What Was Your Last Impulsive Pen Acquisition?

[PithyProlix]

Family portraits of the Caran d'Aches can be found here: 

 

[lukeap69]

16 hours ago, PithyProlix said:

 

This is a very interesting pen! What color did you get? And nib?

My first choice colour was not available so I went for J013, black with reddish pattern. In terms of nib, I went for fine. My experience with Chinese nibs is fine are almost the same as my Medium Sailor 21k nibs in thickness. I hope I made the right choice.

[DLCJr]

Pilot Kakuno <M>.  I didn't need another one, but I just love these (and Preras) and didn't have a Kakuno with the <M> nib. I loaded it up with Platinum Chou Kuro and it's black ink beast!  Fantastic. 

 

(Kakuno/Prera/Metropolitan nibs/feeds are so easy to clean that I thought the Kakuno would be a good host for the Chou Kuro ink.)

[A Smug Dill]

Now that I've cancelled my Appelboom order in a huff, and the refund was making me itch, …

 

I just ordered another two Admok J800 (yes, I finally figured out the proper model designation) piston-fillers, both with silver trim this time, and fitted with Schmidt nibs (one original F, and one M reground to “small blade” which I wouldn't have chosen if there was any other nib option in stock for the second colourway); and some bits and pieces, so that I can experiment with fitting a Pelikan Souverän M805's 18K gold nib and brass piston mechanism into one of them.

[Mercian]

1 hour ago, A Smug Dill said:

I just ordered another two Admok J800 (yes, I finally figured out the proper model designation) piston-fillers, both with silver trim this time, and fitted with Schmidt nibs…

…and some bits and pieces, so that I can experiment with fitting a Pelikan Souverän M805's 18K gold nib and brass piston mechanism into one of them.

I wish you good luck with your experiment!

 

I had never heard of the Admok pen, so Googled it.

I found the following review on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj7VpsgHI2s

The reviewer compares it to his Pelikan M800, and he disassembles both pens to demonstrate the interchangeability of their components (there is a link in the video’s description, so that you can jump straight to that part of the video).

Elsewhere in his video he also compares the construction/material quality of the Admok with those of some other Chinese (& one Indian) pens.

 

I remember you saying that you dislike watching video reviews, so here is my attempt to summarise* the information that I think may be relevant for your experiment:

 

1- the piston assembly from the Pelikan M800 fits perfectly in to the Admok ‘Ingenuity’ (& vice-versa);

 

2- the Pelikan has two decorative bands on its piston-turning knob, but the Admok has its single decorative band on the end of its barrel.
Putting a Pelikan piston-assembly into the Admok will result in a hybrid/Frankenpen that has three bands next to each other, presumably plated with metals that are immediately (jarringly?) obviously different.
I suspect that swapping the piston-knobs between the piston units may also be necessary if one values ‘coherence’ of appearance;

 

3- the assembled nib-&-feed units are not interchangeable - their threads are at different locations.
You could of course attempt to take the 18k nib out of the Pelikan nib/feed unit, and to then install it on the Admok’s nib/feed unit as a replacement for the Schmidt nib;

 

4- the reviewer bemoans the low quality/cheap look and feel of the plastic out of which Admok has manufactured their ‘Ingenuity’ pen.
He contrasts it with the ‘high quality’ of the plastics used by e.g. Jinhao and Moonman in some of their pens;

 

5- the reviewer says that the Schmidt ‘M’ nib on his Admok writes with a ‘western’-‘M’ line width, and the writing-experience is smooth while still providing some ‘feedback’. He was fairly complimentary about the writing experience with the Schmidt nib - e.g. no skipping, or problems with inkflow.

The reviewer paid $50 US for his Admok ‘Ingenuity’. He says that he feels as though he was ‘ripped-off’ at that price. The ‘low-quality’ look & feel of the plastic used by Admok disappoints him.
His opinion is based on his experience of the higher-quality plastic used by Jinhao and Moonman to make piston-fill pens for which he paid similar prices.

