Chinese pens longevity/quality

[A Smug Dill]

2 hours ago, spiro2903 said:

I was wondering in general what are the materials and construction like in Chinese pens like PenBBS or WS.

 

There is no “in general”, though. PenBBS models 323, 355, 494, and 499 are very different pens from each other. I also have other-branded Chinese pens with bodies that very apparently come from the exact same mould as the PenBBS models 308 and 494, and were most likely produced in the same behind-the-scenes manufacturing plants (noting the plural, because I don't think those models originate from the same factory); so, to me, many (but not all) of the PenBBS pen models are just rebranded OEM products with the brand's custom nibs and (possibly) feeds.

 

As for Wing Sung, if I'm not mistaken, at least two separate Chinese business enterprises (Shanghai Hero Pen Company being one of them, Shanghai Green Stationery being another) legitimately and independently producing fountain pens under that brand.

 

So, once again, my recommendation is not to generalise across a brand, no matter how tempting it is for the sake of ease or convenience for oneself.

 

2 hours ago, spiro2903 said:

Or to maybe narrow it down PenBBS 308 and WS628

 

Even the PenBBS 308, as a single model, comes in a very wide range of acrylic bodies. I don't think the technical characteristics (including resistance to scratches and scuffing, etc.) of the material used in the clear 308-16 are exactly the same as that in the 308-52, which is priced at more than double the price of the former.

 

3 hours ago, spiro2903 said:

vs Sailor Shikiori with steel nib.

 

What's the point of using a Sailor Shikiori Hisakata as a point of reference, if you don't have one of those and are not already familiar with it? Furthermore, are you comparing (in all respects, including price) the Shikiori Hisakata Hoshikuzu against the PenBBS 308-52 Galaxy, or the Shikiori Hisakata Uchimizu against the PenBBS 308-56 Infinite (aka Clear Sky), based on visual likeness? The 308-52 and 308-56 are priced quite differently.

 

3 hours ago, spiro2903 said:

What would those be like compared to entry level Japanese pens with steel nib like Sailor.

 

Sailor's entry-level steel-nibbed fountain pen is the HiAce Neo; and then, there is the Profit Jr. Neither model ever used a steel nib that bore the 1911 imprint, though; and I would not say either nib is representative of how a Sailor fountain pen (nib) writes.

 

3 hours ago, MuddyWaters said:

Penbbs will have the best build, and you will be able to get a full size pen, whereas with sailor the pen you will get at that price will be tiny.

 

A larger or “full size” pen is not inherently a superior or more comfortable writing instrument for everyone that could be asked to share their opinion. Besides, I really love the Sailor Professional Gear Slim Mini pens I have, more so than the longer Professional Gear Slim, never mind the larger (Profit) King Of Pen which I actually don't enjoy using.

 

3 hours ago, MuddyWaters said:

However the penbbs nibs are pretty bad and barely write, again, unless you are adept with them like a few here.

 

“A few here” does not account for those FPN members and readers who don't pass comment, never mind most of the users in PenBBS's target market in mainland China who probably does not come near this forum. We are not the majority of PenBBS customers, let alone fountain pen users in the world at large.

 

[Paganini]

18 hours ago, Maurizio said:

Hi Paganini - I hope you didn’t think my comment was in any way a criticism of you or your experience, it wasn’t meant to be. 

 

Hi Maurizio,

 

I appreciate your respectful reply! I don't think we quite agree, but it seems like we both feel that it's better to remain friendly than argue over minor differences. Just a couple of specific points:

 

18 hours ago, Maurizio said:

...many people may be able to agree to the proposition that the big 3 Japanese makers, more often than not, across their range of production from steel to gold nibs, produce pens of generally consistent quality.

 

Many people do indeed! When I first got into fountain pens, it was people writing things like what you wrote above that lead to me buying 3 Metropolitans. When they didn't meet my expectations, I then found all the threads here criticizing them. Without statistical data it's hard to say whether you and the other "positive experiencers" were just lucky, or whether I and the other "negative experiencers" were just unlucky, but I suspect the answer is "yes."

