Subjectivity corner: writing experience

[twigletzone]

12 hours ago, senzen said:

 

Comfort, needs to have a minimum diameter, seems to be at least 11mm

 

 

100% with you on that one. I had a Vector at school (8mm perfectly cylindrical section) which made my hand cramp if I used it for long periods.

[maclink]

For me, all the beauty, comfort in the hand, filling mechanism, ease of care fall flat if the basic utility requirements are not met:

- reliably puts down ink at a flow rate that allows for me to comfortably write text that’s legible for my needs. This will vary depending on the nib/feed|paper|Ink combination, as well as the context, leisure, vs professional situation requiring document proofing. 

 

At the moment, I’m finding my MB146 with a F nib and with MB permanent black makes for a nice writing experience at work. I get reliable performance, ink flow and line width with the paper I use at work. I also get the document proofing. I find the MB 146 to be extremely comfortable, very pleasant to my eyes, have a good ink capacity and is durable. 

 

I personally do not only stop at the basic requirements for writing.  I get that extra lift in experience if the pen is also very nice in design, appearance and build quality.  So I also love my Conid Minimalistica as well. 

 

I do prefer a touch of feedback with standard nib grinds since my hand-writing does improve. If I’m using a F or M stub grind then the line variation does improve my hand writing. I respond to the variation and pay a bit more attention to writing in a way that doesn’t stress me but quite the contrary. 

[MoriartyR]

An interesting and thought-provoking topic. If I think about the qualities that give me the most pleasure and satisfaction across all of my pens then I would say the following characteristics are what define the ideal writing experience for me. But I would caveat all this by saying that variety is also good and I enjoy too having some pens that are different, like sometimes a very smooth nib or a heavier pen for a change.

• A fairly smooth nib that gives gentle, powdery feedback like a 4B soft pencil is ideal
• Completely reliable ink flow and performance - never, ever hard-starts or skips, consistent flow, writes perfectly with the lightest touch, doesn’t dry out at all when capped for at least a month or uncapped for at least two minutes
• A true fine or extra-fine line but a wet enough flow to be easily legible
• Long, fine nib tines so that I can see exactly where the ink flows to the paper. A smaller sized nib is also preferable and feels more like a precision instrument
• A section that is not too wide gives me better control and makes the pen feel natural in my hand (e.g. Pelikan M800 is a touch too wide, Montblanc 149 feels really fat and clunky)
• A nib with some softness or spring is more pleasant to use
• Not back-weighted or heavy - lighter and balanced pens give more control - but I also want a feeling of solidity and robust build quality
• Pleasant-feeling, attractive materials - I like cellulose acetate, acrylic if it’s thick enough (preferably turned, not moulded), lacquered ebonite or lacquered metal
• A design that hangs together well and has some integrity as a whole. Doesn’t just appear to be a generic set of body, section and nib parts with a converter inside and are all screwed together to be a pen. Don’t know if that’s very clear but I see a lot of pens that just seem generic to me and having a pretty colour doesn’t solve that
• Something additional about the pen that makes it memorable, special or unique - could be engineering, design, material, or whatever

Do I have any pens that offer ALL of these characteristics? I think my Aurora Internazionales and my Scribo Feels give me all of it. My Montblanc Heritage 1912s don’t have the long tines and are heavier, but make up for it with the joy of the engineering and the small, extra soft nibs. My Namiki Yukari Royale has a smoother and larger nib than ideal for me, and is heavier and a little too broad in the section, but it is so beautiful, pure, perfectly conceived, and impeccable in performance. For me these pens are all equal and the best I have, because of the experience they offer.

 

[Bo Bo Olson]

I'll use an other's  to keep me on line.

"""that the pen is comfortable to hold/write with (even if not posted;")"

 

I prefer balance, which outside the thin snorkel and perhaps the second long thinning body version of the P-45; I seldom find in large pen; in I'm looking for light and nimble also.

So medium-small like a Pelikan 140, Geha 760 such pens were very In in the '50-60's.

Standard like an Estie, P-75 or 200/400, Geha 790 or my MB234 1/2.

