fountain pen taboos - don't enter if you're easily offended

[Beckwith]

1. The MB cigar-shaped black and gold pen (along with its copies) has to be based on some deep-seeded Freudian issue, because nobody can really be buying those pens for looks

 

2. Ink windows are not useful

[sotto2]

This is sure to get a favorable response from the group:

 

The myth (?) that fountain pen users are somehow more erudite, intelligent, and cultured than the norm.

[zepp]

1. Fountain pens are expensive and people may think we are nut for spending so much money on silly writing instruments

 

2. Lamy Safaris are ugly.

[NCGibbon]

1. One must use expensive Rhodia or Clairefonte paper

[Kilroy]

This is sure to get a favorable response from the group:

 

The myth (?) that fountain pen users are somehow more erudite, intelligent, and cultured than the norm.

 

Such a sweeping (global, even!) statement is surely hard to accept. But what if we localize? But then I realize that I don't know whether you mean a causal or coincidental relationship. Causal would certainly be convenient.

[LindaM]

As to the debate about whether DNA or other factors influence preferences, there's also - what else do you do with your hands and have trained them to? I've spent years throwing hay bales everyday, getting in arguments with horned cattle, horses, goats and the periodic rooster-that-was-due-to-learn-better-manners, and I cannot abide featherweight pens. While I love the nib on my Pilot 78G, I can't stand the cheap plastic non-weight of it.

 

Metal pens, on the other hand, will take a fall to the floor without cracking. If their fall is unnoticed and they get stepped on, they won't shatter.

 

What really baffles me though is expensive pens. Why would I want only one $500 pen, knowing that if something happens to it I'd have a stress meltdown, as opposed to having a pile of beautiful inexpensive pens that I can work on myself without having to worry about it, and that look awesome in a display box when not in active use? I would get utterly bored with only one pen to use. My moods change - my pens change.

 

This is rather like a boss I used to have. We were talking near a window one day and I pointed out to him a Rolls-Royce coming down the street. He all but drooled on the window, wanting one so bad. Whereas I couldn't imagine driving such a thing in traffic, for fear of someone hitting it. Life hands us enough worries, without seeking out more of them.

[ISW_Kaputnik]

No taboos, really, just things that I don't get about the preferences of others. I don't get:

 

• Why people would use inks that aren't water resistant.
• The appeal of oversized pens.
• Pens that can't be posted, or not posting a cap that can be posted.
• Shirts without pockets, and shirt pockets without pens in them.
• Having pens costing $X that write as well as one can imagine, are as well made as one can imagine, and then paying $3X for a pen that is merely prettier.
• Why everyone in the world doesn't just like what I like.

[dior523]

I dont have good experience with Pelikans too..

[The Blue Knight]

 

No taboos, really, just things that I don't get about the preferences of others. I don't get:

 

• Why people would use inks that aren't water resistant

 

 

Because they don't want there clothing / furniture permanently stained when they have an accident and paper falls apart quickly when wetted so it make little difference if the ink runs. I see the need for permanence but I see the need for non permanence too.

[79spitfire]

Picking your nose with a MB 149....

[zepp]

Picking your nose with a MB 149....

Picking nose fancily?

[pajaro]

Picking your nose with a MB 149....

 

I suppose this would be ok with a Lamy Safari.

 

For all of you 51 haters, it's the best pen ever made.

[Obyekt]

I think Parker, Visconti, Aurora, Delta, Caran d'Ache, Edison, Conway Stewart, and especially YARD O' LED have made some very, very ugly pens.

I do not like coloured demonstrator pens, since they always look very cheap.

 

Usually I criticise people for using the word 'hate' too much, but I hate MB for making money off the backs of famous people like John Lennon, Dante Alighieri, Cervantes, Mozart, ... and especially Chopin, my all time favourite composer. I do not think any of them would have liked that their name was to be put in a luxurious fountain pen. I don't believe that's what these people lived for. I must, however, admit, that MB has made some of the most prettiest nibs ever made. However, their $100 or more charges for servicing is unjustified. You pay 700 for a brand new pen, that should have life-long warranty with it.

[dneal]

For all of you 51 haters, it's the best pen ever made.

For picking your nose or digging in your ears, without a doubt.

[ravantra]

Things I just don't get:

 

1) Ink windows in pens. I can never tell if there is ink or not. They should add ink gauges like gas gauges on cars, or I should get better eyes.

 

2) Fine point pens. I feel like I'm writing with a wet nail.

 

3) J. Hebrin's "I can't fill my pen more than once" lousy bottle design.

 

4) My inability to stop buying pens.

 

5) Too many questions: paper or plastic, regular or extra crispy, credit or debit, regular or decaf, should I stay or should I go, etc…

[load81]

 

No taboos, really, just things that I don't get about the preferences of others. I don't get:

 

• Why people would use inks that aren't water resistant.
• The appeal of oversized pens.
• Pens that can't be posted, or not posting a cap that can be posted.
• Shirts without pockets, and shirt pockets without pens in them.
• Having pens costing $X that write as well as one can imagine, are as well made as one can imagine, and then paying $3X for a pen that is merely prettier.
• Why everyone in the world doesn't just like what I like.

 

 

It's kind of funny but i believe you are the complete opposite of me.

 

• I don't get why proof of anything is important in an ink. I mean an ink being bleach proof? So what?
• I hate small pens. Big pens are significantly more comfortable for me.
• My Kaweco AL-Sport is the only pen i ever posted and i hated it.
• All my shirts are tailor made and specifically ordered without a pocket. It ruins the lines.

  Generally i don't like the 70s NASA control room look of pens in shirt pockets. Pens belong into the jacket.

• I like pretty things and am willing pay for it. Function is not everything. Otherwise i would have stopped buying pens after my M800.

[Blue_Moon]

Just an interesting note - I made my first post on this thread today, and was curious because, as of now, it has 26 pages. Checked the OP's profile, and he/she was last active on FPN in January of 2012. He/She began this thread in March of 2010. His/Her legacy lives on.

[zuerincolour]

3) J. Hebrin's "I can't fill my pen more than once" lousy bottle design.

 

THIS THIS THIS. I'm only 1/5 of the way through my Perle Noire and already have to tilt the bottle awkwardly to get ink in my pen.

[trdsf]

Hyperpriced overdecorated pens laden with detail, gold, platinum, and/or gemstones that both look painful to write with, and would get ruined by even trying anyway. I'm a coin collector -- one fingerprint is all the difference between 'mint' and 'not mint'. These are pens designed to sit on a display pedestal and be looked at, not written with.

 

And if a pen's not meant to be written with, is it really a pen?

[sotto2]

 

THIS THIS THIS. I'm only 1/5 of the way through my Perle Noire and already have to tilt the bottle awkwardly to get ink in my pen.

 

That's what syringes and ink cartridges are for. And that's one reason I prefer Aurora Black. Have fun.