I was just curious if anyone knew how much is saved in the way of refills by using a fountain pen? Specifically with Noodlers ink. I have been unable to figure out the amount of mL in my Lamy Safari and the amount of mL in for example a uni-ball Vision Elite. It would be nice to get the figures.

I think you're in the wrong hobby.

that's a bit harsh, Romeo Dog! I would like to know the specific measurements too, not to count the cost but just to know how many miles to the gallon etc as a matter of curiosity.....

The pen with a 3 oz bottle of ink is only going to save you money if you don't buy any other pens for a couple of years. So its a terrible irony that most fountain pen users will spend more money than if they just stuck with ball points, because they always have to get another pen, break a previous one, fix one up, etc.

There used to be an advertisement on Australian TV (perhaps other countries as well) that showed a particular ball point pen writing for kilometres.

One of my Chinese pens writes only gets about one page per refill. I haven't straightened out the writing to see how long that is, nor have I determined the volume of the converter...

But I like the idea of MPG as another parameter to classify pens

Absolutely. I estimated today that my 42 different inks at av. £7 per bottle have cost me about £300. Now, that is probably enough to keep my whole school in biros for several years (and the figure doesn't have pens added)!

Chris

okay, well then think of it from the environmental aspect... how many BP pens in a landfill will equal one 3 oz bottle of ink? I think I've read such a number on here, better ask the Nathanologists when and where he's said it...

I had a Fisher Space Cap-O-matic (the clicky type) in undergrad. I don't know what I paid for it, but I think it was less than $10. I switched to a fine refill because I liked the smaller line, and never ran out of ink through at least 2 years of hardcore note taking. I think the refill was something like $5. Being a science/engineering student, I went through a lot of pencil lead.

Different fountain pens will use different amounts of ink. My newest is a Lamy 2000 with a widish F nib that is fairly wet. It uses maybe a refill every two weeks. Other pens, especially those with hooded nibs and fine, dryish nibs, will use a lot less. I have a dryish Lamy Safari EF that I swear does not consume ink. That thing will fill dozens of letter-size pages of handwriting practice before I need to refill the little converter.

Not real quantitative, but I don't think FPs are the way to save money.

Scott

I don't have an answer for you. But if you had the mind to, you could check out a website called cockeyed.com where the owner ponders other such things. Rob Cockerham is the gentleman's name. If you posed your question to him, he may even know the answer for the ball pen.

I can imagine an apparatus that would test your hypothesis, where the FP's line is precisely the same wdith as the BP's, and all manner of empirical nonsense. It looks a lot like an old vinyl album recorder, where the album is replaced by a round piece of paper, and the stylus that cut into the vinyl is replaced by a fountain pen.

I just don't think it would mean anything to know the answer.

I also homebrew beer. And just to cut to the chase, it is not cheaper to make your own. Or faster. The advantage is in getting exactly what you want, and how you want it. I think Fountain pens are the same. You can choose precisely the pen, the nib, the ink color, etc. The greatest joy is in FINDING your bliss, and enjoying it once you've found it.

Back to fiddling...

Oh yeah, without a doubt the most cost effective solution is to buy disposable ballpoint and rollerball pens. Fountain Pens are a luxury item today, even if you're using an Esterbrook.

The only way I could see fountain pens possibly being more economical is when you do all the following:

• buy one cheap but reliable fountain pen
• have a source for extremely inexpensive ink
• find that you lose ballpoint pens like mad, but your care and attention to the fountain pen prevents you from losing it

And who here can stick to a single inexpensive fountain pen?

Yet... in terms of value, you gain a lot with using a fountain pen IF you have the patience and appreciation for what it offers.

Well, though...I am pretty sure that if just looking at INK ALONE, the cost of writing with a fountain pen would be less than most rollerball refills or disposable rollerballs or gel pens. They go through ink pretty quickly IMO and also tend to dry out if you don't use 'em.

For example, I can go through one Lamy roller refill in about 2 weeks. So that would be an annualized cost of around $130 at a cost of $5 a refill. $130 would buy quite a lot of FP ink - more than a year's worth, I daresay.

Compared to a long-writing ballpoint such as standard Parker or Waterman or Montblanc, FPs are probably no better.

