I love my VP and my Sonnets, too. No problems whatsoever. Different strokes, right?

Minor, minor disappointments this year...

My Parker 61 broke my heart a bit when the grey barrel cracked earlier this year. I'm being oh so careful with the $35 NOS replacement. The 61 barrels are an annoying design flaw. But this is my Uncle's pen, so I like keeping it going.

I wish my Esties didn't like to unscrew themselves. I like these pens, and I'd carry them more, but I can't risk another accident...so I have to remember to take them in a pen case...

I have a new 51 vac that needs some nib work still...next year...

And, I wish the section on the L2K was a little easier to grip, it does slant a lot, I am grateful for the infamous "ears," they do actually make it easier to hold higher on the section.

Not too bad. Compared to the rest of my life, my pens are smooth sailing!

I suspect that just as different pens fit different styles, there are a great many "individual" pens of a 'make/model' that just don't have the magic built in. Be it the ink or the filling process or the nib grind or the glitch in manufacturing, or some other weird anomaly with the pen itself; OR some weirdness of the USE of the instrument against the wielder, there's just some little thing that doesn't jive. Sometimes, it's perference. I may HATE the Parker 51 I've got shipping to me right now, just because it may not fit how I want to write. But then again, it could be that the model itself has some fundamental flaw. But further again, it could be some component of THAT pen itself that sucks... and I may decide that all 'Parker 51 "Specials"' sucks (yeah, the one I'm waiting for is the "Special" aero, not the older vintage).

Still though, I love to hear which pen didn't jam with which owner. Oddly fascinating.

I have to toss in: The Rotring Core, and I'm sorry for jumping on the Rotring bandwagon here. In my case, though, it was a second-thought gift. I was talking about pens one day, and someone within earshot said "hey, I have a fountain pen that my ex-boyfriend gave me and I never want to see it again, do you want it?" Well, of course I want a free fountain pen, what are you nuts? It was the Rotring Core. It's a pen with alot of "modern" flair, but this particular one was prone, and I mean APT to leak. Seems the inside of the cap was designed to suck ink droplets from the nib if you had it capped for more than 1/2hour.

Ah, well, here's a trivial one that won't offend anyone: I had a great experience with a Chinese pen, an SZ.Leqi, that was just a brilliant EF writer and stylish to boot. I was convinced that this brand was the great undiscovered treasure of the east, so I bought another one. The second one was just terrible, couldn't write its way out of a paper bag, lousy nib, everything. But at least my disappointing experience only set me back twenty bucks ...

A Faber-Castell Ambition in medium nib. A start-up problem from hell. If you stopped writing for any longer than the lift from the end of one word to the beginning of the next, it would shut down and be a pain to get writing again. The "carriage return" from the end of one line to the next was too long for this pen.

Being a glass half-empty kind of guy I'd like to point out that while this topic is interesting, one's biggest disappointment may very well lie in the future

Mine was my Platinum #3776 and it's a disappointed with a "however" added.

I had seen the pen on the Nakaya web page and read how Mr. Umeda had designed it to be a writer's pen. I had wanted one for some time and when I finally got one it was a major love it - hate it scenario. I was extremely disappointed in the materials.. it feels like very very cheap plastic and it has a slip on cap. I had received ball point give aways at trade shows that seemed to be made from better materials. I was at the point where I was wondering if I had purchased a fake. However, I filled it and wrote with it and the nib was awesome (yes the love part)! If not for that I would have dumped it right away.

This one is so easy......the clear winner in my collection, beyond the shadow of a doubt is the Stipula 22 titanium nibbed beauty. From the first second I attempted to write with it, it skipped and has done so ever since. I tried to decide whether to add it to my collection of plastic darts and use it for a good game of darts or perhaps place it in a busy Manhattan intersection and laugh as the light changed and ten milion taxi cabs drove over it.
After showing it to Richard Binder at Elaine's party several months ago, I decided to allow him to work his magic on it. He assured me that he could cure this little beauty. I await the final outcome.

Whatever it is that finally happens with the pen, I shall NEVER buy from Stipula again because I did not care for their attitude or advice. They told me not to press down too hard on the nib even though the nib is a flex nib and was made to be pressed. They also attempted to repair the pen and could not. Wonderful customer service...NOT.

Modern Aurora 88 with factory italic nib. It skips and skips.

Well, I'm no expert and I don't have that many to compare, but my biggest disappointment is actually my Pelikan M600.

For years -- when I knew absolutely nothing about fountain pens other than seeing them occasionally in stores -- my very image of a classy, expensive pen was that beautiful black, gold, and green-striped beauty with the bird on it. Not an MB (never heard of them), but a Pelikan. I just thought they oozed class and European charm.

