Was There Ever A Time When Q C Was Great?

[Bo Bo Olson]

(I wonder about the QA/QC of early ballpoints: both pen and refill.)...Sandy, they were horrible....the little ink ring on the tip....as third grader....back in innocent days, would take out my pocket knife in class to shave the top to make it click...in it sat crooked and nothing I could do would straighten it. ...often had to shove the tip into the paper to make it retract.....That ring of ink on the just after the ball of the ball point inked fingers with ink that didn't wash off.

 

I had bought two '50's Austrian fountain pen sets....and the ball points brought back my child hood....not working near as well as today's.

 

Even cheap Wearevers or cheaper Venus blister pack pens worked in the '60's.

 

Could be baby bottom happens in the more modern fat blobby nibs more than the thinner semi-vintage and vintage nibs..............now some companies have to market the 'butter smooth' market of many noobies...my apologies to more experienced butter smooth lovers.

Pelikan's nibs on the 400 have gone down hill since '97 because so many new users want to hold it like a ball point or roller ball, so it has to be stiffer and much more blobby....and I guess blobby makes it easier to get baby bottom.

[CrispyBacon_87]

I think there may be material here for an interesting study.

 

Why do some people seem to always get defective products when other people never seem to get defective products?

It must be user error.... I mean, look how many people describe a Pilot Metropolitan as "flexy"...

[jar]

It must be user error.... I mean, look how many people describe a Pilot Metropolitan as "flexy"...

It could be, or different expectations or buying from the lowest cost source or even other things.

 

But the fact remains I have only bought a handful of pens that have needed service other then normal maintenance. Sacs do get old and even piston heads sometimes need repair or replace and even the tires on my cars eventually needed to be replaced.

 

If I had to guess I would likely place my money on buying from the lowest cost source.

[deepak23]

Back in the late 70s and early 80s in India, school pens would leak at the barrel threads, have scratchy nibs and have skipping issues. All local and chinese pens suffered from this. The P45 that was handed down to me was made in heaven in comparison. Hero pens improved in quality over the years but event samples have felt poorly made. Indian pens (mass mfgd obes) have seen laos of improvement in quality.

 

So on a limited sample of indian and chinese makes, I'd say that quality OOTB has definitely improved.

[bokchoy]

Since people used to try pens before buying them, I think people simply bought the working ones or had a shop assistant adjust the non-functional ones. Whether QC was better or not, I can't say.

 

Maybe it's consumer expectations that have changed. This slit would be defective on a modern pen:

 

http://i.imgur.com/G3C7EUvm.jpg

[Chrissy]

I often get defective products, but I must admit that with FP's and ink I've been lucky. I have also received good QC generally apart from a couple of notable exceptions

[Astronymus]

Shareholder value is more important than QC. QC is expensive.

[praxim]

Shareholder value is more important than QC. QC is expensive.

 

post facto QC is expensive because inspection is expensive, unreliable and wasteful, and the customers are less satisfied while imposing significant claim costs. Quality is cheaper if you build it in. This is basic manufacturing, the basic principle for quality standards in almost every industry.

[ThePenster357]

Shareholder value is more important than QC. QC is expensive.

Actually, as far as I can tell, most of the companies we complain about and pay attention to are too small to have shareholders. As far as I can tell, Japanese pen companies, some of which are large enough, have fantastic QC.

 

You could bring up Cross and Parker, but Parker's QC seems to be improving and Cross has fallen off the radar for most fountain pen enthusiasts.

 

I would say that with some exceptions, our view of faltering QC arises from higher expectations combined with a limited ability to test pens before we buy.

 

The Penster

[lurcho]

Actually, as far as I can tell, most of the companies we complain about and pay attention to are too small to have shareholders. As far as I can tell, Japanese pen companies, some of which are large enough, have fantastic QC.

 

You could bring up Cross and Parker, but Parker's QC seems to be improving and Cross has fallen off the radar for most fountain pen enthusiasts.

 

I would say that with some exceptions, our view of faltering QC arises from higher expectations combined with a limited ability to test pens before we buy.

 

The Penster

 

Whatever others say about, for example, Pilot's QC,I have found it to be execrable.

 

For example:

 

+Two Custom 74s. Bloody awful. Hardly emitted ink. Honestly. They did not emit ink.

+Three Metropolitans. Refused to write.

+Two 823s. Massive problems with baby-bottom. I sold one of these in good faith to Deanna, a well-known presence in this community. Because I was over a hundred miles away from home on a course when she received the pen and complained by email, I didn't know she was unhappy. Both pens had behaved well on some of my papers and skipped a bit on others. Deanna thought I was dishonest and a crook. I have never felt so embarrassed and morally compromised in my life. (I offered a refund when I managed to get online, but she took a partial refund towards a professional repair.)

+All but one Varsity/V-Pen. I had one that wrote extraordinarily well and about six others that literally - litrally - didn't write at all.

 

This is not my imagination, and it is, frankly, hard for me to read my own words and believe them. In the light of so many others' wonderful experiences of Pilot.

