What I love about fountain pens is that...

[Nightjar]

... write quality shows ZERO correlation with price. "Write quality" is personal, of course. But still, it's pretty much unrelated to price, as far as I can see. Though to be fair, I don't have many £1000 pens 😉

[torstar]

hmmm... never thought much about write quality, i'm a lefty and all the writing is a disaster.

 

nothing is written to be kept more than a few days before I shred and toss it out

 

top pens perform better and are nicer to look at... 

 

 

 

[Nightjar]

Haha, perhaps you're referring to the quality of the prose/poetry/ideas created with the pen? In that case, mine also go straight to bin... though wouldn't it be nice if our pens made us more brilliant!

 

I was referring just to handwriting and pleasure in the act of handwriting.

 

On posh pens performing better and looking nicer... I must respond "hmmm" on both counts 😉

 

Go Canada, by the way!

[Ron Z]

  Price does not always translate to a quality pen.  I've worked on a lot of high end nibs that wrote like a chicken foot when they came in, and have seen some expensive pens that are no better than a Majohn or Wing Sung.  Many are quite good, but not always....

[Estycollector]

Yep, spot on. 

[torstar]

4 hours ago, Nightjar said:

Haha, perhaps you're referring to the quality of the prose/poetry/ideas created with the pen? In that case, mine also go straight to bin... though wouldn't it be nice if our pens made us more brilliant!

 

I was referring just to handwriting and pleasure in the act of handwriting.

 

On posh pens performing better and looking nicer... I must respond "hmmm" on both counts 😉

 

Go Canada, by the way!

 

Thanks for the Canada shout-out, it will all be fine... 

 

My Wilde and Proust and Verne MB pens aren't helping my creative skills, sadly.

 

I have a few workhorses, Aurora Talentums (solid colour plastic ones) and the Afrika are best, but geez what they go for now compared to 20 years ago....

 

 

 

[Grayfeather]

They make me actually want to write. Ballpoint or Rollerball pens just don't cut it.

 

A

[davisgt]

One of my favorite and best fountain pens was my very first buy: a Waterman Expert.  Not very expensive at the time,  but my God that nib was exquisite.  I have purchased many pens since then, for a lot more money, but that pen will be the touchstone against which all other pens will be judged. 

[AmandaW]

What I love about fountain pens is that they're so customisable. The pen, the nib, the ink - combinations are infinite. And then there are nib meisters and ink mixing possiblilities for even more individuality.

 

Creativity.

[jchch1950]

Soft writing, no problem with the writing instrument. I carry al least two in case ink is used in one of the fountain pens.

[InesF]

7 hours ago, Gaius Maximus said:

They make me actually want to write. Ballpoint or Rollerball pens just don't cut it.

+1 👍 - that's the point!

 

If you found a fountain pen that makes you write and makes you like to look at and makes you holding it in your hand and makes you say "... my precious, never will I give you away, my precious! ...", then, yes then, you know you have found the pen that fits you best.   Price is not a criterion.  

[vicpen123]

........they are all mine to use how and when I decide.

 

 

[Nightjar]

@Ron Z nibs that write like a chicken foot 🤣 (Although one of my favourite pens is scratchier than said appendage, but in a very good way.)

 

@Gaius Maximus "they make me want write" 👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽

[Grayfeather]

5 hours ago, InesF said:

+1 👍 - that's the point!

 

If you found a fountain pen that makes you write and makes you like to look at and makes you holding it in your hand and makes you say "... my precious, never will I give you away, my precious! ...", then, yes then, you know you have found the pen that fits you best.   Price is not a criterion.  

 

My thoughts exactly.

 

A

[torstar]

6 hours ago, InesF said:

+1 👍 - that's the point!

 

If you found a fountain pen that makes you write and makes you like to look at and makes you holding it in your hand and makes you say "... my precious, never will I give you away, my precious! ...", then, yes then, you know you have found the pen that fits you best.   Price is not a criterion.  

 

Then you have 12 prescious-esses. 

[Penguincollector]

  I like that fountain pens can all be so different and still write so well (I’ll take a chicken foot over a ballpoint any day). My cheaper ones write well, and the experience only gets better from there. I can change ink color, I can change nib styles and sizes, I can write huge letters and tiny ones. There’s infinite possibilities.

[Grayfeather]

10 hours ago, Penguincollector said:

(I’ll take a chicken foot over a ballpoint any day).

 

Truer words never spoken. If it came down to a point in the world where all fountain pens were removed, I would probably end up with a feather quill. 

 

A

[Grayfeather]

On 3/10/2025 at 11:46 AM, Nightjar said:

... write quality shows ZERO correlation with price. "Write quality" is personal, of course. But still, it's pretty much unrelated to price, as far as I can see. Though to be fair, I don't have many £1000 pens 😉

 

Agreed. I have pens that were under $10 that are absolutely great. Then again I have more expensive writing instruments that stay in the box because, quite honestly, for lack of a better phrase, they sucked. I have one particular Pilot pen that I picked up in a Big Lots or somewhere, back in the mid 90's, I think it was $8USD at the time. It's probably one of my favorite pens.

 

A

[inkstainedruth]

I have to say that I was quite amazed at how well a couple of Esties with 1555 nibs wrote -- even with just folded over nibs and no tipping.  

Of course my two most expensive pens (an M405 Stresemann and an M405 Blue-black) also write well.  Some of the third-tier vintage junkers?  Ehhh.  Not so much -- but those weren't horribly expensive, even with the repairs.

@Gaius Maximus Now I'm wondering what Pilot pen you were able to find in a Big Lots!  Mind you, that was probably LONG before I found my way into the hobby....  But I've also gotten great deals on really good pens at antiques shops and estate sales (I was floored a while back when the second pen in a box that also had a Midnight Blue Parker 45 in it which was the pen I went to look at at an estate sale the next county over from me) turned out to be a Cordovan Brown 51 Vac!  Plus there were two spare press-bar style converters for the 45 in addition to the one installed in the pen already.  $5 US for everything!  So you can either calculate the pens at $2 each or $1 for the 45 and $3 for the 51 Vac, plus 50¢ apiece for the spare converters (I just wish I could get anything remotely like the same kind of deals for old-style Sheaffer converters that will fit in thin pens like the Sheaffer school pens... ).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

[Mercian]

I am lazy, am a sensualist, have a short attention-span, and enjoy variety. I also have a penchant for a Shiny Thing.

Fountain Pens serve all five of these character traits far better than any other writing utensils do.