How Expensive Are Your Everyday Pens?

[praxim]

As a sample, I checked the pens I have inked now. There are four, ranging in purchase price from A$155-A$340. Pen ages range from the late 1940s to the early 1970s. Any or all of them can go out with me. All of them needed some degree of work to function properly, one quite a bit of it.

 

Although there are far older, newer, cheaper, and much more expensive, pens, I am thinking this is a pretty fair representation of what I use on average on a day.

Edited June 10, 2018 by praxim

[Superficial]

I won't buy any pens that I'm not planning to actually use every day. My current top end is a C823 which I am slightly conscious of losing/dropping so I probably won't get anything much more expensive than that. For me, something like a Lamy 2k, C74/CH92, 3776 is probably the best compromise.

[ISW_Kaputnik]

Up to my most expensive, which are however, cheaper that other people's most expensive. Around $200 I start questioning whether more money will really get me anything that I want. If I had pens more expensive than that, I would either carry them with me or be kicking myself because I'd spent that much on a pen that I didn't like well enough to carry around with me.

 

I'll also carry cheaper pens. When I go out in a little while I'll be carrying an Esterbrook SJ that cost me about $13, and a Pilot Custom Heritage 92 which was about $140. They're both very nice.

[ingolf]

10 (Chinese pen) - 1.100 (Delta Israel 60 pen) EUR.

Average is about 150 EUR, currently most expensive pen for "the road" is a Montblanc Heritage 1912.

[jmnav]

I won't buy any pens that I'm not planning to actually use every day. My current top end is a C823 which I am slightly conscious of losing/dropping so I probably won't get anything much more expensive than that. For me, something like a Lamy 2k, C74/CH92, 3776 is probably the best compromise.

 

Almost my thoughts for basically same result. It's only that I don't start with what I'd be conscious of losing/breaking to set a max price, but the other way around: the price I start not being comfortable to pay for a fountain pen, but the one I buy, I buy for using it.

 

For my, that "max price" has been in the 300~400$ range so my daily carries include units ranging price-wise from a Parker Super 21 (gifted to me, so no "real" price, but market price about 50~100$) to a Montblanc 146g (about 350$). In between there are Pelikan 400, Matador Garant, Waterman's Hundred Year...

 

Having a lust for vintage pens makes things a bit easier since there are a ginormous range, and usually for better prices too, on apple-to-apple comparations.

[Gord K.]

My edc is a Parker 61 Insignia. If I’m going to work I carry a black Parker 61 and/or a Kaweco Classic Sport. I have several Parker 61’s and none of them were more than $45 Cdn so the pens I carry daily range between $25 and $45 each.

[chromantic]

The ones I carry most often are JIFs (~$10), Sports (~$30 with clip) and M150s ($60-150). The most expensive one I might take when just out and about (as opposed to work) is the little green-striped M300.

[Jerome Tarshis]

If I lose one, I have other pens.

 

+1. To put it mildly.

[Shannon]

My EDCs range from about $50 to $350. I've been slowly divesting myself of less expensive pens simply because I find that I don't use them. I have a handful of Jinhoas and Noodler's that I just don't pay attention to anymore.

[sidthecat]

I’m wearing my Lady Elsa with the upgraded nib quite a lot. It was inexpensive to start with, but Mr. Minuskin replaced the plated nib with a gold one ground to a medium stub. It’s a very nice writer now, but the important thing is the slip cap, which makes it almost escape-proof.

It will go to Brooklyn with me in a week.

[james3paris]

If I lose one, I have other pens.

+1

[MHBru]

I use all 6 of my pens and they vary from a safari to a pelikan m800. The kicker is that i work from home. None of them travel with me when im onthe road tho. (But i do carry a pelikan k800 ballpoint and r800 rollerball)

[TSherbs]

I am a high school teacher, and sometimes I let students use my pens that I bring to school. I sneak my Decimo in to class sometimes (although this makes me nervous), but mostly I don't bring in pens worth over $10.

[Ed_Usinowicz]

It used to be if it was inked and it was sub $500 it was fair game. Fast forward to now and my son has enrolled in pre-med at college (my dime). Now its Jinhao all the way baby! Funny how things change.

[Angel91]

Form twsbi eco to lamy 2000 (my limit in that sense)

[wallylynn]

I only carry one pen at a time, I don't write much. I've lost two Lamy Vistas. I EDC'd Noodler's Creaper, Konrad and Ahab for a while. But the ink would evaporate from the noodlers before I could finish. I've settled on a Hero 616.

[jekostas]

I use my MB149 regularly for work.

[flstrider]

EDC are Bexley Imperials B nibs 100.00 each. Wonderful writers.

[senzen]

My cheapest is a Metropolitan (less than $12), my most expensive a Le Man 100 ($250). I'd rather go with a cheaper pen, but mostly because of the sentimental value of my more expensive pens.

[inkstainedruth]

EDCs for me run anywhere between 50¢ and over $300 US. Depends on what's inked up and my mood.

Admittedly taking the really expensive one camping was, in retrospect, kind of a bad idea: I almost lost it (fortunately it got turned in to lost and found).

The only one that really doesn't leave the house any more is a Morrison ring top, because it likes to unscrew itself form the cap when it's on the lanyard; which is too bad -- it's a pretty little pen with a very nice juicy nib.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth