Chinese Pens - A Perspective

[seffrican]

Short summary:

Tried a few Chinese pens, generally not impressed, with one exception.

 

Preliminary:

Let me say right out that I have nothing against China or Chinese manufacturers. And I don't work for a pen company of any nationality.

 

Let me also say that I'm not seeking sympathy or commiseration, I started this little project with my eyes open and I'm simply relaying a summary of my own experiences in the hope that it may be useful, or at least diverting, to some of the other members of FPN.

 

Background:

I've been using fountain pens since my school days, back when dinosaurs still roamed the earth. But I only joined FPN a few months ago, hoping to learn more about the use and history of pens, and maybe do a little experimentation here and there.

 

When I first got here, I spent a lot of time reading reviews and I was struck by how many reviews there were of Chinese pens, many of them raving about the writing qualities of different instruments. So, with my curiosity sharply piqued, I went looking around the bay to see which of the highly recommended pens were easily available.

 

I acquired a few pens over the space of a couple of months, used them for a couple months more, and I'm going to give an individual description of each so as to build an overall picture.

 

(Aside: for review and many pictures of these pens, search the Reviews subforum.)

 

The pens:

In no particular order, these are the pens I ordered, all via the bay.

 

Jinhao 159. Cost about $10 shipped. Arrived nicely packaged. I know that some people have gotten lemons of these, but mine is classic. The nib needed only the slightest tweaking to write perfectly wet and very smooth. It even glides over the awfully rough paper found in Black'n'Red notebooks. I also like the weight and balance of it posted. I do consider it too heavy to carry in a pocket, so it stays on my desk, where it has been pretty permanently inked since its arrival. Since it really drinks ink, it probably shouldn't venture too far from an ink bottle anyway. I plan to keep this one for long writing sessions on difficult paper, and consider this perhaps the best $10 I have ever spent on a pen.

 

After the outstanding value of the Jinhao, it all goes downhill very steeply.

 

Wing Sung Lucky 2002, about $8 shipped. Solidly and accurately made, and wrote quite a decent F/M line out of the box, but the fixed aerometric converter separated from the feed on about the third fill, taking the top of the feed tube with it. I was able to glue it back so it works, but the broken edges weep a certain amount of ink into the barrel that then needs to be cleaned out at each refill. This one has been retired permanently.

 

Baoer Skywalker, I bought two of these for $16 shipped. They are quite well made, although the engraved version is a bit rough, the plain black one is better finished. These are reassuringly solid and the cap posting threads are very well done. One of them wrote quite well out of the box, the other had a nib that was desperately asymmetrical. After a lot of tweaking it will write usably, but it's not much fun. So I consider that I have one usable pen from the pair. Curiously, although the pens look like they are made identically, and the sections look the same in every way, they cannot be interchanged.

 

Wing Sung 235. About $8 shipped. This looked like an interesting design and was reputed to write very fine. It does, but it's awfully dry and the nib was so rough as to make the smoothest paper feel like I was writing on sandpaper. After hours spent tweaking the nib, it wrote better but will never be pleasant to use. Retired.

 

Wing Sung 233. A pair of these was shipped for $16. They arrived covered in grit, and a dip test showed they would never be worth bothering with, especially when the filler of one came spontaneously unglued from the section. Being a modder, I polished the barrels, glued the sections back together, extracted the nibs and feeds and refitted them in proper alignment. Even after all this, they are indifferent writers at best, writing dry and dull. They were retired. I complained to the seller and he agreed to send a different pen as replacement.

 

The pen he sent was another Wing Sung Lucky 2002. Since the first one had written well, I hope to get one with the filler and feed intact. And indeed they were. That's the good part. The bad part is that the barrel did not line up with the section, making the pen look like a brass banana with the cap on. And the nib, unlike the very acceptable nib on the first Lucky 2002, was a horrible disaster, which took a lot of work to make usable at all. But it's never going to be as good as the other.

 

Now you would think I could make one good pen out of the two Lucky 2002s, but just like the Baoers, the parts are noncompatible even though they look identical. And that one is also retired to the parts box.

 

Conclusion:

So, out of the eight Chines pens that I acquired in the course of my research, one is excellent, one is genuinely OK, and the others are pretty much unusable.

