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Pens Everyone Seems To Love That You Hate


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Parson's Essential Italix, Lamy Safari.

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I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.

 

Mark Twain

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mmm......

 

About the closest to hate is the Parker IM - hard starter regardless of ink, dried out after only a few hours. It was a "little" better once I put some scotch tape over a small hole in the cap under the clip. Two worst pens I have ever had. Don't know how Parker gets away with building such garbage.

 

I have a Preppy that was converted to eyedropper by previous owner. We didn't get along. And I ended up getting lots of ink on my hands. As a writer, it was acceptable. When the pen is less than $5 and the converter is $7 there is a problem.

 

A Jinhao 159 - to big to heavy and the nib which had been stubbed, dried up and was a hard starter. Much like the IM I have. I gave it away as a PIF, but did reveal the issue. I don't know how the new owner got on with it.

 

My favorite pens? Pelikan M2xx, TWSBI 580 with one of Art's Tomahawk stubs on what was a B when I got it and my stable of Parker 45's. (~5 + Flighter BP/MP)

 

My Konrad once I put a Goulet B nib in it became much more loved. It didn't get much use as a "flex" pen. Not that it didn't write well out of the box because it did. (with virtually no fiddling)

Brad

"Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind" - Rudyard Kipling
"None of us can have as many virtues as the fountain-pen, or half its cussedness; but we can try." - Mark Twain

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  • 4 weeks later...

The Pilot Metropolitan--but let me be very clear that I don't hate it at all, rather that it was my first pen and it helped me figure out what I didn't like. It's a really reliable pen with a decent nib, and I like the looks. But being a newer, younger user of fountain pens with smaller hands, I found out really quickly that I need my pens to be slimmer and lighter if I want to use them regularly. People seem to like the particular balance it has when posted, but I find my posted Metropolitan to be too heavy/top-heavy for me. In addition, I needed to go through a significant adjustment period when I first started writing with it, since I found it to be too wide for me, almost double the width of a wooden pencil and significantly larger than the mechanical pencils I used in school. Since then I think I've relaxed my grip a little, and I still use it regularly--it's sitting beside me right now, in fact, and it's actually the nicest pen in my collection. But I'm still searching for an ideal EDC :)

Amy C.

 

My FP/Calligraphy blog: inkynibby

 

As of January 2016, still searching for the elusive light, slim EDC!

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For me it's the Faber Castell Loom and most of my Pelikans out of the box. The Faber Castell wrote okay, nothing spectacular. I liked it well enough when I bought it. But the more I used it the less I enjoyed it, and now it hardly sees any use. It's a little too heavy and the grip is a little too slick and the nib doesn't write nearly as smoothly as everyone said it would. The only thing that is still drawing me to the pen [and my biggest draw initially] is the interesting and modern aesthetic. However, as for the Pelikans, they've all been great in my hand [except for the M800 and M1000 which feel backweighted to me], but the nibs have been pretty atrocious all around. Either out of alignment or suffering from baby's bottom, and two times, both. I'm sure others have had good experiences though.

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I've only read the first and last few posts, but the pen I like least is my Lamy Safari. it has a broad nib which, while it doesn't skip, just doesn't seem to put down enough ink. The inks' colors don't show well in the writing. Also, the nib feels strange (unlike any of my other pens) on the paper. I have a few stub-nib pens that I like, so it's not the broad nib's width that's the problem. I know many people love the Safari, but I don't. Maybe mine's a fluke?

 

My favorite is the Pilot Metro. I have four which I keep inked with various colors of ink, and I've not had any problem with any of them. Hope I'm not jinxing them! LOL

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Both of my Ahab Noodlers were junk. I tried to branch out from really nice pens, like growing up means you can do more with less. Or something.

 

I wonder how many people are encouraged to get inexpensive pens on FPN, buy one, and go back to ballpoints because cheap fountain pens work poorly.

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I can see the Hero pens putting a lot of people off on that level, Michigan. The alleged cheapness isn't much of a factor when you need to buy at least half a dozen of the things to find one that works properly, is it?

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Aesthetically - any demonstrator. Once the novelty of a see-through pen wears off, all you've got is something really ugly that used to be a novelty.

Functionally - Noodler's 'Ahab' - lumpy, awkward pen of obviously inferior materials with about as much flex as a concrete piling

James

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Aesthetically - any demonstrator. Once the novelty of a see-through pen wears off, all you've got is something really ugly that used to be a novelty.

