The Worst Pen Ever

[P.A.R.]

Speedball dip pen nibs - flexy and good for drawing, but horribly scratchy.

[byronss]

I've been puzzled by people saying that the Noodler's Ahabs smell bad. Mine, Ivory Darkness, doesn't have any noticeable odor, good or bad, and I have fairly good evidence that my sense of smell isn't dead. Maybe it's a variation in the plastics they use, or a variation in people.

I just pulled out my brand new Noodler's Ahab (pink) and you really have to get up very close to smell anything, and I have a really keen sense of smell. I've never written with my pen next to my nose, so it doesn't bother me. I've now put it in my makeup bag so it might attract some nice smells from there. Of course, the guys mostly can't do that, but maybe some aftershave would help… the pen, of course! :ltcapd: Might kill the plastic though!

[wastelanded]

My Ahab smelled funny for a day, then it mellowed out. Smells like gingerbread now, not offensive at all. But it's a black one, maybe different coloured ones smell worse. The nib leaves much to be desired though, horribly scratchy.

[loweevan]

I bought a handful of Platinum Preppies that have no o-rings. Filled one with Bay State Concord Grape, and a week later my hands are Concord Grape. Is silicone grease a must with preppies lacking o-rings?

 

I have a preppy filled with that same ink that has probably been inked for a year + and it has never leaked. It sits on its side on the counter and always starts without a problem. It has no o-ring, but does have grease. I have had leaking problems with no grease and other inks, though,

[playpen]

This is an easy one.

 

The absolute worst, most horrible, horrendous, terrible, disgusting, awful, totally bad and a disgrace to pendom pen is:

 

STIPULA 22 with titanium nib.

 

That was easy....

 

oh, and the company that perpetrated this mess on the public and then didn't back it up....is also..... tah dah!

[savingbirds]

I had a dud Hero 3266 amongst a pack of ten. It was the only one that could not post, the ink sac would leak, the squeakiest threads, the driest nib, and the most likely to burp ink and stop writing for no reason. Currently, it is somewhere between a cracked toilet and whisker shavings in a landfill.

[josephfabry]

What is the absolute WORST, stupidest pen you've ever had in your possession?

 

I mean the crappiest, most non-usable FP. The hardest to start, the scratchiest nib. Whatever.

 

Now is thy chance to rant.

 

 

I came upon this topic while searching for something else, and became captive reading every rant and complaint. Thanks for everyone's entertaining posts.

 

Thought I should give this topic a bump, by sharing a couple of my fountain pen FAILS to add to this list of lemons and losses.

 

1. One of my Montblanc Starwalker fountain pens. Rubber and metal- loved the design at the time. I was so excited to try it out. I bought a Fine nib, though I usually buy EF in my MB's. That nib was terrible- skipped, scratched, dried out, and wouldn't start after drying out. I had to take it apart, and squeeze the cartridge until ink dripped out, and then, maybe 50 % of the time, it would write. Boggled my mind how you could make the nib drip, and then when putting down to the paper, it would just scratch a dry, horrible noise. Like others have mentioned, I sent it to MB Service via a horrible MB boutique- not once, but twice. Both times, I sent writing samples demonstrating the horrible skipping problem. Both times, it came back "fixed" until actually inked with a cartridge, when the flaw was found to be absolutely unchanged. I wondered if they just tested it by dipping, and writing with it? Anyway, I took it back a third time and demanded a nib exchange. Which they did- to my favorite EF and the pen came back a non-skipper. Not only was it a non-skipper, but it became (at that stage of my FP Hoarding Disease) my smoothest, butteriest, best writer of any pen I had ever written with- EVER !! PLUS, because of my repeated frustrations, they did the nib exchange for FREE. Happy ending, I guess. But, does the end justify the means?

 

2. My first Montblanc 149. Terrible Fine nib with awful, dry flow. This one, though brand new, was bought online from a highly reputable eBay seller- one who has since collected several thousands of dollars from me. Because of this, I had no warranty to fall back on. I tried different inks, different papers, different ink-paper combinations. Nothing worked. It just sat in my pen case for over a year. each time I glanced over it to get a better pen to use- any pen was a better pen, I seethed with anger that I had spent over $ 550 on such an over-rated, morbidly obese, piece of (bleep)-ola. When I discovered there was such a thing as a Nibmeister (I know, this post screams "LAME-O" a million times over) I decided to send the much maligned pen to one of the best in the biz. No go. this thing came back, and still, even after having the flow tweeked three times, and even ground and then, re-ground it's still the same. I have a $ 4.00 Pilot Varsity that writes better. No happy ending with this lemon.

