Which Came First?

[Funraiser18]

I guess this is a bit of a chicken or egg question....

 

Did you have an interest in calligraphy, or just good (better) handwriting that led you down the path to fine writing instruments? Or, like me, have you had an interest in pens (first ball, then rollerball, and now fountains) that have led me on a path to seek better handwriting?

 

(And by the way, if you are in the latter category, feel free to offer suggestions on the "right" ( I know there are many) path to take to improved handwriting.)

[nxn96]

So long ago, I can't remember. I should've written it down....

 

Actually, I remember learning to write at a pretty early age, and I suspect the interest in writing instruments came pretty shortly thereafter. There were always a lot of pens and mechanical pencils around our house, and my father used a fountain pen well into the late 1960's, so picking up a fascination with pens wasn't hard for me.

 

Sort of related to that, back when I was in grammar school, "Penmanship" was still a grade item on our report cards up until about the 6th grade, so there was a bit of an incentive to develop a decent handwriting style. To that end, I think a nice handwriting style probably leads to an interest in different writing instruments.

 

Interesting question.

[Elizabeth in NJ]

It's not a chicken-or-egg question for me at all!

 

In third grade, we learned cursive. My teacher, Mr. Loh, was a player of favorites, and he preferred girls who had pretty cursive. Mine was anything but and he made it quite clear that I was not one of the favored. Such was the blow to my nascent self-esteem that I began a 32-year-and-counting odyssey of trying to improve my cursive. It was only a couple of years ago that I finally got my r's into decent shape.

 

As part of all that I sought writing instruments that helped with the penmanship goal. Fountain pens have been immensely helpful and communities such as this are very inspiring with regard to continuing to learn and improve, but if I had never "discovered" FPs, I'd still be plugging away with my Uniball Vision Elite rollerball.

[Pterodactylus]

Difficult question.

 

When you are 7-8 years old and get your first fountain pen in school I think the tool is more interesting than the handwriting.

I don't remember it anymore but I guess it was like this.

 

As my handwriting was always ugly (as I'm a lefty which was forced to write with the right hand) and I was told this will be always the case, I was never interested in handwriting other than to write at least somehow readable for others and myself.

 

But I was always interested in FP's in school mainly because of the many different ink color cartridges (Pelikan 4001).

 

I always preferred FP's over other writing instruments (ok I had also some BP phases but came always back to FPs).

 

Recently I discovered my interest in improving my handwriting, flex pens were the trigger for this and I discovered that it is also for such a hopeless case like me possible to improve.

 

But to discover this finding took me more than 35 years FP usage.

[humsin]

interest in dip pen ----> interest in fountain pen -----> handwriting -----> fountain pen usage

[Raths]

I have always had terrible handwriting (as well as spelling). Then computers came along and neither seemed to matter much. Now that I'm getting older and journal a LOT, I realized that my handwriting was still very poor. I decided to improve on that and found this and a few other sites. This site reminded me of the fountain pen I used back in high school. Now my handwriting has improved a bit, and I have the fountain pen to thank for it (no help with the spelling tho )!

 

Raths

[Edwaroth]

My interest started when I moved from first to second grade. We received a list of school supplies to buy:three hole paper, binder, #2 pencils, a pink eraser, fountain pen and cartridges...that sort of thing. I loved going to pick out all the cool stuff at the local stationery store, I was fascinated...I still carry that child-like fascination when shopping for pens and paper. It was a special time in my life when we learned cursive writing. So it was both the pens and the writing for me.

Edited April 23, 2013 by Edwaroth

[nakiana]

The fountain pens definitely came first.

[Ron Z]

Fountain pens. I've never had an interest in hand writing or the quality thereof, which is quite evident to anyone who's seen mine.