Medium-large like the P-51, the thin Geha 725, Pelikan 600 or grand medium-large vintage 146**. Some vintage Osmia's can be had in all those sizes......

They all had to have great balance back in the day of One Man, One Pen, bought every 7-10 years.....or some other company's well balanced pen was bought instead.....a horrible catastrophe....a customer could be lost for the rest of his life.. A user wrote hours at a time back in then, they were not large note taking bling at a conference table.

PFM was the first clunker that was so heavily advertised and sold poorly. I'd never seen one back in the day of the '60-70's.

Large bling pens did save fountain pens....I must have 10-12 Large pens...that crept into my pen collection.

 

What I don't like is folks who for religious grounds who refuse to post a standard sized pen......and then complain it is too small........only when not posted.

There are some very good posters here who don't post standard pens.....but they don't complain the pen is too small.

 

Those vintage pens have Great Balance in they were made before the era of large clunky pens.....(Large thin pens that work posted are the Pelikan Celebry and 381's. one gets use to them quickly)

 

**The large 146 is lighter and nimbler than expected but don't quite make it as a first grab pen. It posts well enough.

 

 

""""The pen starts writing immediately - or at most one dry stroke - even if stored nib up (capped of course) for several days."""

(I often have up to 17 pens inked so here and there a pen will sit some weeks and I do expect to dip it in a damp rubber sponge cup or a shot glass.)  But expect the two pens in my two holder pen stand to write always....or any other pen in my pen cup that was inked that week. ......well, some folks have pens that write right off the bat after months............

 

I have been very lucky it seems in my old vintage, semi-vintage and the few flag ships of course has consistent ink flow.  I don't even have to think about it.

 

I do have a few modern butter smooth nibs.....can't help in when buying some of the modern top pens.......but I'm not grabbing those pens all the time.

 

"""writing is smooth, with just a bare touch of feedback when using relatively inexpensive paper (HP24).....90g, laser preferred, laser&ink jet is a compromise but some like Southworth are ok.

That tad of feedback, is the level under butter smooth.....what nibs use to be before fat and blobby modern over polished nibs came in. Butter smooth is not good on slick papers like Clairfontain Triumph or Rhoda; the nib tends to slide. Good on poor paper though.

 

I do have enough good to better papers that are not slick.............one does need a small paper library. I suggest buying a ream or box of good to better paper with every three inks..............do as I tell ya, not like I did....which was pens....then inks and finally papers.....one can miss a lot of good dancing of nib, ink on paper.

 

But of course.......reliable - no leaks, burps, etc......I do have a '30's Safety Pen...............Conklin came in with it's use a dime to squeese the rubber sac and Shaffer the lever in 1912,,,,,,,,,,,,unless one lives in super hot and humid, jungle areas that rotted rubber real fast......that is where an Eye dropper survived for that reason.

Some folks want to have a world of ink in one pen, and complain when Eye droppers burp...............if one has two pens a no problem....

 

I don't like nails nor semi-nails.

I have learned to really like the springy soft riding regular flex....called soft in Japanese pens. Great for shading inks.

I like semi-flex which is a flair pen.....not a slow to write nib abusing calligraphy pen. I have 35-40 of them.....best and more affordable is the German 1950-70 ones.

Only buy an oblique from that era, if you want better line variation.

Regular flex, one has to really hunt for line variation in oblique.....take a big magnifying glass and a can of patience.

Nails have NO line variation at all much less in Oblique.

 

[Anne-Sophie]

1. Looks

 

Over the years, FPN has provided a seemingly endless opportunity to see new fountain pen of all price range from all over the world.

 

I fell for probably a dozen of pen designs.

 

2. Comfort

 

I don't post, unposted pen need to be modern school pen length,  I have a narrow tolerance for grip width and I can 't stand sharp steps between the pen body and the grip.

 

3. Great writer

 

Easy to fill pens, smooth starters, lay a nice rich line, available in European Bold nib or bigger.

 

4. Modern pens

 

 

Sometimes looks are only impaired by comfort to move from the want to the buy.   

 

When the Pelikan Cities Serie came out, I wanted a couple of them very badly, I tried them on at a store and they were too thin.

