Disposable Fountain Pens - Clabby - Review

[amberleadavis]

Disposable Fountain Pens are not my usual bailiwick, but I do use Pilot Varsity pens whenever I am attending a conference.  I can use them, they don't run dry, and I can afford to gift the pen (you know, enable them to become FP users too!).

 

So, when I saw these generic disposable FPs on Amazon - $12 for 12 pens, I thought I'd try them. Officially, the brand name is Clabby, but you don't see that name anywhere on the pens.  BTW, the price has dropped by a dollar!

 

.

 

So, the nib is a .5 mm which is too fine for my usual tastes, but hey, let's give it a try.

 

 

So, yes, I had to compare it to the Varsity.  The varsity is nicer.  

 

As a benefit, these pens were perfect for carbonless forms. I was able to fill out the forms and have the information be legible on the second sheet.

 

 

The pens did dry out when I left them uncapped for 5 minutes or more, but they started right up again without having to dip them in water.

 

For the price, these pens are acceptable.

[jburchett]

Interesting. Thanks for sharing

[amberleadavis]

33 minutes ago, jburchett said:

Interesting. Thanks for sharing

 

Thanks for reading!

[Tasmith]

Thank you for sharing, very tempting!  Personally I like .5mm.

[Pamp]

This is good to know! I have not heard of that particular brand. The price is nice, and these would be fun to have. Thanks for sharing.

 

Pam

https://anartfulmom.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anartfulmompam/

[amberleadavis]

3 hours ago, Pamp said:

This is good to know! I have not heard of that particular brand. The price is nice, and these would be fun to have. Thanks for sharing.

 

Pam

https://anartfulmom.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anartfulmompam/

[amberleadavis]

I don't think that's really the brand name, I think it is a distributor because I found other that were identical on Amazon, with the same pictures but some better worded copy.

[A Smug Dill]

Amber, is the nib on these pens supported by a short, fibrous wick protruding from the front end of the feed?

[Pamp]

16 minutes ago, amberleadavis said:

 

Thank you!!!

 

Pam

https://anartfulmom.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anartfulmompam/

[Sailor Kenshin]

Everyone stop tempting me! 😝

 

Thanks for the review, Amberlea.  👍🏻

[amberleadavis]

4 hours ago, Sailor Kenshin said:

Everyone stop tempting me! 😝

 

Thanks for the review, Amberlea.  👍🏻

 

 

I'll send you one in the next package. I can't really use that many black pens. 

[Sailor Kenshin]

Thanks!  

[txomsy]

Don't they somehow defeat the point of FPs? Besides writing without the pressure of a BP, which other writing instruments may also provide, if one cannot refill them, then one will contaminate as much as with a BP, and though as they carry more ink than a BP, it might seem they last more, more likely will last less. So, where's the advantage?

 

For giving out there are plenty of other FPs in a similar price range or even less that can be refilled. The Dollar 717 if I remember well sells in packs of 6-10 for about 1 USD apiece and is a piston filler (and can be got as demonstrator as well).

[amberleadavis]

I certainly wouldn't use these in place of a fountain pen. Where I can use a fountain pen I do use a fountain pen. I use these in places where I couldn't easily take a fountain pen. I use it in place of a ballpoint. Unlike any other traditional fountain pen out there these and the varsity pilots don't leak. No matter where I carried them around how I carry them how I abused them, they never leaked. Also in the places that I use them, if one gets misplaced I'm not angry.

[Licue]

On 3/8/2022 at 1:54 PM, amberleadavis said:

So, yes, I had to compare it to the Varsity.  The varsity is nicer.  

In what way? 

Better writing nibs? Better sealing?

 

Because as far as looks are concerned these >>>>>>> Pilot Varsity imo.

I really like the transparency & no fugly label 🙂

 

 

Btw, since in the handwritten part you mention "Snowhite": I vaguely remember seeing that name with Pilot Petit lookalikes on Aliexpress some time ago.

 

[Licue]

2 hours ago, txomsy said:

Don't they somehow defeat the point of FPs? 

In general I dislike the concept of disposable fountain pens.

There are already far too many disposable-by-design things - no need to add FPs to that list.

 

But iirc there are hacks to refill Pilot Varsitys.

So maybe we shouldn't look at these as disposable FPs, but as prefilled eyedroppers instead?

 

 

Speaking of eydroppers: Do disposable FPs have burping problems?