When I started coming here and reading about them, my expectations only got higher.

I finally broke down and bought the most expensive one I could budget, an M600. While I still love the looks, to me it has an awful flaw . . . it somehow manages to put a nasty ink stain on my ring finger knuckle (this is where the pen rests when I write) every time I write with it. I've tightened the nib, been extra careful wiping it down after filling, paid attention to where I was gripping the pen, etc. But still, inky fingers every time. This is the only one of nine fountain pens (of which the Peli is the most expensive and probably the highest regarded, short of my 51) that does this. The allure and mystique of a FP really disappears when all you or anyone else can see is a big stain on your hand whenever you write.

Aside from this, the pen writes 'OK', though nothing really to crow about. Honestly no better than several steel-nibbed mid-priced pens I have by Taccia and Libelle.

Silver Pelikan Future M nib.

After switching from Noodlers to Pelikan's ink cartridges and removing the xxxxxf bit of cat hair that had wound itself around the tip and between the tines, the performance improved a lot. But it's never been what I've hoped for -- Pelikano Jr. smoothness but with a narrower nib.

I like it enough to keep using it -- at work, and heck, I even dropped it nib down twice last week and it didn't get any worse! -- but it's never been as smooth a writer as my Lamys, the Pelikano Jrs, my Haolilai 801, or even 2 Pilot Varsities that I use.

It's good for jotting short notes, and the nib on it is finer than the M Nib on my Lamys, but it will never be the pen I reach for to write several pages of prose. (Despite the fact that I find it more comfortable to hold than the Lamys for extended periods.)

And after my Lamy Blue-Black ink bottle and syringe kit get here from Pear Tree, yes, it's going to be filled with iron-gall ink. It will shorten the useful life of it, to be sure, and make it possibly a less smooth writer, but I need something to jot waterproof notes on my desk calendar and to-do lists, and Lamy Blue-Black and Diamine Registrars are the only non-Noodlers fountain pen friendly waterproof inks I can find.

Will I get another Future? I'll probably give it another try at a later date, since I do find this comfortable to hold.

On the upside, I don't have to sacrifice a "good" pen to iron-gall ink.

I'm not sure it's my biggest disappointment but one of the more memorable one was my Visconti Van Gogh. The unusual cap attachment was a constant concern. Not long after I bought it the cap came loose as I took it out of my pocket it came loose and fell, badly bending the nib. No matter how tight I tightened it there no way of securing it to the barrel.

Waterman's L'Etalon. Nib was very smooth, but had a terrible starting problem. The nib did not sit deep into the section causing it to tend to become sprung. Sold it eventually.

Hari

No disappointments here. I started with Italian pens and about half of them worked well out of the box. The first was troublesome, but my 79 year old father had warned me that fountain pens were always unreliable so I wasn't surprised. This pattern of about half the pens I bought working out of the box continued until I tried my first Pelikan 600. Now, half my pens are Pelikan 6xx variants and not one has had an issue. If I had bought the Pelikans first, then I probably would have felt disappointment at many pens, but I was fortunate to go from low expectations (from Dad) to mediocre reliability, and finally to high reliability.

However, if I ever buy another pen, it's going to have a lot to live up to.

Mabie Todd Swan: It hurts me to put this one at the top, but I have to do it. It's a 1918 Mabie Todd Swan in BCHR with clear imprint and all (you can even see the whole swan and all the patent dates). I've heard plenty of people rave about the wet noodle wonder of the old New York #2 gold nib. That's just what I got- a WW1 vintage classy workhorse. When it arrived the nib tines moved about, but never wanted to stay lined up. The nib was way too fine and quite scratchy. I tried to smooth it a little, but met no success. I boxed it and put it away. The pen is downright gorgeous, but I can't write with it- it's a scratchy experience from what should be one of the all time classics. Of late I've been tinkering with the idea of bringing it over to Penhaven to see what they say. They're about a 10 min drive from me. I very badly want to like this pen and make it a daily user, but if it doesn'twrite properly, hey I can't use it. What makes this worse is that I also have a Mabie Todd Blackbird and an 1888 Mabie Todd dip pen. I should have one hell of a set covering 1880-1930 or so. But because of the trouble with this pen, it's not completely together as I'd like it. I don't just collect pens, I use them; and I want to use this one. But as it arrived, I was totally down n' broke about it.

