Fountain Pens/ European, Asian And American

[luvpens]

Why do I refuse to own Chinese pens Well, for one, they are poorly made (You quite obviously then have little to no experience of Chinese pens. I have many that could put western made pens to shame - the usual dismissive attitude based on no experience!!), and secondly, I try to not buy pens from countries that have rather poor human rights records (Tell you what then! - we'll just stop buying Chinese goods altogether and the poor sod's who are already on a low wage will have no job at all - hmm, good idea!!). I have taken care to make sure that my cell phone in S. Korean, and my computer is an American made one. (Why have you not bought a USA made phone as well as your computer?)

My comments are "with all due respect"........

[Runnin_Ute]

Mine are predominantly US and Europe (UK & Germany) except for a Pilot and a TWSBI 580

[Wolverine1]

Luvpens- you are in love with Chinese pens, and we will have to agree to disagree. Keep in mind, all this debate is between friends, so I took no offense to your comments. BTW, is the handgun in your avatar picture a real gun, or do you have a special permit to own it GB?

[luvpens]

Luvpens- you are in love with Chinese pens, and we will have to agree to disagree. Keep in mind, all this debate is between friends, so I took no offense to your comments. BTW, is the handgun in your avatar picture a real gun, or do you have a special permit to own it GB?

I'm pleased you took the comments with no offense. I do have a habit of speaking my mind and can be rather abrupt sometimes....

I'm not in love with Chinese pens though as such. I just see many of them for what they are - which are very good pens. I do like my western made pens as well you know!....... I like a lot of USA made items as well - reflected in the Gibson guitars I've owned over the years, and my favourite '62 re-issue strat. Not forgetting of course, my Case knives - which I love.

 

I'll never move though, on the fact that Chinese fp's should not be underestimated. I was originally an engineer by trade, so I think I know poor quality from good...........

 

The gun....

We don't have the luxury of owning the real version like you guy's.

That is actually a co2 operated blowback 4.5mm steel bb firer. It's a Tanfoglio Ltd Custom.

For many years I've refinished and repaired handguns, both before and after the bans. That one I heavily modified. It was blasted off and refinished, gen grips fitted, along with a genuine adjustable competition trigger which I had to modify to fit.

I was one of the only people to import Duracoat into the UK, but the shipping costs now make it less than viable. I now use a similar coating developed by a UK company for military use.

[Sergio 46]

Most of my FPs come from Japan or Germany, two countries famous for the quality of their industrial products, and I have a few Chinese pens, bought to check how they could be produced for such low prices!

I bought for instance one Jinhao 750 for less than £3 , shipping to UK included, and it works!

Amazing!

But it is also interesting to see the work of Italix, that sells FPs made in China but finished in UK, and the result is really nice!

[atomic_doug]

I arrange the pens in my case by length. I have a smattering of pens from around the world.

 

I don't feel that any particular pen has more or less "soul" than any other. I thing if anything, the thing that sets the Japanese pens apart from the others is that the nib of an 80 dollar pen is given the same treatment as an 800 dollar pen. (Obviously the rest of the pen is different.)

 

In my experience, an entry level Pelikan does not write as well as a top-shelf one, even though they both write well, the top-shelf one is divine. On the other hand, a basic Sailor 1911 will write just as well as a King of Pen because the factory believes you will start with the little 1911 as a younger writer. If it impresses you, then you're more likely to buy a King of Pen in the future.