 

Although I like the Jinhao 159 a lot, in reality I would have been better off spending the $50-something on a pair of Lamy Safaris and spending much more time writing and a lot less time tweaking and modding. (Admittedly, I had some fun doing all those things, but I really am a tweaker/modder at heart - I build my own watches, too.)

 

So that leads to my overall conclusion, which is that you can get Chinese pens that are absolutely fantastic, but you may have to choose very carefully, and the risk of getting one that's simply a waste of time and money is too high.

 

Me, I won't be getting any more Chinese pens, at least not until all the Chinese manufacturers have gone to take lessons from Jinhao on how to make a solid quality product.

[Edwaroth]

I stopped buying Chinese after my first purchase. A Picasso Ann Greise. Well made, feels great in the hand and terrific writer OTTB.

For 17USD shipped. I have no desire to try for a repeat performance, though I would not be afraid to buy another Picasso if I did.

[Mike_Dowling]

I always wonder about the cheap Chinese pens, they look nice but I wondered of the overal quality. I also collect violins, if you thought fountain pens were an expensive hobby it has nothing on violins, your most expensive pen probably would barely rate as a decent entry level violin. But the Chinese also make some really astounding looking violins for cheap, as cheap as $150. I took the plunge on one and it was really terrible, wet varnish, big thick top, terrible tone, the neck pulled clean off after a month under string tension. The Chinese also make some excellent violins, but you pay market value for those like Scott Cao, Ming Jang Zhu etc... Basically you typically get what you pay for even in a global economy.

[Sailor Kenshin]

As anyone who has been here for more than fifteen minutes knows, I am very happy with my Chinese pens and they make up the bulk of my collection. Don't know what it is... Maybe we just have an affinity.

 

I always have two or three Hero 616s inked, among my other pens. They make great ink testers, and I always wanted a hooded pen.

 

Not to discount anyone's personal experience, but that's mine. Well-made, astoundingly durable, nice finishes and designs. No, not the equal of Montblanc, but for those of us without unlimited funds they fit the bill.

[wastelanded]

I own several Chinese pens. It is indeed very hit and miss as far as quality control goes. Some are better than others. Some look nice, but fall apart or rattle. Some look like Liberace's car, but write amazingly.

 

Jinhao seem to have the best nibs and build quality. Kaigelu is also doing it right. The one Baoer I own, I wouldn't part with. the Hero pens are much loved, I've yet to try. The others, you take your chances. The Wing Sung 2007 I got, I thought ah, this is what a cheap Chinese pen is.

 

Good ones I have:

 

Jinhao 159

Kaigelu 316 - Duofold style, worth every penny of the $20

Baoer 519 - GvFC style, hell of a pen for $7

 

Those brands I wouldn't hesitate to recommend. I would dearly love a MB 136, but until I win the big one these pens serve me very well. Value for money. Yes the nib may need tweaking, but that's what FPN is for: one learns it's not a difficult thing to do.

 

Edited for spelling

Edited March 23, 2013 by wastelanded

[Seele]

It would be really really difficult to make a straightforward overall assessment of "Chinese pens"; try making the same of "British cars" and you can understand how impossible it is.

 

The Chinese pen industry started some time in the 1920s and of course still extant, and during that period there had been fundamental changes in the social and economic climates, and also the technological progresses. Even though I am no expert in the history of Chinese pen industry, I cannot imagine how a comprehensive and representative vignette can be presented without, say, a score or two examples.

 

Here lies the problem faced by the OP: he only has pens by TWO manufacturers, Baoer/Jinhao and Wing Sung: the former is a new firm for satisfying the current market requirements, and the latter firm was a major maker during the classic period, and long defunct, and examples available now are leftover stock.

 

For me I more or less concentrate on the classic period where I keep finding previously unknown - and likely to be short-lived manufacturers, and examples of their products. Most of them turned out to be extremely competent and most likely able to out-perform a lot of much respected pens of today. With prices as low as 20c each for the most modest examples, it's an indulgence I can easily afford.

[beejay]

I have no complaints worth mentioning regarding Chinese pens as I believe they offer excellent value for money with some being extremely good performers when compared to some of the more recognised proprietary brands.

They cost little they look pretty good and it makes me wonder sometimes if we pay over the odds for some better known brands.

