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Thoughts On A Pen For School..."


Alexmw777

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So I am getting a new pen at the end of the coming semester and was wondering if anyone could help point my indecision in the right direction.

I'm torn completely between the rose gold Diamond 580 and the clear Vac 700.

I'll be using it primarily in a school environment and think that the #6 nib of the 700 would make replacement not such a big deal in the case of damage, and it's higher ink capacity would be useful for copious amounts of note taking.

However, the rose gold 580 is very very attractive, but lacks that fantastic sloshing ink trait of the 700. It has a smaller #5 nib and smaller ink capacity, but is by no means lacking in functionality. I'm only a tad bit worried about the gold plating being damaged or it seeming too gaudy. All in all it is more aesthetically pleasing than the 700, and it strikes me as a romantic design embodying modern functional appeal to classical elegance. It makes more of a "fashion statement" per se.

 

Does anyone have both a 580 and 700? Any thoughts on which I should get or which would be best for my purposes?

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Just my opinion

IMHO, BLING attracts attention, of the wrong kind.

You have to be very careful that someone does not steal the pen.

San Francisco Pen Show - August 28-30, 2020 - Redwood City, California

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I hate to say it as there a far nicer pens out there. But Nothing beats one of the Parker's from the Jotter/Vector/Reflex/Frontier/I.M./Urban for school use as I learnt it the hard way loosing my Sonnet at uni. Do obliviously buy a nice pen to use at home choose a proper pen e.g. you can find pens such as the Waterman Expert, Parker Sonnets Cross Century II or even a Pelikan M200 for the same money as these plastic TWISBI things. You have probably more than enough exams on the horizon to give you enough opportunities to use your better pen at home e.g. for revision etc.. without risking it at school.

Edited by top pen
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Just my opinion

IMHO, BLING attracts attention, of the wrong kind.

You have to be very careful that someone does not steal the pen.

Exactly!

I carry around my LAMY 2000 in high school and its the perfect pen in every way for me.

Its an XF and not wet so the size is perfect for small smooth extremely fast cursive and mathematics. All my e's and a's are legible, as well as my exponents and fractions.

The finish is super durable. The material doesn't get any fingerprints or smudges. You can look around for photos... scratches show up very very faintly.

The pen doesn't look super expensive and attracts very little attention if any. My teacher thought it was a marker?! But the craftsmanship and engineering is amazing.

The clip is a spring loaded one so clipping is so much easier than all my other pens to my shirt.

The cap is a slip cap. For some reason the cap is next to impossible to accidentally open. I have the pen clipped to my thermal (long tshirt) at the neck collar. There is no pocket... if for some crazy reason the pen opens the pen will ... drop through my shirt ..!

But thats NEVER happened in 2 years! I run everyday 2 miles to school ... downhill racing sometimes ... jumping.. etc. The pen is always there in my neck collar.

 

I do own a TWSBI 580. I got it at the end of summer vacation to be my school workhorse. I thought it was an inexpensive and perfectly adequate alternative to my LAMY... durable, piston filler, XF nib.

I was wrong. The nib is a nail. I have fixed up and adjusted pens before and I have a 30x Belomo (35$) loupe so the tines were perfectly aligned. I took the nib, feed, section apart and ultrasonic cleaned it. I flushed it many times .. tried3 of my favorite inks. It was just so mediocre. I wrote like crazy for a week to "break it in" "smooth it out" .... before I gave it to my brother. I pick it up every now and then to write and feel it... I don't miss it.

The engineering of the pen is really nice to look at. But it feels blocky, and the craftsmanship feels cheap. Its nothing like screwing my Sheaffer's, Pelikan and Sailor pens.. or holding them and feeling them.

I also dislike the balance. Its feels back heavy.

 

Like he said earlier... you don't want attention for a daily writer. It will get very annoying after the first few times... and you'll be very scared and uneasy when people are staring at it. It wont happen often but its like having a pack of gum. Your friends will get distracted and beg for it.