[stevekolt]

Dad always had a plethora of writing instruments about the house. Cursive was a graded subject for me as well. For the last 20-30 years, I am ashamed to admit that I printed everything but my signature. In my defense though, my printing is very good, and most of the folks at our outpatient clinic prefer that I write the prescriptions, and have the attending M.D. sign them. Since getting into FP's, I have again been writing cursive, and begun keeping a journal. I get a lot of compliments regarding my script especially since I am a southpaw, and it seems that the bar for cursive script for lefty's must be set a bit lower.

[Shangas]

Neither.

 

It was history that did it. I love history. I find it fascinating. It rules my world. I enjoy fountain pens because they are a link to history.

[inotrym]

Believe it or not, it was my interest in ink!

My dad received a FP kit as a gift. The box included a bottle of Quink Black.

I liked the idea of a bottle of ink and a refillable pen. I started using a parker frontier just to be able to refill from the bottle.

 

Years later, I discovered that ink does not only come in black!!

Edited April 23, 2013 by inotrym

[bitterwonder]

In third grade, we had to learn to write and we had to use a fountain pen.

[WaskiSquirrel]

I had to learn cursive starting in second grade. I hated handwriting. The practice was deathly dull to me. I still write cursive, but I am totally indifferent to the artistry of handwriting.

 

However, in 4th grade, my parents got a pen catalogue in the junk mail and I fell in love with the fountain pens. I purchased a Parker Vector with my allowance. That was my pen until I bought a Cross as a senior in high school.

[Horseknitter]

I, like my mother, have a fluid yet even penmanship and I attribute that to small muscle dexterity which contributes to other skills.

 

Yet it was not until seventh grade penmanship class under Miss Secrest that I learned to enjoy fountain pens, actually Shaffer cartridge pens. There I saw what fp contributed to my handwriting. So unlike most of the rest penmanship preceded quality instruments.

 

Thanks for asking! :clap1:

[Freddy]

Elementary Darwinism...the Fountain Pen..Of course..Yup

that's the ticket..besides.. that is all we had in mid-twentieth

century..

 

Fred

 

You Can Never Tell...... .....Chuck Berry

[RJJ]

Like many, I had to have a fountain pen in grade school and penmanship was graded - not a good grade for me. My mother gave me a pen and it sat there for awhile. I couldn't keep pens due to losing them. I cured myself by buying increasingly better ones until I made sure I kept track of it. After ballpoints to roller balls I graduated to fountain pens.

 

My handwriting still sucks....but I will be working on it.

[ISW_Kaputnik]

Handwriting, but then, I didn't really discover fountain pens until I was already middle-aged.

 

Quite a while back I'd gotten into the habit of printing most of the time when I wasn't typing, and I was mixing in printed capitals when I did write cursive. This bothered me for a number of reasons, mostly because it was disturbing to be losing such a basic skill. I started making an effort to use cursive more often, and to relearn the proper way of doing all the letters. At some point I discovered the greater ease of writing with rollerballs. I went along happily with those for a while, then tried fountain pens. Now I wish I'd tried them much earlier.

 

I'm not interested in doing "calligraphy", for the most part, although when the time comes to do Christmas and birthday cards, I break out the italic nibs, go slowly, and try to add a little character to what I write. I admire Spencerian script and copperplate without having any interest in pursuing them; I just want to write cursive which meets normal standards of legibility, and believe that most of the time I do. Even that requires constant practice, however; I was close to losing it once, and don't want to lose it again. I kept journals in ballpoint and rollerball for years, but fountain pens give me a little extra incentive to sit down and start writing on any given day.

[N2theBreach]

Hard to say, really. Learned both printing and cursive before the third grade. Four years later our entire class got intensive remedial cursive boot camp from a frustrated 7th grade teacher.

 

I wasn't exactly enamored with cursive, but I did appreciate exquisite handwriting, and casually tried to improve mine.

 

It wasn't until I got my 2nd FP that I began actively trying to improve it (there was a 40-plus year gap between fountain pen #1 and fountain pen #2).

 

So, I guess my answer is fountain pens came first but there were 40 years of prep work.

[LionofdiSouth]

Fountain pens came first for me, i still need to improve some more on my handwriting