How do you let a customer try out a fountain pen with out loading a cartridge?
William, here is my take on all of this.
I think I have been where you are at right now so can feel your pain. A few years ago I had all my nibs separated in a plastic container similar to a tackle box with cotton pads lining the bottoms and all was well until the day I tipped over the box and 150+ nibs got mixed.
Me trying to determine if a nib is a fine or a medium by simply looking at it is a waste of time so here is what I do.
I separated my nibs by brand, Bock and Heritance, gold plate and stainless. I then used calipers to get a rough measurement and sort by tip size. It doesn't matter what nibs you are measuring, where they were made or what they are made of, just select a common place up from the tip of the nib and measure the widths.
You will quickly start to see them falling into groups and don't really need to be concerned if one nib measures .026" and another measures .028".
Using the Bock chart below You will see the low and high limits of each size nib, I use these
as a guideline when determining which pile a certain nib goes into.
How I used to do it:
If a nib measured .025" I put it in the fine pile, if one measured .033" it went into the medium pile. When at a show and a customer wanted a fine, I would reach into the "FINE" compartment , the same for a medium.
How I do it now:
Once I learned that more times than not, the proper fitting feed determined the line a nib would put down, I started keeping Bock nibs on Bock feeds and Heritance nibs on Heritance feeds and sorted the feed/nib units together.
I measure the nibs while seated on the feeds. You can actually put a fine nib on a feed that is a few millimeters wider than it was designed for and it will actually separate the tines enough that it writes like a medium, all other factors considered equal.
As far as inking pens, I display the various models I offer for potential customers to pick up and handle and I have inked "Demos" which are identical to the models I offer for potential customers to try out on a nice pad of paper. If a potential customer likes the way one demo writes over the next, we focus on which color/style they want. I usually display my pens with "Throw away" nibs and will only switch the throw away nib with a nice nib on an actual "for sale" pen when the customer either indicates they will buy it OR I think they will buy it. I don't ink pens otherwise and this has worked fine for me.
To me dipping a nib in a bottle of ink doesn't give you a real sense of how the pen will write once loaded with ink in a converter or cartridge relying on the feed to supply ink to the nib.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it! :wink:
