Recollections From My China Trip And Loot

[gerigo]

This year I had the opportunity to spend 3 months in China from just after CNY to about the middle of April. During that time, I got to look into the fountain pen scene and these are my thoughts.

In general, it’s very hard to purchase fountain pens at any physical location in China. There are now Kaco, Parker and Lamy booths at malls. But these are priced at FULL retail. And who purchases at full retail in China? Because I had a bank account and can navigate Taobao, it was easy for me to order online. I spent quite a bit of time running around Fuzhou road, which is where all the art, calligraphy and stationery stores are, and did not buy any pens in person. While I tried to look at the pens on display, it felt hard to pull the trigger for a pen priced at almost 900yuan when know you can pick it up for 500 online.

I bought in total 14 pens. Of these one is a brush fountain pen but I thought it was worthwhile to add because of the rather unique design of the pen. So here are the pens.
- Pen BBS. I bought the obligatory models especially the ones with the more unique filling systems. While I really appreciate the unique designs and the incredible low costs of these pens, at the end of the day, they turned out to not move me too much. The fine nibs were scratchy and the medium nibs are super broad and wet.
- I bought 4 Hero pens in total. I was looking especially for pens I thought had interesting designs. The Hero 718, the Hero 100 with the simple all silver finish and the converter ink system, the brush pen and the 2191. It turns out the 6 sided model, Hero 2191, is the most interesting of the bunch. It has a smaller no 5 14k nib which is quite stiff with a hand shaped what I assumed an ebonite feed. The pen was around 500yuan. It’s all metal and feels quite nice in the hand and writes wonderfully. The brush pen really surprised me as well. It was metal bodied and had very stiff short bristles, ideal for writing mandarin characters. This was around 150yuan.
- 意外设计EY products was a very interesting pen with a very unique design. It has a brass body with a wood grip. The cap is super short and posts at the other end. The clip is also very unique and removable. Unfortunately it has a smaller Schmidt nib which did not endear itself to me. It has a conventional converter filling system. This pen represents the arrival of unique and well thought through designs which I think will now emerge quickly from China.
- The other pen that I really grew fond of is the Kaco Master with the 14K nib. Huge pen the size of a Sailor KOP but slimmer profile and very light in the hand. Really well designed for serious writing with its unadorned body and large no. 6 gold nib. Body is probably injection molded. I LOVE the clip detail. The pen was around 400 yuan which I thought was extremely reasonable for a gold nib pen.

China is a country I am very familiar with. I spend 2008-2013 in China. After which I have returned in 2016 and again in 2019. During the first initial 5 years I was there, I found design very lacking. There was a lot of rampant copying and emphasis in growth without understanding how to lay the right foundations toward a strategy. However today, I am happy to say that things are completely different. Design, which has not been a strong point in Chinese fountain pens until now have now taken a turn for the better. Even entrenched companies that are really old school like Hero are changing, and really improving their design. Of all the pens, the Hero 2191 turned out to be most intriguing for me.

[sciumbasci]

Impressive haul. I'm quite fond myself of the PenBBS 456 in Smog.

As for the scratchiness, it's inherent to chinese nibs.

[Mech-for-i]

I had a Hero 2191 and was delighted to have it ; like that old fashion style section. The PenBBS default turned Fine nib really is tuned to write the hone language in quasi - calligraphy penmanship .. else it would take some familiarization to get use to it for Latin based cursive.

Edited May 6, 2019 by Mech-for-i

[1nkulus]

An interesting haul.

IMO, the QC and presentation is getting a lot better.

 

I shall try to get my hands on a PenBBS 355.

 

The Kaco Master is another hopeful, seems like good value for 400 CNY.

Here is a listing for double the price, https://www.etsy.com/listing/675048619/kaco-master-14k-gold-classic-elite

[mrsharkbait]

@gerigo Where did you buy the Kaco from? How does the pen write? One of the superimposed photos I saw showed the nib with some flex.

[PAKMAN]

Congrats! Some great finds!

[gerigo]

I got the Kaco almost immediately when I landed in Shanghai after seeing it mentioned on Frank Dong’s very helpful introduction of emerging Chinese pens website. I got it from Taobao from I think the official Kaco store.

