Six Years Of Hard Use Later - A Combined Review Of A Great Many Fountain Pens (Including Sailor, Pelikan, Aurora, Lamy, Pilot, And More)

November 26, 2013

I hope you don't mind if I disagree with much of what you've written.

This is entirely different than saying your review is worthless: on the contrary the text and the photos do a terrific job explaining why you are drawn to/repelled by certain pens. The time you spent considering and writing the review makes the time spent reading and responding well worth it.

gary

ps-the oversize review is also well done.

Thanks. But isn't that the thing with these pens? From a certain point onwards, each review is entirely subjective. We each probably have a different ideal pen, and using a pen at length, and comparing it to others, allows us to decode not only the objective qualities of a pen, but also the preferences of the reviewer.

The bigger the better (and the more the merrier)!

I'd love to see your opinions in a mega-review!

November 30, 2013

So about six years ago, I fell for fountain pens hand and spent way too much time lurking around this board, and ordering pens. Then I decided this forum was bad for my pocketbook and left. Besides, I had like 10 fountain pens by that point, which seemed like plenty.

But I came back to this forum (partially to research a celebratory gift on the occasion of my girlfriend's doctorate) - and I thought it might be a good time to pass on a few thoughts on some of these pens after six years of constant use.

The first thing: I have discovered that there is a *very great difference* between my initial sensual delight in a pen's nib, and which pens end up being really pleasant to use, in all sorts of daily situations, in the long run. Many of the pens I was most impressed with at first ended up being annoying to use in the rest of life. And some pens which I wasn't at first impressed with became, eventually, perfectly melded extensions of my hand and my soul.

It might be good to note: I'm a pretty hard user of these pens. I'm an academic, and I handwrite all my first drafts, so I'm often writing for 6 or 7 hours, day after day, sometimes 20 or 30 pages in a sitting. I also write an all kinds of stuff, not just my own nice notebook. Student papers. Other people's drafts. Handouts. Backs of menus. I also draw.

So I've discovered that the following qualities are things I need in my pens:

1. I like feedback, but not too much. There is a certain sensual pleasure to pens which makes the writing experience deeper, but if the sensation is too great, then it interferes with my ability to actually get absorbed in the thinking and the writing. (This is for writing. For drawing, especially for sketching people/landscapes, when you're looking away from the paper, lots of feedback is vita for me.)

2. Paper adaptability. Some pens are extraordinary on nice paper, but, like I said, I'm an academic. I need to mark-up student papers. I comment on my colleague's drafts. I write on handouts. I scribble on the back of flyers when arguing with people in bars. Half the time I'm writing on cheap legal pads I grab from the departmental utility closet.

3. Weird practical stuff: like I eventually discovered that one of the most important things about a pen is that it NOT ROLL OFF THE TABLE, and that I can just put it down without thinking about it and have it be OK. And clip strength is really important if you end up running after trains a lot. And… etc. etc. etc.

4. If you, like I do, do a lot of writing on trains, on busses, standing up, and in other situations, you need a pen that posts easily. (For some reason, trying to slip a pen cap into a pocket never really worked for me.)

So, in the spirit of perhaps providing some assistance to people who have similar needs as I do, and in the spirit of Giving Back to the Community, my Long Run Review of my pens:

Pelikan M605, fine: This is the pen I have the greatest attachment too, that I use the least. On good paper, when I'm paying attention, it's silky and pleasurable and wonderful. But it's all the practical stuff that gets in the way. The nib is fussy. On some paper it turns scratchy. On other paper it spills way too much ink. Posted, the cap is a bit wobbly and it threatens to fall off. Unposted, whenever I put it down, it's so round and frictionless that it'll roll off a table in a moment. This Pelikan is the girl I have a massive crush on, but we can just NEVER MAKE IT WORK when we try to live together.

Lamy 2000, fine: This is the opposite of the Pelikan. I don't love the way the pen feels - it's not the warm resin stuff. I don't love the way the nib writes - it always feels a little soulless and cold and a little bit scratchy. But it's such a utilitarian pen. It handles every kind of paper, and writes in almost the same dependable way. (This is really important for grading, because a lot of students turn in their work on really terrible paper.) It posts solidly. It's a *workhorse*. I ended up using it constantly.

