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The Periodic Table Of Pen Snobbery


Fabienne

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I am not sure that all are talking about snob factor. Some seem to be about quality from either the excellence costs money (Cadillac, Lincoln) point of view, and others quality from the people's pen (early VW, Model T etc.) point of view.

I believe that LisaN has hit on a scientific truth: the elegance of the periodic table allows it to express more than one aspect of a pen. Snob appeal could be in one direction and costly-but-worth-it in another. And superb, expensive pens would land adjacent to inexpensive but well made popular pens.

True snob appeal lies in the heart of the snob.

I believe that the current people's pen is the Lamy Safari.

Sometimes a technology reaches perfection and further development is just tinkering. The fountain pen is a good example of this.

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Well, I am a chemist.

Sometimes the cat needs a new cat toy. And sometimes I need a new pen.

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Well, I am a chemist.

 

 

I get what you are saying try and base it around element properties rather then put 149 as hydrogen . I mean what would it have to do with the periodic table if you just put it in order of preference.

 

How about a different more logical approach using atomic number-77 (iridium) as the GOAT pen. Then put the unstable / pens that fall apart in the unstable elements realm.

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The properties should be periodic...

So a pattern should repeat in each row, with some trend as you go down the rows.

You could never please everyone with this because pens do not behave like elements.

 

Their properties are not a function of a few simple variables (Oh wait, Bo Bo will have a say about this!!!)

 

So... I cannot argue for being strict or pedantic about it...

 

I would actually prefer to see a phylogenetic tree. THAT would be amazing!

Sometimes the cat needs a new cat toy. And sometimes I need a new pen.

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  • 4 years later...

My favourite pen. It is lovely and helpful to solving the chemistry periodic equations. It is normal pen but it comes with the paper periodic table which including all elements. The table comes with color-coded so, it makes easy to distinguish the elements. You can also gift you teacher or professor and chemistry nerd.

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I see another New Yorker article in the making.

“ I know you think you understand what you thought I said but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant”  Alan Greenspan

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

I would say the Sheaffer No Nonsense still takes pride of place as The Pen Of The People. but that might just be my age showing.

 

That's nice to read.

A brown Sheaffer No Nonsense was my second fountain pen, purchased when a freshman in college, many decades ago.

It still writes well, with no pretensions to la-di-da grandiosity.

Tom K.

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  • 2 weeks later...

So would the radioactive pens (elements) be the ones that no pen snob would want to touch? Or ones that can't play nice with other "stable" pens (elements) and so are kept in a far off place where only the brave, or desperate can find them?

FP Ink Orphanage-Is an ink not working with your pens, not the color you're looking for, is never to see the light of day again?!! If this is you, and the ink is in fine condition otherwise, don't dump it down the sink, or throw it into the trash, send it to me (payment can be negotiated), and I will provide it a nice safe home with love, and a decent meal of paper! Please PM me!<span style='color: #000080'>For Sale:</span> TBA

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  • 3 weeks later...

Maybe the "unstable" pens should be limited editions - with their supply being unstable.

One could arrange price in one direction

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  • 1 month later...

Maybe the "unstable" pens should be limited editions - with their supply being unstable.

One could arrange price in one direction

 

~ NotAWiz4rd:

 

Very good. I like that!

Unstable supply.

Apt.

Tom K.

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  • 1 year later...

To think that pen snobbery is alive and well in 2020. Apart from the Sheaffer Nononsense, what is there

for the common man, who cannot afford to partake in such elevated pastimes? For many pen snobs the

minimum requirement for you to play with the big boys is a MB 149, and passable a 146. Without a 149

in your collection, you cannot join the select group of atmospheric elementals. Where would a Visconti

Limited Edition Blue Lagoon or Homo Sapiens fall on this table?? Also there is the Pelikan M1000 Spring

and Autumn Limited Edition Maki-e. Then we get to the David Oscarson Diamond Seaside FP; the

Montegrappa Limited Edition Sterling Pirates; Smythson Viceroy Grand and the Namiki Emperor Maki-e,

or the ST Dupont Limited Edition, Murder on the Orient Express. Such an elevated table of economically

depleting fountain pen snobbery. :happyberet:

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Now, are the 149MB and 146MB isotopes? Or are they different elements?

 

Same question for the 300M, 400M, 600M, 800M & 1000M?

I'm pretty sure the 200M is a different element, although from the same group.

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I am keen to see what gets nominated for slot 56.

 

Element 56 (Iron) has the most-energetically-efficient arrangement of nucleons. No ‘better’ arrangement of nucleons is possible - it is the element which all others are (in theory) trying to become as they decay.

So, pen in slot 56 should be the pen that all the ‘lesser’ ones AND all the ‘fancier’ ones ‘want to be’. I.e. more-expensive-and-better-than slots 1-55, and less-expensive-and-better-than slots 57 upwards

 

Ideally, as it is our ‘iron’, it ought to be a stable and robust workhorse.

 

I can’t decide if that means that the ‘ideal candidate’ for slot 56 should be the aerometric Parker “51”, or a Pelikan Souverän, or a Parker 45 or LAMY Safari (with a converter fitted) :D

Edit to add: perhaps one of the less-expensive Pelikan piston-fillers? E.g M75 ‘Go’ or M200/205?

Edited by Mercian

Foul in clear conditions, but handsome in the fog.

mini-postcard-exc.png

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I’m an idiot - the slot for the ‘Iron’ pen should be 26, as that is its atomic number.

56 is the atomic mass of the most stable isotope.

 

So, slot 26 in the periodic table of pens ought to be occupied by the ‘best’ pen - and that pen’s ‘best’ variant would correspond to Iron 56.

Foul in clear conditions, but handsome in the fog.

mini-postcard-exc.png

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Montblancs, while fine pens are more like alloys than elements.

Old ones can be rare due to age, per when they were made and under what circumstances, but were made of rather pedestrian elements, at one point they were often quite common and low priced like good serviceable alloys and now, well some of them are like very expensive and special purpose alloys sometimes made using some rather expensive elements.

 

Basically the periodic table doesn't work.

 

And, regarding Snobishness, there are much snobbier Montblancs than the 149.

 

And, the Urishi Nakayas are much more Snobish than most Montblancs.

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A pen is never snobbish. A person with a bad attitude can be.

 

Oh yeah? Wanna step outside and say that?

Add lightness and simplicate.

 

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And what if I did? Would I find 20 pen snobs not practicing social distancing? 😀

 

Oh yeah? Wanna step outside and say that?

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