What Chinese Pen Would You Buy

[Denny]

I bought two Heros 100 one Baoer and one Jinhao - all from eBay. Only one Hero 100 was good. They look nice but the quality varies and it is lottery what you are buying. Not any more eBay and Chinese pens.

[Black Rose]

  On 6/17/2011 at 3:24 AM, snoww said:

  On 6/17/2011 at 2:55 AM, pmsalty said:

I have several and would never, that is again never buy a Chinese pen on Ebay. A Hero 200a is a great pen as is my WingSung 237. Buy from HisNibs or Isellpens. (not affiliated but satisfied customer).

PMS

 

Yeap... Alot of the units are defective and you need someone to check if it is working fine before buying it.. So unless the ebay seller can do that and is trust worthy , I wouldn't recommend getting it off ebay..

 

People often buy packs of 10 of the cheap hero pens and find that 3-4 of them don't work well.

The problem is that a lot of the time, those 10 packs of Hero pens are the counterfeit pens, not the real ones.

Those are the ones you really need to know who you are buying from.

[brownargus]

Bought a Hero 616 but the filler didn't work properly and the pen virtually disassmebled itself when I tried to fill it - the whole of innards poked out of the nib section and I had to push it back in! The Jinhoa 321 is quite a nice pen as is the Golden Dragon if you can stand the bling! Also, I got a Hero 704 but that is quite a nice pen, good finish and with a converter fill but the nib needed a little tweeking - it writes OK now! Bought a pack of 10 Hero 329s and they are virtually rubbish - in only 1 out of the ten would the filler actually draw up more than a tiny amount of the ink though the nibs seem fine to write with. Maybe they are counterfeit ones!

 

Rule of thumb - be very careful!

 

John

[HEROfan]

I have had a great experience with hero and kaigelu pens. i have had jinhaos, baoers, wing sungs, and many more that i baught in flea markets in china. Most of which were probably fakes. I baught my heros and kaigelus from boutique shops.

[ExcaliburZ]

Twsbi Diamond 530

[bigstick]

I own a Hero 329 and a 200 and a 100 are on my 'aquire' list.

[KrazyIvan]

Some recently added to my collection:

 

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3331/5791490986_315acb2b88_z.jpg

Huashilai Fountain Pen by IvanRomero, on Flickr

 

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2796/5790987093_5bc9687028_z.jpg

Huashilai uncapped by IvanRomero, on Flickr

 

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5110/5815924583_0095e97ffe_z.jpg

Jinhao J30 by IvanRomero, on Flickr

 

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2702/5816489146_b895b483d5_z.jpg

Jinhao J30 uncapped by IvanRomero, on Flickr

 

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5063/5815915139_db3a05f980_z.jpg

Jinhao J30 Nib by IvanRomero, on Flickr

[KrazyIvan]

  On 6/17/2011 at 2:54 PM, ExcaliburZ said:

Twsbi Diamond 530

 

TWSBI is not Chinese. It is Tiawanese.

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I second the recommendation for going through HisNibs. I'm one of Norm's satisfied customers.

[Glenn-SC]

None.

Every Chinese pen I've bought hasn't been worth what I paid to have it shipped to me (irregardless of the price of the pen).

[UltraMagnus]

Never had a problem with a Chinese pen, some write a little dry, but the same can be said for pens dozens of times more expensive. My only issue is that most of them are so heavy they could be used as a kubotan.

[Flounder]

Hmmm. I've got a few Chinese pens now, thinking about it. The best has been the Jinhao 321, which was amazing value at 2.80 GBP. It's the only one I have looked into what other finishes are available, it has really grown on me.

 

Also, it's the only Chinese pen I own that's the 'full package', the others having little quirks that mar the experience of owning them. The clutch caps on my Hero 849 and 850 pop off on their own, for example, and my Baoer 388's snap cap is annoyingly hard to remove. The nib on my Jinhao is between a fine and a medium, and is smoother than the Sheaffer fines I have used. The nib is also less nail like than the other Chinese pens I have too.

 

I do agree that there is understandably less qc on lower priced Chinese pens, perhaps I was lucky to get a good one.

 

 

[Ink Stained Wretch]

  On 6/17/2011 at 2:13 PM, Black Rose said:

The problem is that a lot of the time, those 10 packs of Hero pens are the counterfeit pens, not the real ones.

Those are the ones you really need to know who you are buying from.

I've had the opposite experience. A couple of years ago I was reading here on FPN about people liking their Chinese fountain pens and decided I'd try some. I bought some Hero 616s from an American vendor for $5 each. But I was impatient and also bought a blister pack of 10 Hero 616s from a PRC-based vendor on eBay for about $15. The $5 each ones were awful! Of the three of them not one worked right. All leaked, some came apart when picked up. Of the 10 Hero 616s in the blister pack I got 6 or 7 that were not defective. So the blister pack Hero 616s were a lot better than the ones I paid much more for from the American vendor. From reading other threads I suspect that he was selling counterfeit Hero 616s.