 

On 9/23/2022 at 12:14 PM, Maurizio said:

I’ve had my Ecrino for more than 25 years and it’s still writing well, with some slight signs of wear on the Ecrino logo.

 

I've heard so many great things about the Ecrino I've wanted one for a while. Unfortunately, a NOS one is something like $150 shipped. I think the Ecrino may be a case not of an inexpensive pen, but of a pen that was initially drastically underpriced. All you guys who bought them back in the day were getting a great deal.

 

18 hours ago, Maurizio said:

For me, to spend $20. on a WS 698 and have it fail in a relatively short time is a bad experience I don’t wish to repeat. 

 

That's understandable! Generally, the better Wing Sung pens are made by the Green stationary company. The 698 *is* a Green pen, but it was one of their first efforts. They have improved a lot since then. The 601, 618, and 699 I think are really great pens, and all cost around $30 or less. The clear acrylic of the demonstrator versions is a little fragile; the ABS plastic of the normal 601s is pretty sturdy, and of course, if you pay a little more for a steel flighter, steel is steel.  I haven't been in love with every 601 nib, but they've all worked straight out of the box.  

I'll end by saying that it's certainly easy to have a bad experience with Chinese fountain pens. There's plenty of counterfeiting (You can find $2 counterfeits of $5 hero pens!), poor quality control, bad designs, and, generally, cheap junk. But if you do a little research, you can get high quality pens for pretty cheap. I will say a few nice things about my Lucina too - it is inked up on my desk right now; it writes OK now after extensively regrinding the nib, and it never seems to dry out, even if it sits unused for months.  It writes every time I pick it up, which is not often, because I don't like it very much.  

[sandy101]

I threw all my Chinese pens out.

 

One leaked onto the carpet and others fell apart. I came to the conclusion that they were more trouble than they were worth.

 

So, I threw them all out. I don't miss them at all.

 

 

 

 

[A Smug Dill]

8 hours ago, Paganini said:

The 601, 618, and 699 I think are really great pens, and all cost around $30 or less. The clear acrylic of the demonstrator versions is a little fragile;

 

I dislike the Wing Sung 699 (and I have three of them inked); their nibs — even the EF ones — just don't write finely enough, and the ink flow is never quite right, even though the shutoff has been pulled away from the feed. (Yes, I've tried several different-branded inks.)

 

Give me a (genuine) Wing Sung 3008 any day. They're sturdily built, can be fully disassembled and reassembled quite easily for cleaning and maintenance, and seals quite effectively against ink evaporation. I had >20 of them filled with shimmer inks concurrently, and none of them gave me any trouble. Yes, the rusting of the cap finial screw is a real problem in a proportion of the units; and so I've replaced the screws with plastic (nylon?) ones in all of them in a single sitting, and they work perfectly fine now.

[Uncial]

Some are ok. A brass pen will likely be the same as any other. My general experience with Chinese plastic pens has not been good. Cracks, falling apart, poor finish, ugly marks etc. Around 2010 the market became quite flooded with cheap Chinese pens. They were so cheap and with free postage that it was always tempting to try another one and convince myself I wasn't spending a lot. I truly wish someone had said, 'Don't waste your time, save up and get something decent.' Be aware too that it isn't just the cheap Chinsse pens that can be junk. Some junk carries respected names. 

[Maurizio]

Paganini - It’s nice to be able to agree to disagree in a civil, respectful manner. 

 

Mr. Dill - a creative and kind of “thinking out of the box” solution to the 3008 issue. It never once occurred to me to try to find a solution to the rusty screw problem. I thought the 3008’s were decent pens but for that rusting issue. I was so frustrated about it I never even tried to find a solution. You’ve made me rue trashing them because it’s nice to have a few pens around through which to run inks one doesn’t want to risk in more expensive pens. 

