worth talking about too (not a particularly good pen).

I'll present the pens as:

[Brand] [Model name] [Nib size/style/cut] - [name of the colorway],

as expressed by the manufacturer or in the sales pages, in English (usually machine translated for Chinese brands), as available.

Top row, left to right:

• Pimio / Picasso 933 Avignon M - unknown
• Pimio / Picasso 902 Gentleman series M - Agathe red
• Pimio / Picasso 902 Gentleman series M - Black gold cap
• Pimio / Picasso 906 Athens Dynasty M - Blakc and gold
• Pimio / Picasso 916 Malaga EF - Red
• Pimio / Picasso 916 Malaga F - Muri gray
• Pimio / Picasso 916 Malaga SEF - Dawn red
• HongDian C1 Explorer F - Red
• HongDian 517D EF - Matte black and silver
• Jinhao 35 EF - Black
• Jinhao 911 EF - Black and gold
• Jinhao 20 EF - "C" (no further naming found for this color)
• Pilot kaküno EF - Gray
• Pilot Custom 74 F (14k) - unkown

Bottom row:

• Jinhao 100 Naginata & F nibs - Snowflake
• Jinhao 100 M - Black
• Jinhao 100 EF - Tofu
• Jinhao 95 F - Black and gold
• Jinhao 95 M - Red
• Jinhao 85 EF/0,38mm (hooded nib) - DYI colorway (barrel painted with the same paint as my motorcycle)
• Jinhao 85 F (open nib) - Black
• Jinhao 85 EF (hooded) - Blue
• Jinhao 85 EF (hooded) - Blue (same colorway, different batches, lighter is older by several years, difference not due to shifting color)
• Jinhao 75 F/0,5mm - Black red
• Jinhao 88 F - Red
• Jinhao 88 EF - Blue
• Hero 849 EF - Green (it's actually teal and rose gold)
• Pilot explorer M - Red

Top row:

• Platinum #3776 Music nib (14k) - Black (the feed has turned into dust, and no replacement parts are available as Platinum refuses to sell parts for repairs, and I am not paying for the shipping to Japan for a pen that costed my 11800¥)
• Parker Sonnet F (18k) and Cursive (18k) - Chiseled silver (or sterling silver I don't remember)
• Parker IM Premier F (18k) - Black and gold trim
• Parker Duofold International F (18k) - Green tortoise shell and Rhodium (IIRC) trim
• Pilot 78G+ M - Green
• Pilot 78G+ F - Black
• Pilot kaküno F - Soft blue
• Hero 1079 Ultrafine/0,38mm - Black
• Hero 1079 Ultrafine/0,38mm - Yellow
• Hero P108 0,38mm (hooded) - Matte black
• Hero 616 F - Burgundy
• Hero 616 F - Yellow (yeah, I know)

Bottom row

• Unknown pen with generic nib and feed - (actual) Sandal wood
• Unknown pen with generic nib and feed - (actual) Rosewood
• Kaco Mellow EF - Red
• Kaco Retro EF/0,38mm (hooded) - Black
• No idea what this one is, same generic nib and feed as the wood pens
• "Vintage Hero pen" no further details (hooded nib)
• "Vintage Hero pen" no further details (hooded nib)
• Stonego unknown model with "KURM" branding on nib
• Stonego unkown model with "HUASHILAI" branded nib
• Unknown brand and model with generic "Iridium point" nib
• Lambitou 2053 Artistic pen - unknown
• Hero 616 F/0,5mm - Red

Left to right:

• Waterman Allure F - Chrome
• Waterman Kultur F - unknown
• Waterman Philéas M - Black and gold trim (smoothest steel nib I have ever used)
• Waterman Hémisphère M - unknown
• Waterman Charleston M (18k) and OF (18k) - Ivory

Left to right:

• Waterman Exception "slim" M - Black and gold trim
• Waterman Expert II F - Black and gold trim
• Waterman Apostrophe M - Black and gold trim
• Waterman Apostrophe M - Black and gold trim
• Waterman Apostrophe M - Black and gold trim

Feel free to ask whatever questions come to mind. Do note that I don't necessarily know everything about some of them, I can't even remember how I got some of them.

Edit: Misidentified the Parker Premier for an IM (don't know why I mistake these two all the time)