They afford me the opportunity to buy on a whim and play around with nibs etc and they make unusual, attractive and inexpensive gifts to pass on to those who may never otherwise use a fountain pen.

So, I say:..... Well done the Chinese pen manufacturers!

Beejay

[coyotewhisper]

I have several Chinese fountain pens, I fine them to be unacceptable writing instruments. They rarely write without skipping, the ink flow is very poor. It is a shame that aesthetically they are nice looking pens.

[Fiddlermatt]

I always wonder about the cheap Chinese pens, they look nice but I wondered of the overal quality. I also collect violins, if you thought fountain pens were an expensive hobby it has nothing on violins, your most expensive pen probably would barely rate as a decent entry level violin. But the Chinese also make some really astounding looking violins for cheap, as cheap as $150. I took the plunge on one and it was really terrible, wet varnish, big thick top, terrible tone, the neck pulled clean off after a month under string tension. The Chinese also make some excellent violins, but you pay market value for those like Scott Cao, Ming Jang Zhu etc... Basically you typically get what you pay for even in a global economy.

 

I agree. The Chinese could definitely produce a top quality pen. Would it cost more than 10 bucks, Definitely! It would still probably wind up being a good value though. BTW I play a Scott Cao 750 II Cannone, and I've had two professional violinists want to purchase it :roflmho:

Edited March 23, 2013 by Fiddlermatt

[sebastel23]

i own several chinese pens, and overall, their quality is perfectly acceptable, especially when taking into account their price. some of them show some problems, but poor ink flow was never an issue. the biggest problem i encountered was too rich ink flow. two bad starters had to be sorted out, too. the nicest writing ones are not really aesthetically pleasant, due to cheap production.

 

(with other words: even a sample of a dozen pens can NOT give a realistic picture of what to expect. and, expectations differ vastly.)

[seffrican]

It would be really really difficult to make a straightforward overall assessment of "Chinese pens"; try making the same of "British cars" and you can understand how impossible it is.

 

The Chinese pen industry started some time in the 1920s and of course still extant, and during that period there had been fundamental changes in the social and economic climates, and also the technological progresses. Even though I am no expert in the history of Chinese pen industry, I cannot imagine how a comprehensive and representative vignette can be presented without, say, a score or two examples.

 

Here lies the problem faced by the OP: he only has pens by TWO manufacturers, Baoer/Jinhao and Wing Sung: the former is a new firm for satisfying the current market requirements, and the latter firm was a major maker during the classic period, and long defunct, and examples available now are leftover stock.

 

For me I more or less concentrate on the classic period where I keep finding previously unknown - and likely to be short-lived manufacturers, and examples of their products. Most of them turned out to be extremely competent and most likely able to out-perform a lot of much respected pens of today. With prices as low as 20c each for the most modest examples, it's an indulgence I can easily afford.

 

Hello Seele, I didn't know you hung out here, I thought WUS took all your time

 

Indeed the perspective is my own and I was perfectly clear on the extent of the sample. Nowhere did I claim this to be an exhaustive sampling, but instead called it a "perspective." I could have added a long disclaimer to an already long post, but we can take it as read that those are my opinions, based on my experiences, and the resulting perspective is therefore mine.

 

Others have found many fine writing instruments among the selection available, and for them I am pleased and delighted.

 

The point I was making, to put it another way, is that if one reads the reviews here on FPN, one may be led to purchase a similar selection to those that I tried out. And one may be delighted, or disappointed.

 

The level of indulgence is also, indeed, very low. I am sufficiently economically fortunate that $50 is not very significant to me, but in my perspective, I essentially wasted everything except the $10 on the Jinhao - or I could say that the Baoer and the Jinhao came out OK, in which case $16 was well worth spending, and the rest was a waste of money and time.

 

Other posters and reviewers have noted the variable quality of the products under discussion, and one of my points would be that the quality variability itself has a cost, unless one is very lucky. In my perspective, the Jinhao is a very good $10 pen, but it effectively cost me $50 to find it among the dross, which makes it not such good value as it at first appears.

[Skyppere]

I have about a dozen Chinese pens find them to be generally problem free. No leaks, pretty good flow on most of them... pretty smooth nibs on most of them.