Waterman Hemisphere: It wrote a very broad medium line when functioning properly. The nib was fairly smooth, but wasn't anything special. The biggest killer was the weight- it feels as if it's made from brass (anyone have any idea about this?). It has that "metal pen" heft, but it goes beyond that and is actually a heavy pen. It's not bad looking, but I'm not a fan. The weird 45 degree cut decoration on the top of the cap is entirely unnecessary- why not just round out the cap like the Phileas? I don't mean to chew a pen out, but this thing is a true clunker- it's not very big, but it is very heavy and feels clumsy to me. The Phileas was lower in cost, but a better pen.

Sheaffer TRZ: Now this pen writes great- I like the nib a lot. The thing is that it's VERY thin. It's also made of metal, though it's not nearly as clunky as the Hemi. The Sheaffer thin squeeze converter is hard to find and doesn't hold much ink at all. It seems like a letter or signature pen, but not a hardcore writer. It's alright on the whole- just a little disappointing in terms of its size and feel. The quality is quite good, but the size just doesn't do it.

A Sheaffer No Nonsense: I have 3 I love, but the fourth was a purchase online. It was advertised as working and fairly near mint. When it arrived I found it had some fairly substantial wear and wouldn't even write properly. I was a little disappointed in what arrived compared to how it was advertised. It had pictures online and all, but those didn't tell the full story. I suppose you're bound to hit a loser in even a normally great pen line every so often. Another member of this board VERY generously sent me some spare parts for it and got me back up and running with it. It writes every bit as well as my others now, if not better.

Lamy 2000: The pen was a fine writer, but the I had a few problems with the pen. The cap wouldn't stayed posted, the nib was too wet (I bought a XF), it starting leaking after 2 days (Brand new too!) and it felt too light (because the cap wouldn't stay posted). Eventually, I went back to the store and exchanged it for a Lamy Studio.

Parker Sonnet. I bought it at Harrods back in the days when I used to go to London quite a bit. The salesman was straight out of the Snake Oil Academy but had little knowledge of fountain pens or ink. As far as the pen went it was always a difficult starter and there was usually ink around the trim near the nib. It put me off them pretty well for good, a nice looking pen but for me it didn't have the performance to back it up.

I've ordered a Lamy 2000 and am really looking forward to it because of the wet writing style, I'll be annoyed if it turns into a leaker.

All pens from Montblanc in my collection were disappointing and a waste of money.

Mr. T how many of these disappointing pens do you own?

I purchased an Underwood pen in green ebonite. Beautiful box. gorgeous pen, hooded nib. I put it aside for a special day. When that day came (2 years later), filled the pen...zip, nada, will not write at all. I have had problem pens but 99% could be salvaged. Some pens have turned out not to be as great as others thought they were -- but none could not be tolerated or gifted to a friend or traded/sold. Life is too short to use an ugly pen.

Parker Sonnet. It was my first expensive pen I bought and my expectations vere probably too high, but I found that I can't write with this pen. First it was skipping, then I could not get a grip on that pen. I do not really know why, but I do not feel comfortable with it. It is too small for my hand, I can't get the right angle. It is nothing wrong with the pen, it just does not suit my hand (and mind). Now it rests in my draw, flushed, clean, waiting for a right hand. I am sorry for it.

Thats funny, ALL Mont Blanc pens in my collection are very good to excellent and worth every cent/penny I spent on them.

I count 12 and 12 out of 12 aint bad.

Difficult question, i believe all pens have there place, even if its just a lesson in what you buy, why you buy.

If i had to choose one it would be a Rotring espirit fountain pen with medium nib......thought it would be a nice cheap little note maker.....nib turned out to be too rough to enjoy......

Much to the dismay of many, a Pelikan M400 with a medium nib for me . I tried to adjust to the sweet spot, tried many different inks, it was light weight... I just couldn't get used to it. I probably could have send it to a nibmeister...

Even funnier, I'm batting 2 out of 2 as duds. YMWV!

Talk about feeling like a lottery winner, I am the owner of five (5) Hero fountain pens, and four of them are great, reliable writers. The fifth was in a bin of 3/$10 pens at the Dallas Pen Show in October (in a few recent posts, I said it was in Sept. Senior moment). It dries out too quickly, and is a bit scratchy. Since I paid so little for it, I haven't even looked to see if it is something I could jigger myself. My Hero 100, 329, 616, and unk (got it at said pen show, with a bottle of ink, for $15, medium nib, wet writer, matte stainless body) all write great. With the horror stories I have seen here on FPN, the QC odds are very much against my experience, but I will not complain about getting a run on good pens for very little money.


But as to disappointment, my greatest was a "Parker 51 in good condition" I won on a snipe on eBay, only to discover it was actually a triumph nibbed Sheaffer, which ended up having not only a sac which disinegrated when it was touched, but the barrel was cracked, irrepairable, and a total waste of time and money.