 

Uncial - I agree completely. If I added up all the $10s $12s. and $20’s , I’ve wasted on Chinese pens over the last 6 - 7 years, I could easily have bought another quality 14k-nibbed pen from one of the big 3  which would last for decades if not more. Jinhao 450s, 750s, 159s, an attractive  no name pen made of bamboo, as a pen garbage, Moonman, Wing Sungs, and some others whose names escape me - all have gone out with the trash except for one 159 and some recently acquired no names which came 4 for $10. Thus my resolve not to buy any more Chinese pens for more than what I consider “throw away money” like how much I might spend on a couple of cups of coffee, and only after I’ve established to my satisfaction by reading reviews and waiting for some time to pass that spending the small money will get me a pen at least as good and reliable as a Preppy. 

 

Also agree there’s junk bearing  respected names. Sadly, I think that applies to many well-known American brand names which are now coasting on their former reputation for quality while producing sub-par products. 

 

[A Smug Dill]

27 minutes ago, Maurizio said:

If I added up all the $10s $12s. and $20’s , I’ve wasted on Chinese pens over the last 6 - 7 years, I could easily have bought another quality 14k-nibbed pen from one of the big 3  which would last for decades if not more.

 

The acquisition of data, information, knowledge, and wisdom for oneself cannot be reasonably expected to be free of costs, though. We're not driven, either by doctrine or in shared ideals, to strive towards a world (or culture) in which hobbyists need never “waste” money, in ways that leave no tangible and useful artefact “to show for it”, in order to grow and mature in their pursuit of the hobby. I may well have spent in excess of A$1000 on Chinese pens and inks over the years — some of which I may have broken and/or simply discarded, and some I practically may never use again — that could have been spent buying superior pens instead; but even the inferior Chinese products taught me a lot. Furthermore, the money I spent on one Parker Duofold Centennial, one Pilot Custom Heritage 912 with an FA nib, and one Leonardo Momento Zero with a steel nib, all of which are regrettable purchases to me, would easily equal the total of what I've spent on (good and poor) Chinese pens.

 

2 hours ago, Uncial said:

I truly wish someone had said, 'Don't waste your time, save up and get something decent.'

 

I'm personally happy enough with the construction and writing performance of both the Delilke New Moon 3 and Jinhao 51A pen models, to consider them fit candidates for giving away as bomboniere at my wedding. The other candidate considered was the Lamy Logo, which I preferred on account of it being a pun on one of our names, and that it has the "prestige" of being made in Germany. However, I don't think the Lamy Logo (of which I have a few, in different finishes) is a better fountain pen in hand; and my experience with Lamy Z50 nibs is that most of them require smoothing before proper and comfortable use, even for someone like me who prefers a bit of kinaesthetic feedback. Besides being a whole lot cheaper, the Jinhao 51A with colourful and attractive acrylic bodies are reliable pens with decent cap seal effectiveness, and none of the big batch I ordered required more than a flush and clean to write smoothly.

 

(I personally favoured the Delike NM3 more, but it's shorter and has more heft, and I judged that our guests, most of whom are not fountain pen users to my knowledge, will find the model a good fit for their handwriting that was undoubtedly trained on lightweight ballpoint pens.)

 

I still have a large number of Jinhao 51A pens here for my personal use, and this photo does not show even nearly all of them:

[LoveBigPensAndCannotLie]

For OP, like others have said, it's worth reading reviews and forming a general opinion of whatever model you're interested in. Reading one review is not enough. One person may have a completely different experience from another.

 

As an example, while one person above with very unique taste likes the Wing Sung 3008, I bought several near the beginning of my fountain pen collecting "career" and they are still some of the worst pens I have ever used. Horrible nibs, caps with a screw that will rust (not might, will), and just generally they feel cheap. I'll give them some points, the piston mechanism works fine. That's probably the only functional and worthwhile part of that pen. The 6XX series Wing Sung pens made by Green Stationary are a world away in difference in quality. I would stay away from any Wing Sung pens with a 4-digit model number.

 

The Delike New Moon 3 is another very bad pen. The god-awful thread design on that pen would make any engineer cry. I had one that was a decent writer, it's a great paperweight now because the plastic threads on the cap liner got completely stripped out over time by the sharp metal threads on the body of the pen. The cap will not stay on anymore. Not a unique issue from what I can see online either. The Delike New Moon 2 is much better in my experience, by virtue of not having the poor thread design/implementation.

