Best And Worst Pen Purchases Of Recent Years

[tknechtel]

I haven't been buying a lot of pens in recent years. I miss the excitement and frenzy of buying when I was new to fountain pens; but as an enthusiastic user – as opposed to an actual collector – once I had a couple dozen pens, I was pretty much set. So I buy maybe two or three pens a year, and often at the LA show.

 

Two pens that have preoccupied me, one for good reasons, one for negative reasons....

 

I bought the Lamy Dialog 3 two years ago. Did I pay attention to all those warnings on the FPN boards about how problematic this pen is? No, I did not. Was I seduced by its very sexy-looking design? Yes, I was. How could I resist that sleek tube with the nib sliding behind its clever little round door and the clip lowering into the body? But I am here to testify that it has gone to repair people twice already and it still does not work smoothly or reliably. And it was not cheap.... It's fun to show off but not fun to use.

 

But last year at the LA show I bought a Franklin-Christoph pen for the first time, a beautiful black pen with deep iridescent green and black bands. It's light in the hand, the design is restrained but very elegant, and it is a total workhorse. It writes every time without coaxing or getting ink on my fingers. It looks gorgeous, and I'm going to get another one at this year's show. This one has a nib by Mike Matsuyama, and it writes a wonderful smooth italic line. (It's worth it to pay the extra bucks to have the Matsuyama nib.) I haven't heard a lot about this brand on these boards, so I would like to encourage people to explore their pens.

 

[Toams]

For me it´s easy, the best new WE Charles Dickens with the nib-exchanged B nib and the worst Visconti Van Gogh Maxi F nib, still hesitating whether to sell or to send via Firenze for nibexchange. All happend in 2016

[Bluey]

Best: my Sailor Pro Gear Millicolour. Although it cost me a tad over £100 it's the pen that I have connected with the most, and it's the whole package that makes it deserving of the best purchase. It writes excellently, reliably, and shows off the best qualities of any ink. The icing on the cake is that it looks beautiful (a beautiful pen always makes you want to write with it when it is a great writer), and it's in my favourite colour!

 

Worst: Pelikan M600 - because not only was it my expensive pen, but it has issues that no pens should not have at this price point. It has babys bottom, it requires pressure to write(similar to that required for a biro), and is the most sensitive pen I own to hand oils near the bottom of the page where it will write like an extra fine even though it's a broad.

[ItsMeDave]

Best pen: Visconti Homo Sapiens Bronze Age EF, a nice, bouncy, smooth writer.

Best brand: Sailor, I picked up 4 of 'em, all great writers.

Worst: I don't have one. As I'm new to fountain pens, I went through some experimentation and bought a few pens that fit my writing style, but none sucked.

Edited January 18, 2017 by ItsMeDave

[flipper_gv]

Best: my Sailor Pro Gear Millicolour. Although it cost me a tad over £100 it's the pen that I have connected with the most, and it's the whole package that makes it deserving of the best purchase. It writes excellently, reliably, and shows off the best qualities of any ink. The icing on the cake is that it looks beautiful (a beautiful pen always makes you want to write with it when it is a great writer), and it's in my favourite colour!

 

Worst: Pelikan M600 - because not only was it my expensive pen, but it has issues that no pens should not have at this price point. It has babys bottom, it requires pressure to write(similar to that required for a biro), and is the most sensitive pen I own to hand oils near the bottom of the page where it will write like an extra fine even though it's a broad.

 

You should send your m600 to get it fixed or learn how to do it yourself (which I did on my m1000).

 

I love my M1000 to death still though.

 

Worst purchase is the Kaweco Sport because I just don't use it and it has a problem with flow with cartridges but not in eyedropper. Honorable mention to the Omas Paragon new style Arco Brown I kept a total of 2 days that couldn't write at all even after heat setting the feed and everything. I returned the pen.

 

Best purchase I'd say is the Ranga model 3 solid orange with Jowo nib. I fixed the flow and smoothness of the nib quickly and now use it only in eyedropper mode for long sessions. Love the thing to death, has no construction flaws at all, balances amazingly and was not too expensive.

[Bluey]

 

You should send your m600 to get it fixed or learn how to do it yourself (which I did on my m1000).

 

I love my M1000 to death still though.

 

Thanks for the idea but I don't think I value it enough to want to take that course of action. It would be different if it were a pen that once worked great and then started playing up because I would want to experience it all again.

 

I don't believe that even if I got it 'fixed' that the experience would be worth my expense.

[Penman222]

Best - Bought a used Montblanc 146 from a seller here on FPN. Its is just the right size, writes great, and looks brand new. They are certainly not worth full price, but if you can get one that is 20 or 30 years old and well maintained they are worth every cent. It has been my daily writer for 6 months now.

 

Worst: - My first fountain pen when I started this hobby 7 or 8 years ago was from the xfountainpens web site. The thing was cheap, and that was it's only virtue. It was HEAVY, unbalanced, and oh, it didn't write either. Never got a drop of ink to flow out of it. It is now in a landfill in somewhere northern Virginia. They had a great web page however.

 

The moral of the story is this. I use fountain pens every day, I really like them. I have a few that work great, but they are really a trial and error proposition every time you buy a new one. I have sold 80% of my pen purchases for one reason or another.

Edited January 18, 2017 by bhbarto

[virgilio]

Worst last year was a Pilot Metropolitan. Rave reviews, dry, scratchy, ugly pen that no amount tinkering could improve much.

 

Best was a 12-pack of Universal Scolasticas my cousin bought off of ebay for me last year. Best fountain pens ever made, bar none. Smooth, open nibs, easily adjusted for more inkflow, generous feeds, elegant 50s type Italian design, pretty caps, piston fillers to prevent clogging, easily disassembled. See thread on this here if you want to see a picture.

