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What Was The First Fountain Pen You Owned And What Happened To It?


The Blue Knight

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My first one is a Pilot Metropolitan that I bought in October 2013. I have recently tuned it so that it is wetter. It still sits on my desk for my daily writing.

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Catching up reading this thread, I realized that I hadn't posted an update. The Vector turned up (in the early fall? -- certainly after many months) leaned upright in an open drawer on my computer desk! At least it had just been flushed before that happened.

It has now been christened "Perdita".... And it likes R&K Scabiosa just as much as all the other iron gall inks I've put in it! :lol:

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

"It's very nice, but frankly, when I signed that list for a P-51, what I had in mind was a fountain pen."

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My first FP was a 1987 Pelikan M200 with gold plated Medium nib. I used it at school. Eventually it came to rest in the drawer for FP-less years, writing only with ballpoints and forgetting all about it.

When I reorganised my house some years ago, I found it again. The piston was stuck because all those years it had been lying there without being cleaned. The ink had dried inside. I, at that time largely ignorant about FPs, turned the knob by force and yes it broke. Thinking I had just a broken old FP in my hands, I dropped it in the bin. Gone.

 

Only some years later, relatively recently, I discovered Fountainpen network, with all the information available here...And I soon learned that my beautiful, unique W-Germany Pelikan from the 80's was in fact irreplaceable.

Both from a technical (soft/flexi-nib) point of view as from a emotional point of view; all those school exams and lessons I wrote with it...just imagine...

I quickly both a new M200, and boy it does write good!

Always will regret throwing my old Pelikan in the bin though.

"Le vase donne une forme au vide, et la musique au silence"

Georges Braque

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When I passed my exams and went to grammar school, my parents bought me a silver Sheaffer with a double sided nib (A Sheaffer Stylist, as I discovered latterly). I soon trashed it, but it still worked for many years - and I still have it now (in bits) awaiting repair, should I ever be able to find the necessary parts.

The double sided nib was a revelation and I still wonder why this innovation never caught on and became the 'norm'.

 

Towards the end of my school years, I was given a Parker Harlequin. Thought it was the coolest pen ever! Long lost now.

 

During this period, my Grandfather died and I got his Conway Stewart 388. This became my favourite pen and I still have it, now in perfect working order again.

 

Thanks.

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I had some fountain pens previously (Parker Fronter, Sonnet and Jotter) but I didn't fall in love with any of them until I got a Cross Verve with my first pay cheque from my first full-time job (2005) :) I used it last week. Since then I bought a Cross ATX when I was staying with a friend at his university, I decided to go to university that week (the ATX still lives in the pen draw). I bought another Parker Sonnet in my second year at university (this one was also a poor performer).

 

Those were my early pens up until about two years ago when I bought an M200 and a bottle each of Lamy Blue-Black (IG) and PR Chocolate; I have been broke but happily surrounded with pens and inks ever since.

For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love. -Carl Sagan

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My 1st F/P was a Blue marbled Waterman Lauret, that I bought new in 1985 at a Merchandise Mart in the Chicagoland area.

 

I still have it!

 

I have bent the nib and had it replaced way back when by waterman........

 

I used the pen when my company used to send me on airplane rides and while in the airport, I used to write my mother and sister letters with that pen.....

 

Then I bought a M/B 149 and the rest is history......I now have over 400 hundred pens in my stable........

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Ahhh...here's where it all started back in 1998. Addiction. This Montblanc was a wedding present from my bride. First fountain pen, first wife. I kept the pen. I consider it my single most favorite material possession. An impossibly high bar was set (for pens), one that I haven't ascended to with subsequent pen purchases. Somehow the pens that followed have never quite lived up to my first. I think I want to be buried with it...Viking style.

post-108419-0-48927600-1389808634_thumb.jpg

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Ahhh...here's where it all started back in 1998. Addiction. This Montblanc was a wedding present from my bride. First fountain pen, first wife. I kept the pen. I consider it my single most favorite material possession. An impossibly high bar was set (for pens), one that I haven't ascended to with subsequent pen purchases. Somehow the pens that followed have never quite lived up to my first. I think I want to be buried with it...Viking style.

 

Ok. So you kept the wife too right?

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The first one was a Sheaffer cartridge school pen in transparent red plastic with a smooth chrome cap. Probably acquired in about 1967, beccause it was 'different', and adolescents appreciate the means to stand out. Then I discovered how it improved my penmanship.

What happened to it? It's in one of the pen cases on the bookshelves behind me as I write this.

D.C.

 

The Sheaffer cartridge school pen was my first FP as well.

Bought it in grade school in the early 60s from the nuns at my parochial school.

I think I still have the pen or a very very reasonable facsimilie thereof.

I love writing with that pen.

My very next high end FP was a Mont Blanc 146 which I received as a gift.

Good times.

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That would have been a Sheaffer cartridge pen around 1964, when I started high school. Maybe an Esterbrook equivalent. (To this day I'm suspicious of green inks.) No idea what happened to it/them. The next was a Shaeffer Targa, black, fine, in 1980. Still have it. Currently it's filled with Iroshizuku Momiji.

 

The rest of the pack started showing up at the front door about a year ago. Lounging around the house, pawing through drawers and book shelves. Sneering at the Varsity and Preppys, trying to stay out of the way of the Twisbi's...

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My one was a telescopic fountain pen that my dad gave me. I've lost it though and i got no idea where it is now.

