Great Article on Majohn’s P Series

[Dan Carmell]

I have no idea how I got on the mailing list for this pen blog and I almost missed it in the chaos ai features have unleashed in my mailbox, but I was very surprised to read the excellent article linked below The author provides a comprehensive look at Majohn’s piston-filling (except the first one—something I wasn’t aware of before reading this article) P series. 
 

Great intro discussing the various shades of clones and then capsule surveys of each P series models. Very well written and researched. 

 

https://blog.stationeryvagaries.com/the-montblanc-alikes/

[OCArt]

Very interesting, thanks for sharing this Dan.

[mke]

That article could serve bloggers on how to write articles about pens. Thanks Dan!

If I'd not enough pens already, I would now consider buying more Majohn pens.

 

To buy all of them would set you back around $300.

[hssqq]

Well written article it is

[bugsydog55]

Where has this kind of information been hiding?  Needless to say, there would be an actual market for it.  Not a huge market but it's there.  People have to know you are out there.  Really appreciated the link.

[Toga]

Author here, thank you so much for sharing my post and for the kind words! It's humbling to see people enjoying it so much 🧡

[Dan Carmell]

11 minutes ago, Toga said:

Author here, thank you so much for sharing my post and for the kind words! It's humbling to see people enjoying it so much 🧡

The praise is amply deserved! You can see there’s a hunger for well-written, informative pieces like this. 

[mke]

It seems there might be soon another article - about Asvine/Hongdian:  https://www.instagram.com/p/DRYRhakAbr9/

[Dan Carmell]

6 hours ago, mke said:

It seems there might be soon another article - about Asvine/Hongdian:  https://www.instagram.com/p/DRYRhakAbr9/

That would be very welcome!

 

Something this article prompted me to think about changes I’ve noticed on the Reddit fountain pen sub in the degree of skepticism about Chinese pens has abated considerably. Many more people have tried a Majohn or Asvine or Homgdian and found a decent pen at a very reasonable price point. More articles like this will definitely help educate people about Chinese pens. 

[garyc]

4 hours ago, Dan Carmell said:

That would be very welcome!

 

Something this article prompted me to think about changes I’ve noticed on the Reddit fountain pen sub in the degree of skepticism about Chinese pens has abated considerably. Many more people have tried a Majohn or Asvine or Homgdian and found a decent pen at a very reasonable price point. More articles like this will definitely help educate people about Chinese pens. 

I would agree entirely. I have a long history of using (and abusing) cheap and low cost pens and to begin with (in the mid-late 2000s) these pens were not very inspiring, particularly as I discovered you could buy some quite nice vintage pens (Conway Stewart, Burnham, Waterman) for a bit more (about £30, give or take). Then in the mid-2010s, Chinese pens such as the Kaigelu 316 were a step up in quality, followed by a low cost piston filler Wingsung 698, the colours and metal pens of PenBBS with their mini-fude nibs, leading to titanium piston and vacuum fillers by Asvine and dinky pocket pens like the Hongdian M2.

 

Of course, Doug Rathbun (Inkquiring Minds) and many others on YT have been extolling the virtue of Chinese pens for some years (not forgetting the late, lamented Ian the Jock of this parish - interesting to see that Toga is also a Scot, as am I). But I am sure Toga’s well researched and cogent input can only serve to raise the interest in, and respectability of, Chinese pens.

Edited November 25, 2025 by garyc
My original post got curtailed

[garyc]

Incidentally, can anyone hear Toga’s spoken versions of the his blog articles? I am using an iPad with Safari and Chrome and can’t hear anything - pressing on ‘play’ does nothing.

 

<edit> I can hear the audio on a Mac Mini in Chrome, but it seems that due to copyright reasons, you can't play .ogg audio files on an iPad. I have found How to stream ogg on iOS but haven't tried it.

[mke]

The first one praising Chinese pens, whom I can remember, was Frank Underwater.

 

But there are a few high-profile posters on Instagram who started using Chinese pens. They will get many of their followers interested in buying Chinese pens. Hi @zaddick  👍

Anyway, it is rolling now. Looking forward to the next good article about Chinese pens.

 

But one should never forget that somehow you get what you pay, like using brass in a humid ink environment where stainless steel should be used. Not that I want to say all Western-manufactured pens will last many, many years. 

 

[manolo]

Wow, wonderful article, thank you for posting it.

[bugsydog55]

There are more than a few of us that had those horrifying experiences in grade school penmanship classes where the teachers tried to show us what could be done with a fountain pen.  Blue ink was everywhere but the places it needed to be.  Fast forward several decades and there is the world of cheap Chinese pens.  What a learning curve that was!  But it did make a difference.  The information truly helps.  In combination with the experience of the pen user, this makes for a much better and informed purchaser going forward.  An informed consumer is a smarter consumer and that is something of real value.