 

The 14k nib writes very well. It’s very soft and the tines easily splay. I wouldn’t all it flex as it’s not designed for that. The pen only comes in one size that’s Medium. It has a lot of tell tale signs of a JOWO nib but I realized it’s probably JOWO made for Schmidt. I have another pen that has a steel nib that is identical.

 

Let me know if you ave more questions and I’d be happy to answer.

 

@gerigo Where did you buy the Kaco from? How does the pen write? One of the superimposed photos I saw showed the nib with some flex.

[TheVintagelife]

Ho, what is the nib dimensions like in the Kaco Master - is it replaceable with a #6 nib from JoWo? There are deals for this pen at around $80 and for that price, its worth it for the 14K nib alone, if its a good writer as you say.

[rosa_m]

Where can I buy this pen at around $80 ?

[TheVintagelife]

Where can I buy this pen at around $80 ?

I got it from Aliexpress at $79 on their new year sale. Price varies in the mid 80s to 90s most of the other times. For 80 or below, wait around for seasonal discounts.

[donnweinberg]

Kaco advertises its Master fountain pen (in Pen World) as coming in three colors: black, red, and white. I have seen only the black version available online. Any idea whether the red and white also can be purchased?

[Mech-for-i]

The red and white just hit the market for about a few weeks but had been shown for few months already , had to do with the shutdown of the manufacturing with Covid-19 but they are now shipping AFAIK ; no idea when it will hit the online retails, but at the moment, only the black can be had with the gold nib, when black, red, and white , all 3 can be had with steel nib

[Beechwood]

I first went to China in 1979, at that time it was only just opening its doors to the idea of trading with the West, until that time any China Trade was done through Hong Kong and the borders were closed, visas were difficult and you were followed by at least two government employees everywhere you went, one even sat in the corridor outside my hotel room to make sure that I did not have inappropriate vistors perhaps. The pens that were being made for sale outside China was very limited, China had a department store in Hong Kong called China Products, located in Causeway Bay, and they had some wierd and wonderfull stuff in there from surgical operating instruments to copies of the 1940s Raleigh bicycles to silks and many other things including around 100 different types of fountain pen, most were western copies including a Parker 75 Cisele copy that cost around 30 cents, US cents. It was ok, press bar filler and it worked just as it should for all the time I had it.

 

FPN has changed a great deal in its attitude to Chinese made pens, in 2007 they were generally frowned upon by FPNers and Admin alike, especially the P51 copies, one Admin even said that he would close a thread if we, perhaps that should be 'I', suggested that Chinese pen purchases should be encouraged in order that the pen companies started designing pens with some originality and a target mrket of the West and not making copies of classics!

[Mech-for-i]

pending the social and economical environment the industry had been put in before the lifting of many regulations regarding and the needed up date of machinery, supplies etc etc in the mid Y2K's , its of no surprise that before that really there is little original design or should I say decent original design .. the legacy of tha reside with many of the off beat models coming from the 1990's up to early / mid Y2K when the industry finally were allowed private sale and revenue to the Mfr instead to the larger nationalized ( industry ) coffer , and of course legacy of even earlier history of that in the form of Hero 616 and several other models that's still around ..

 

without an understanding of the history of tha period , hobbyist might find it only a copy cate and indeed somewhat it is in engineering, in basic mechanical design but the story of man of those models are quite apart from tha and reside with something else

 

And past opinion IMHO is not exactly unwarranted but might be ill informed is the way how I would put it .. even today the Chinese industry as a whole still had muc to learn regarding and not just fountain pen but of course opinion of such are still around and yeah the do had a point but again I think its more from ill informed and less than the whole truth ... part of that is of course simply the availability of many of the models notably decent , and sometime real quality models like many of the Hero's current production range as I've shown ( some of them ) on the show and tell thread ... at the cost of a Preppy I can buy a Hero 1506, with a no frill no.5 smooth very good flow FM nib in a solid all metal body .. I can call that value , and ditto for many other Mfr, but on the other hand the Chinese fountain pen industry still inherit man of the flaws and faults from prior years

 

for the wider FPN community, I think the hurdle to overcome is purely personal and psychological , but also practical, in that so many of the better even quality models from China are indeed fountain pen not mean for the hoddyist, not mean for the wider international market and can be a challenge to acquire and a challenge to write with ( typical dry flow, sweet spot, a grind that's user unfriendly to most writing latin based languages ... so and so )

[gerigo]

Ho, what is the nib dimensions like in the Kaco Master - is it replaceable with a #6 nib from JoWo? There are deals for this pen at around $80 and for that price, its worth it for the 14K nib alone, if its a good writer as you say.