[EBUCKTHORN]

virgilio -link missing? Please post it. thanks.

[kestrel]

Best - A tie. Pelikan M800 with Binder Italifine 0.9 stub and a 1929 Sheaffer's Oversize Balance. Great nibs and feel in the hand. During those rare periods when one of them is out of the rotation I hear it calling to me and I always answer the call. They are too much fun not to use.

 

Worst - Ruling out all those junk fifth tier pens I bought to learn repair skills it would be the Visconti Art Nouveau. It's a great pen when it isn't leaking but it has made three trips back to Italy (garnering more frequent flier miles than its owner has at the moment) to repair the captive converter.

[virgilio]

Hi ebuckthorn. Just search for universal scolastica, and you'll find it. There's even a video.

[888007888]

Best. Tie between the Montblanc Meisterstuck Solitaire Blue Hour and the Lamy Dark Lilac. Love the look and feel of the MB. Love the look, feel, and durability of the Lamy.

 

Worst. Visconti Homo Sapiens Bronze Age Maxi with a broad nib. Has the worst baby's bottom I've ever seen, drips blobs of ink on occasion, super wet. I'm going to bring it to a nibmeister at the LA Pen Show next month. Hopefully it can be salvaged.

[Cryptos]

[ian1964]

The best is a tie between a Diplomat Classic Collection bought on a whim for only 22 Euros and a Lamy Safari Apple Green with a 1.5mm stub nib.

 

The most disaponting and most my expensive mistake as well...a Pelikan 800 Italic Broad Special Edition.

[Tas]

Best: Difficult to say. I see my collection of pens as friends and I like to spend time with all of them. However in recent years, I'm really happy that I met my Namisu Nova with a Ti EF nib. I've spent a lot of time with that friend lately

 

Worst: I am saddened to notice a small gathering of Hero pens in my "rejects' tin. Ebay whims for 99p or so, hoping to be cheap pocket pens that always somehow leak and disappoint. The King & Queen of this small community of Heros are the pair of Wing Sung 590s. I would receive more pleasure writing with a cut off cotton bud than with either of these ill balanced poorly put together beasts. I think The Stranglers got it right with this song.

[ksm]

The Best? It is hard to choose between TWSBI 580 with 1.1 stub, I've managed to turn into cursive italic and Pelikan IB nib on Pelikan M200 body. The former is reliable, holds ton of ink, it is easy to clean and maintain. The nib is writes as CI nib ought to. If only it would post... The later is joy to write with, but width makes it a little impractical.

 

The Worst? Aurora 88 with italic nib. I've sunk nearly 500€ into hard starting pen. Visually and ergonomically this pen's body is everything I dreamed about, but its nib is huge disappointment. I'm used to writing with feather-light touch, unfortunately I need to push it into paper like biro to start ink flow. I've already sent it for warranty repair, but the did nothing to alleviate that problem.

[ethernautrix]

I won't mention my Nakayas, because anyone who knows me knows I loves me my Nakayas. A recent pen purchase (within the past year or so) that has surprised me with delight is the Pilot CH912 (PO). I wanted such an extra-fine line for writing tinily in a Moleskine pocket-size diary. I LOVE this PO nib! I've wondered if Nakaya would be able to offer a PO option. I'm wondering now if Nakaya's UEF is comparable, but I'm blocking the thought because I don't want to spend Nakaya amounts, anymore. (I have the pens I want in the urushi finishes I want.)

 

So now I'm wondering if the Platinum 3776's UEF is comparable to the Pilot PO. I've heard it's possible to swap these nibs with Nakaya's, and that is a thought that took root a couple of years ago and grows in spurts, such as this moment, hmm.... (I adore my Nakayas' nibs, some more than others, but none of them writes like a PO nib.)

 

I also very much enjoy the older Pilot Falcon (I bought this one around two years ago). I hardly ever take advantage of its semi-flex quality and instead write near the tip of the nib for a superb extra-extra-fine line with the subtlest bit of line variation. I love this. How much more I would love it in an urushi Piccolo Cigar.

 

As for disappointments... I tend not to dwell on those. I'd have to pause and try to remember the bad writing experiences (hard starters, bad fit (too long, too heavy, too skinny), that sort of thing), but nothing jumps to mind, even though I certainly have had plenty of disappointing pen experiences.

 

 

 

The takeaway: Pilot nibs. Wow.

[ethernautrix]

 

What lovely handwriting.

 

Swell. Just when I had deleted the Pilot CH912 (FA) from my Amazon cart, you demon!

 

 

I'm kidding, of course. But, yeah, tempted again. Drat.

[tknechtel]

THis is fascinating to read everyone's responses! Interesting, now many of us sunk money into some expensive dream pen with fabulous looks or pedigree, only to find it doesn't actually WRITE.

 

Can I add an addendum about a pen I love? Last year I bought one of the Daedalus pens from the Desiderata Pen Company. In my art, I've drawn with Zebra G-nibs for the last several years, the nibs favored by manga artists for their flexibility – they can go from incredibly delicate to broad with very little pressure. So of course I sat up straight and took notice when someone claimed to have created a fountain pen that could use these nibs. It's a very simple, elegant, no-nonsense design and is the only pen I use as an eyedropper (because I could not get the converter to work). And it does get ink all over my fingers, but then I do that when I use my dip pens. But it does what Pierre says it will, you can draw using a G-nib without having to dip, and it's easy to change the nib when you need a new one. A good, practical flexible-nib pen for not much money ($70). I like it almost as much as my old Luxor that I got from Rick Propas which is my all-purpose drawing pen when away from the studio.

[PenPaper52]

EoC love your handwriting and the ink!