Help a teacher choose a pen

[Sean Mac]

Hi all. I'm a newbie here. I teach 8th graders (and love it!).

 

I'm looking for some help selecting a fountain pen to use to grade my students papers. I currently use a Waterman Charleston rollerball, but the refills have gotten to be a bit expensive for me, as I go through them very quickly. Also, though I have very limited experience with a fountain pen, I really enjoying using one.

 

Most of my students complete homework on inexpensive notebook paper. What type of fountain pen should I be looking for? Is there one size nib that would work better than another on this type of paper?

 

One more thing, my wife will kill me if I spend more than $100 on a pen. . . . so, any recommendations at that price point, or below, would be much appreciated.

 

Thanks for your help.

 

Sean

[Macuser]

If you like the Waterman Charleston, have you tried the Charleston fountain pen? I love the styling, and have heard good things about it on the forum!

[Apollo]

Hello Sean, and welcome to FPN. There are lots of good and stylish fountain pens you can find under $100. Like Mac said, you could always get a Charleston fountain pen to go with your rollerball, but if you want something a little different you can't go wrong with the Pelikan M215. It's a little smaller than the Charleston fountain pen, but it's a solid workhorse of a pen that holds alot of ink and is ultra reliable.

[KendallJ]

If you want a nice looking, nice writing pen for under $100, then I would think of Taccia. The cheaper notebook paper will probably be prone to bleed a bit more so unless you are adverse to it, a Fine nib would probably do you better.

 

Richard Binder deals Taccia pens. Very well made, very nice selection. I have an Imperial Portuguese, an Andante, and soon a Mother of Pearl. Reviews of the first two can be found in the reviews area.

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/in...indpost&p=22675

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/in...indpost&p=45825

[maia]

As pointed, I'd search something along the lines of a Pelikan, Parker or Waterman. You should go to a local store to try several of them. There are very good FPs for under 100$. Also, you could see the difference between nib grades and feel.

[Apollo]

Kendall, good call on the Taccia Andante. I just received mine today and it's a beautiful smooth writing pen.

[BMWRT]

My recommendation would be a Pilot Knight in a medium

 

There is a very good review on here but I do not know how to link it.

 

sal

[Matt]

If you don't want to spend a lot, I would recommend one of the followng:

 

Waterman Phileas, Charleston

Lamy Safari, Accent, Studio

Pelikan M200, M215

Sailor Colors (the smaller version of the 1911)

 

I like to use a fine nib for grading papers as I can write (more) in the margins. Sailor has wonderfully smooth fine nibs.

 

Fountain pens also open a a whole new world of ink colors. My students commented that they liked purple ink when I switched to that from red. They said the red was too "in your face." I usually use a shade of green, brown, or a not too bright red (PR Fiesta Red) for grading papers.

 

Good luck.

[KCat]

Hi all. I'm a newbie here. I teach 8th graders (and love it!).

well, there's no accounting for taste...

 

Just kidding of course.

 

I would say one thing to consider that I don't see in the recommendations - if you're going through refills a lot, you should consider a pen that carries a significant amount of ink or be prepared to spend as much on ink carts as you do on refills. Of the ones mentioned so far, several are converter/cartridge pens. With a converter you can certainly refill your pen as needed if you keep ink at your desk (or wherever you're working). But being able to go longer periods of time without refilling seems like something that would be useful to you. In that case, I'd try to go with a piston-filler. I know the Pelikan 200/215 is a piston-filler. I really am not sure what else is out there in your price range that is as well made and also piston-filled. Perhaps you could find a Lamy 2000 at a good price - if I'm not mistaken, they are piston-filled. Prices on Amazon are about $115. I'm not terribly familiar with this pen but it gets good reviews.

 

There are much less expensive piston-fillers, see the review on the Wality pens for example. they're good pens for the price and may give you an opportunity to cheaply determine what you really like in a pen.

 

Of course, if you don't mind refilling more often - then there's a gajillion pens out there in your price range. okay - well, maybe not that many. But a lot. WM makes good pens. I love my Pelikans. Lamy's Safari/Vista is a great little pen, and so on. I do love the look of the 1911M and hope to actually own one someday.

 

The good thing abou the Safari is you could get three and still be well within your budget and fill all three of them. Could use different colored inks in each one depending on your mood: red for when you want to kick there sweet little backsides into gear, purple for when you want to go a little easier on their egos, green for praise?