Thoughts?

There is one factor that is difficult, nay impossible, to quantify: the amount of additional physical effort required to write with a ballpen. Think of all those extra calories you have to consume just to be able to write your own name with one of these works of Stan!

But seriously, it's another example of comparing apples with pears. If fountain pens and ballpens were sold in similar quantities we may be in with a chance, but since fountain pen users are not only in a minority but the FP is generally sold a a luxury item rather than a writing tool we've no hope. The economies of scale of BP manufacture have made the comparison meaningless.

And with that, I'm off to bed!

Martin

Don't forget that it is much, much, much,..... much cheaper to refill from an ink bottle than a cartridge.
The cost of the ink per ml in Parker cartridges pretty well matches the cost per ml of Chanel No 5 eau de cologne.

Chanel No 9 is better and a third the cost. I refill my cartridges with bottled ink, because they seem to hold more than the average converter. Nothing beats my piston fill pens, though. They write for a very, very long time.

I prefer Diorissimo Parfum myself. And, I don't fill my pens with the stuff -- I flush them with it as part of the cleaning process. Makes a world of difference...

P.S. This post is in jest. Please don't try flushing any of your pens with Diorissimo or Chanel. If you're going to attempt this, use Old Spice. It's more cost effective.

0.6ml converter, 1.2 cartridge per http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/lo...php/t34687.html

I've asked them. I don't expect an answer.

I use ink converters and in general, it's at least a week between ink fills. Sometimes more depending on usage. So far I've only used up one bottle of Pelikan 4001 Tourquoise ink and that's probably about 4-5 years since I've bought the ink! It's around SGD 3.15 at most for a bottle. That's less than 1.5 cents a fill. I've rarely run out of ink. If I know, that I'm going for a heavy writing session or biz trip, I top up the pen beforehand. As a fall back measure, I maintain another bottle of ink at work just for contingencies. To be fair, my pens are Pelikans and they have great ink capacity. Having said that, my Pelikano Juniors use ink converters and I'm certain they hold less ink than my M800. However it is also at least a week between fills. In general, I keep at least 3 pens inked at any time.

Apart from taking notes, doing homework etc, I take time to improve my handwriting. This involves pages of scribbling. Especially useful for those times in between meetings

My wife uses Lamy Roller balls and they are SGD 8 for a refill! Assume she uses one a year, that's equivalent to more than two bottles of Pelikan 4001 and at least ten years of equivalent fountain pen usage! Happily, I've converted her to using fountain pens so that's no longer an issue I also use a Lamy multipen as a backup. It has a pencil which is handy. Each ball point refill is SGD 2.50. I rarely write with it. Ink capacity is less than a normal ball point pen. I imagine that with comparable use, I would go through at least three refills so that's SGD 7.50 a year.

It would be unfair to compare cheap Biro's with say fountain pen or even a Lamy multipen. The writing experience is totally different i.e. grip, heft, styling and sheer writing pleasure.

In my mind a fountain pen measures up well in terms of:

1. cost per year

Fountain Pen - SGD 3.15/5 = SGD 0.63!
Lamy Roller Ball - SGD 8
Lamy Multipen Ballpoint Refill - SGD 7.50

2. generating less waste (just one ink bottle which can be recyled for holding coins etc)

3. writing experience (priceless!)

4. improvements to handwriting

5. ergonormics i.e. less stress on your hand from not needing to press down so hard on the paper

Just my 2 cents (no pun intended)

At this point I'm not going to get any more pens unless I need to. Now that I know how much the converter holds that means over the past month I've only used 1.2 - 1.8 cc of ink. And I've used the pen pretty heavily with Noodlers Polar Black. After looking up a cc I know how to measure roughly how much ink is in a Vision Elite. The ink chamber is about 7.75 cm long and about 0.5 cm in diameter. So it holds roughly 1.52 cc. Now the Vision Elite refills are $3 for a pack of two so that's close to a dollar a cc. Whereas with Noodlers it's 9.75 a bottle of ink with about 5.25 for shipping for 90 cc of ink from swisherpens anyways. Which amounts to $0.16 a cc. Meaning in the first 90 cc I saved $75 which covers the cost of at least two Lamy Safari pens with converters. Plus I have an ink that is not vulnerable to check fraud. And the savings get better as time goes on. Providing the two pens dispense the same amount of ink. But I still save a lot this way.

