Can I Borrow Your Pen?

[Bia]

 

Am I jerk? I don't know. But all it took was one fool trying to rip the cap off (instead of screwing it off) off my Pelikan for me to suddenly feel QUITE uncomfortable with the idea of "borrowing"...For those of you who have no issue with it, I salute you. However, you probably haven't suffered a loss or had a "near loss event" yet, LOL.

 

The exact same thing happened to me. My favourite Pelikan, and at the time near mint M250, was sitting on my desk at university and I don't remember what I was doing (probably paying attention to class and not to my pens) but next thing I know, one of my friends is yanking the cap off with all her might. In fact, I noticed it because she hit me with her elbow while failing to pull the cap off.

 

It scratched the barrel and needless to say I was a bit upset about it, mainly because she didn't even ask to borrow the pen. Anyways, all was quickly forgiven mainly because she made a vow to never play with my pens without permission .

 

That being said, I usually have a spare ballpoint to lend to people when needed for something urgent and most times I let people that ask try my pens. I ask them to be careful with the nib and never had any problems.

Edited August 24, 2015 by Bia

[Zhenni]

I teach High School in the US, and I have had students ask me if my pens were real. After some major nib damage to a favorite (but luckily only $40 pen) I only lend out Preppies now.

 

Last week one of the students watched me sign a document using a vintage flex pen, and then I let her borrow a Preppy... When I walked over to see her progress, she was trying to flex the Preppy! Oops!

[impossiblebird]

I lent my boyfriend a silver AL-star, and he liked it, so I said he could keep it.

 

After a while he asked could he have a blue one, and some absolutely waterproof blue ink (the other he's kept filled with Noodlers BSER). I obliged; that one packs Polar Blue.

 

So he's learned to love the FP, but apparently not that I'm not the only source

 

I have lent pens to complete strangers who've asked, and one came back with a bent nib from too much pressure, but other than that they've escaped harm. Some people have said how it was ages since they'd used a FP, and that they'd be careful; some have taken up my offer of a pencil instead. I don't always carry a biro ...

[william2001]

I usually carry my Montblanc and Parker. I just hand them the Parker, but not the Montblanc, unless he/she is experienced with fountain pens.

-William S. Park

[JotterAddict62]

If the person does not know how to remove the cap from the pen then you know

they have not a clue in how to use the pen....

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I'm pretty sure a Pelikan M200 is rugged enough that it would be very difficult to forcibly remove the cap (and either strip the threads or break the barrel) without unscrewing it. Even so, when handing somebody a pen from my flock, I generally unscrew the cap myself.

 

The only mishap I can recall from somebody else handling my pen was a relative -- long since deceased from old age -- who turned the fill-knob while asking me what it did. I'm pretty sure it was a previous incarnation of my blue M200, and so the ink that spilled -- in slow motion, from my point of view -- on her pants was washable blue.

 

On the other hand, I once dropped one of my Pelikans, nib-first, and bent one of the tines 90 degrees. I was eventually able to restore the nib to normal function, but I was really grateful that M200 nibs, like old-style Esterbrook/Osmiroid nibs, are bare-hands field-replaceable modules.

[Noihvo]

Exclude Finland. Mid 90's to 2000 something and I didn't see a single fountain pen in school. First 6 years a pencil was, if not outright mandatory, heavily suggested as pencils was provided by the school. On my class few used a mechanical pencil (like me) and one guy even had a Staedtler 2mm clutch pen.

 

Seeing how my 60+ year old mother doesn't really know what to do with a fountain pen, I don't think that she either used one in school.

 

On topic: What pen? That one Kaweco sport I carry hidden in my pocket?

 

I'll second this for Sweden. I'm born i 1985, and pens of any sort was banned in primary school, and barely tolerated in high school. Where is the sense in using writing instruments whose lines you can't erase, especially in school where most of what you write are errors anyway? Just as with Aeba, we used common pencils during the first 6 years, and then usually mechanicals. Didn't use ink pens until we had serious lectures and were taking scribbled notes in college/university.

 

On topic; I actively try to lend out my Safari at work to my colleagues there, but they are all people I already trust and try to infect. I usually get either a fearful or curious reaction, but they are always careful. I couldn't imagine anyone not caring for something that had been lent to the and wasn't theirs to keep. Other people's property are always precious.

Edited August 26, 2015 by Noihvo

[welch]

 

I'll second this for Sweden. I'm born i 1985, and pens of any sort was banned in primary school, and barely tolerated in high school. Where is the sense in using writing instruments whose lines you can't erase, especially in school where most of what you write are errors anyway? Just as with Aeba, we used common pencils during the first 6 years, and then usually mechanicals. Didn't use ink pens until we had serious lectures and were taking scribbled notes in college/university.

 

On topic; I actively try to lend out my Safari at work to my colleagues there, but they are all people I already trust and try to infect. I usually get either a fearful or curious reaction, but they are always careful. I couldn't imagine anyone not caring for something that had been lent to the and wasn't theirs to keep. Other people's property are always precious.

 

 

Ah, youngster: as late as 1970, we all carried Carter's Ink Eradicator. A fearsome chemical in an amber jar, glass tick attached to the cap. It was something like bleach. When we made a mistake, we "eradicated" the mistaken word, let the paper dry, and -- carefully -- re-wrote.

 

Yes, we had advanced technology back in the '60s!!!

 

Carters went out of business in the early '70s...Avery-Dennison bought Carters' stamp-pad business, but threw away everything else. Legend says that hundreds of Carters' ink recipes, going back to 1900 or earlier, all went into the Boston town dump. No one has made ink eradicator for a long, long time...although a few of us still remember it.

 

As Ron Zorn said (as he repaired a pen while barely looking...all "finger memory"): "Woe to those of us who needed Ink Eradicator!!!"

[hbquikcomjamesl]

No one has made ink eradicator for a long, long time...although a few of us still remember it.

 

As Ron Zorn said (as he repaired a pen while barely looking...all "finger memory"): "Woe to those of us who needed Ink Eradicator!!!"

 

I doubt the nice folks (or would it be, "die netten Volk"? "die netten Leute"?) at Pelikan care to be characterized as "no one."

 

And I just did far worse than anybody who's borrowed one of my FPs ever did: I dropped my M200 onto the concrete floor at Home Depot. It landed perfectly flat, feed side down. The pen was none the worse for wear (other than losing about a quarter milliliter of ink, shaken out of the feed on impact); I can't say the same for the floor, but what's one more stain on a lumberyard floor?

Edited August 26, 2015 by hbquikcomjamesl

[L.Velvet]

Well, I just own only one fountain pen ( a Sailor 21k ) that is expensive ( at least for a student like me ).

 

And I will find myself ridiculous if I say no, or worse if I start to explain '' You see this is an fountain ... ''

Of course if the pen comes back broken, I will be sad. And even I have some money, it will take to me some time to replace it ( it took me 1 year to decide to replace my lost sapporo )

 

Everything comes in this world with it's own fate and there's nothing that I can do about it.

 

And I cannot even think to carry a ballpoint for everyone else who ask me for a pen So basically yes, I like to live dangerously

Edited August 26, 2015 by L.Velvet