The Worst Pen Ever

[FLZapped]

Well for me it is Parker

 

ALL of them?

 

I'd be curious as to how many of the myriad of pens they've made you've had experience with in order to be able to damn the Entire brand.

 

Bruce in Ocala, FL-now, if you started with a Sonnet, maybe I could understand...

 

 

I don't know that the problem with the Sonnet isn't the flood of fakes that are out there. I have 2 of them, both write great. The medium with the gold nib might be my best pen in terms of writing smoothness.

 

the other Bruce....

[OcalaFlGuy]

I have a snorkel that just won't stay fixed. Writes OK, but the filling mechanism on those things is a disaster.

 

Geeez Man, watch out!

 

One of the Snorkienista will be making a FLZ doll to stick pens into...

 

:roflmho:

 

Bruce in Ocala, FL

[DrorJS]

Visconti Rembrandt Ivory with M nib. The WORST EVER!!!

[Lisya72]

Easily a Yafa that wouldn't start unless I shook it hard, then would write one line, and stop until I shook it again. Tried rinsing it with soap and water, no luck. Ended up in a trash bin. Second place goes to a custom pen that I bought at a show. Wrote great at the show. After I got it home? I started looking for Gilligan because it is one heck of a skipper. One of these days I'll fix it - pretty sure it's a misaligned feed. I've also been playing with a Zebra V301. It's a rough starter, but once this one gets going, it lays down a decent line. The loosey-goosey cap annoys me, and it's more dry than I prefer. Gonna empty the cartridge and refill it with PR Tanzenite and see what happens. I've got a friend who's interested in FPs, but is afraid of investing the money in an instrument that she may damage due to not knowing how to use it properly, so I'm constantly on the lookout for good and inexpensive FPs (under $10).

 

I was surprised to see how many Parker Vectors ended upon this list - I loved my Vector until someone walked off with it.

[OcalaFlGuy]

The loosey goosey cap on the Zebra in probably directly related to it being a hard starter.

 

Bruce in Ocala, FL

[Sailor Kenshin]

I hear it has more to do with the feed. The Z-pen cap is loose, posted, but snaps closed pretty good.

[sirach]

Stypen UP.... it makes sense that BIC owns them now... cheap material, and the cartridge nipple broke off inside the section with the first cartridge. The thing dries up so fast... the nib is terrible... bwaaaaa...

 

ok, that felt good... I am done now...

[Lisya72]

I hear it has more to do with the feed. The Z-pen cap is loose, posted, but snaps closed pretty good.

 

Correct. Closed, it's a snug fit. Sorry, my original post wasn't very clear on this. In fact, it can be a little tough to close and requires a bit of brute-forcing (which was cause for some concern - brute force around a nib makes me nervous). The pen's too short for me to write comfortably with the cap un-posted, but when posted, the fit is so loose that it moves until the clip is rubbing against the web of my hand.

 

I think the feed is some kind of felt contraption rather than the feeds we're accustomed to.

Edited August 6, 2012 by Lisya72

[Sailor Kenshin]

Lol, I knew what you meant, having owned and operated the Z-pen till the cart ran dry. Its quirks and its good points were kind of a draw.

[Chris]

Well, I have been reminded of a whole troop of nasty pens from my schooldays - the Platignum cartridge pen with the nib that was folded over at the tip. Sooner or later the tip wore through and a bit dropped off one or both tines and you were writing with something akin to a hypodermic needle for smoothness across the paper.

 

Then I replaced it with a Parker 65. Loved the design and it had a nice, smooth nib with a hint of flex but the flow was terrible - thanks to Quinck (? i mean Quink) being the only ink readily available. Now that I know better and would like to use that pen again, I find that pen has fatigue cracks internally that render it useless.

 

Interesting how many times the name Parker comes up though.

 

Chris

Edited August 7, 2012 by Chris

[tspin46]

I could get into a lot of trouble for my worst pen ever... But I

Already talked about

Having

A very

Bad time with a modern pen. It has driven me to vintage Sheaffers. Not a bad thing really.

[escribo]

Foray Focus, bought at Office Depot. Horrible writer with a tiny nib (and inadequate feed, obviously), and the cap won't stay posted. I do like its heft and size, though; it may turn into a frankenpen some day.

[rbadger332]

Platinum Preppy....First time I loaded a Plat cart into it, the ink went past the feed and onto my hands. Figured it was a user error, so I cleaned up and tried again...with the same results. Emptied the pen (What was left, anyways) and refilled the cart with a drier ink. Same thing. Binned it. Went back to my Sonnet, which started faithfully and ran until the ink in the cart ran out. Still love that pen.

[sandra__w]

Conklin Cushion Point (that modern version).

Looks awesome, the nib is very nice, but the ink flow is horrible... Bad starter - IF it starts at all - then it dries within seconds. Never experienced anything like that before. I had issues with various fps, but this one tops them all.... I will give it another chance and let it take a bath in the ultrasonic cleaner I just bought some days ago. Maybe this helps, if not... I don't know. Use it as dip pen?

[Zanshin]

Without a doubt the Aurora Ipsilon - huge disappointment.