 

I hope that you have paid less for your Admoks than he paid for his, and that your experiment proves to be easy and satisfying to complete.

 

Slàinte,
M.

 

* I acknowledge that any ‘summary’ of mine is likely to be about as ‘concise’ as anyone else’s ‘exegetic treatise’ 😞

[Dan Carmell]

50 minutes ago, Mercian said:

 

* I acknowledge that any ‘summary’ of mine is likely to be about as ‘concise’ as anyone else’s ‘exegetic treatise’ 😞

Ha, my summaries also turn into essays! I saw the video—I also am impatient with video reviews but Doug’s tempo and presentation works for me—and got a couple of these Admoks a few days later. The criticism of the plastic is fair, I guess, as it certainly isn’t the highest quality even as an acrylic. Some of the colors are quite nice, however. I suspect because the Admok feels rather light compared to the Pelikan M800, that contributes to the cheaper feeling. 
 

It is put together well and the trim is good. I don’t understand why it’s priced sharply higher than other Chinese pens that I would consider its peers, but that’s the free market for you. Admok also has a flattop model that appear to be an upscale Jinhao 100, for $39.99. 

[A Smug Dill]

8 hours ago, Mercian said:

I remember you saying that you dislike watching video reviews, so here is my attempt to summarise* the information that I think may be relevant for your experiment:

 

Thank you!

 

8 hours ago, Mercian said:

I hope that you have paid less for your Admoks than he paid for his, and that your experiment proves to be easy and satisfying to complete.

 

The basic Admok J800 — say, tapped for a Schmidt nib unit, and fitted with one in factory-condition as supplied — is almost uniformly priced at CNY ¥229 (~US$32) each, excluding shipping and tax, on Taobao. Without discounts and redemption of reward points, it comes to just under US$40 each for me, after shipping (by air mail to Australia), tax and (credit card and/or currency conversion) fees, assuming I'm getting exactly two of the pens on each order.

 

Shipping overseas is never free on Taobao, and substantial enough to make me think thrice about placing an order. In this particular order, I was able to add one brass-shelled piston mechanism and one M800 kit (black cap with gold trim, black piston knob, and black grip section/adapter for the Pelikan M800 nib unit) without increasing the shipping charge.

 

I can't recall what was in play, but the two pens I bought last time averaged out to ~US$36 each taxed and delivered. They're fine for what they are, especially given they're fitted with German nib units. I'm sure there have been HongDian and other pens, fitted with Chinese nib units, for which I paid about as much ordering them on AliExpress. I don't think there's anything particularly poor or inferior about the acrylic pen bodies; the tortoiseshell one uses what I think is almost identical material found in the coloured parts of the Stipula La Ventidue 22's pen body.

[Surlyprof]

On 3/7/2024 at 10:11 AM, carola said:

After all that talk about Lamy being sold and how they might or might not continue, I impulse bought a B-nibbed Lamy 2000 in black macrolon. I´ve already had the stainless steel version for a few years and I love it, never feeling the need to get the original macrolon version. But suddenly there was this urge, triggered by a maybe not even real possibility of missing out on the design icon, and so I went to ebay, found the best offer, bought it and today it was delivered. Right now I am laughing at myself a bit, but well, the pen wasn´t too expensive and it is a nice match with the stainless steel, so all is well.

I did the same.  I just received the broad-nibbed Lamy 2000 I ordered just in case Mitsubishi were to change this icon in any way.  With my luck, the only change they will make is offering it in colors.*

 

* …at which point I’d be tempted to buy another!

[Gloucesterman]

7 hours ago, Surlyprof said:

I did the same.  I just received the broad-nibbed Lamy 2000 I ordered just in case Mitsubishi were to change this icon in any way.  With my luck, the only change they will make is offering it in colors.*

 

* …at which point I’d be tempted to buy another!

And another one after that depending on color ... and price of course (for me, at least.

[Surlyprof]

5 minutes ago, Gloucesterman said:

And another one after that depending on color ... and price of course (for me, at least.

