Cost Analysis Of Fountain Pen Ink Vs. Ballpoint

[RKSMT]

So I know you can't compare ballpoints and fountain pens, apples and oranges and all that, but I'm just wondering about the ink usage, specifically. I also know it's hard to analysis because it depends on the wetness of the fountain pen, whether or not you have a fine or broad nib, how absorbent the paper is, the ink capacity of the specific ball point your comparing it too..... on and on. So I'm wondering if anyone has done a comparison to any degree at all, whatever info you have would be interesting to hear. My problem with doing the comparison myself is though I regularly empty my fountain pens of ink, to properly do a comparison, you would have to empty a ballpoint pen to see how much writing you could do with one ballpoint pen and then see how much fountain pen ink you would need to write the same amount, but I just don't want to write that much with a ballpoint pen. Writing just a few lines with a ballpoint you can already feel this is going to be a painful process.

[graystranger]

You are right, it will be very painful to do this with a ballpoint. But, there are ways without handwriting to get a comparison.

 

Some of the ballpoint pen refills hold quite a lot of ink and so last a very long time. I used a Parker T-Ball Jotter through high school & college in the 60's - early 70's, and I don't think I replaced the refill but two or three times. Took many notebooks of notes, writing constantly. 4 years of HS, 7 years of college.

 

The Fisher Space Pen holds a lot of ink too. So do some others like Sheaffer & Waterman. I think it would wear my hand out to record how many pages one of these pens write so a comparison could be made quickly (a month or two).

 

The pen companies fixture a pen in a holder and let it write against a large roll of paper. As the paper turns the pen slowly moves down the length of the roll, spiraling along the roll. This way they measure the inches (or miles) that the cartridge writes before running out. Someone with a lathe could set up something like this for either type of pen.

 

I think a good measurement to make is to weigh the ink consumed and report the results in grams of ink per mile as well as miles (or feet) written per filled pen. You would need an analytical balance for the ballpoint (fountain pen ink will weight close to 1 gram per milliliter, so you could measure the fountain pen ink by volume.

 

This is very interesting and I'm interested in seeing what comments your posting collects.

[inkstainedruth]

I remember reading someplace about how many words you should be able to get in writing with a variety of different pens (Parker 51s were pretty much the top of the list because they're so efficient).

I do know from experience that the nib will make a big difference: I started with a couple of cheapie Parker cartridge pens (Reflex? -- the ones with the rubberized section) and when I graduated to a Vector I wasn't sure whether I'd like the F nib as compared to the M nibs the other pens had. Until I realized how many more pages of writing I was getting with the F nib out of a cartridge....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[thygreyt]

If you go cheap on the fountain side, then it might be close... but imo its hard to beat a rollerball/ ballpoint.

 

For example purposes this will be my items (all of which i do own)

 

-Pilot Metropolitan Fine nib. $15

-Parker black ink (quink) $8 (60mL)

-Pilot: rollerball 0.38mm (box of 12) $15 [this is what i used before fountains]

 

So, now lets take 1 of the roller balls, which by simple math costs: $1.25

That pen under my writing took 3 months (give or take a week) of usage.

total cost: $1.25 for 3 months.

 

Now, under the fountains:

Seeing as i refill once a week all 3 pens, that can be re arranged as: assuming i only used 1 pen, then it would get refilled 3 times as fast. (linear math, ignoring the different usage i do due to not all 3 pens getting equally filled)

so, i'd fill up once every 2 days. 3 months is 90 days.

That would be 45 fill ups.

now, converter for pilot holds .6mL of ink. thats 27mL of ink for the 3 months.

that, in ink alone would be: $3.60

 

By using fountain pens i'm spending "tripple" the amount of money, or in a better wording: i'm using $2.50 more than using the roller ball.

Get that per year, and im spending $10 more a year by utilizing a fountain pen.

 

I can live with that.

 

HOWEVER: due to the inherent cost of the pen, it makes the cost higher, but its a one time cost (for the life of the pen).

 

 

Final word:

FP will always be inherently more expensive than anything else, even when buying the least expensive things. The world is filled with competitive mundane pens. You end up paying for the "premium" and the enjoyment.

