Worst Fountain Pen Mistake?

[impossiblebird]

A girl at my school 'borrowed' my Parker Sonnet Gold Lustre from my bag. She then bent the nib in front of my eyes, I felt so much pain for my beautiful pen as I watched the nib snap. Good thing is, she had to buy me a new one, I now use a Parker Vector at school. Lesson learned.

 

Did she buy you a new nib&feed, or did you get a whole new pen out of her? (mehehehe...)

[FranciscoBr]

I left my Visconti on the table, to the side of the cellular telephone. This touched, vibracall functioned and the pen fell of the table, damaging the cover.

[Jack Thorpe]

A girl at my school 'borrowed' my Parker Sonnet Gold Lustre from my bag. She then bent the nib in front of my eyes, I felt so much pain for my beautiful pen as I watched the nib snap. Good thing is, she had to buy me a new one, I now use a Parker Vector at school. Lesson learned.

 

Did she buy you a new nib&feed, or did you get a whole new pen out of her? (mehehehe...)

She had to buy me a whole new pen!, even better was I managed to fix the old one, so now I have 2 pens instead of one!. She was not happy... . By fix I mean somebody I know had a spare nib and gave it to me... So now I am a very happy boy and she is down £200

Edited March 19, 2011 by Jack Thorpe

[pajaro]

Considering that I was reducing my pen holdings at the time, joining this circus.

[WendyNC]

Getting carried away buying Parker 35s (you say, "what's that?" and you get the problem) and then having most of them ground down to fine nibs before I realized that I liked bigger, heavier pens, and wider, wetter nibs.

[floydee1]

In the past, I dismantled a Wahl Skyline (in my ignorance) and then not being able to put it back together and messing up the nib/feed adjustment. Had to send it off and pay for it to be reassembeled and adjusted.

 

AND

 

Now I've done it AGAIN and dismantled on a new purchase, another vintage Skyline (no ignorance this time - just plain stupidity) its a flexible nib this one and now the the flow stops every other paragraph. If it aint broke...

 

Back to the pen doctor...

[impossiblebird]

A girl at my school 'borrowed' my Parker Sonnet Gold Lustre from my bag. She then bent the nib in front of my eyes, I felt so much pain for my beautiful pen as I watched the nib snap. Good thing is, she had to buy me a new one, I now use a Parker Vector at school. Lesson learned.

 

Did she buy you a new nib&feed, or did you get a whole new pen out of her? (mehehehe...)

She had to buy me a whole new pen!, even better was I managed to fix the old one, so now I have 2 pens instead of one!. She was not happy... . By fix I mean somebody I know had a spare nib and gave it to me... So now I am a very happy boy and she is down £200

I suspected as much... So the episode probably ranks as your best FP mistake!

[Jared]

Probably having my new Pelikan M405 drop out of my pocket in the parking lot at work on a military base...and then stepping on it with heavy combat boots. Fortunately it worked fine with only a few dings in the body, but it was a painful lesson about where to place my pen.

 

Also, I often wish I could go back in time and tell myself not to make a purchase, "you'll hate that pen" or "it doesn't show it on the bad ebay pictures, but it's in worse shape than you'd hoped" and wish I could have saved the money for something else. I have a box of vintage regret pens...

Edited March 23, 2011 by Jared

[stuartk]

I found a Sheaffer desk set in the trash in the building I was working in. It was sitting right on top as I was going out the back door.

 

I grabbed it and took it home, but I couldn't resist fiddling with it on the bus ride home. I tried taking one of the pens apart and wound up cracking the barrel instead.

 

Scratch one mint Sheaffer snorkel.

[alkman]

Let's see...there was the RHR Senior Duofold, just through its first drink of ink, that I was cleaning. Flushed the first fill of water and didn't realize how slippery the pen was and it went straight down. Fortunately, only the nib was affected...one tine was facing east and the other was facing west and both were perpendicular to the body of the pen. The pen winged its way to Mr. Mottishaw for some nib surgery, the queue of which was around 6 months at the time.

 

The moral of the story: Flush a button filler, or for that matter any pen, with two hands.

[stuartk]

Let's see...there was the RHR Senior Duofold, just through its first drink of ink, that I was cleaning. Flushed the first fill of water and didn't realize how slippery the pen was and it went straight down.

 

I did something similar when I was about 12. I noticed this odd piece of greenish glass sticking out of the ground next to an apartment building on my paper route. I dug it out and it was a large vase. I asked the super if I could have it and he said ok, so I took it home. I wanted to wash it and I was in a hurry. Sure enough, it slipped and I dropped it in the sink and knocked a big chunk out of it. (From that I learned that rubber dishwashing gloves are for men too.)

 

The vase? It was an art deco uranium glass vase. Ouch.

[Mr Blifil]

Ascribing more to any fountain pen, by any maker, as being more than just a pen.Thanks

 

True that. Leads to most of the other mistakes--having too many pens, spending too much on them, looking for the perfect one, buying pens that are completely unsuitable for daily use and carrying them and using them in situations where ballpoints or rollerballs would clearly be more appropriate.