 

Now, this isn't just an opportunity for me to state my difference of opinion with my favorite contrarian on these forums, it's to show that two people can have completely opposing opinions of the same pen, so it's worth doing your research.

 

As for my good experiences, I've not had any issues with Moonman pens although I don't like their nibs at all. They're great candidates for nib swapping because they use standard or close to standard #5/#6 nibs. I have a large vintage Sheaffer Lifetime nib sitting in my T1, and it's now a great writer with a huge ink capacity. In terms of build quality, they're very nice - I've never had anything to complain about and I've had some of mine nearing five years at this point. The Wing Sung 3-digit pens have also been fine. The Jinhao 51a feels a little cheap but it punches above its weight in terms of quality - it really is a good deal.

[A Smug Dill]

28 minutes ago, LoveBigPensAndCannotLie said:

Wing Sung 3008,  …‹snip›… Horrible nibs, caps with a screw that will rust (not might, will), and just generally they feel cheap. …‹snip›… Now, this isn't just an opportunity for me to state my difference of opinion with my favorite contrarian on these forums, it's to show that two people can have completely opposing opinions of the same pen, so it's worth doing your research.

 

Opinions and experiences. My first eight Wing Sung 3008 pens stay inked for several months, before I noticed the rusting screw issue in about half of them and decided to order a bag of plastic replacement screws on slow boat from China. In the meantime, I also ordered more WS3008 pens. By the time the screws and new batches of pens all arrived many weeks later, and I was ready to do all the replacements at once, there were still only three screws that were severely rusted, two that were showing signs of rusting, but the screws remainder of the inked WS3008 pens were still fine and shiny. (I replaced them anyway, as a matter of precaution, especially given I had far more replacement screws than WS3008 pens in total.) I can't conclusively say whether the screws in the other pens would rust in ten years' time if the pens stayed continually inked and capped, of course; but I also don't believe it's a foregone conclusion that every metal screw in every WS3008 pen as supplied will rust from normal use.

 

You, and some others, may not like to take the risk on (getting more) WS3008 pens, on the balance of all factors; but there is no certainty at the product level evidenced in my personal experience of ownership.

[LoveBigPensAndCannotLie]

1 minute ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

Opinions and experiences. My first eight Wing Sung 3008 pens stay inked for several months, before I noticed the rusting screw issue in about half of them and decided to order a bag of plastic replacement screws on slow boat from China. In the meantime, I also ordered more WS3008 pens. By the time the screws and new batches of pens all arrived many weeks later, and I was ready to do all the replacements at once, there were still only three screws that were severely rusted, two that were showing signs of rusting, but the screws remainder of the inked WS3008 pens were still fine and shiny. (I replaced them anyway, as a matter of precaution, especially given I had far more replacement screws than WS3008 pens in total.) I can't conclusively say whether the screws in the other pens would rust in ten years' time if the pens stayed continually inked and capped, of course; but I also don't believe it's a foregone conclusion that every metal screw in every WS3008 pen as supplied will rust from normal use.

 

You, and some others, may not like to take the risk on (getting more) WS3008 pens, on the balance of all factors; but there is no certainty at the product level evidenced in my personal experience of ownership.

 

 

Rust is a chemical reaction - unless they use different materials for screws in some of their pens, which I find unlikely, through normal use I am confident that eventually it will be an issue with most, if not all, of these pens. It's a design issue, using a material that is not resistant to rust/corrosion for a part that is in semi-regular contact with liquids.

 

But anyways, this is not my biggest problem with the 3008's. The ones I had all had dreadful nibs. I can deal with iffy nibs and great build quality (see: my experiences with Moonman) and I can deal with good nibs and slightly iffy build quality (Jinhao 51a, IMO) but when the build quality is middling to poor and the nibs are also poor, that's a pen I won't use.

[Sailor Kenshin]

Still makes me cringe that anyone would throw away a fountain pen.

[Le Vieux]

I was given a Hero 100 somewhere in the early 70's, as a gift. For a 4th grader in the elementary school, that was a thing of importance. I have kept it with me, until the early 2000, when I retired it. Colour of the pen was rather attractive for me, a beige or something like that. Gold nib, 12kt, Chinese markings, very very good, smooth and sturdy. Never had any problems with it.

