Giving Thanks To Your First Pen

[TheAkwardNinja]

I remember I got my first pen in September. It was a Pilot Varsity 3-pack. I used the black one first. It was the coolest experience ever!!! My old ballpoints and erasable pens were quickly forgotten and I still have the empty pens today! Since then I have a very odd selection of a Pilot Metropolitan, Lamy Safari, and a gifted Montegrappa Parola. What was your first pen?

 

[linearM]

I think my first fountain pen was an Esterbrook that I bought when I was in high school, in about 1960.

[Paddler]

My first is a Sheaffer cartridge pen, given to me in grade school in 1956 (?). It is colorless and clear and I still use it.

[Tas]

I'm relatively new to all this; mine was a set of Pilot 78G pens with B,M,F nibs.

 

I was so lucky with the nibs that I've mostly been chasing my tail to get a better writing experience.

[Jadie]

Ohto F Lapa with an iridium Germany nib. It was a skinny black pen with gold accents; I liked it because it looked classy---& I thought the nib was the coolest thing ever. XD

[Wheatflower]

My first fountain pen was an aquamarine Lamy Safari; it was a gift from a good friend. That was a few years ago, and though I now have a LOT more pens now it is almost always in my rotation. It's in my pen cup next to my computer right now.

[mongrelnomad]

Always used Lamy Safaris in school, then a Cross Century in high school.

 

Lost the FP bug for 15 years; rekindled it with a Sailor 1911 Creatures of the Deep.

 

I'm happy, but my bank balance isn't...

[AnnieB123]

I used a bunch of school pens (I'm a product of an English public school in the 70s-80s).. I still have a few like them, but not the actual pens. On special occasions I was allowed to draw with or use my grandfather's pens... mostly Conway Stewarts, with a few Montblancs (Montsblanc? ) thrown in for good measure. My mum was a university librarian, so I always had school supplies around me, and fountain pens were a big part of that. My dad (and grandfather) were engineers... so I was always 'helping' them take apart non-functioning 'stuff' and turn it into functioning/repurposed 'stuff'. I am most thankful for that... a lifelong interest in taking things apart and sensible patient adults around me to let me go nuts (within reason) and help me figure out how the parts could be fixed and put back together. Sort of funny that that's what I'm still doing.. taking things apart on a molecular level and figuring out what makes them work (hopefully)

 

PS Edited to add: Anyhow, happy thanksgiving day to everyone in the states =)

Edited November 28, 2013 by AnnieB123

[basterma]

Pelikan P10. Still use it today. Bought in 1987.

[Edwaroth]

My first fountain pen was no doubt a Sheaffer or Scripto school pen somewhere back in the 60's. My very first modern fountain was a Nemosine Singularity bought over a year ago. Still in tip-top shape and I use it regularly...I am still impressed with it!

Edited November 28, 2013 by Edwaroth

[lahlahlaw]

My first fountain is my black and chrome Parker Vector. I got it in 1994 and it's still inked to this day (with a 18-year hiatus). One of my most reliable pens.

[bitterwonder]

My first pen was a 1935 Waterman that I was given when I had to bring a pen to school to learn how to write, back in 1963. Still have the pen, still use it. Write nicely and draws well.

[Sailor Kenshin]

I used a bunch of school pens (I'm a product of an English public school in the 70s-80s).. I still have a few like them, but not the actual pens. On special occasions I was allowed to draw with or use my grandfather's pens... mostly Conway Stewarts, with a few Montblancs (Montsblanc? ) thrown in for good measure. My mum was a university librarian, so I always had school supplies around me, and fountain pens were a big part of that. My dad (and grandfather) were engineers... so I was always 'helping' them take apart non-functioning 'stuff' and turn it into functioning/repurposed 'stuff'. I am most thankful for that... a lifelong interest in taking things apart and sensible patient adults around me to let me go nuts (within reason) and help me figure out how the parts could be fixed and put back together. Sort of funny that that's what I'm still doing.. taking things apart on a molecular level and figuring out what makes them work (hopefully)

 

PS Edited to add: Anyhow, happy thanksgiving day to everyone in the states =)

Why, thanks!