[SilentK]

A girl at my school 'borrowed' my Parker Sonnet Gold Lustre from my bag. She then bent the nib in front of my eyes, I felt so much pain for my beautiful pen as I watched the nib snap. Good thing is, she had to buy me a new one, I now use a Parker Vector at school. Lesson learned.

 

Did she buy you a new nib&feed, or did you get a whole new pen out of her? (mehehehe...)

She had to buy me a whole new pen!, even better was I managed to fix the old one, so now I have 2 pens instead of one!. She was not happy... . By fix I mean somebody I know had a spare nib and gave it to me... So now I am a very happy boy and she is down £200

One compliant girl.....I am actually AMAZED!!! (Aside from the fact that I don't know her..). If someone broke my pen (which already happend-except with the clip being bent), there would be a .2% chance that I would actually get a new pen... I don't know what grade you are in so maybe things change as people get older....8th Grade is NOT FP friendly, but maybe 9th is...

 

I'm here to report that 9th grade isn't much better. I make sure I protect my TWSBI to the fullest each and every day!

[FVargas]

A girl at my school 'borrowed' my Parker Sonnet Gold Lustre from my bag. She then bent the nib in front of my eyes, I felt so much pain for my beautiful pen as I watched the nib snap. Good thing is, she had to buy me a new one, I now use a Parker Vector at school. Lesson learned.

 

Did she buy you a new nib&feed, or did you get a whole new pen out of her? (mehehehe...)

She had to buy me a whole new pen!, even better was I managed to fix the old one, so now I have 2 pens instead of one!. She was not happy... . By fix I mean somebody I know had a spare nib and gave it to me... So now I am a very happy boy and she is down £200

One compliant girl.....I am actually AMAZED!!! (Aside from the fact that I don't know her..). If someone broke my pen (which already happend-except with the clip being bent), there would be a .2% chance that I would actually get a new pen... I don't know what grade you are in so maybe things change as people get older....8th Grade is NOT FP friendly, but maybe 9th is...

 

I'm here to report that 9th grade isn't much better. I make sure I protect my TWSBI to the fullest each and every day!

 

10th grade and 11th grade are pretty safe, especially when people don't really want to mess with you to begin with

[penguinmaster]

I'm not sure if this is my worst, but definitely a newb stupid mistake. I had a nice black Sheaffer Balance (smaller model, don't exactly remember the model). One day I was using 99% rubbing alcohol for something and I noticed what a great shine it left. Whipped out my all black pen, rubbed the entire thing down with a generous amount of alcohol, threw the cap back on and admired it's shine. Next day I came back, the threads had melted into the cap and in my even more stupidity I wrenched the cap off breaking the pen in two below the threads.

 

One other mistake. Was in too much of a rush to fix a beautiful blue/white Century fountain pen. Instead of taking the 30 seconds to heat it up to loosen the section I just went right at it with section pliers, busted the pen in two. I think that one hurt much more than Sheaffer Balance as the pen was in such perfect condition with an awesome nib.

 

Live and Learn I guess, take things slow!

 

-Tom

[bigmac53]

My biggest mistake is thinking of Fountain Pens as "old fashioned" and "tedious" for too long!

[lapis]

Hi Blade and amyx!

I guess I forgot that I ever dropped a repy here ((Sigmund's fault). I was lying, but only a bit. Actually, after I tried to get the thing repaired 3 x by MB, that never worked. So I lost my faith in MB and just took that thing back to my store (where I don't work) and traded it in instantly for a Sahara and an M320. Pelikan has never let me down. Sorry to all of you who have ever found the reverse!

 

Mike http://i654.photobucket.com/albums/uu264/peli46/-xSick.png

[coolpenz]

Now I've done it AGAIN and dismantled on a new purchase, another vintage Skyline (no ignorance this time - just plain stupidity) its a flexible nib this one and now the the flow stops every other paragraph. If it aint broke...

 

Yep... found that out the hard way several times. My rules of thumb with Skylines, which I love, is "If the cap assembly is good or even close to good, leave it alone, and if it needs a new bladder, let an expert do it. Have cracked WAY too many of them; just wasn't a good material Eversharp used for them.

[alvarez57]

Not filling my pen properly before I came to work this morning and having it run out. Bottle of ink at home. grrrr. **!"??!* ballpens!

 

I've turned around and got my pen if I left it at home or at the office (the advantage of living so ridiculously close to my job). Otherwise, I feel your pain!

[alvarez57]

Mine would be leaving a parker sonnet in my pants it the lockerroom--the clearners found it and threw it out :headsmack:

 

What?

You never told me about this!

Which Parker Sonnet?!!

Your great uncle's, or you grandfather's gold one?!

You are not supposed to take them to school!

 

 

 

ohoh...add this one to your spending to much time in FPN and you're doomed bro!