Functionally - Noodler's 'Ahab' - lumpy, awkward pen of obviously inferior materials with about as much flex as a concrete piling

I agree. I bought one demonstrator. It looks nasty from black ink stains on the inside. I have no interest in cleaning it up.

Edited by vorpal
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Both of my Ahab Noodlers were junk. I tried to branch out from really nice pens, like growing up means you can do more with less. Or something.

 

I wonder how many people are encouraged to get inexpensive pens on FPN, buy one, and go back to ballpoints because cheap fountain pens work poorly.

I don't have any Ahabs, but I have Noodler's FPCs, Konrads and Charlies. Mine have all worked relatively well for the most part (except for one of the Charlie pens which I haven't tried yet). I dunno. Maybe I got lucky. But I've liked my Noodler's pens.

As for the comment about going back to BPs after trying inexpensive FPs, I think it's more likely that people did what I did -- start with inexpensive pens and then graduate to more expensive ones. Of course, though, I ended up taking the vintage pen path instead. So, somewhat more expensive but also running the risk of other issues (repair costs).

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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Pens people love that I can't get on with:

 

MB. They just look like higher quality Jinhaos to me. (Not talking about the vintage MBs, which I covet but can't afford.)

 

Pelikan 200s. They seem kind of cheap compared to the m400 or m600.

 

Viscontis. Glad, reading this thread, that I'm not the only one. I love Italian celluloids but just can't love the bling. Or that clip.

 

But thank goodness, the world is made up of different folks with different tastes. So you're not all chasing up the price of vintage Osmias or Edacotos or Merlins. At least I hope not!

Too many pens, too little time!

http://fountainpenlove.blogspot.fr/

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"Hate" is too severe. Too emotional. There are a couple of popular pens that I found disappointing.

The initial quality of the Parker 21 did not survive the decades. My four specimens of the Jinhao x750 have ink flow that changes, without warning, from smooth to choke to belch.

Auf freiem Grund mit freiem Volke stehn.
Zum Augenblicke dürft ich sagen:
Verweile doch, du bist so schön !

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Anything Noodler's. Before you stop reading, understand that I am a person who tries to "buy American" first. So, when I got back into fountain pens, I had to buy a Noodler's Konrad and several bottles of Noodler's ink, including the iconic Apache Sunset and Black Swan in Australian Roses. What a mess! The pen leaked, burped, and did anything but write. I watched videos on how to adjust the nib, how to adjust the ebonite feed, etc, etc, etc. What a mess! And while I love the colors, the inks are junk! The dry time is impossible, and they leave this sticky residue that smears if anything moves across it. Ugh! Then at a pen show, a very nice pen retailer decided to "renew my faith in Noodler's" by giving me an Ahab demonstrator. This time the pen wrote reasonably well. But it still burped and leaked everywhere. And it is impossible to clean. I'm done with anything Noodler's!

"Today will be gone in less than 24 hours. When it is gone, it is gone. Be wise, but enjoy! - anonymous today

 

 

 

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TWSBI. After a year of trying to get the thing to write correctly, the feed finally disintegrated on me, and in such a way that killed the entire pen, not just the nib unit. I was gleeful to throw the thing in the trash (gasp!). The issues I had seem to be common enough that I won't be getting another - there are so many other unknown pens I can spend my money on.

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Aesthetically - any demonstrator. Once the novelty of a see-through pen wears off, all you've got is something really ugly that used to be a novelty.

Functionally - Noodler's 'Ahab' - lumpy, awkward pen of obviously inferior materials with about as much flex as a concrete piling

I have always found it interesting when folk buy "Demonstrator Pens" and then complain about seeing the ink in all those hard to clean out places.

 

I thought the whole purpose was to demonstrate that ink does get into all those hard to clean out places?

 

 

 

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I have always found it interesting when folk buy "Demonstrator Pens" and then complain about seeing the ink in all those hard to clean out places.

 

I thought the whole purpose was to demonstrate that ink does get into all those hard to clean out places?

 

Exactly! But, unfortunately, some of us have to learn the hard way.

"Today will be gone in less than 24 hours. When it is gone, it is gone. Be wise, but enjoy! - anonymous today

 

 

 

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"Hate" is too strong of a word. I don't like the Pelikan M200, Pilot Metropolitan, Kaweco Sport, Parker 51, and I've never met a Platinum anything that I've liked.

Franklin-Christoph, Italix, and Pilot pens are the best!
Iroshizuku, Diamine, and Waterman inks are my favorites!

Apica, Rhodia, and Clairefontaine make great paper!

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