Or, at least it was. I used and abused it so much, that the cap started getting loose, and the pen would slip out once in a while. One day I was running after the train in the snow and I think the pen, hold in the front pocket under the flap of my messenger bag, wiggled itself loose and must have bounced out. A warrior's death.

Lamy Safari, M: Another workhorse, and a little more insensitive than the Lamy 2000, which makes it less of an art-pleasure object, but actually easier to use on cheap paper, which makes it an excellent grading pen. Everything about it - the clip, the lightness, the indestructibility - makes it solid. It doesn't roll off desks. Long after I acquired supposedly far better pens, this thing sees constant and regular use. Not good to write with for really long, long periods of time, though.

Danitrio, the basic fat one that costs $60, medium: an excellent pen, an excellent nib for the price, and smooth. Too smooth almost. It feels a little soulless, this nib. It works on everything, but I don't use this pen so much.

Sailor 1911L, medium: God, this is a fantastic pen. It feels good, it handles a lot of paper well, it's expressive, it's soulful, it's dependable. This is one of the *primo pens*, and one of the ones I always bring along with me when I need to write straight for hours. When I pay attention to it, it's pleasurable. When I'm thinking about my writing, it vanishes. It glides effortlessly. The balance is perfect. I've written for 9 hours straight with this thing in frenzied days of work. Glorious. There are other pens I've used that have more sensually complex nibs, or more expressive ones, but not ones that I can write with for hours without cramping up. If I could have only one pen, it might be this one.

Sailor 1911L, fine: A beautiful and much more finicky pen than the medium nib. On good paper, it's incredible experience. On bad paper, it's not only scratchy, but it doesn't put down ink evenly. It's toothliness makes it a little tiring to write with, if you're writing for hours. So it can't be an everyday pen, for me. But it's the best drawing pen I have. Precise, expressive, delicate. I draw so much better with this thing than anything else I have. And it's perfect for marginal notes. And for writing tiny in a tiny nice notebook. And...

Aurora Talentum, fine: This is the other candidate for my absolute favorite pen. It's so pleasantly toothy. It's got such soul. The contact with the paper is conscious. It's very conscious, and alive. But yet, somehow, I can actually write for hours with this thing, if the paper's of at least decent quality. It reminds me of driving a BMW - a tight, high-road-contact, highly controlled ride. Also, for those reasons, an excellent sketching pen. Also: for all its tooth, it actually can handle a lot of paper. It's toothy, but not as finicky as one might have expected.

Omas something I forget, a cartridge pen, medium: The nib on this pen is so smooth and glide-y that it actually cramps up my hand a little - it almost feels like I have to spend effort keeping it from skating over things. Glassy, maybe. Too smooth a ride, for me. Some things are just too classy.

Pilot Vanishing Point, medium: I got this almost as a joke - like, "Look! The Japanese made a clicky-fountain pen! How awesome!" But it turns out that this is the pen I actually use the most. So much of my life involves interrupted writing - listening to lectures and taking notes, jotting notes on student papers, jotting down a fast idea. And it's not just the clickiness - it's that nib. And, though the nib isn't the most expressively sensual, it is extremely silkily pleasant and *almost as pleasant on almost any kind of paper*. It glides over even awful paper. And, given how often I'm constantly scribbling on somebody else' paper, this matters far more often than I would have thought. And, to my shock, despite the weight and the weird placement of the clip, I can actually write with this thing for hours. It's the balance.

This somehow turns out to be just the most relentlessly usable, and constantly sunny and pleasant, pen I have. It's what I use, like, 60% of the time. The Pilot Vanishing Point is the friend that I didn't have a crush, and we were just friends, and then we started hanging out all the time, and then I realized we were married.

Well, that's that. If it's useful to you, good. If somebody has any suggestions for any other pens I might enjoy, feel free to throw 'em my way. My current problem is that my only piston filler is not that usable for me, and all the pens I really use are converter fillers, and I can run through 2 or 3 converters full in a single all-writing day, so these days I have to roll with multiple pens just to keep in ink.