 

At a pen show, after the 05, silver furniture was introduced, I tried all the Pelikan line for size. No matter their beauty, the ease to have a piston filler as a daily writer, none of the grips were comfortable.

 

Years ago, I bought 4 Bexley Fun Time, beautiful pens made of swirly acrylic, no two were alike, I could not decide which one to get.

 

They were not very expensive and I had lot of fun with them. A couple of years ago, the grip became too thin, to hold comfortably.

 

At the time, the only fun color pens were smaller and I also bought a couple of Taccia pens, which I also enjoyed until they started not to work well. 

 

Both the Bexley Fun Time and the Taccia are back in their respective boxes and I enjoy looking at them from time to time.

 

I just got the idea of setting up the Fun Times on my desk inside inkwells for quick note taking. 

[Bo Bo Olson]

Wow...some of the city series is thicker at least in the middle than the regular medium-large 600, which for me has a very good girth....like my MB234 1/2, which is perhaps my thickest standard sized pen.

 

Growing up with standard and medium-large pens, didn't care for the thin pens like a Targa.....and it seems don't give enough thought to folks that actually think medium-large is way too narrow.

What one uses at the start does matter, like those who start with narrow nibbed Japanese nibs......over miss-marked Euro nibs.

[Anne-Sophie]

30 minutes ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

Wow...some of the city series is thicker at least in the middle than the regular medium-large 600, which for me has a very good girth....like my MB234 1/2, which is perhaps my thickest standard sized pen.

 

Growing up with standard and medium-large pens, didn't care for the thin pens like a Targa.....and it seems don't give enough thought to folks that actually think medium-large is way too narrow.

What one uses at the start does matter, like those who start with narrow nibbed Japanese nibs......over miss-marked Euro nibs.

 

I have followed your posts very, very carefully, over the years, especially before going to a pen show and at a store.

 

I learned from you the difference between nib width in Japanese and Euro pens.

 

Ah! The Targa, cute colors but way, way, way too thin.

I really like the No-Nonsense, perfect pen.

 

Something funny, one of my No-Nonsense (older model) is the same color as one of my Danitrio, both medium, both filled with Saguaro Wine, the Danitrio is wider than the No-Nonsense which gives me such a slim medium line, it might as well be a fine.

 

I am looking for No-Nonsense older model bold nibs.

 

[ISW_Kaputnik]

Part of a good writing experience may be that I don't think about the pen at all for a while, but only about what I'm writing.  If I were writing with a particularly un-smooth ballpoint, for example, I'd probably be noticing the extra pressure I had to use, and the dull look of the ink.  If I'm writing with a fountain pen that I'm really comfortable with, it just seems natural, and I think about the words most of the time.  Perhaps I think that the richer look of the ink, and the little flourishes and unintended bits of line variation and shading make those words seem more elegant than is actually the case.

 

Smoothness enters into this, of course, and the ease of manipulating the pen.  I tend to favor pens that are both lighter and slimmer than many people seem to prefer, but that's hardly a constant.  I know that some like pens with some heft, and with more substantial diameters than feels comfortable to me.  Pens that are too finicky, say with a very small sweet spot for the nib, can be a distraction.  On principle I prefer a pen that feels comfortable to me when posted; I don't like setting the cap to one side or holding it in my non-writing hand, but once I'm actually writing with it, that's not really part of the writing experience.  And reliability of course.  I have some vintage pens that are lovely to write with, but may hiccup ink occasionally, and don't travel well.

 

In the ten years or so that I've been using fountain pens,(yes, I know, some of you have been using them all your lives 😎 ) I've had different favorites at different times, and might not give the same ones even within a couple of weeks of each other.  Of the ones I have inked now, though, I'd mention the Pilot Custom Heritage 91 (pretty much interchangeable with the 92, except for the different filling system, and I like them about equally).  I have both the 91 and 92 with Pilot's "Fine-Medium" nibs, which is about my perfect size for general writing.  Also a Namiki (Pilot) Falcon with a "Soft Medium" nib, which gives a little interesting line variation without really trying.  And the no longer made Parker 180, "Fine / Broad" nib (you flip it around 180º to alternate) which I got only about 6 months ago, but has been almost constantly inked since then.  It's a very slim pen, slimmer than most of my ballpoints and any of my other fountain pens.  I like that, others don't.  