Oh, yes, definitely the wrong hobby.




Or at least running in the wrong group...

Interesting line ....... From my observations

(1) Gel & Ink Rollers are short lived.

(2) Parker Jotter ballpoint pens with the regular large refill seem to go on forever. I still have one with a working refill from the 1960s and although I've used them pretty steady off and on over the decades I can only recall running two of them out of ink.

(3) A fountain pen might be more economical if you used something like a Pelikano and bought the ink as the liter bottles of Pelikan black or blue. With the object of art fountain pens and boutique inks, I think you end up paying a premium.

(4) I have not idea of a practical (emphasis on the word practical) way to cost out these alternatives, but I am always interested to hear the details of others work at arriving at a solution.

Here are some thoughts.

Fountain pens can be broadly divided into two categories and this is true for everything we own.

1. Assets
2. Consumables

Naturally assets either hold their value and could even appreciate in value over time. Some examples include, our homes, land, gold, antiques and of course limited edition or rare fountain pens. I imagine that these could include vintage Pelikans, Parkers or limited edition pens.

Consumables are items that are used up overtime. Some examples would include cars, buildings, equipment and lower end fountain pens. Some that come to mine include Pelikano Juniors, Lamy Safaris.

Wearing an accounting hat, assets such as land, gold or investments can either be valued at cost or periodically revalued depending on the accounting rules that apply in your country. Meaning, some jurisdictions require assets to be valued at market value and some at historical cost. In general, such assets are not depreciated.

Consumables on the other hand such as cars, equipment diminish in value and are generally depreciated (allocate the cost) over time the estimated life of the item.

This means that some fountain pens belonging to the asset class need not be depreciated. Accordingly, the cost of the item is not factored in. Instead the focus will be on running cost i.e. cost of say repairs and ink.

For fountain pens which belong to consumables category, the cost of the pen would added into the cost of running as above.

So taking my Pelikano Junior as an example, the cost is SGD 7. If my Pelikan P110 is anything to go by, the Pelikano will easily have an estimated useful life of 20 years. BTW my Pelikan P110 still works fine and I estimate that it'll will be fine for at least another 10 years. Probably more. This works out to be SGD 0.35 a year. In terms of running cost, I take about 5 years to go through a bottle of Pelikan 4001 ink. The price is SGD 3.15 a bottle. So that works out to be SGD 0.63 a year. So with depreciation, I'm looking at SGD 0.98 a year.

For a high end pen like the Pelikan M800, the cost is SGD 350. This pen is well made and I estimate the pen to have a useful life of say 40 years. This works out to be SGD 8.75. So including running cost that's SGD 9.38 a year.

In my opinion, this already compares (without factoring depreciation of the pen) favourably with

1. Lamy multipen refill estimated to be SGD 10 (4 a year)
2. Lamy roller ball SGD 24 (4 a year probably more)
3. Lamy ballpoint SGD 8 (2 a year)

For a Pelikan Toledo, I've seen a used M700 selling for more than what I paid over 16 years for the pen. So clearly there's been appreciation for the those models that are no longer commonly available. In this example, the running cost will be just SGD 0.63 a year.

To top it off, here's where accounting fails, since it only focuses on mainly on historical costs (when clearly one needs to consider time value of money or opportunity cost but that's a whole new ball game). One needs to factor in the following:

1. Writing experience i.e. pen width, tactile feel, weight, grip etc
2. The appearance of the pen (it's very important for my wife especially the colour)

To compare a fountain pen with say a disposable biro is unfair. It would be like saying driving a Toyota Corolla is the same as a BMW. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of Toyotas but the experience is completely different. If this were not the case, we would all be driving Toyotas or riding scooters given the high oil prices

Just my 2 cents.