 

re: the type of nib - considering the variety of papers you'll be encountering, I would go with either a fine or medium (in European sizes) or a Medium in Japanese sizes. you may encounter rough papers that will make a nib that is too fine unpleasant to write with. OTOH, going too broad with cheap papers could lead to a lot of spreading of the ink. Ink does make a difference on that issue but for the most part you can choose just about any mainstream ink and get good results.

 

I'm KCat and I am a Penaholic Enabler

[Goodwhiskers]

Sean Mac,

 

Here's my advice on pens:

 

Assuming you're in the USA, I'd recommend the Nussbaum family at isellpens (in Arizona) for mail-order for the Wality, Reform and Hero brands. My only connection to them is as a satisfied customer.

 

You can't beat the capacity of a permanent-reservoir (piston-filling) Pelikan pen, and a few of those are available under $100. On the other hand, the very cheapest Pelikans are tough, dependable and smooth-writing pens also, but they use "normal-sized," i.e. small, converters for bottled ink.

 

I've read great things here on the FPN about the Waterman Phileas and the Pilot Knight, which also use "normal-sized" converters.

 

From personal experience as a teacher, I agree with KCat that really fine nibs (Japanese and Chinese "fine" is equivalent to non-East-Asian "extra fine," except when a Japanese or Chinese pen carries a nib made in Germany, and then it's non-East-Asian scale) can snag up fibers from loose-fibered paper until one gets a few months of fountain-pen writing experience. Snagged-up fibers spread ink along their length, suddenly turning the pen into a "wide calligraphy" pen with a weird-angled point!

 

A Hero pen with a "more medium" nib (Nussbaum's words) would be a better starter from that brand. Search here, in the FPN, for Hero pen reviews. Unfortunately, the only Hero pens with high ink capacity are the permanent reservoir ones, and I think those are all East-Asian-fine.

 

Wality pens are from India and use the non-East-Asian nib scale. Reform pens are the remaining stock from a now-defunct company in Germany, and of course their nib scale is non-East-Asian.

 

Speaking of capacity, I love my Duke Complete Esteem, and it has the most snag-preventing fine point I've found, but it has a rather small reservoir, and its flow decreases proportionally with the remaining amount of ink. Don't start into the fountain pen world with this pen.

[Goodwhiskers]

Now, for my advice about ink:

 

Bottled ink is the way to go! Cartridges, even in a brand that also offers bottled ink, are much more expensive in the long run. See Betty's recent topic thread on cost per milliliter for bottled inks.

 

I assume you receive work from students on a wide variety of papers.

 

I don't recommend Levenger inks for you because they behave well on tightly-fibered papers only.

 

The big brands like

Sheaffer Skrip (get the new formula, in the conical bottle, from Slovenia),

Parker Quink (its washable blue is either beloved or despised; try it first and leave it in the sun for a few days),

Pelikan (also the ink supplier for Cross!)

and Waterman

are easy to find and buy in bottled form, are reasonably priced and should do OK on a wide variety of papers.

 

Here's the "star," though:

Noodler's inks, whether washable (most colors), mixed washable-waterproof (some of the darker shades, search this FPN website for water tests and discussions) or waterproof (a few colors, including the black) behave excellently, even coming out of a "wet-writing" pen onto really loose or porous or thin paper! The drying time is plenty fast, not the fastest but very reasonable.

 

Exceptions: Some inks from Noodler's which are made exclusively for the retailer Swisherpens.com (carrying Swisher's name on the label, either without Noodler's name at all or alongside Noodler's name) need tightly-fibered papers! Swisher specified and got the fastest possible drying time; the spreading, bleeding and feathering on looser papers are side effects. Swisherpens also sells the non-exclusive Noodler's line, so if you buy from Swisherpens, make sure you're choosing a non-exclusive Noodler's color. The Swisherpens website explains this all very carefully.

 

Pendemonium and Art Brown sell Noodler's regular line and a few exclusive Noodler's colors. The latter from those stores have the normal Noodler's labels, so they should behave the same as the non-exclusive colors, as far as I know.