 

That pen was a workhorse, and no mistake. Never faltered, never had to change or repair anything, no skip or hard start or leaks. It still works, but today it lives in my office, retired. I take it out sometimes, write a few words in a journal, clean it, put it back. Feels good to be a child again. 

 

However, from those purchased out of curiosity in the last say, 15 yrs, I had to retire them all to a box. None of them were all right, not even after tinkering with them for days. Most of them they just got dry, and no cure for that, no matter what I tried. They just didn't work, period.

 

[txomsy]

My experience more or less reproduces what has been said.

 

With Chinese pens, I've found inconsistency in quality control, usually more so the cheaper they were. This inconsistency drives me mad: it is one thing saying it is a rusting screw, or a nib and quite another not knowing what may fail (or if).

 

But this is important too. One should be aware that there are models that seem to display a respectable level of consistency. The Jinhao x750/x450 for instance do, they are fairly good... although you know the converter is bound to fail very likely. But at least you know what to expect and is easy to replace.

 

Similarly for other brands: Hero (if I'm not mistaken) has been producing Parker original pens (to be sold by Parker) for decades, so one may assume that they have the capability of making decent clones of those models. Whether they do or not is left as an Internet research exercise.

 

Another issue is versatility: usually you will get a limited offer on some aspects, most notably nibs and sometimes in compatibility or functionality. Again, it is to be searched for in a per-model basis.

 

I agree with @A Smug Dill, there is no substitute for doing your own research, mostly because no two persons have the same writing preferences. As an example, if heft is not a problem a Jinhao x750/x450 may be a good option, if a triangular section is a problem then dash off the x450, if you find them heavy you may aim for the plastic 149 variants, etc... only you can decide. But none of them will be a piston filler or fully substitute an MB.

 

In my case: I agree with @Uncialas well, but sometimes it may be risky. Not if you are "betting" for well-knowns and do your research, of course. But I too find that if I had directly gone for the pen I coveted instead of cheaper clones (Chinese or not) I would have ended saving up a lot of money (and missing a lot of educative bad experiences, BTW).

 

Two examples:

 

Getting 4 $15-25 Delike alphas and 10-20 cheaper $4 clones instead of a metal Kaweco Sport has resulted in one or two pens I keep using, for now; and finally on getting the AL Sports I wanted. Metal resists, but the sections, nibs, feeders, plastic threads, etc.. have variously failed. The Delike clone of the Liliput was too long, so I got the Liliput directly, and man, am I happy I did.

 

I wanted a flexible-nib pen. At the time I tried the currently available ones (e.g. Noodler's), nibs (e.g. FPR), EMF modified them, went vintage, got several 50's, 40's, 20's, and 10's (20thC) pens, went the nibmeister route... to find one or two satisfactory ones. When the MB149C and later MB146C appeared they promised to fill all the requirements, but then I had already spent much more than what a single MB would cost, and could not justify the buy, and they are likely to be out of production before I can. Had I waited, I would have got what I wanted.

 

In the first case it was a certainty. In the second there was no way I could know in advance that what I wanted would eventually show up, nor when. Also, although the first case refers to Chinese pens, the second shows that the issue is not limited to them.

 

But, in any case, the lesson I (remark: I, in my most limited experience) draw is that if you want something, it is better to wait and get the real thing. If you cannot, do your own research extensively and exhaustively to avoid wasting more money than what the real thing would have cost.

[Sailor Kenshin]

It's not like I coveted anything expensive.  If I wanted to, I could get it; I was just happily playing with pens.  
 

Along the way I discovered: no metal sections or skinny or heavy pens for me.  It was all worthwhile.

[spiro2903]

Tnx for the replies. I think I'll try my luck with WS601/618 and PenBBS 308. These 2 combined would be half the price of Sailor Shikiori with a steel nib, and if they turn out to be bad I won't mind the loss. And I can keep saving for a gold nib Sailor or Pilot...or a Pelikan...we'll see. Anyway, if I am buying a 150-250€ pen I would like to try it out, so I'll try and find some store close by to try them out.