 

Not sure how or why, but, I gave 149 a second chance. That first, awful, nasty, and still hated, Montblanc 149 is now only one of 15 (yes, FIFTEEN) MB 149's I currently own.

 

If I had to choose one and only one pen to keep from my ridiculously insane collection that I am currently building, I think I would have to choose one of my 149's.

 

Funny how a pen which I loathed so much from the first try, could become such a huge obsession for me. Am I trying to undo that first wrong, by trying to find the most perfect writing 149?

 

Anyway, for those who did not look at my post and think, "TLDR" - thank you for listening to my tales of fountain pen woe.

 

Love,

 

Joe

 

P.S.- True Blood starts again on Sunday...

[Trivan]

I was in the safari's are my worst writer camp until the recent post on increasing the flow. Now with a little bit of smoothing of the nib, increased flow and smoothing the nib with polishing sandpaper, they are good everyday writers.

[Miadhawk]

Some P51 clone from Hero, that and the Noodler's Ahab. Heck I was so frustrated by them at one point (didn't have any other pens near me) I finished my homework with a dip pen and a bottle of Pelikan Black.

[Zopiac]

Speedball dip pen nibs - flexy and good for drawing, but horribly scratchy.

 

I hear ya' there! I got a speedball dip pen for myself last Christmas, and has tons of fun with it for about two weeks. By that time I was so completely fed up with how absolutely scratchy it was (it also stopped working randomly for moderately large periods of time out of the blue) that I tried my first nib surgery, but after at least an hour of trying to get it to write well, it stopped working at all. I then got a Manuscript/D. Leonardt dip pen set and have been scribbling happily ever since, except for when I got another speedball pen (I wanted the nibholder but it came with a hunt nib as well) at a garage sale that put me in the exact same predicament.

[Aman Syed]

Well for me it is Parker

[paolino_paperino]

Noodler Konrad. I love mine for its good reliable nib and its design. What makes it my worst pen ever? It's smell! It's plainly horrible! I can't stand it, even two months after I've bought it.

Edited August 5, 2012 by paolino_paperino

[OcalaFlGuy]

Well for me it is Parker

 

ALL of them?

 

I'd be curious as to how many of the myriad of pens they've made you've had experience with in order to be able to damn the Entire brand.

 

Bruce in Ocala, FL-now, if you started with a Sonnet, maybe I could understand...

[myn]

Without a doubt the Aurora Ipsilon - huge disappointment.

[cellmatrix]

Noodler Konrad. I love mine for its good reliable nib and its design. What makes it my worst pen ever? It's smell! It's plainly horrible! I can't stand it, even two months after I've bought it.

+1

I got the rollerball Konrad six months ago and it still stinks so bad to the point that other people across the room notice it too.

[de_pen_dent]

Without a doubt the Aurora Ipsilon - huge disappointment.

 

Can you elaborate? This is the third or fourth post referring to the poor quality of Aurora pens.

[guilhermejf]

Sheaffer Intensity

Everything feels so wrong, and it is not really an inexpensive one. Ergonomically it is a disaster. Grip section (just where I hold it) is too narrow for the heavy weight. The cap unscrews too easily, and it can unscrew the barrel thread as well, if not properly set up. Lucky it was a present, not an acquisition.

[Dillo]

Hi,

 

For me, it had to be this Chinese pen that basically fell completely apart and leaked ink everywhere. It wrote well while it lasted. Now if you are wondering what completely apart means, it broke into a lot of little pieces and basically just disintegrated.

 

Dillon

[mr T.]

The worst pen I've ever had in my possession was a Platinum Preppy 0,5. Even after I flushed it out several times, it wouldn't start.

[FLZapped]

I have a snorkel that just won't stay fixed. Writes OK, but the filling mechanism on those things is a disaster.