What Pen Has The Best Stub Nib You've Ever Used?

[gyasko]

- Wahl-Eversharp flexible stub 

 

- Waterman NY #4 stub

 

- Various 1930s-1960s Pelikan & MB B/BB nibs

[inkstainedruth]

10 hours ago, Wolverine1 said:

I have made sure that I do not own a single Chinese made pen.

I have a few Chinese pens, and they're mostly not bad for being $5 US pens.  Two of the Guanlemings are actually pretty decent (the third one was a clear demonstrator, which used to my dedicated "Bay State Blue" pen until I caught the clip in the elastic in a pen case and snapped the cap finial off).  

The Jinhao 599 -- a knockoff of a Lamy Safari or al-Star -- isn't a bad pen either (someone gave me the pen) except for the color -- a sort of nasty matte metallic gold.  But it had value in that it taught me that I could get used to the triangular grip design.  Are my Safaris better pens?  Yes -- but they also probably 5-6 times as much, plus the cost of a converter.

The only Chinese pen I don't particularly like is a possible fake Hero 616 (someone order a ten-pack on eBay and then gave them away to people at a pen club meeting a few years ago.  It's probably worth a buck, and writes like a pen that's worth a buck -- but it *does* write.

If they were trying to claim to be more expensive pens, that would be one thing.  But all the pens (with the possible exception of the "Hero") are -- while clearly knockoffs -- NOT pretending to be faked versions of the more expensive pens: they're labeled as the brands they are.

As for TWSBI, I don't think that equating the Taiwanese with Mainland China is going to win you a lot of friends -- here on FPN or anywhere else for that matter (with the possible exception of the government in Beijing...). 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

[txomsy]

19 hours ago, Wolverine1 said:

Ken- I am being dead serious. Chinese pens are either cheap copies of American or European pens, and they are usually of real poor quality.  I am not politically correct, and I dont care if it offends Mainland China supporters, so, I will say it, Chinese (Mainland China run by the Chinese Communist Party) pens are crappy pens, that no one should be spending their money on. TWSBI, however is a good Taiwanese manufacturer of pens, and  people should buy their pens.

I have made sure that I do not own a single Chinese made pen.

 

Mind if I seriously doubt it? Mind if I suggest that, hypothetically, may be, just may be, you likely have more Chinese pens than you affirm? See

 

You should keep in mind that many Western manufacturers off-sourced their pen making to China decades ago. Much like many items you buy from Western brands in other lines of products. Chinese are able to produce great products (and you are likely to have many already), but -much like anyone else- they won't unless pressed to.

 

Whether makers from different parts are subject to different pressures (of whichever kind) that exact better qualities from them then becomes an issue of reputation and (sadly) politics.

 

[Bo Bo Olson]

MB forgeries are made in China...the real ones are made in Germany. Your basic cartridge 146/9.

 

Cross, some Parker's (others are still made in France), and I don't know if Cross has moved it's new toy Shaffer from Indonesia to mainland China.

 

Hero makes a good P-51 from original P-51 machinery from Parker's old pre-war China factory...new tooled of course.

 

Buying cheap nibbed pens, does make for many threads of how to get junk butter smooth from noobies.

I don't own any Chinese pens, because they are nails. How ever from a slight tad of reading, Duke's $50 pen is well made.

Because of dirt cheap Chinese pens, no noobie buys an old classic ex-flagship pen...so don't know what quality or balance is.

[Doug C]

I have an Onoto Heritage with a fine stub that I got from Richard Binder eight before he closed shop. He did the grinding and it is perfect. 

[Wolverine1]

txomsy- I really dont have a single pen made in the PRC. Unless you claim that my genuine MB pens or genuine Pelikan or genuineParker pens ( both modern or vintage) pen were made in the PRC.  I dont have a singleChinese pen. The only Chinese products I have are my iPhone and my laptop and desktop computer, unfortunately.

[Wolverine1]

Ruth- clearly, you havent read my post. It clearly states that pen made in the PRC are what I refuse to own, but, Taiwanese pens are ok in my book, in fact, I do own a couple of TWSBI pens, which are Taiwanese designed and manufactured pens.

[gyasko]

8 hours ago, txomsy said:

 

Mind if I seriously doubt it? Mind if I suggest that, hypothetically, may be, just may be, you likely have more Chinese pens than you affirm? See

 

You should keep in mind that many Western manufacturers off-sourced their pen making to China decades ago. Much like many items you buy from Western brands in other lines of products. Chinese are able to produce great products (and you are likely to have many already), but -much like anyone else- they won't unless pressed to.

 

Whether makers from different parts are subject to different pressures (of whichever kind) that exact better qualities from them then becomes an issue of reputation and (sadly) politics.

 

 

What is the claim here?  That despite laws in countries such as the US and Japan, pens labeled Made in Wherever are really made in China?  That parts or materials come from China?  The latter is more plausible, but which parts and/or which materials on which pens?  

 

"Hypothetically" suggests that there is no further argument beyond the claim that because some things are made in China, other things are made in China. 

 

 

[txomsy]

Hypothetically because I do not know if that is the case (that he might own Chinese made pens).

 

But as pointed out, there are good quality pens made in China for several well known western brands as pointed in the thread. Often (not always) the "made in" tag is in the box, not the pen itself, which most times only contains the brand logo. So one may own a Chinese made product and think (because of the branding) it is not.