So true!🤣

[A Smug Dill]

Two more pens in the Wancher Crystal series, which is technically identical to the Fine Writing International Constellations series except for the markings on (and pen manufacturer's tuning of?) the JoWo #6 nibs, for significantly less than what I paid for the first of those from AliExpress.

 

An Asvine V126 in green, which is the most recently released colourway. That seems pretty stupid objectively, considering I still haven't inked up any of the other four that been sitting in a box here.

 

Six Jinhao 82 with shimmer in their see-through pen bodies, two units of each of three colours. Three of which will probably be offered to schoolchildren as prizes at the end of the school year. I've already sent their teacher fifty-two pens for use in class (that she won't just give away or let the kids take home). A couple of units of the same of those class pens, so that I can test them out for various aspects of performance myself.

 

Some cheap dip pen handles, to go along with all that, in order to trigger the maximum discount that was available to me.

[A Smug Dill]

Hmmm, I may have gotten myself into a very muddled situation with an AliExpress seller, that will see me end up with forty Jinhao Shark pens — when I hadn't intended on ordering that many!

[Gloucesterman]

16 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

Hmmm, I may have gotten myself into a very muddled situation with an AliExpress seller, that will see me end up with forty Jinhao Shark pens — when I hadn't intended on ordering that many!

40? Yikes!!😵

Congratulations,  I hope!

[carola]

Statements you will only find on FPN. 🤣

[A Smug Dill]

13 minutes ago, Gloucesterman said:

40? Yikes!!😵

 

That makes a total of 106 new pens ordered since Monday evening; and the week isn't over yet.

 

This time last week, I hadn't planned on buying any new pens in March. Or April. Whoops.

[Mercian]

8 minutes ago, carola said:

Statements you will only find on FPN. 🤣

ASD is not completely alone…

I once asked a correspondent about the ‘purple’ ink that she had used to sign her name.

She told me that it was Lamy Violet, and that she had wanted to order enough cartridges of her ‘signature ink’ to last her for a good while, and had settled on 40 being a number that should suffice for the foreseeable future.

She added that she had accidentally ordered 40 boxes of cartridges.

200 cartridges ought to be enough ink for lots of signatures….

[inkstainedruth]

  

Hopefully she has LOTS of correspondence -- or has a way to store the cartridges so that they don't evaporate....  (I still have a few cartridges of Edelstein Amethyst from my first Pelikan Hub, and then someone else tossed their tin of Edelstein Amethyst into the "freebies" box that the guy who runs the mailing list brings to the monthly pen club meetings; and even in the metal tin they came in, some of my old cartridges are drying up on me, and I have to keep remembering to reconstitute the ink with distilled water (I've been running that ink through the Reform pen with the Westinghouse logo on it that I picked up last year at an area estate sale company's showroom sale) -- and am still on the same cartridge I put in the pen when I got it... ).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Misfit]

17 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

That makes a total of 106 new pens ordered since Monday evening; and the week isn't over yet.

 

This time last week, I hadn't planned on buying any new pens in March. Or April. Whoops.

Wow, all hail the @A Smug Dill the ultimate pen buyer extraordinaire. 

[A Smug Dill]

11 minutes ago, Misfit said:

Wow, all hail the @A Smug Dill the ultimate pen buyer extraordinaire. 

 

LOL, 101 pens out of the 106 cost me a total of less than US$86, taxed and delivered to (two separate addresses, no less, in) Australia. 52 of those are going to be sent directly to a school. Some or all of 40 of the remainder may end up getting cancelled, or otherwise not sent, and hence refunded; if they do end up being delivered, most of those will end up being giveaways to schoolchildren.

[PithyProlix]

17 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

Hmmm, I may have gotten myself into a very muddled situation with an AliExpress seller, that will see me end up with forty Jinhao Shark pens — when I hadn't intended on ordering that many!

 

Oops. You better order one of these too: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006274502132.html (sorry, couldn't find a fountain pen version)

Good luck.