 

Caution: The waterproof Noodler's inks (and Noodler's inks with the waterproof black as a component) will wash easily out of silk, wool and artificial fabrics, and off of human skin and some kinds of leather, but never out of cotton, linen or rayon. This is because Noodler's waterproofness is really a chemical reaction which binds the dye molecules to cellulose permanently (the only way to take out Noodler's marks is to destroy the paper!) and to cellulose only.

 

I've tried Lamy's blue ink from cartridges. It's OK, but not up to the Noodler's any-paper standard. The Lamy bottle is well-loved for its internal shape (letting a pen get almost the last drop) and for its handy roll of blotter paper for cleaning up after filling.

 

Amodex Ink and Stain Remover, which gets any fountain pen ink out of fabrics except iron-gall inks (which aren't safe to keep in a pen for a long time anyway) and Noodler's bulletproof or mixed bulletproof-washable inks (as just mentioned), is very handy.

 

Ink Nix gets any ink, including Noodler's waterproof, quickly off of human skin.

 

Never put india ink, white or metallic ink (which are really paints, not inks) or any other "art ink" in a fountain pen! The only exceptions are Pelikan Fount India Ink and Platinum Carbon Ink, both advertised by the manufacturers for fountain pens, but even those are for "wet-writing" pens and they shouldn't stay in a pen for a long time.

 

Enjoy!

[Blade Runner]

Choose a smooth fine or extrafine nib for grading marginalia on cheaper paper that is prone to bleed and make one's lines wider. Suggest trying out some pens at a shop with paper samples.

J

[acfrery]

Hi,

 

Welcome!

 

Since ink capacity is an important issue, I have a suggestion: get one or better two Retro 51 and turn them into eyedroppers.

 

Here is my Retro 51 Scriptmaster Mary Ann.

 

(Picture from Swisher Pens)

 

It has a very smooth steel nib by Bock.

 

Turning this beauty into an eyedropper is trivial: just improve the sealing of the section with silicon grease. I carried this converted pen loaded with Noodler's Shah's Rose (an excellent ink for proofreading and grading, by the way) with no worries.

[Sean Mac]

Thanks again for all of your suggestions.

 

I decided to purchase a Pelikan Go pen (M75) at the suggestion of "OldGriz" (Thanks again). After doing some research, it seems like this pen, while not very fancy, will be a good writer. It also should provide me with a good indication about whether grading papers with a fountain pen works for me.

 

My fear (hope?) is that this pen will convince me that I need (want) a pen that is made of higher quality materials. We shall see!

 

Sean

[Macuser]

Congratulations on your first pen purchase. Trust me, your second puchase will not be far behind (this board is full of enablers!) Let us know how you like it.

 

Where did you purchase the Pelikan Go from?

[FrankB]

Welcome to the board, and, dare I say, welcome to a wonderful hobby. Fountain pens are a true slippery slope.

 

If I had the concern of having to write legibly on paper that bleeds easily, I would consider my next purchase from Richard Binder. If you send him one of your writing examples along with a sample to two of the paper your pupils use he might be in a position to mek a recommendation for a reasonable customized nib on, say, a Pelikan.

 

Remember that Pelikan pens have exchangeable nibs. You could use one nib for grading papers, then change out to a second nib for general writing. - Of course, most of us here would buy a third pen for general writing. But, you will find that out for yourself.

 

Good luck. Please come back to tell us how your experiment proceeded.

[Ryno]

Congrats on your entry into the world of fountain pen users. And from a former fellow 8th grade teacher (I teach high school now), I assure you that you'll love using a FP to grade papers. The great thing about collecting FP's is that you can acutally use them on a daily basis. I often look forward to rotating in a new pen to grade a specific set of papers - even though the grading iself can be rather tedious. I've used around 2 dozen different pens and I've found that the biggest factor is the paper the students write on. Notebook paper isn't too bad, aside from it's tendancy to bleed, but computer paper is sometimes coated with chemicals that cause the ink to not set properly.

 

As for ink, I agree with the consensus about Noodler's ink - good stuff. I use marine green and am quite pleased with it. I think it stands out from what the students use, but is not as harsh as a bright red. I also like it because I can use it for other non-school functions, such as writing checks, without any problems (I once had a check returned because I had written it in red ink and the bank wouldn't cash it. They said it wouldn't show up when they copied it?).

 

Anyway, best of luck to you and let us all know how it works out. I don't own a Pelikan (yet), but I only hear good things.