 

My first fountain pen was a Skrip, AKA Sheaffer School Pen. It had a chrome cap, a translucent yellow body, and black ink carts. A nice little writer. I thought it was pretty cool, and they were surprisingly uncommon.

 

I wonder what became of it.

[J Jordan]

Waterman Phileas. My uncle gave it to me for my high school graduation gift. I stashed it for a few years, and then opened it one day and actually started to use it. Then my interest in fountain pens took off from there.

[WaskiSquirrel]

My first pen was a Parker Vector in a burgundy color and fine point that I purchased in about the fourth grade. It was a letdown from the first. I preferred black ink even then (it came with blue). I wanted a self-filling pen, and it used cartridges. I didn't like the clip, the pen wrote too wide, and I didn't like the way the cap filled with ink all the time. It turned out there was a bit of sponge in the cap that seemed to continually draw ink out.

 

But, I kept using it because I liked the concept of a fountain pen and had limited funds. It wasn't until I moved to North Dakota that I found a fountain pen I actually liked (a Parker of some kind, but I don't remember what).

 

I no longer own either of these pens. But, they at least kept the idea of a fountain pen in my mind.

[SharkOnWheels456]

My first pen was a Lamy Safari bought off of Amazon. I didn't even focus on a nib size, and I knew nothing about pen maintenance. Whenever a cartridge ran dry, I would simply plunk in a different color and have the inks mix until the right color eventually came out.

 

Since then, I've invested almost ~600 into my collection (which is nothing to people with stable incomes that aren't 16 years old, I suppose) and have become an utter fanatic. I've also learned that I really don't like Fine nibs. They don't fit my handwriting in the slightest. Guess I won't be learning any Eastern languages in the future

[ISW_Kaputnik]

If I'd gone to different schools when I started first grade in the early 1960s, or if anyone in my family had used one, I might have discovered fountain pens much earlier. As it was, I waited until the 21st century to get one.

 

Parker IM. It had horrible flow problems if left unused for even half a day, and I didn't stick with it, although I now have a good idea what the problem was, and how to fix it. Once you got it going, however, and if you kept on writing with it, it was beautifully smooth, unlike anything I'd written with before. That was enough to get me to try other fountain pens. Many other fountain pens.

[Inkysloth]

My first was a Parker Classic (flighter), a gift from my maternal granddad for my 10th (I think) birthday, engraved with my name.

 

It never really worked well, and it was rediscovering it early this year that partially kicked me into this hobby! It now works a treat, though I cheated somewhat & "upgraded" the nib to a f/m 180.

 

My grandad was a miserable old sod, but we had great affection for each other, and I still miss him, the pen is a lovely connection.

[leeowens337]

My first was a Waterman Phileas "starter kit". I saw it at a major office supply retail store and thought it would be neat to try a fountain pen. While I initially did find the experience of using a converter with the bottled ink to be interesting and neat, I did not like the overall writing experience. Now, the nib was as smooth as butter, but it wrote (what I now know to be) a very heavy medium line which I did not like. I typically want a very fine line for my writing so that deterred me from wanting to use the pen. So after a bit I put everything back in the box and stuck it in a drawer.

 

Jump ahead several years, not sure exactly how many but probably 5-7 the way time flies, and I take the kit out of the drawer one day and decide to try it out again. Of course not much changed, but this time it started me actually looking into fountain pens, researching how they work and the differences in nib sizes and so on. That led me to purchase a couple of Lamy Safari Vistas, one Fine and one Extra Fine for comparison. That was in July 2011, and I've been hooked since!

 

Bottom line, the Phileas did light the spark of my obsession, but the Lamys set it ablaze...

 

-Lee

[lynxcat]

my very first one was a primary school-issued Pelikan, some early-1980s predecessor of what they're currently marketing as a school pen i imagine. i remember i had this childish notion that all fountain pens should write wider when you pressed down on them --- i never sprung that nail of a nib, but i do wonder what shape it ended up in. it might still exist, in some long lost moving box on the far side of the planet.

 

much more recently i picked up some Varsities in the local college bookstore. i liked them, even though the nibs wrote very differently from one to the next (QC issues, i believe) and i was disappointed they weren't refillable.

 

some years after that, i found FPN and got my 78G. that one still writes wonderfully, as do my various other ones.