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What expensive pen or pens utterly failed you? Wich one made you feel like you were hustled, like it was a fancy scam? Do you have any advice from personal experience that can help us avoid buying an expensive piece of sh...?

 

I initially wanted to indicate the price over which I consider a pen being expensive, but I will leave that to personal variability of appreciation.

 

Thanks!

 

ἓν οἶδα ὅτι οὐδὲν οἶδα

 

 

 

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Of my pens none have failed me except for an insanely dry TWSBI. :) Guess I'm just lucky.

"Never Say goodbye, because saying goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting,"

 

-Peter Pan

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Ok, let's consider expensive as being over 300$...

 

ἓν οἶδα ὅτι οὐδὲν οἶδα

 

 

 

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I've never had a pen fail me. I've had a few that are underwhelming, maybe by a lot, but no fails. For example, I have a Platinum 3776 Shoji that's just an amazing disappointment. I let my urge to acquire talk me into buying it.

 

Another is the Edison brand. I've learned I have to be really specific about which ink I use with my Edisons. Some of my favorites just don't work well with Edison pens. But, the pen is fine, this is just part of its personality. Even the Platinum isn't a bad pen, it just has a personality that doesn't match mine.

 

And a big caution: sometimes people have a bad experience with a pen and extend this experience to represent the whole brand. Some pens are lemons. I may have purchased a lemon in my Platinum because I love their Preppy and a lot of people love the 3776. There is also personal preference. A lot of people adore Edison. I admire what they do, but don't care much for the nibs and feeds. (I have 2 pens, but 4 nibs and feeds.)

 

So, take anything you hear, whether good or bad, with a grain of salt. Personally, I love Noodler's pens, which don't fall in your "expensive" qualification. A lot of people don't.

 

Edited to Add: Now that I was about to click post I see that the OP has defined "expensive" while I was typing. I've never gone over $300 on a pen, though I came close. Nevertheless, I think most of what I wrote, except maybe the specific pens, is valid for the question the OP asked.

Proud resident of the least visited state in the nation!

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My second Parker Premier's nib was really dry and scratchy, while the Sheaffer Valor that I bought was overly wet and leaked through the inlaid nib.

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Interestingly enough, I have not had a bad experience with my relatively inexpensive pens $75 - $250. I can't imagine a problem above this price point.

 

My worst experiences have been with cheap Chinese and Indian pens bought to see examples of manufacturing. What did I expect!

Edited by Dickkooty2
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cant say anything has disappointed me......

"Writing is 1/3 nib width & flex, 1/3 paper and 1/3 ink. In that order."Bo Bo Olson

"No one needs to rotate a pen while using an oblique, in fact, that's against the whole concept of an oblique, which is to give you shading without any special effort."Professor Propas, 24 December 2010

 

"IMHO, the only advantage of the 149 is increased girth if needed, increased gold if wanted and increased prestige if perceived. I have three, but hardly ever use them. After all, they hold the same amount of ink as a 146."FredRydr, 12 March 2015

 

"Surely half the pleasure of life is sardonic comment on the passing show."Sir Peter Strawson

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No over $300.00 pen has every failed or disappointed me. Now many way under $300/00 pens I've found to be overpriced even had they been free.

 

My Website

 

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I have also never had a 300.00+ dollar pen disappoint me. I have, however, been disappointed with cheaper pens. Case in point, I tried to like the Lamy Safari because so many recommended it. I have tried 3 of them and all of them wrote like nails.

" Gladly would he learn and gladly teach" G. Chaucer

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In my experience, it seems that the more expensive a pen is, the more likely the nib is to perform badly out of the box. The good news is that nib adjustments usually help.

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So far, I've only been disappointed with cheap pens. My only truly expensive pen is the best thing I've ever written with, as it should be for what I paid.

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Guess I need to find out which >300$ pen I'm going to buy so I can participate lol.

 

No over $300.00 pen has every failed or disappointed me. Now many way under $300/00 pens I've found to be overpriced even had they been free.

I'm waiting for those folks who complained of their Montblanc 149 or such kept failing and the shops weren't fixing them right to chime in here. :P

 

So far, I've only been disappointed with cheap pens. My only truly expensive pen is the best thing I've ever written with, as it should be for what I paid.