For me, using inks and writing with fountain pens saves a lot of money. But that depends largely on what ballpoint refills you use. If one is happy with using all those ballpoints given to you as advertising gifts, then you'd end by probably saving no money at all. But if you regard writing as an experience and don't want to ruin your wrist of your fingers by holding a ballpoint that is neither pleasant in the hand nor ergonomically formed, then you might have considered something else. Unlike popular opinion (of course not amongst us fountain pen users, just among many many people who have never hold a fountain pen in their hands), the difference in quality and smoothness of ballpoint refills varies a lot. Actually there ARE bad ballpoints. So if you consider using the more expensive refills and are willing to spend more money on the refill, you have the costs: most refills only last 2 weeks, approximately, at everyday use, by writing 3-6 pages everyday (the amount a college-student has to write down at the lectures he attends, or the amount written at school). And if this is added all along, considering that a bottle of Noodler's has 90 ml, then it's clear that ink is inexpensive.

I didn't count in the costs for the pen itself. This is everyone's personal choice. If a very expensive pen is preferred - then please so. But there are also very expensive ballpoints out there - so I wouldn't accept it as a criteria that the costs of a pen itself is higher. It needn't be, necessarily. There are a bunch of great fountain pens out there which are inexpensive and provide a fine writing experience. But if one considers a gold nib and a pen with a white star on the cap and moans about the costs - then he's not helped anymore!

SGCents?

:-)


Brian
For me, the hard part is accounting for how bad some ballpoints are, versus the PITA of fountain pens (I *never* flush a ballpoint, rarely do I get ink on my hands using a ballpoint). Usability issues, in other words. My favorite ballpoints as far as the line laid down would probably be Pentel Slicci gel pens in 0.25, but for me the pen is ugly, and clip isn't great. http://www.jetpens.com/product_info.php/cP...roducts_id/1391

If there was a nice body that took their refills...do they have refills? Not that I can see (to buy). On the other hand, the Pilot 78G gives a fine line, and with the Nikita Red mine is very legible and very fine and skates across the page and I find myself doing loops and swirls just because it is so smooth and wonderful.

My thoughts on lifespan and cost of various writing instruments.

I write a lot in my journal, on a nearly daily basis. I also jot a lot of notes and things at work. I use about 2-3 rollerballs per year at work and used 4-5 UniBall Vision Elites per year in my journal (prior to rediscovering FPs). At an average of $5(plus tax) that's $30-40 per year plus tax.

It could easily pay for a Lamy Safari and ink in one year, if that's all you wanted from the experience.

If you get into other pens, more different inks etc then its easy to spend enough money to make recovering the cost very difficult in a lifetime.

But there's other intangible (or less tangible) benefits.

Yes, I think there are few of us here on FPN that hold to the one-pen,one-ink philosophy, or else we wouldn't be here on FPN. There may be people that indeed save money, but we are less likely to hear from them. If I am insulting anyone that actually is a thrifty fountainpenner, please know that most of us salute and envy you.

Actually, I think there is also a nice concept of fountainpenning as a "kit"... You have the bottle and you have the pen, and can continue using the pen for a long time without ever having to go to a store. But people that buy disposable pens and refills have to keep going to the store when they run out; what a drag.

I'm pretty sure I read on FPN or some other site some time ago about a comparison similar to this. Rollerball was the big loser (but I like 'em anyway), then ballpoint, then fountain pen, but this was adding up the cost of just the ink to fill up a certain number of pages. If I remember correctly, ballpoint was closer in cost to fountain pen than it was to rollerball. This has been the case in my experience too.

Chasing the line of asset vs expendible; the depreciation of a decent FP is pretty neglible in real-world terms. The $10 Sheaffer of 1950 costs me about the same value of cash today, in good order, as it cost a fella in 1950. Let's say $50-$75 for a reasonable Snorkel of a middling trim level-- I, a normally careful FP user, enjoy it for a year or two, and then decide to sell it along. I can reasonably expect to get almost exactly what I paid for it, because I've paid a minimum of attention to maintenance. So, in considering the cost of the FP (except for those lunatic $5000 and up pure-art follies), you might as well think only of the ink, because only the ink is entirely lost in use. They're neither an expense nor an investment, in the long run.