 

  On 6/17/2011 at 2:32 PM, brownargus said:

Bought a Hero 616 but the filler didn't work properly and the pen virtually disassmebled itself when I tried to fill it - the whole of innards poked out of the nib section and I had to push it back in!

I had some Hero 616s that did exactly the same thing. I was going to post a review, but then never got around to it, and then I found that some Hero 616s work all right and others are counterfeits. Maybe I should post a review and my photographs anyway :hmm1: .

 

I've also found that other fountain pens I've bought were PRC products. They have mostly been disappointments.

[wbpeoria]

After the free pen that came with my HoD ink, my next 4 pens were Chinese pens from ebay. All were about $1.00 + $9.00 S&H. Probably my most favorite was a Jinhao 250 (looks identical to the one in the FPN review) -- a reliable, wet writer. My least favorite was the Jinhau 450, which is a hard starter every time. The other two (a thin Crocodile -- I don't know what model, and an alleged Hero 300 with an EF hooded nib) were satisfactory. Maybe I just got lucky, but it seemed like a decent way to get me started with FPs.

[ExcaliburZ]

  On 6/17/2011 at 2:59 PM, KrazyIvan said:

  On 6/17/2011 at 2:54 PM, ExcaliburZ said:

Twsbi Diamond 530

 

TWSBI is not Chinese. It is Tiawanese.

 

[nm4]

There's just so much variability in the quality of the Chinese pens I've tried that I would suggest buying a few cheap ones instead of one pricier one. My experiences:

 

Hero 100 - Have two of them; both complete garbage. Dry up in less than an hour. Confirmed that they are genuine; tines aligned properly. Nothing special even when they're working correctly. The only pen I regret buying...largely b/c it never works.

 

Hero 616 - Ironically much better performers than the 100. Of the 10 I own, 9 work flawlessly with a nice fine line and good ink flow. They do look and feel cheaper than the 100...but they don't dry out easily. A real steal.

 

Jinhao X450 - My favorite. Perhaps I just got lucky with mine but the pen is smooth, the ink flow generous, and pen fits my hand very nicely. Mine is a B-nib.

 

Jinhao X530 - Own 3 of them (all M-nib); none of them worked well out of the box. Ink flow and tine alignment issues galore. A pity b/c they're beautiful.

 

The TWSBI Diamond (though not Chinese) is better in every way than the aforementioned pens. Its overall construction, filling mechanism, and cap seem superior to me.

 

Cheers,

NM

[lovemy51]

  On 6/17/2011 at 1:43 AM, pajaro said:

I have 2 Jinhaos. One a P51 imitator and one, an X450 or something like that, seems to look like a MB 146. It is actually better than my 146.

oh oh, those are fighting words, Bird Man... not wit me tho'...

Edited June 18, 2011 by lovemy51

[lovemy51]

this is the one i would recommend, if you can find it. it cost me $27 a few years back.

 

Hero 189: 12K nib, semi-flex. i won't try to compare it to any other pen, just look at the way it writes (but don't mind my penmanship). by far the best chinese pen i have. there is another one with a similar nib (Hero 732) but the look is kind-a ugly.

 

http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n419/peterpaul_rguez/P6175829-1.jpg

[GeeBee]

  On 6/18/2011 at 6:06 AM, nm4 said:

There's just so much variability in the quality of the Chinese pens I've tried that I would suggest buying a few cheap ones instead of one pricier one. My experiences:

 

Hero 100 - Have two of them; both complete garbage. Dry up in less than an hour. Confirmed that they are genuine; tines aligned properly. Nothing special even when they're working correctly. The only pen I regret buying...largely b/c it never works.

 

Hero 616 - Ironically much better performers than the 100. Of the 10 I own, 9 work flawlessly with a nice fine line and good ink flow. They do look and feel cheaper than the 100...but they don't dry out easily. A real steal.

 

Jinhao X450 - My favorite. Perhaps I just got lucky with mine but the pen is smooth, the ink flow generous, and pen fits my hand very nicely. Mine is a B-nib.

 

Jinhao X530 - Own 3 of them (all M-nib); none of them worked well out of the box. Ink flow and tine alignment issues galore. A pity b/c they're beautiful.

 

The TWSBI Diamond (though not Chinese) is better in every way than the aforementioned pens. Its overall construction, filling mechanism, and cap seem superior to me.

 

Cheers,

NM

 

Have you tried using wax to seal the cap on the "100"? an easy test is to blow into the cap and see if any air leaks out, if so just heat and drip some wax into the top of the cap.

[PaulT00]

I have a Hero 100 Stainless which is OK - writes a little on the dry side - but my favourites are a couple of Jinhao X750s. Superb value (bought in the UK from Andys Pens for £10 each) pretty well constructed with very large nibs, and both are buttery smooth wet writers - one even has a touch of stubbiness to its nib and shows some interesting line variation. If they have a flaw it is that the supplied ink converter has a fairly low capacity and they need refilling quite often.