 

Can you elaborate? This is the third or fourth post referring to the poor quality of Aurora pens.

 

That's an interesting point. I have two Ipsilons, the older style where the cap ring has two black bands and the words Aurora and Italy in contrasting silver lettering, and the newer style where the cap band is a fairly plain metal band with the wording engraved into it.

 

My older one is a black and silver version with a sterling silver cap, the newer one is an Ipsilon Deluxe in blue with gold coloured trim.

 

Somehow, despite it's 14K nib, the blue and gold Deluxe looks and feels incredibly cheap and tacky. It's very light, the plastic doesn't feel particularly great, the clip sits on the cap slightly askew, the blue infill colour on the clip isn't accurately applied, the cap ring looks nasty, the injection moulding lines are clearly present on the section and the converter isn't the best. It looks and feels like a cheap promotional give away.

 

The odd thing is that many of these characteristics are shared with the black version but somehow it looks and feels much nicer. The converter is the same, the plastics are probably the same, the moulding marks on the grip are also there, but the sterling silver cap gives it a little more weight as well as a little more class, the black and silver cap ring looks much better then the new style plain brass ring, the clip sits straight and there is no inaccurately applied coloured infill on the clip to ruin the appearance.

 

All in all, I think the quality of materials and construction, other than the cap obviously, is the same between the two pens, but there are just enough small niggles with the Deluxe that make it appear shoddy, whereas the black and silver version appears to be a better quality pen.

[emiliovillegas]

I hate my Waterman Hemisphere since I bought it. It was inked only once and I don't think there will be a second time

[Sonnet]

Conklin Cushion Point (that modern version).

Looks awesome, the nib is very nice, but the ink flow is horrible... Bad starter - IF it starts at all - then it dries within seconds. Never experienced anything like that before. I had issues with various fps, but this one tops them all.... I will give it another chance and let it take a bath in the ultrasonic cleaner I just bought some days ago. Maybe this helps, if not... I don't know. Use it as dip pen?

 

One of my first "serious" pens was the Conklin ....Mark Twain? In purple acrylic and steel trim, from about 2005ish. And it was everything Sandra_W said :-(

Edited September 11, 2012 by Sonnet

[rochester21]

All of the above are not bad pens, just worse than the ones the owners were used to. Try a montex,schneider or a very cheap chinese no-name pen. It`s enough to make you believe that ball-pens are superior writing instruments.

Edited September 11, 2012 by rochester21

[Sherwood Forester]

All of the above are not bad pens, just worse than the ones the owners were used to. Try a montex,schneider or a very cheap chinese no-name pen. It`s enough to make you believe that ball-pens are superior writing instruments.

 

I don't mean to turn this on it's head but sometimes the "cheap and nasty" pens turn out to be anything but that.

 

Years ago I bought a couple of Schneider "Base" fountain pens from a branch of either PoundShop or Poundland. You know the sort of retail outlet, where everything costs no more than £1 GBP. The pens are plastic and have steel nibs. I reckoned at the price they were worth a risk. If they turned out to be rubbish and I threw them away it would not really matter as I would have wasted very little cash on them.

 

Ha! Little did I know what a surprise I would get. The pen writes smoothly and reliably every time, equalling or bettering the performance of some of my expensive pens costing hundreds of (and in some examples over a thousand) times more. I sometimes ask myself why I bought any siver pens. At least they look very pretty!

 

I referred to "the pen" above because I have not yet needed to open the wrapping of the second Base. The reason is because the first one just goes on and on doing it's job without a fault. At that price I don't care if the pen is damaged or lost. I still have the other one. Sometimes you hit the jackpot.

[kevanf1]

I think my worst FP has to be a Sheaffer I purchased back in around 1980 or 81. I cannot remember what the model is but it is very slim, brushed stainless steel barrel and cap with the white dot on the pocket clip. It is a converter pen. The first nib unit was horrible and scratchy in a medium I think. I bought a replacement fine nib unit (I prefer fine) which is marginally better. I have hardly ever used that pen but I may try to smooth the nib out by doodling some figures of eight on wrapping paper. Secondly, I have a Waterman Expert with a medium nib. That nib too is rather scratchy and the pen hardly ever gets used.

 

Now, conversely, I have a repaired, super cheap Parker Vector. It writes beautifully. A few days ago I bought a Chinese 'Shule' 2212 off eBay. Once I got the ink flowing (needed a squeeze of the ink sac) it writes superbly. It is so nice I want to write, anything, I don't care I just want to write. After a lay up of 24 hours I tried it again. Perfect, no hesitation just a nice solid line. It even writes beautifully on newspaper so I can do the crossword with it. It currently has Parker Quink green ink in it which I love.

 

Now, going back a long time to school days. I had many Platignum pens that scratched, ink blobbed everywhere and leaked worse than an upturned ink bottle Add to the mix a good few cheap Conway Stewarts which were pretty much the same. I did have a couple of very nice Stypens. My school days really put me off using fountain pens for decades I am now putting that right and have an idea for writing a book. Which I shall handwrite with one of my many FP's that I now own.