Are Premium Fountain Pens Any Good To Write With?

[georges zaslavsky]

I have rarely been disappointed by premium foutain pens. A nice nib and nice celluloid or a nice resin body with a nice trim makes the object a pleasure to write with.

[4lex]

I have a Homo Sapien Lava Bronze Age coming. I look forward to posting an exception to your report.

What was your experience with Homosapiens? I sold mine because it was too wet for practical use but I found it a pleasant pen to use.

[Intensity]

All down to individual pens for me. I have both very budget-friendly and expensive pens that are excellent, as well as pens on both ends of the spectrum that are not my cup of tea (and thus most of those have now been sold or traded). It's a highly subjective experience, and what is "good" for one person can be "amazing" or "meh" for another person.

[biancitwo]

What was your experience with Homosapiens? I sold mine because it was too wet for practical use but I found it a pleasant pen to use.

Mine was a stub. It wrote very well, but the nib was huge. I could feel a slight drag from pulling that big nib across most papers. I’m also extremely partial to italic nibs. I send virtually every new pen to Pendleton Brown for a CI modification. It is now a superb CI. Yes, it is wet. It is filled with Diamine November Rain. I believe this is a wet ink. The HS is a wet pen. The result is wonderful sheen. Other wet inks, maybe not. When not using this ink, I may do as I’ve done with my very wet Omas, fill it with a Pelikan 4001. Regardless, this is an outstanding pen, with a sensational nib.

[sirgilbert357]

Most of my "premium" FPs have been a pleasure to write with (premium to me is anything above about 40 bucks), but I've also had pens well below that cost be immensely enjoyable.

 

We all have our own standard of what makes a pen "premium", "enjoyable" and "good to write with", so I think this question could generate a lot of varied responses...

 

Edit: I define "premium" that way for the purposes of this thread, but in reality, the asking price doesn't automatically classify a pen as "premium" to me personally. I look at features, materials, the way it was constructed, etc. Sometimes the asking price is on par with my opinion of the pen, other times it isn't. Either way, the price is what it is and you're either willing to pay it or you aren't.

Edited May 22, 2019 by sirgilbert357

[gyasko]

Most of my pens are premium vintage pens:old White Dot Sheaffers, Wahl-Eversharps, Parker 51s & 75s, vintage Pelikans & MBs. They write great. I wouldn't bother with them if they didn't.

 

Of course, cheaper pens can be great, too. I like Esterbrooks and Lamy Al-Stars are my everyday, take to work pens.

Edited May 22, 2019 by gyasko

[loganrah]

Not in the high end range, but my experience with what I would think of as premium pens (both gold nibs, Pilot Falcon and Platinum 3776, and stainless steel nibs, GvFC Tamitio) is that they are significantly nicer than the cheaper pens I've tried (numerous $3 Chinese pens, Parker vectors and an IM, Several Kaweco Sports, etc.).

The nib performance is only part of the picture though, the much nicer build quality, heavier and larger sizes etc. all contribute a lot. Although I do think we over pay for these things (making a pen barrel out of heavier metal really only adds a dollar or two to the cost, not 50 or 100), unfortunately that is the price they are available at.

 

Finally there is personal preference: I like having nice things that are well made, whether or not they perform their primary function in a noticeably better way. So I value the things that come with premium prices even though they often aren't about the writing experience. If you don't care about that and just want a particular writing feeling then cheap pens might well suit your needs.

 

Edit: 100th post

Edited May 23, 2019 by loganrah

[Jebus]

I have been following this topic for a couple of days and have read some very interesting points of view...

 

 

When I reflect it to my own situation: on the (very long term) wish-list: Pelikan Toledo; a stunning piece of art preferably with a pre 1989 nib (based on my experience with a M400 '82-'89). I would catagorize this pen as "premium". If I own such a thing I don't really know wheater I will ever even ink it. Therefor it will lose it's purpose: writing.

 

My daily writer is actually in a comparable price range though it gets it's price from flawless design, balance, features, customization and is actually quite minimalistic when you compare it to the complexity of for instance a Toledo. Is it a premium pen? Absolutely but not because of the price but because of the characteristics.

 

A Toledo or a LE gets the "premium-label" from design; the daily writer from the feeling it gives you every time you pick it up.

 

The "search for perfection" makes this fountainpen hobby worth it. And perhaps the chase is better than the catch. Regardless the €1.000+ LE or the €5 retail stuff...

[4lex]

Not in the high end range, but my experience with what I would think of as premium pens (both gold nibs, Pilot Falcon and Platinum 3776, and stainless steel nibs, GvFC Tamitio) is that they are significantly nicer than the cheaper pens I've tried (numerous $3 Chinese pens, Parker vectors and an IM, Several Kaweco Sports, etc.).

 

The nib performance is only part of the picture though, the much nicer build quality, heavier and larger sizes etc. all contribute a lot. Although I do think we over pay for these things (making a pen barrel out of heavier metal really only adds a dollar or two to the cost, not 50 or 100), unfortunately that is the price they are available at.

 

Finally there is personal preference: I like having nice things that are well made, whether or not they perform their primary function in a noticeably better way. So I value the things that come with premium prices even though they often aren't about the writing experience. If you don't care about that and just want a particular writing feeling then cheap pens might well suit your needs.

 

Edit: 100th post

 

I agree, most of the pens I love are in 50 to 150 dollars range. Of those over 150 dollars there are only three or for pens I like, mainly Sailor.

I got some excellent vintage pens for a tenner, 1950s Platinum Pocket pen with soft 14k nib is a dream so it’s worth looking around.

[TSherbs]

My value meter is very linear. My happiness with a pen is always determined as pleasure divided by cost. A $100 pen better bring me twice as much pleasure as the $50 pen, or it was a waste of money and I will sell it. So my purchases have topped out at basically $100. I bought a Lamy 2000 and then sold it because it was not twice as good as my Parson's Essential. And since my Custom 74 SFM is my favorite pen right now, a $200 pen has to be twice as good as that... Which seems unlikely, but who knows.

[ENewton]

I write mostly with pens that cost me between $100 and $200, and most of those are vintage or Japanese pens.

 

Some of my pens costing less than $100 also write well, although it occurs to me that the only one I have used so far in 2019 is a Duofold Junior that I bought for $60. It is in the <$100 range that I've found the least correlation between price and performance. My Monteverde pen costing nearly $100 does not afford nearly as pleasant a writing experience as the Dollar 717i pen I bought for about $1.25. The Pilot Prera is a trusty little pen that has served me well for travel, but one can get the same nib on Metropolitan for less than half the price. (I just happen to like stubby pens, so I bought a Prera in preference to the Metropolitan.)

[RudraDev]

Oh yes, yes there's a difference between normal pens and premium pens.

When you get to the $150 mark from anything that's sub $100, you'll feel A LOT of difference. My Lamy Vista writes smooth, but the difference between that and my Pilot Custom 74 is very significant.

But when I tried a MontBlanc 146 the other day, I didn't feel that much of a difference. Sure it was better, but it wasn't that big of a leap.

So, for almost all premium pens, they provide a much better writing experience than your 'average' pens. The experience may/may not be to your liking, but they do improve, in their own way.

[welch]

My hunch is that $ spent above 200 or 250 mostly goes to decoration, but that a $150 (or so) pen is much better than a $50 pen. Compare a Lamy Safari to a Lamy 2000. It happens that I write almost entirely with Parker 51's plus some c/c P-61's and some P-75's. They were top-of-the-line pens when they were made, and the P-51 has never been surpassed.