 

2nd fountain pen was a lamy al-star in blue, I left that one on the tram one day and never go it back.

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Lamy Safari in Charcoal. Ordered off of Amazon before I even had any idea what nib size I liked (it helps that it wrote more like a fine/medium) and whether or not I even had to clean the pen while switching from cartridge to cartridge.

 

The nib is somewhat sprung (oops), but I'll still use it on occasion just because I can. I may end up getting a 1.1 italic if I ever want to see how those nibs feel. It would be a nice way to put the pen that started it all back in rotation.

“I say, if your knees aren’t green by the end of the day, you ought to seriously re-examine your life.”-Calvin

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Ok. So you kept the wife too right?

 

Nope. I think she just wanted me as breeding stock. After we made two fine specimens I was released. I think spouses are like pens ...sometimes things just don't work out no matter what you try and hard you try.

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My first FP was a Sheaffer cartridge pen in some sort of translucent plastic, the schoolkid's type that sold for probably fifty cents back in the fifties. My dad probably bought it for me. I went through several of them by the time I graduated from Wilson HS. It/they were lost in various moves.

 

Although it's not really a fountain pen, my next one was a Koh-i-Noor Rapidograph, #0 width; we used them at work to number negatives and as it was in my shirt pocket constantly, I also used it to write with for quite some time. It, along with others from my graphic arts career is somewhere in a box of draughting equipment.

 

Next came a Sheaffer Targa, I used them until I couldn't find replacements locally (college, gravity vs nib) and switched to the Parker 45.

 

I still have one of the Targas and expanded the Parker 45s; since a murrian siezed me and I purchased an old black Estie J (because my favourite uncle used one) I've succumbed to madness and a liking for antique pens. I'm still working on legible handwriting, twenty plus years of working in radiology and college note-taking killed that pretty thoroughly.

 

Leon

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MB 342, I think I learned to write with it. It's without the clip (that's perhaps why it has been given to me:-)), so it's a bit unpractical to use it outside, since it rolls on the table but I still have it and I still think it's the best FP I have. It can stay unused for a month but it starts immediately. The nib is terrific, a sort of OM that is almost fine by today's standards and has some flex. A wonderful writer that puts to shame most of my other "modern" pens.

"Change what you cannot accept, do not accept what you can't change" C$C

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First fountain pen? Lamy Al-Star, silver, fine nib. Fresh water flush (didn't start using one drop of dish detergent yet for the first flush) of the z24 converter and FP, inked with Noodler's black. Good writer - was an EDC for a while. Good clip for cargo pant pocket holstering. Great for contract or document signing duties. HR person said nice pen, when doing the new hire paperwork. Have not changed ink type or color yet with this Lamy. Before I received it in the mail I already had an order in for a Lamy 2000 (makrolon) fine nib that also did not disappoint.

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The commanding officer at one of my squadrons required all his officers to own and use a "time management system." The system I ordered offered an option for a pen and I selected the fountain pen. It was an Elysee in black lacquer with a beautiful smooth medium nib. That was 1985 and the Elysee was my constant daily user for the next nine years. It survived two Mediterranean deployments on aircraft carriers (and two trips through the ship's laundry without leaking or damage). It wrote over three hundred letters to my wife and drafts of dozens of official reports plus who knows how many meeting notes and pieces of official correspondence. I have never owned a more rugged or more reliable fountain pen. It's only limitation was official logbooks. Navy Regs said they had to be written with a ballpoint.

I still have that pen although it has been retired because the cap is no longer secure. As others have written, maybe I can get it repaired.

Dave Campbell
Retired Science Teacher and Active Pen Addict
Every day is a chance to reduce my level of ignorance.

fpn_1425200643__fpn_1425160066__super_pi

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The details have gotten a bit hazy (maybe I should ask my mother), but sometime in the late 1990s, when I was about 12-14, for some reason I can't even remember anymore (I think it was a generalized love of antiques and neat mechanical things, maybe), I expressed interest to my mother in fountain pens.

 

Low and behold, I got a Pilot Vanishing Point (Capless) in blue with a medium 14K nib. I loved it, even though I had a hard time using it at the time because my handwriting grip was terrible and the M nib is incredibly wet. I think I ended up munging the nib at some point and from about 2003 to 2006/2007 I fell out of using fountain pens all together.

 

I've rediscovered my love of fountain pens with a vengeance from about 2006 onwards, and eventually set about trying to get it working again. It had set since 1999-2002, not properly cleaned out, and the nib had gone wonky (frequently skipping, etc.), and I'm pretty sure the trap door wasn't sealing properly.

 

I had joined FPN by then and made attempts to clean it up but never really overcame the skipping/drying out problem. I finally sent it to Pilot service and got it back with a brand new nib (I think) and a repaired trap-door. It's great, and I'm older and better able to deal with the wet flow now. Though I do wish it was a 14K nib unit. I know the 18K nibs are springier, but I'm starting to realize that in most pens I prefer a 14K nib because I'm a lefty and I think they're a bit more robust and sturdy.

 

I also love the faceted, plastic body. It weighs literally nothing and the facets make a great gripping surface. The old body style negates the whole clip issue with VPs, IMHO, because your fingers are encouraged to be as away from the clip as possible.

 

As for where it is, I just took this photo after picking the pen up off the top of my keyboard.

 

Untitled by jtdavis84, on Flickr
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  • 3 months later...

Mine was a parker Jotter and I have it sitting by my side at the moment.

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