Donnie

Pilot Prera:too short,toothy nib,inconsistent flow.
Pelikan Steno:a little bit of flex,and that's it.Scratchy Scratchy Scratchy Scratchy

Absolutely! I'm ashamed to admit that I was one of them!

Levenger True Writer: Lemon, after Lemon after Lemon
Stipula 22: bliah
Filcao Columbia: Wanted to like it - felt nice in hand but performance was never correct after several trips to dealer and pen repairman.

I hope that someone will do the statistics in this thread

THINK Northern Lights by Krone. Very sharp looking, inexpensive pen. Great size. Perfect in every way . . . except that after writing 1/3 - 1/2 page it suddenly dries up. After 4 trips back to Krone, I'm through. Very disappointed.

Parker 45 with 14k nib. So cheap and available, it would be a great pen to like. But alas, it just did nothing for me. Nothing!

I hate to say it because I love my Omas pens, but the new Arco Milrod was one defect after another (loose ring on the cap; faulty piston; leaking nib; and poor fitting cap) combined with Omas' POS (piece of s*#t) warranty policy and bad attitude was a real let down. Thankfully the Canadian distributor, LSF, looked after me very well. In fact, they went above and beyond to look after me. Hopefully a replacement or repaired pen will arrive soon.

I must say on the other side of the coin, I bought a Montegrappa Extra from Novelli when I was in Rome. When I filled it at the hotel to write a postcard, I noticed that it had a little flow issue. I took the pen back to Novelli and Marco's mother spent about 40 minutes tweaking the nib and it now is one of my all time favorite pens. Great flow and and a silky smooth nib. You never mind paying a little extra after someone looks after you like Marco and his family did.

I know they're very popular around here, but Sailors. The pens are very well made and the nibs are as smooth as advertised, but I found them mind-numbingly boring. I find this to be the case with Pilot nibs as well. To me, they have no character whatsoever, which matters to me in a nib. Only caveat: I'm only speaking of the regular nibs, not the crazy nibs Sailor specializes in. Best,
David

Where to start!

I bought a Lapis Blue Wahl Gold Seal on ebay that had "a few minor issues", it was a total piece of junk, cracked nib and cap, a big heat bulge where the section went into the barrell, cracked lever, etc. The only good thing was that the seller took it back!!

I just had to have an Edson. I got it for a great price and it is just as pretty as I expected it to be but... the nib was so stiff and it was so heavy that I never used it. Sold it back in Sept at the Dallas Pen Show for a little more than I had in it.

Parker 75 gold electroplated. I bought a Parker 45 flighter at the same time and it was a wonderful pen but the 75 was a dissapointment, never did like the nib. Sold it in Sept.

Ring top pens. Waterman 52 1/2V and a Conklin Lapis Endura. Both were pretty pens and had sweet flexy nibs but they were just too short for me to enjoy them, even trying to post didn't help! Sold both in Sept.

Lamy 2000. It started out scrachy, but I finally smoothed it out, the piston was too stiff, leaked out the ears, spits out of the breather hole, leaks out of the piston seal. A little silicon grease took care of all but the breather hold spitting. I love how it looks and writes (now) but I just can't live with the breather hole spitting ink. This pen could easily be a favorite pen if all I can get past all of the issues!

Unfortunately all 4 Omas have given me problems out of the box -
poorly shaped iridium tip, a clicking nib, section leaks and poor flow.
They are nice looking, so with the exception of one, I had them fixed,
but it took considerable time and expense to do this, and I won't buy another one
without having the opportunity to try one for several days with a return option or unless
it comes fully checked out by Mottishaw or other nibmeister.

I agree. Glassy smooth is the end all for some, but I also find
them featureless. To each his own.

A pen that I loved which broke when I unscrewed the cap, the Bexley Passadena I baught two months ago. It was a superb writer. The solidity of the body is not their strongest point.

Sheaffer PFM III, horrible nib and poor ink capacity. It was a pen I had 8 years ago but sold it because it was a source of aggriviation.

Mine has the same starting problem...it is going to the nibmeister within the month!

An eversharp skyline... I bought one, it wrote perfectly, then I tried to refill it and the BARREL!!! The DAMNED barrel snapped in half......... To this day I still feel a hole in my heart...

My Monteverde Invicia Black Tie is the worst pen I have. It unscrews, the nib is horrible--the darn thing squeaks like a fingernail on a chalk board--it skips terribly. It is clearly my worst pen.

However, I bought it 1/2 off at Office Depot, so I wouldn't call it my biggest disappointment.

My biggest disappointment was my MB Starwalker. The thing feels like a piece of plastic junk, it skips unacceptably, the section keeps getting unscrewed, and the little ring on the section came off.