Apologies, I don't monitor my posts very much but it looks like you answered your own question as you posted a really nice review of the pen. While I personally have not removed the nib myself, I think it's a gold Schmidt nib rather than a JOWO unit. I believe they are not exchangeable.

[gerigo]

I find the issues of fakes or copies a very difficult subject to discuss. Much as I would love to take an ideological stance, the wallet always wins the day.

 

The Moonman Wancai is a great example. I feel really bad for the owner of Helico. I am sure he spent many months developing the pen and has it on his website for about $250 USD.

 

Yes China still has a bad habit of borrowing designs, and making copies. However with more global exposure and the desire to increasingly engage in international export, hopefully will eradicate this behavior.

 

I first went to China in 1979, at that time it was only just opening its doors to the idea of trading with the West, until that time any China Trade was done through Hong Kong and the borders were closed, visas were difficult and you were followed by at least two government employees everywhere you went, one even sat in the corridor outside my hotel room to make sure that I did not have inappropriate vistors perhaps. The pens that were being made for sale outside China was very limited, China had a department store in Hong Kong called China Products, located in Causeway Bay, and they had some wierd and wonderfull stuff in there from surgical operating instruments to copies of the 1940s Raleigh bicycles to silks and many other things including around 100 different types of fountain pen, most were western copies including a Parker 75 Cisele copy that cost around 30 cents, US cents. It was ok, press bar filler and it worked just as it should for all the time I had it.

 

FPN has changed a great deal in its attitude to Chinese made pens, in 2007 they were generally frowned upon by FPNers and Admin alike, especially the P51 copies, one Admin even said that he would close a thread if we, perhaps that should be 'I', suggested that Chinese pen purchases should be encouraged in order that the pen companies started designing pens with some originality and a target mrket of the West and not making copies of classics!

 

[Mech-for-i]

I find the issues of fakes or copies a very difficult subject to discuss. Much as I would love to take an ideological stance, the wallet always wins the day.

 

The Moonman Wancai is a great example. I feel really bad for the owner of Helico. I am sure he spent many months developing the pen and has it on his website for about $250 USD.

 

Yes China still has a bad habit of borrowing designs, and making copies. However with more global exposure and the desire to increasingly engage in international export, hopefully will eradicate this behavior.

 

 

And that is why even as a Chinese fountain pen collector I do not buy them , nor all the Safari / 78g clones, if one do not give them th market the trade will die off. As I stated before I would understand and forgive vintage models like the Hero 100 , they were born out of a different context and background , but not todays new models , they are part of the global consumer product manufacturing and marketing economy and really should be praised for their originality in new models and equally penalized for their cloning .. Copying design is one thing, I had no issue with that so long the design of others is not cloned , and the Mfr inject its own element into the product. And yes sometime this can be hard to judge but cloning, that is easy to spot and easy to discern

 

Despite my vigilance I still got plenty of those clones, some gifted to me by others, some come as extra bonus to my other pen order, ultimately I still end up having a bunch of those .. sometime I look at them and really struggle to made something out of them ...

[basterma]

One thing to remember about China is that their model for education is based upon learning from the master. Copying a design may be an indication the factory feels it needs to learn from the pinnacle of the art by trying to match it. The Lamy Safari is one of those designs that is iconic and I think a lot of the copying of it arises from that. I think as the years progress and the manufacturers here gain in skill, you will see more companies like Kaco and N9 emerging with their own designs. The other designs that are being copied could also be seen as wanting to gain experience, but too many LAMY copies: not enough confidence in their design skills so they copy another design. The copying of TWSBI could also be to undermine a Taiwanese company...