[A Smug Dill]

3 hours ago, txomsy said:

Don't they somehow defeat the point of FPs? Besides writing without the pressure of a BP, which other writing instruments may also provide,

 

As far as my education in this hobby has informed me, the point of fountain pens is so that one does not have an ink pot or inkwell on hand for the actual task of writing; fountain pens have internal reservoirs, such that ink would be carried part and parcel with the writing instrument itself wherever one goes and uses such a pen, and also internal feed systems to provide continuous flow of ink from reservoir to nib, on-demand.

 

Other modern writing instruments may satisfy the same functional and operational requirements that drove the design and evolution of fountain pens, but “the point” of a design need not be something that makes it unique among all devices or appliances of the category.

 

3 hours ago, txomsy said:

if one cannot refill them, then one will contaminate as much as with a BP, and though as they carry more ink than a BP, it might seem they last more, more likely will last less.

 

Now, I understand you may personally choose to use fountain pens over other types of writing instruments because of those values-based or ideology-driven considerations; I have no argument with that. But your personal values are not “the” point of something, in the sense of being generally agreed or subscribed to, or accepted and adopted by, other users of fountain pens. In fact, if we're not examining the question of “the point” from the historical and design perspectives first and foremost, but want to place the emphasis on why users continue to choose to use fountain pens today, then we should be surveying the millions of users — including but not limited to those who don't do so in the context of a hobby, in China, India and elsewhere — to eliminate the red herrings and pretenders to what is “the point”. If 50% or more of worldwide users don't spare any thought for conservation of the environment and/or the planet's resources, or proliferation of waste on the flip side, in their decision to use fountain pens, then those concerns (which a given individual user may have, or even hold dear or deem critical) must therefore not be the point.

 

Fountain pens are not categorically designed and intended to be tools of advocacy of certain personal values and ideals. Convenience and reliability from one's selfish perspective are at least just as valid or important — and, I'd argue, more relevant — in one's choice of writing instrument and whether to eliminate certain types or implementations as candidates for that selection.

 

3 hours ago, txomsy said:

So, where's the advantage?

 

If you're asking specifically what the advantage of using disposable fountain pens is, over the use of refillable fountain pens — as opposed to over other types of writing instruments, with or without being disposable or having consumable-but-not-biodegradable disposable components — then I'd venture that the advantage must logically be that they're disposable. Cheap enough to buy that it would not worry oneself should such a pen (including particularly its nib) be lost or damaged unintentionally, and perhaps cheap enough per kilometre of ink marks laid compared to using disposable ink cartridges in c/c-filled pens. The integrated reservoir and feed system in the design of disposable fountain pens tend to make ink flow more reliable and consistent; many of them feature fibrous wicks between the nib and plastic feed to regulate ink flow (and also provide some defence against ink burps). 

 

As for using cheap refillable fountain pens, I bought two ten-packs of Hero 329 a while back, and they're literally garbage — difficult to fill properly and the first place, never mind cleaning out if the user ever wants to change inks, and out of the first ten-pack the nibs of three pens have already become wobbly in their seats, or otherwise unreliable in laying down ink, that I had to throw out (and wasted some unused ink in them in the process, since there is no way to fully extract the ink from the pens' reservoirs and feeds before disposing those pens). I daresay, at around the same price points, wick-fed disposable fountain pens would be at least as reliable if not more so than the Hero 329 pens I've tried; and so they are better writing instruments, irrespective of whether the use of such undermines or ‘offends’ somebody else's personal values that have nothing to do with the act or task of writing with a pen.

 

[amberleadavis]

On 3/8/2022 at 12:47 PM, A Smug Dill said:

Amber, is the nib on these pens supported by a short, fibrous wick protruding from the front end of the feed?

 

I tried to pull the nib out, but I couldn't, so I don't actually know and I'm not sure how to tell the difference. Can I take a picture that would help you identify if it has a wick?

[A Smug Dill]

2 hours ago, amberleadavis said:

I'm not sure how to tell the difference. Can I take a picture that would help you identify if it has a wick?

 

 

Edited March 10, 2022 by A Smug Dill
replaced text with image

[mke]

Thank you for sharing this news, but (two buts):

* not much cheaper than a Platinum Preppy, Pilot Petit or any other Chinese low-priced demonstrator.

* I find these cheap pens boring. Accepted, they write OK - but that's all. I have so many nice pens which are better (and more expensive) why should I not use these pens and go several levels down to write with these cheapys?

 

(Sorry for bitching.)

 

Perhaps we shouldn't use the terms "eco or so" for fountain pens. FPs are not better than ball-pens or mechanical pencils if we really would look at the ecological footprint. 

Additionally, we have so many of them.