[Bo Bo Olson]

Thank you Anne-Sophie

In the American market, a very long time ago, Shaffer was the thin nib, Parker the wider.

 

I once had a Japanese made Shaffer, that had a thin nail nib "even for" a Shaffer. The pen was good in the hand, but I dislike nails, so I sold it. I really didn't have much idea of thin Japanese nibs; in most of the thin nib wars was with a Waterman vs the Pelikan having screw out nibs.

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It is natural to grow to like pens that one originally didn't. One grows in experience, or one finds there are many well balanced pens, that look dissimilar.

 

My MB 234 1/2, was ugly.......hadn't gotten Lambrou's book, and found out it was a sleeker design of the old 139 (...of which I'd no idea of at all, knowing only the 146-9.).....the pen having  brass guts, and was medium-wide instead of 'standard' width of a normal standard width. That felt odd to me.

The pen sat around in probably a tin box that far back. It is not ugly any more....once I found out what it was designed to be.....a pen for those who didn't care for cigar shaped MB's.  And considered sleek; in it's day.

 

Back when I was a 20 pen newbie, I decided to do a balance test.

The MB semi-flex KOB nib had put it in contention. The thicker girthed  than standard, standard sized MB won, to my surprise.

Second was a sleek classic thin medium-long Geha 725....the nib put it ahead of the standard  P-75. The P-75 is light for a silver pen. 4th was a standard width, medium-long 400nn. Each different.

 

Today, I don't have the year to try that test again.....I must have 20 top ten pens.....10 top five.

 

 

[Gerebeer]

At the end of the day, for me a good writing experience is what makes or brakes a fountain pen experience.

 

Out of the box, the Pelikan M805 and M815 with a F nib are a dream to write with on high quality and normal office paper. They are my everyday fountain pens. 

Edited January 30, 2021 by Gerebeer

[peroride]

On 1/26/2021 at 4:44 AM, twigletzone said:

What are your top three "best writing experience" pens, and why?

Totally subjective, but the key characteristic for me is that the pen/nib/feed gets out of the way and writes by itself at extreme speeds: fast or slow writing. It feels like someone or some other force is writing like playing with a Ouija board.

 

This can be had with nib expert adjusted nibs, or affordable pens like Platinum Preppy F, Lamy Safari, etc. Other favored characteristics:  wet not dry, smooth not rough, has feedback, soft over stiff, and variation over monoline, pen balance/hand feel.

 

but "best"... 🤔

 

Ink and paper can change things but here are some that clicked for me

• Waterman 52 EF wet noodle with Waterman's Absolute Brown - indescribable expression of line variation without flexing just writing normally.
• Sailor King of Pen M with Sailor Jentle Sky Blue or Souboku Pigmented - best feeling of wet with feedback
• Pelikan M800 Grand Place unknown M stub with Akkerman 18 Garuda Rood - this literally writes itself. This is the Ouija Board pen, it is scary.👻 My better half agrees too and yet has a different writing style.

Others that are best too, and can sometimes rise above depending on mood

• Other vintage flex: Sheaffer #5 flat top EF , Waterman's 52, 12 POC, 5, etc
• Parker 51
• Conid Kingsize with Bock 8 Titanium F stub - just a touch too heavy
• Pilot Custom Urushi #50 M - MF is better, almost top 3 but again bit too large
• Scribo Feel F 14K flex - wet and juicy 
• Any other known modified nibs

[twigletzone]

On 1/30/2021 at 7:59 PM, Anne-Sophie said:

 

I am looking for No-Nonsense older model bold nibs.

 

Good luck - you don't see them often. I spent several months combing ebay for vintage NoNonsense at one point and I think I saw a B maybe once. I'd love one too if I could get it - I remember some of the kids at school having NoNonsenses with gigantic spheres of tipping, which must have been a B - my current one is NOS and has standard tipping rather than the ball, it writes on the fine side of medium.