Will you get 79 cents for an empty Bic? Nope-- that thing is 100% expendible.

twdpens wrote:

" ... There is one factor that is difficult, nay impossible, to quantify: the amount of additional physical effort required to write with a ballpen. ... "

No kidding! I have always been one to part with money for the sake of convenience. I see FP's versus BP's as just such a trade off. As both a student and as a professional person, I have had to writes many pages per day by hand, even with a PC. Only with a FP can I spare myself the physical agony of sore fingers, wrists and arthritic thumbs. I do not care to use RB's that much, though I have some, because the refills dry out so fast.

I think this is a good thread, because I am also intellectually curious about the MPG offered by the varied modes of writing instrument. It will no doubt not change my choice of writing instruments, but (as a left over from my military career) I like to know my equipment.

And let's not discount the joy of trying and experimenting with different inks. That is a level of fun that I could never get from trying BP or RB refills. How much is that worth?

Well I just compared Pilot Dr. Grip refills which hold 0.55 cc at maximum so it's probably something like 0.45 in reality. And at $1.95 for a two pack of refills means at best it costs $0.56 a cc of ink. Meaning you save $0.40 a cc with Noodlers Black or whatever color you like that's priced at $9.75 at Swisher. And by the way I love using fountain pens. Rollerballs I don't mind but they are expensive, and ballpoints hurt to write with so I've quit using those except for stuff like wall calendars that don't have absorbent paper. But now we have another excuse to use fountain pens so long as we stick with one. It is cheaper.

To find out how much a cartridge or converter holds, you could get one of the Write Fill or other
syringes (with units marked on the sides), fill an emptied cart with water up to about the level
ink would be, then empty out the syringe. Then, with the emptied syringe, draw the water out
of the cart, and see how much it was by reading from the sides of the syringe.

You could also use the same syringe to refill carts with the color of your choice, but you'd need
to do that just before putting them on the pen. I do this with old carts for a small ladies pen
from the '60s I have. The barrel is too short for a converter.

I originally joined up to FPN when I was getting fed up about how much Parker Vector pens were costing me. They lasted about 6 months before the clutch ring wore out. So I looked at FPN to find a few pens I wouldn't wear out so quickly - like the Parker 61 I'd had for 25 years before it finally failed.
The decision to join FPN has proved to be much more expensive than a few worn out Vectors...

Regards

Richard.

Ain't that the truth!! Highly worthwhile, though...at least in my case.

The other benefit not readily seen is that fountain pens are more versatile when it comes to refilling. A well made ballpoint or rollerball pen requires a specific refill that you cannot make yourself. You may not necessarily find one at an office supply store, whereas a bottle of fountain pen ink is easy to find.

And on the odd chance that there is a severe economic breakdown where the refills for your pen are no longer made, the fountain pen will be indispensable.

Another consideration is the amount of writing you get from a fp is dependent on factors in addition to ink capacity - factors such as nib width, feed/nib design, wet/dry line, evaporation, etc. The late Frank Dubiel in his restoration manual, includes some writing length tests for various vintage pens. I don't have my copy with me so I can't quote the results precisely, but IIRC, the Parker "51" Aerometric was the winner or maybe it was a Snorkel. The results were a bit counter intuitive as ink capacity wasn't the final word.

I think the Snorkel came a very close second, with its teeny weeny 14 1/2 sac.

They just answered!

"There is about 1.6 grams of ink in each refill."

I love the response, so unexpected, so excellent, and in units that mean little to me :-) I replied, asking how many ml that is.

A gram is basically the same as a mL when it's slightly above the freezing point of water according to Wikipedia. So I was fairly close with calculations. Still the savings are tremendous for the fountain pen user.

Can we assume that this is close to water at 0.1 degrees C? :-) Maybe in these small units it is close enough, I'll ask my wife who has a lab....

Yep. Close enough for rock & roll.

The price, BTW, for a Uni-ball Vision Elite (.8 or .5 mm, won't leak in flight, helps prevent check washing, fade- and water-resistant ink, archival) is around $2.25 when purchased in bulk (a fair comparison, I think, you'd need 56 to compare to the Noodler's). Sooo, taking a basic pen (Lamy Safari) and bottle of Noodler's bulletproof black, ignoring tax & shipping and such, I find that the roller pen is about 4 times the cost.

Don't forget the cross-generational savings: You can leave your FPs (and the gallon of ink that's left when you die) to your kids.