I would say their 'acceptability' percent to be superior to any other country's offering in the same price range, and on a par with many other country's pens

which are at times 5 and 10 times the price. I like 'em and will continue to buy them.

cheers

skyppere

[seffrican]

It's good that so many of you are happy with your Chinese pens. If I had been luckier, say if five of the eight pens had been good experiences for me, I would also be relatively pleased.

 

But then that's one of my main points: it's the luck of the draw.

[richardandtracy]

Yep, Chinese pens can be vary variable.

 

The modern designs post 2007 tend to be MUCH better than the older designs. Certain manufacturers are also very good.

 

It's a bit like saying all UK made cars are dreadful after trying a Rover 200. The Honda Civics made on the same production line with many common parts were superb, and then what about the Luxury cars, many Nissans and other cars?

 

OK, back to the pens:

Good makes include Jinhao/Baoer, Kaigelu and by repute Picasso

Less good makes: Leonardo, Yiren/Bookworm

Dreadful: Huashilai (except the 3000), Guang Ming.

 

Too variable to know what you'll get: Hero & Wing Sung. This apparent variability may actually represent the prevalence of fakes.

 

Within each brand, the more expensive pens seem to be better.

 

Can I recommend a good study of the 'What Chinese Pen are you using today?" thread, as it gives a pretty good feel for may pens and makes. Rotten ones are identified, as are the good and variable ones. The thread is long, but a concensus is emerging.

 

Regards,

 

Richard.

[Pterodactylus]

http://imageshack.us/a/img89/9585/cgil.jpg

 

(Jinhao 159 - CI ..... Diamine Twilight)

 

It still tends to run dry and stop writing when you write more (even with a deepened ink channel).

But for the price a very good deal if you are willing to modify and tweak these pens (and have fun doing it).

 

I wrote a review of my Jinhao, which might be interesting for some of you:

 

Jinhao 159 italicized Review

Edited July 18, 2013 by Pterodactylus

[rwilsonedn]

Wow. I've never seen any of those problems with a Chinese-branded pen, including the number of Wing Sungs I have. Proper flushing has almost always resulted in a very decent pen. I have had persistent flow problems with a couple of Chinese-made, Western-branded pens. But I can't say I've ever had a Chinese pen come apart on me, except in one case where I was at fault. Strange results.

ron

[max dog]

Short summary:

Tried a few Chinese pens, generally not impressed, with one exception.

 

Preliminary:

Let me say right out that I have nothing against China or Chinese manufacturers. And I don't work for a pen company of any nationality.

 

Let me also say that I'm not seeking sympathy or commiseration, I started this little project with my eyes open and I'm simply relaying a summary of my own experiences in the hope that it may be useful, or at least diverting, to some of the other members of FPN.

 

Background:

I've been using fountain pens since my school days, back when dinosaurs still roamed the earth. But I only joined FPN a few months ago, hoping to learn more about the use and history of pens, and maybe do a little experimentation here and there.

 

When I first got here, I spent a lot of time reading reviews and I was struck by how many reviews there were of Chinese pens, many of them raving about the writing qualities of different instruments. So, with my curiosity sharply piqued, I went looking around the bay to see which of the highly recommended pens were easily available.

 

I acquired a few pens over the space of a couple of months, used them for a couple months more, and I'm going to give an individual description of each so as to build an overall picture.

 

(Aside: for review and many pictures of these pens, search the Reviews subforum.)

 

The pens:

In no particular order, these are the pens I ordered, all via the bay.

 

Jinhao 159. Cost about $10 shipped. Arrived nicely packaged. I know that some people have gotten lemons of these, but mine is classic. The nib needed only the slightest tweaking to write perfectly wet and very smooth. It even glides over the awfully rough paper found in Black'n'Red notebooks. I also like the weight and balance of it posted. I do consider it too heavy to carry in a pocket, so it stays on my desk, where it has been pretty permanently inked since its arrival. Since it really drinks ink, it probably shouldn't venture too far from an ink bottle anyway. I plan to keep this one for long writing sessions on difficult paper, and consider this perhaps the best $10 I have ever spent on a pen.

 

After the outstanding value of the Jinhao, it all goes downhill very steeply.

 

Wing Sung Lucky 2002, about $8 shipped. Solidly and accurately made, and wrote quite a decent F/M line out of the box, but the fixed aerometric converter separated from the feed on about the third fill, taking the top of the feed tube with it. I was able to glue it back so it works, but the broken edges weep a certain amount of ink into the barrel that then needs to be cleaned out at each refill. This one has been retired permanently.