Don't get me wrong. It's not nearly as bad as my Black Tie. Not even close. But my expectations were higher, the price was higher and so my disappointment is significantly more.

And, no, I'm not some sort of MB-hater. If anything, I'm a MB partisan with close to 20 other MB fountain pens that I love. This is just not one of them.
And, no, I didn't get a counterfeit MB. It's clearly the real thing, and I got it from one of the more reliable authorized MB dealers (FPH).

My two biggest dissapointment were:

1. Sailor 1911 Sterling. This was on my wish list for a long time but when I finally got it I found it to be too heavy to be practical and the nib was not as smooth as I had hoped and heard the Sailor nibs are.

2. Parker Duofold Centennial, Black Mosaic. I really liked the looks of this pen but that was about the only thing I liked. The medium nib was too broad and occasionally skipped; the pen was poorly balanced with the cap posted, and it was too small to write with the cap unposted.

I eventually sold both and never looked back.

Greg~

Same with me: My biggest disapointment has been my MB 144. Poor starter. After one or two days out of use it refuses to write.
Next on the list: MB 22. Very scratchy nib. Don't use it anymore. Both of them.

On the other hand the vintage MBs: MB 14 is a great pen. Same with the 252 (at least after I switched from MB black to Waterman blue) and the MB 342 works fine as well.

Sheaffer Aspen Balance II. I bought this pen in 1999 and it simply would not write more than a line without skipping, then quitting.

Back to Fort Madison for a nib exchange. Came back with the same writing, or should I say non-writing, characteristics.

Back to Fort Madison for another nib exchange. Repeat story.

Fortunately, I bought it from Jim Gaston and he took it back and refunded my purchase price.

It was inexpensive Stypen with retractable nib. I thought it was rather nifty. It would never write from the time it was new. Difficult to start writing and difficult to keep it writing more than a few minutes. I should have taken it back to the store.

A wood pen from Levenger. It was my first "nice" pen (maybe $40?). Terrible. I wanted it for the warm feeling of wood, but it had a thick plasticky-feeling finish over the wood. The metal cap was so heavy that not only was it impossible to write with posted, but it would flip out of my hand if I careful because it was so poorly weighted.

I still have it somewhere. Terrible disappointment. I should really just throw it out.

One of these days I will buy another wood pen. Probably that nice slim one Faber Castell has right now, although I really hate converters.

LAMY 2000 EF

The crazy Sailor nibs aren't so hot either. Cross Concord in Professional Gear body was my original "grail" pen. Writes dry, and is finicky with ink. Nothing like the regular Sailor nibs. Concord side feels like writing on thick stiff platform shoes. Cross side is a hard starter. Simply can't get used to it.

Signum Ornamenta - so light it constantly floated out of my fingers, B nib was nothing spectacular. Felt incredibly cheap and flimsy for the price. Sold it on.

I have several pens that have been problem children for me, but my biggest disappointment has been with a pen company vs. the pen itself. I got a used Bexley in about 2003-04 on eBay if I recall, made in 1993 (if the number on the base is actually the date). Button filler. Anyway, I quickly realized it leaked, badly, and being a newbie at the time I thought it best to send the thing to the source for repair. Imagine my disappointment when I received a call from Howard Levy himself informing me that this pen was beyond repair; didn't I know how old this thing was? The insinuation was that it was too old to be worrying about fixing, or at least that was how I heard what he said. I had him send it back, then told the owner of my local shop about the problem. She gently took the pen from me and apparently repaired it. I was so saddened by the experience that I have never tried to ink the thing to see whether it is really fixed.

The truly unfortunate part of this is that, being from the Columbus, Ohio area myself, I was prepared to support my hometown and buy lots more Bexleys. I own three (two FP and a RB), and that will be that unless another one comes as a gift.

Waterman Carene. Too heavy, not properly balanced, cap keeps popping off when posted, and inadequate tension on clip (don't bend over with it in your shirt pocket!). It's sitting around somewhere collecting dust.

Cross Century II. It had poor ink flow. After about haf of a page of writing I had to shake it in order to renew th ink flow. I filled it with Pelikan Brilliant Black ink using convertor.

Visconti Van Gogh Mini, Crystal (demonstrator). The photos looked great, but the actual pen was a disppointment--the plastic felt cheap, it was not nearly as clear or 'clean' looking as its photos, and the cap promptly fell apart when I tried to clip the pen into my shirt pocket. It was replaced by the seller, but beyond its looks the M nib was too 'fat' and also skipped.

(I do own a green Midi Van Gogh that has been a pleasure to own.)