 

In any case, not everything made in China is worthless. That is the point.

[Bo Bo Olson]

1745 Reforms...the machinery was sold to China @ 2000.

 

They ship a pallet with caps and a pallet with pen bodies. They are screwed together in Germany.....so can be sold as made in Germany.

Can sometimes get 2 for E5.00 on German Ebay.

Originally some E-10-15 but they over flooded the market.

 

They were quite well liked 5 or more years ago on the Com.

Cross, the Chinese made Parker (also made still in France) and the Chinese Duke are well made. But a Duke costs @ $50 if I can remember.

Sometimes you get what you pay for, other times you pay for what you get.

 

The English once had a saying, I'm too poor to buy cheap.....in cheap has to be re-bought often.

[inkstainedruth]

21 hours ago, Wolverine1 said:

Ruth- clearly, you havent read my post. It clearly states that pen made in the PRC are what I refuse to own, but, Taiwanese pens are ok in my book, in fact, I do own a couple of TWSBI pens, which are Taiwanese designed and manufactured pens.

My comments weren't just aimed at you.  If you think they were, that's on you.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[inkstainedruth]

2 hours ago, txomsy said:

Often (not always) the "made in" tag is in the box, not the pen itself, which most times only contains the brand logo. So one may own a Chinese made product and think (because of the branding) it is not.

That is certainly true.  For instance, when we bought our current house, we had to remodel the kitchen.  The disposal unit was made in a Chinese factory under a US label.  ALL disposal units, no matter the brand, were made in that same factory.  I don't know if that's still the case now, but it certainly was in 1998.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[gyasko]

2 hours ago, txomsy said:

Hypothetically because I do not know if that is the case (that he might own Chinese made pens).

 

But as pointed out, there are good quality pens made in China for several well known western brands as pointed in the thread. Often (not always) the "made in" tag is in the box, not the pen itself, which most times only contains the brand logo. So one may own a Chinese made product and think (because of the branding) it is not.

 

In any case, not everything made in China is worthless. That is the point.

 

No brand names or makes were specified and we were told that we likely didn't know where our pens were made.  I read that as a claim about my particular pens.  I can't help feeling irritated by the suggestion.  That was probably not the intent, but that's the way it reads.

 

 

[mhphoto]

Vintage? An nearly-wet-noodle reverse oblique on a Waterman 521/2V. Also worth mentioning is the Waterman music nib I had years ago and sold. Talk about line variation… I also had an old mid-range Montblanc with a nice and flexible stub, but I sold that off at some point. Oh! And a Parker Vacumatic. Niceeeeee. 
 

New(ish)? A ca. 1990s Platinum BelAge music nib. It’s rigid, wide, and SMOOTH. I also have two Pelikans from around the same time, a P381 and P39?  They’re basically the same pen except one has a 14k stub and the other has an 18k stub. 

New? Eh. I don’t know. I have a nice Pelikan M405 with a reverse oblique double-broad that’s nice. I have a steel Franklin Christoph (sp?) music nib on a Noodler’s ebonite Konrad floating around somewhere. I used to have a really nice 18k stub nib unit for Parker Sonnets, but I think I sold that. I had a freaking gorgeous OMAS Paragon (the good generation…) that was bronze arco and had a luscious 18k stub. Sold that too, unfortunately. I used to have three Paragons (bronze arco, arco verde, and burlwood), and I regret selling them off, even if I did make a profit.

[Ergative]

On the China question: I'm absolutely positive that, in a country with a population of 1.4 billion, there are some competent pen makers who do not create total garbage. I myself have a Wing Sung 601 that is rather nice--perhaps not super quality, but definitely not total garbage. What is more, the replacement nib I got for it, from a seller called 'Chinese Pen', is superb. Not at all total garbage. I don't have any PenBBS products, but I hear nothing but good things about them.

 

It's fine not to want to buy a pen from a particular location for political reasons or aesthetic reasons or environmental reasons or any reasons you like, but you should not misrepresent those reasons. 'I don't buy Chinese pens because I don't like the Chinese Communist Party' is not at all the same thing as 'I don't buy Chinese pens because their quality is total garbage.' No one can dispute the truth of the first statement, because no one knows your views on the Chinese Communist Party better than you do; but many people who have bought and used and liked Chinese pens will absolutely disagree with the second. When you start propounding exceptionless generalizations about the pen-making capabilities of close to a fifth of the world's population, you'll get some pushback, and not because people are politically correct, but because they simply disagree with your characterization of pen quality. I, too, dislike the Chinese Communist Party. But I think that good pens come out of that country.

 

On the stub nib quality question: I have an Esterbrook fitted with a 2442 nib, which has an picky sweet spot, but when I'm on it, it glides beautifully. I feel very foolish for having put a document ink (archival/permanent/lightfast/waterproof) in it, because now it's got little dried up flakes stuck in the feed, even after soaking, and I'm worried there are more bits stuck in the channel that I can't reach with a toothbrush. I'll probably have to get myself some pen cleaner in my next ink order.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Duke is a good Chinese pen that once cost $50 whole dollars. Hero makes a good P-51 copy and a good Safari copy.

Sometimes you do get exactly what you payed for..

Other times you through ignorance think you did.

 

Cheap don't mean worthless, it meas worth less....often lots less.

 

If you are satisfied with a $4-5.00 pen fine..........

such draggy cheap nibbed pens make all noobies wish butter smooth, ... at all costs.