What Is The Best Low Cost Pen?

[Tweel]

The Pilot Permaball writes on virtually anything, including plastic and metal, but uses a very smooth liquid ink.

[tvradio]

 

Humpf... I have tried the complete Preppy collection: fountain pens with different nibs (very good especially when you love fine nibs), the marker (they are fine) and the brush (also fine). However, all Preppies are very cheap and very reliable.

I agree. But the OP was coming from a Space Pen and a gel pen and was in this non-FP forum asking about writing....

[NicolausPiscator]

I agree. But the OP was coming from a Space Pen and a gel pen and was in this non-FP forum asking about writing....

 

Jup, you are right... with my Space Pen I never had any writing problem up till now... and gel pens... I don't like them. There are so many well behaving low cost fountain pens which will transport wonderful ink on papers.

[tvradio]

So you're in the wrong forum then.

[Manalto]

I was gonna say...

 

The best low-cost (non FP) pen is the one you get for free, because if you don't like it you can leave it on a co-worker's desk. If you do, you can buy yourself a box of them. Every once in a while someone hands me a pen (non FP) and I think (or say), "Wow, this is nice" but haven't paid much attention to what brands they were. I like the variety and, for a signature on a credit card receipt, choose not to be fussy.

[tvradio]

I used to almost exclusively use 0.38mm and 0.4mm Pilot and Uni-ball gel pens, and when I carried them in a coat or cargo pants I'd often be paranoid and put them in a little baggie.

 

For much of my life I've written very tiny print and I am very comfortable doing it, though it's harder for me (and others) to decipher it all later. So for the last several months I have been straining to teach myself to write larger, and I moved myself up to 0.5mm then 0.7mm gel pens (pretty much all Uni-ball, I think) as part of my retraining process.

 

(Then I discovered fountain pens and went from EF and F Penmanships and Preppys to a M Metropolitan to broader M Jinhaos.)

 

I'm running low on my gel pens right now. The non-FP purchases sitting in my JetPens wishlist so far include:

• Uni-ball Signo 207 0.7mm green-black gel
• Uni-ball Signo Broad 1.0mm gel
• Pentel EnerGel Deluxe gel 1.0mm
• Pentel EnerGel Deluxe gel - Needle-Point - 0.7mm
• Ohto Graphic Liner Needle Point Drawing Pen - Pigment Ink - 03 - 0.7 mm
• Ohto Fude Ball Rollerball Pen - 1.5 mm

[Runnin_Ute]

I have seen it happen with fountain pens and it could happen with others is paper gets hand oils on it, and the pen skips. You can try putting a piece of scratch paper across the page to absorb those and it should help.

[lovemy51]

Bic Cristal!

[tvradio]

Best hand ache, best smearing, best leaking, best body cracking. Best pen for 5th graders.

[quattro98]

I still like fountain pens, but have found that I prefer other types of pens for carry at work and general use.

 

gel:

Uniball Signo 207 or 307 in 0.5 mm, not blobby like the 0.7 mm gel pens and reliable, the 307 writes on glossy papers and dries faster, these inks are very durable

 

Pilot Juice 0.5 mm, comes in colors that aren't available in the 307 (although the 207 BLX offers some nice choices), the coffee brown and blue black are nice

 

ballpoint:

Uniball Jetstream retractable 0.7 mm, writes smoothly, not blobby like the original Jetstream 1.0 that I tried when they first came out

 

rollerball:

Uniball Vision Elite 0.5 mm in blue black and brown black are great, but with the newest gel pens, like the Pilot Juice and Uniball 307, I get less feathering on office paper with the gel pens which now write as nicely as a rollerball on nicer paper, I am phasing out rollerballs

[ReadyFireAim]

Noodler's Creaper & PR Purple Mojo

[JD-Be]

Parker Jotter. You buy it once and it lasts for decades! refill only.

[Mech-for-i]

For me the best low cost pen is not a pen at all ; its a pencil ; specifically standard hexagonal wooden pencil 2B .. Coominf close 2nd would be those user customizable multi pens

[flatline]

If your only issue with the Fisher space pen was the ink globbing, then you should know that globbing is only an issue for their medium point refills. Their fine point refills do not glob and are more pleasant to write with since they require less pressure.

 

--flatline

[torstar]

Jinhao are good pens and will work perfectly with beginners who just want to dabble, probably forgetting they own a FP a few weeks later.

[tvradio]

Jinhao are good pens and will work perfectly with beginners who just want to dabble, probably forgetting they own a FP a few weeks later.

Except this is the non-fountain-pen forum....

[Conan the Grammarian]

Best cheap pen? Hmm. Depends on what you want out of it.

 

If you just want cheap, a PaperMate ball point does the job. If you want dark writing with some archival qualities, a Pilot G2 or Uni-ball 203 works. If you want stylish, a Tornado 51 is pretty (too thin at the grip area for me). Parker ball points loaded with the gel refills work great for dark writing, most papers, and can be pretty stylish. The ball points loaded with ball point refills work well, too.

 

Fountain pens are great, but require a commitment to maintenance and refilling, do not work well on certain papers, and can be pretty messy if not handled well.

 

Nicer pens with refills are not always cheap, however. At my local Office Depot, a Parker gel refill can run you twice (or more) what a new G2 will cost.

[torstar]

Except this is the non-fountain-pen forum....

 

a thousand pardons requested....

 

try the Bic Cristal Bold 1.6mm ballpoint pens.... never without two colours these days.

Edited March 2, 2018 by torstar

[Corona688]

try the Bic Cristal Bold 1.6mm ballpoint pens.... never without two colours these days.

I'm not sure "dead" is a color ;D Edited March 4, 2018 by Corona688

[IndigoBOB]

Ballpoints/Gel's:

 

Ooooh, I love Parker Jotters, but mainly under the condition that it's loaded with a Schmidt Easyflow 9000 M. BUT I tell you, I am not a fan of the all steel versions because they are more slippery. I like the ones with the Matte Bottom portion/section much much better. I tried the Oxford gray pinstripe version and it was terribly slippery compared to my Black/silver version I always have on my with an Easyflow refill

 

If you're looking for a great low cost pen, Pentel Energel Gel pens are fantastic. There's even an Alloy RT people like more than the Pilot G2 Limited. They impress me.

 

Rotring Tikky 3 doesn't seem so bad and it can fit a Schmidt Easyflow 9000 M or other parker style refills.

 

No fuss Fountain Pens:

Pilot Kakuno,

Pilot Metro

Lamy Safari

Wing sung 698

Platinum Preppy