 

I own a few pens and I have learned what I like and don't like to carry and use to school.

 

-I am reluctant with using screw caps but they are acceptable. I carry pens in my pocket or in a leather sleeve... in my pocket. (except my LAMY 2000). Depending on the pen ... its not unusual for the cap to unscrew. My Eversharp Skyline and Sheaffer Touchdown do it a few times a day. I always have to check to tighten it extra securely if I want to try to avoid that. But its annoying. I prefer just to cap it and hear that click than to screw and screw and reassure myself.

-Fine or XF nibs. My medium Sheaffer and Fine Eversharp are super fun to write with! Their not thick at all but I have to write noticeably bigger and use more alot more space. Mathematics... forget it.

-Durability. Carrying my Sailor 1911m or my Pelikan M400 is very nerve racking. I've only done it once for each of them. I've heard their not fragile pens... that they can survive drops, stresses, damage etc. but I feel I cant afford a scratch on them. These pens are so shiny and mesmerizing. If I dropped the nib.... The cost of replacing a nib for my Pelikan would be 135$? 100 for my Sailor?

 

Older pens can be cheaper than a modern production alternative. I paid 30$ for my 50' Sheaffer Touchdown (plunger filler, 14k triumph nib) that was restored. All I had to do was adjust the nib.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by xTwiinKy
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Pelikan 215. It has a metal body and not too blingy - virtually impossible to break. Greater ink capacity than a Lamy 2k and a nicer nib. The problem with the Lamy is that it has a very small sweet spot and that can make it difficult to write fast.

 

Erick

Using right now:

Visconti Voyager 30 "M" nib running Birmingham Streetcar

Jinhao 9019 "EF" nib running Birmingham Railroad Spike

Stipula Adagio "F" nib running Birmingham Violet Sea Snail

Sailor Profit "B" nib running Van Dieman's Night - Shooting Star

 

 

 

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It depends on how respectful the school environment is and how much of a deal YOU make out of the pen. If you just uncap it and set to writing in a business-as-usual manner, it's likely that most people will never notice it. I write with an assortment of instruments throughout the day, ranging from my Sheaffer Targa, to my Snorkel Sentinel, and even to my really nice 51 Vac (16k gold cap; the pen's out for filler repair at the moment though). No one in uni really notices since I don't flaunt it. I just uncap, write, cap, put away, and move along through the day.

Calculating.

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I used fountain pens throughout college... I'm not sure anyone ever even took notice other than a professor I was meeting with.

http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/606/letterji9.png
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I believe that Lamys, a Pelikan Future or current productions Cross or Parker would be more appropriate to use for everyday note taking.

 

Cartridge/converter fillers have less capacity than a piston filler, this might seem like an inconvenience, but it guarantees pens rotation. Using fountain pens of various shapes is a good way to avoid muscles fatigue and cramps.

 

The pens you mention could very well attract unwelcome attention to themselves, and, by extension, their owner and his stuff.

 

They sound wonderful for homework and letter writing.

Is it fair for an intelligent and family oriented mammal to be separated from his/her family and spend his/her life starved in a concrete jail?

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I have a number of more expensive fountain pens, but for your stated situation it would be hard to beat a Lamy (Safari or Al-Star) or TWSBI. I own a lot of Lamy's and a good number of TWSBI's, and like the TWSBI nibs better than the Lamy. Also, a TWSBI 580 holds a generous amount of ink. Plus their screw on nib replacements, and ink bottles just complete the package. Don't get me wrong, I love my Montblanc, Pelikan , Edison, etc. pens, but in your scenario, TWSBI or Lamy would be hard to beat.

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Hi,

 

I do think a Lamy is a good idea as well. I really like my ABC, but there are some others like the Nexx, Safari, and Al Star that might be nice choices as well.

