Smooth Chinese Pens?

[Ink Stained Wretch]

From what I gathered, most Chinese prospective customers consider smoothness is the only determining factor of a pen's merit, this leads to the newer manufacturers focussing on that, to the point that a proportion of them employ the "baby bottom" grinding method: works great at the shops, not quite as great at home. So this is a factor worth considering.

 

I recall someone posting here some years ago an account of their visit to one of the big, European nib manufacturing plants. I was amazed to read the woman in charge of some part of it talking about how they made baby bottom nibs on purpose. The baby bottom of the tipping material doesn't make the writing smoother though, it just makes for problems in ink flow at the tip.

 

Very frustrating to have to deal with the baby bottom problem in an otherwise decently writing fountain pen.

[Xenter]

I was given a Hero 565 and it writes very smoothly for me, and it looks so much like the Parker too.

[s_t_e_v_e]

Jinhaos and Baoers are usually great writers. I'm yet to come across a Jinhao nib that isn't smooth out of the box.

Some might think I'm crazy but I think Jinhao nibs are at par if not better than JoWo or Bock nibs, the only negative is that they come only in medium. For the price, Jinhaos are superb!

[Mech-for-i]

There are so many variation and models over the year, that it would be futile to generalize. But as a rule, most of Chinese fountain pen is tipped with a ( Euro size ) Fine/EF and sometime Fine Medium nib and this pretty much dictate it won't be as smooth as say a Euro M or B. Different brand and even among the same brand, different model present totally different feel. I have found most mid range and better range pen to be as smooth as like of like Europ[ean or Japanese pen once they are run in, which is one thing I think most people find frustrating. Typical Chinese fountain pen are grounded less polished as their European or Japanese counter part and one really need to start using them ( say a single run of ink ) to get it run in.

 

Vintage NOS pens can be a fun collectibles ( but not exactly investment but then they are not expensive either ) and they sometime present the smoothest. I have some NOS pen from the 80's that write just real smooth first run, especially with the Wing Sung brand. New production pen today is no more different than their western counterpart in most regard ( except price I suppose ).