 

Baoer Skywalker, I bought two of these for $16 shipped. They are quite well made, although the engraved version is a bit rough, the plain black one is better finished. These are reassuringly solid and the cap posting threads are very well done. One of them wrote quite well out of the box, the other had a nib that was desperately asymmetrical. After a lot of tweaking it will write usably, but it's not much fun. So I consider that I have one usable pen from the pair. Curiously, although the pens look like they are made identically, and the sections look the same in every way, they cannot be interchanged.

 

Wing Sung 235. About $8 shipped. This looked like an interesting design and was reputed to write very fine. It does, but it's awfully dry and the nib was so rough as to make the smoothest paper feel like I was writing on sandpaper. After hours spent tweaking the nib, it wrote better but will never be pleasant to use. Retired.

 

Wing Sung 233. A pair of these was shipped for $16. They arrived covered in grit, and a dip test showed they would never be worth bothering with, especially when the filler of one came spontaneously unglued from the section. Being a modder, I polished the barrels, glued the sections back together, extracted the nibs and feeds and refitted them in proper alignment. Even after all this, they are indifferent writers at best, writing dry and dull. They were retired. I complained to the seller and he agreed to send a different pen as replacement.

 

The pen he sent was another Wing Sung Lucky 2002. Since the first one had written well, I hope to get one with the filler and feed intact. And indeed they were. That's the good part. The bad part is that the barrel did not line up with the section, making the pen look like a brass banana with the cap on. And the nib, unlike the very acceptable nib on the first Lucky 2002, was a horrible disaster, which took a lot of work to make usable at all. But it's never going to be as good as the other.

 

Now you would think I could make one good pen out of the two Lucky 2002s, but just like the Baoers, the parts are noncompatible even though they look identical. And that one is also retired to the parts box.

 

Conclusion:

So, out of the eight Chines pens that I acquired in the course of my research, one is excellent, one is genuinely OK, and the others are pretty much unusable.

 

Although I like the Jinhao 159 a lot, in reality I would have been better off spending the $50-something on a pair of Lamy Safaris and spending much more time writing and a lot less time tweaking and modding. (Admittedly, I had some fun doing all those things, but I really am a tweaker/modder at heart - I build my own watches, too.)

 

So that leads to my overall conclusion, which is that you can get Chinese pens that are absolutely fantastic, but you may have to choose very carefully, and the risk of getting one that's simply a waste of time and money is too high.

 

Me, I won't be getting any more Chinese pens, at least not until all the Chinese manufacturers have gone to take lessons from Jinhao on how to make a solid quality product.

 

As all of the Chinese pens you tested were sub $10, you get what you pay for I guess and whether it is made in China or anywhere else in the world would probably be inconsequential. I would think as the price goes up the hit and miss factor starts to diminish and acceptable quality control starts to prevail more often than not.

 

I'd be interested to know if there are any Chinese brand pens in the $50 to $100 range, and $100 to $200 range, and how they would fare against comparbly priced European or Japanese pens.

Edited March 25, 2013 by max dog

[richardandtracy]

There are. I have tested a Kaigelu 319, and felt it was a pen that was competative in the $160-$200 range. It cost me $50. ( https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php?/topic/208622-kaigelu-319-lapis-review/ )

 

Regards,

 

Richard.

[pienaar]

I have many Chinese pens. Some I use all the time. For me it has been about who I buy them from. If I buy them from a seller with a good rep then I seem to have good success. If I buy them from a no name seller I seem to get dogs. I also look more for the pens that were mainly made for the Chinese market. Not a mushroom brand that short of pops up and is mainly made to be shinny and sell to the west. The ones I so far like the best are the Star Trek Hero 329s. Those have become my main daily pens for work.

[max dog]

Thanks Richard for the link to your review. The Kaigelu looks like a very nice pen.

 

This supports my point of view here, that there are good chinese pens out there. This thread should be "Cheap Pens - A Perspective" instead of "Chinese Pens - A Perspective" because the hit and miss quality control issue here is not with Chinese pens, which can be excellent, but with very cheap (sub $10) pens in general.

Edited March 26, 2013 by max dog