 

Nevertheless, what I have written is the truth. If I'd written it with a bloody Pilot it would have remained unheard.

[praxim]

ThePenster357, all companies have shareholders.

 

Most companies are not publicly listed.

[LostInColor]

Back in the day, how many fountain pens did a normal user own? Today in our little FPN community it seems the number is quite greater, giving one a larger sample per user and maybe the perception that QC is not as good.

 

Just a thought.

[ThePenster357]

ThePenster357, all companies have shareholders.

 

Most companies are not publicly listed.

Actually, I should have been more specific. I suspect most pen companies we discuss when we talk about dips in quality, with some exceptions, are sole proprietorships. These companies do not have shareholders, as they simply have one owner, or proprietor. There can be an incorporated business with one shareholder, but I believe that to be rare. I am not however, implying that a sole proprietorship is necessarily small, but they tend to be.

 

I think you are talking about corporations, which do indeed all have shareholders. I do not think, however, simply having shareholders will cause a company to slip on its quality, as shareholders buy or obtain shares in a company for different reasons. One of those reasons is often the belief in the company itself. Consider, for example, Disney, and the quality and constistancy of the experience they provide.

 

Lurcho, I find it regrettable that your experience with Pilot has been so poor. While I am a fan of platinum, the 823 that I have has been exquisite, and the consistency with the metropolitans that I have bought has been very good. That is not to say you are wrong, but simply that I still find Pilot's QC to be good, at least compared to some other brands that I have bought from. I am sure they produce a fair amount of duds, being as large as they are.

 

The Penster.

[praxim]

A proprietor is by definition the owner of a 100% share, whether incorporated or not. "Corporations" is usually used for multi-company entities. Shareholders are then of the holding company with that company owning the shares in its subsidiaries. My salient point was that there is always an owner self-interest, whether held singly, jointly, via a trust, listed or whatever. Therefore I agree that the existence of shareholdings is not some shorthand for a self-interest not existing elsewhere.

 

Indeed, some shareholders may observe resignedly that they are unusually generous to tolerate the appropriations of their nominal wealth by their elected Directors and manager agents.

[ThePenster357]

A proprietor is by definition the owner of a 100% share, whether incorporated or not. "Corporations" is usually used for multi-company entities. Shareholders are then of the holding company with that company owning the shares in its subsidiaries. My salient point was that there is always an owner self-interest, whether held singly, jointly, via a trust, listed or whatever. Therefore I agree that the existence of shareholdings is not some shorthand for a self-interest not existing elsewhere.

 

Indeed, some shareholders may observe resignedly that they are unusually generous to tolerate the appropriations of their nominal wealth by their elected Directors and manager agents.

"Sole Proprietorship" is a legal term for a business in the United States where the business is synonymous with the owner, and as part of its definition does not have any shares or stockholders. I apologize, I only just now realized you are in Australia, so your definitions and business set ups may be different.

 

I would argue that most of these fountain pen businesses, like Edison Pens, start out as a passion, that naturally grows to a business. I don't think economic benefit was the primary driver. Even for medium sized businesses, like Goulet Pens, passion still drives the existence of the company.

 

In fact, businesses that are driven entirely by greed rarely survive long, as they cannot build the internal culture to motivate their employees. Most major shareholders of successful corporations are savvy enough to realize this, and will not drive the company to pursue money at the expense of the quality of its product.

 

I suspect that in some cases, breakdown in quality happens when a company starts to move away from its primary focus. As the business shifts its focus away from that product, the quality of that product suffers. This seems to have happened to some companies in the fountain pen industry because the industry itself could longer support the size of the businesses in it. This is not done out of greed, but out of a need for survival. Companies are fragile things, after all.

 

I do not think the industry is moving towards lower quality, but certain businesses instead. Those were the exceptions I mentioned in previous posts.

 

The Penster.

Edited July 26, 2017 by ThePenster357

[praxim]

.

Edited July 26, 2017 by praxim

[praxim]

Drifting too far off topic. PM sent. There are no important differences here, just a few misunderstandings of expression which I hope to clear up in person.

 

Edit: Oops! I accidentally posted the PM here rather than sending it. Too bad. I am not going to rewrite it. Suffice to say problems arise for a business, rarely from shareholders who are not directors.

Edited July 26, 2017 by praxim

[tonybelding]

So how long ago was it that fountain pens could be bought working well?

 

Was it ever the case?

 

In my years of collecting vintage pens, I've found that nib QC -- at least among the market leaders -- tended to be noticeably better than today right up into the 1970s at least. For example, Sheaffer Imperials and Targas are usually outstanding. However, even then they produced a stinker once in a while. There is no such thing as perfect QC, then or now.

 

It's much the same among Japanese companies today. (I have most experience with Pilot.) They probably have the highest and most consistent QC, but once in a while something can slip through.

 

I have also been surprised to see how Jowo have stepped up their game. I don't know if they got new production equipment, or what happened, but their basic steel nibs have become more consistently good than they were several years ago.

Edited July 26, 2017 by tonybelding