Not too long after I got back into sketching, in summer 2017, I started getting into the habit of carrying a little case of felt tip pens around and I’ve gradually supplemented that with other mark making tools – a pencil, a fountain pen and, most recently a small paintbrush. The fountain pen was a Parker one I’d had for a long time but, after years of neglect, I discovered that I really enjoyed using it and it has become my main sketching tool.

Fast forward to September this year and I was getting ready for my new job. I decided that I wanted to start making regular use of a fountain pen there, too, but I didn’t want to take the Parker out of my sketching case. A bit of online shopping later and I was the proud owner of a Fashion Elegant Jinhao 450 Dark Red Fountain Pen with Golden Clip. The cost? A mighty £5.71! I didn’t know quite what to expect but the reviews were positive and it wasn’t a huge investment.

It turns out to be solidly made – weighty, even – and attractive in appearance. It has survived a month of me using up old cartridges (supposedly sealed but the ink had become somewhat condensed) and, now that I’m onto a batch of new (cheap) cartridges, it is still writing perfectly well. I don’t know if it will last a lifetime but, a month or so in, it is proving to be a good little sword so far.