Guess it depends on what's cheap. I feel like if it's over 40-50 for brand new, I expect it to work (well if its under 40 I wouldn't' be surprised by some quirks). But shouldn't a product just work regardless if it's $20 or $200 ?

Edited by KBeezie
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What expensive pen or pens utterly failed you?

generally above the 300USD price point, pens that do not write out of the box are still sufficiently well made that they can be put right nicely by a pen tech. so eventually these pens will not utterly fail the owner. HTH. I have had some pens like this which eventually became all right.

In case you wish to write to me, pls use ONLY email by clicking here. I do not check PMs. Thank you.

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Ok, let's consider expensive as being over 300$...

Expensive is a subjective term. I'd argue that if a $10,000 pen both looks good and writes well then it is not expensive (it just costs a lot more than other pens), and a twsbi that costs a lot less could be deemed expensive if it fails to write well.

My Collection: Montblanc Writers Edition: Hemingway, Christie, Wilde, Voltaire, Dumas, Dostoevsky, Poe, Proust, Schiller, Dickens, Fitzgerald (set), Verne, Kafka, Cervantes, Woolf, Faulkner, Shaw, Mann, Twain, Collodi, Swift, Balzac, Defoe, Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Saint-Exupery, Homer & Kipling. Montblanc Einstein (3,000) FP. Montblanc Heritage 1912 Resin FP. Montblanc Starwalker Resin: FP/BP/MP. Montblanc Traveller FP.

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Guess I need to find out which >300$ pen I'm going to buy so I can participate lol.

 

 

I'm waiting for those folks who complained of their Montblanc 149 or such kept failing and the shops weren't fixing them right to chime in here. :P

 

 

Guess it depends on what's cheap. I feel like if it's over 40-50 for brand new, I expect it to work (well if its under 40 I wouldn't' be surprised by some quirks). But shouldn't a product just work regardless if it's $20 or $200 ?

 

"Just work" may have very little to do with whether a product pleases or disappoints the consumer. Granted a object should at least fulfill some minimum function but I have only found one $300.00 (or the equivalent considering the period ) pen that failed to work right out of the box (a custom grind on a fairly expensive fountain pen) and it worked but dried out overnight so was hard to start the next day. It was quickly remedied by the dealer that sold me the pen. There was no reason for me to be disappointed.

 

Those folk that seem to buy somewhat expensive fountain pens that don't work and cannot be fixed do have a place in the cycle of life. Were it not for them, I might have been the one facing such disappointment. Fortunately during well over a half century of buy fountain pens, those good folk have always been there to protect me.

 

My Website

 

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generally above the 300USD price point, pens that do not write out of the box are still sufficiently well made that they can be put right nicely by a pen tech. so eventually these pens will not utterly fail the owner. HTH. I have had some pens like this which eventually became all right.

+1

 

If I had to choose between a beautiful, highly desirable pen that had some teething issues and a boring, cheap pen that wrote well right away, I'd choose the former, because after it's adjusted, I'd love to use it all the time, and I'd lose all interest in the other.

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Guess I need to find out which >300$ pen I'm going to buy so I can participate lol. I'm waiting for those folks who complained of their Montblanc 149 or such kept failing and the shops weren't fixing them right to chime in here. :PGuess it depends on what's cheap. I feel like if it's over 40-50 for brand new, I expect it to work (well if its under 40 I wouldn't' be surprised by some quirks). But shouldn't a product just work regardless if it's $20 or $200 ?

I used the OP's definition of expensive, and I only have one pen that meets that criteria. That said, I actually consider my pens in the $20-$50 set to be fairly expensive as well, and I have still been pleased. I've been disappointed with those that cost around $10 so far, and I think that's fair. I got them to see if I liked certain weights, widths, grips, etc., and they served their purpose. If any of them had become a favorite, that would have been a bonus.

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My Sailor Pro Gear. It didn't write at all out of the box.

 

It took me 15 minutes to fix, and now it's my favorite pen. Still, I shouldn't have had to fix it in the first place.

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Bexley.

 

rubbish

'The Yo-Yo maneuver is very difficult to explain. It was first perfected by the well-known Chinese fighter pilot Yo-Yo Noritake. He also found it difficult to explain, being quite devoid of English.

So we left it at that. He showed us the maneuver after a sort. B*****d stole my kill.'

-Squadron Leader K. G. Holland, RAF. WWII China.

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