 

Dillon

Stolen: Aurora Optima Demonstrator Red ends Medium nib. Serial number 1216 and Aurora 98 Cartridge/Converter Black bark finish (Archivi Storici) with gold cap. Reward if found. Please contact me if you have seen these pens.

Please send vial orders and other messages to fpninkvials funny-round-mark-thing gmail strange-mark-thing com. My shop is open once again if you need help with your pen.

Will someone with the name of "Jay" who emailed me through the email system provide me an email address? There was no email address provided, so I can't write back.

Dillon

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Well as of right now I bring a Lamy Safari and Vista to school daily, the F Safari with black and the M Vista with red. I was looking to get something a bit nicer.

 

As for the TWSBIs, everyone seems to either hate them or adore them, I have seen little in between... It's quite off-putting. But yes, I have had my eye on the Lamy 2k for a while, but man these two TWSBIs just seem so cool.

 

And as for my school, it's a relatively well discipled school and I'm not worried about it being stolen so much as it giving a pretentious image...

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There are a couple of things you could try to weigh in on, but I really think either choice would be a nice change from the Lamys, even though they are wonderful entry pens.

 

Personally, I would go for the 700.

 

-It holds a lot more ink, which is always nice if you're a student and have to write a lot of notes throughout the day

-It's easier to clean. I don't own either pen, but I have tried cleaning both piston fillers and vacuum fillers, and I've always thought the vacuum fillers were a bit easier, mostly because you don't have to constantly screw a piston knob to flush the pen

-It's $5 cheaper than the Rose Gold 580 if you're buying from Gouletpens which , in my mind, is another 5 dollars to spend towards my goal of owning 10 trillion bottles of ink (since I impulse buy (bleep) tons of inks that I want without thinking of whether or not I'll actually use them often enough to justify a purchase :D )

-It's nicer for serial pen posters because you're much less likely to end up accidentally unscrewing a piston knob and getting ink all over

-It's a bigger pen, which I always find to be more comfortable as a person with large hands

 

Of course, there is always the small issue of the feed drying up due to the stopper on the vacuum chamber, but there are a bunch of videos/FPN posts on how to fix this easily.

“I say, if your knees aren’t green by the end of the day, you ought to seriously re-examine your life.”-Calvin

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All I'm going to say is your really trying to find the perfect balance in features.

Some people love and collect lots of Japanese pens (Sailors for example). Sailor pens have a really small converter capacity. 0.7ml compared to ... 1.5+ for Pelikans, TWSBI 580. Most piston/vac fillers hold more than a mL.

Their pretty simple in parts. You have a screw out hollow barrel ... and you have regular screw threads. My LAMY has ?spring pads? that hold the front section of the pen on three sides in the cap.

But people love theirs and that's their go to pen. I've heard their nibs are amazing. When I was at my B&M store .. the lady said Sailor makes the best nibs. Of course thats subjective ... and generalized...but it alludes to one aspect of the pen people love.

 

On the other hand... some people love their TWSBI. I dont think anyone can say it feels luxurious or made with an unbelievably high amount of care and craftsmanship. I see injection molded marks and when I got it the threads had an issue... that went away somehow. I would also assume that for them the nib doesn't surpass the experience of much more expensive pens. But their nice solid appealing pens that fill up with a lot of ink and puts nice smooth lines down on paper with no issues. And a lot of people love theirs... they have it as their daily writers.

 

For me I learned early on that I was sick of my LAMY safari's balance, weight and apperence. I bought a LAMY studio but now I was sick of the ink capacity and filling mechanism. I got a LAMY 2000....But when I had initial temporary issues with my nib... all its other features were irrelevant .. it was an unpleasant experience at first. My Eversharp had a great nib, balance, filling mechanism and appearance... but I didn't like the small ink capacity. My Pelikan M400 was great in every way except I didn't like the balance.. it was a bit too small for me.

You read about my experience with the TWSBI 580 above. I hate to generalize pens by their country/region of origin.. but it seems typical. The emphasis is on the value and engineering element.

Edited by xTwiinKy
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