[RKSMT]

thygreyt - based on what you said I'm sort of convinced that fountain pen ink is more expensive. That was what I was sort of leaning toward, but you always hear that one of the benifits of fountain pen use is it's cheaper because the pen is a one time purchase and then your only paying for the ink which is "cheaper". And even when you hear that claim refuted its only the grounds that no one just buys one pen, nor do then stick with economical, so I was curious. However, your analysis would be correct if you write about the same on average week to week. Can you be sure you write the same with the rollerball than with the fountain pen? One thing to consider is that I think its universally accepted that when writing with a fountain pen you tend to write a whole lot more, due to the ease, comfort..... I know now that I am into fountain pens, I look for any excuse to write, I'm even transcribing stories now.

 

I was about to embark on a little test and wanted to hear anyone's thoughts before I start it. Like I said, I dread having to write with a ballpoint. But the test is, I would write with a ballpoint on one pad and only that pad, starting with a brand new pen, which I weight with my scale accurate to one hundredth of a gram, then as I write little by little I would weigh at the start and end of the session and try to project out the total writing by also weighing an empty pen. The thing is that though it is accurate to one hundredth of a gram, you could weigh the same thing a few time and there will be a difference of around two to three hundredths of a gram difference on the same item so when talking about ink that weight is immense. So I'm thinking of getting a projection from maybe five pages of writing and then if its accurate after five more pages it should be good enough and I can trust the data.

 

Edit: Also thygreyt, what are the three fountain pens you use and what nib size, the metropolitan write really good for a fine nib, but thats because it actually puts down a lot of ink, I don't know if it would be refer to as a gusher, but for fine nibs, I would say so.

Edited November 20, 2015 by RKSMT

[Oranges and Apples]

Ballpoints are cheaper just based on the cost of ink.

 

"Each BIC® ballpoint pen can produce between two and three kilometers (up to two miles) of writing."

http://www.bicworld.com/us/pages/faq/

 

$4.79 for a pack of 60 ballpoints:

http://www.amazon.com/BIC-Round-Medium-Point-60-Count/dp/B0012YVGOW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1448056150&sr=8-1&keywords=bic+ballpoint

 

60 (ballpoints) x 2 (miles) = 120 miles worth of writing for $4.79

[Oranges and Apples]

The question, is how much ink do you need to write with inside a fountain pen to get 2 miles worth of writing?

 

And the ballpoints above have a 1.0mm point, so that would be the equivalent of a broad or double broad nib in fountain pen writing.

[amberleadavis]

Dear RK, you may want to check out these threads for a starting point.

 

Choosing Inks and Pens or Buying Collecting and Actually Using

Inky T O D - How Much Ink Do You Really Use?
http://www.fountainp...you-really-use/
Inky T O D - Do I Have Enough Ink To Last My Lifetime?
http://www.fountainp...st-my-lifetime/

[jsolares]

Why does it matter if fountain pen ink is more expensive than ballpoints?, avoiding all that plastic going to landfills is worth more than just the monetary price of ink for me, yes that also goes for fountain pen cartridges which i seldom use.

[Parker51]

Please include in your cost analysis the cost associated with using a ballpoint versus a fountain pen in regard to pain, pleasure, and happiness. As has often be said, to have a job one enjoys is to never work a day in ones life. Might I suggest that to write with a fountain pen is to write with joy while to write with a ball point is simply to write. I for one am willing to pay the extra cost of a good meal and consider it a bargain versus a cheap bad meal, how about you?

[vjones]

It's less expensive to use ballpoints no matter how you slice it because they're free. I could go down the street to my bank right now and grab a fistfull of ball point pens at no cost if I wanted to. (Ugh. What a depressing thought.)

Edited November 21, 2015 by vjones

[RKSMT]

Why does it matter if fountain pen ink is more expensive than ballpoints?, avoiding all that plastic going to landfills is worth more than just the monetary price of ink for me, yes that also goes for fountain pen cartridges which i seldom use.

 

It matters because not everyone is an environmentalist. It matters because if it actually happens to be less expensive then that could be motivation for more to use fountain pens and whether there environmentalist or not they would then be helping the environment. Lastly it matters because if in fact fountain pen ink is more expensive, how much more expensive would help people decide for themselves if its worth it once they factor in the comfort, pleasure, and happiness you get from a fountain pen.

Edited November 21, 2015 by RKSMT

[RKSMT]

It's less expensive to use ballpoints no matter how you slice it because they're free. I could go down the street to my bank right now and grab a fistfull of ball point pens at no cost if I wanted to. (Ugh. What a depressing thought.)

 

The only person who would even think about using a fountain pen is someone who writes a lot. Someone who writes a lot would not use a fistfull of giveaway ballpoint pens. You would need to do the comparison with a pen that is somewhat comparable in ease of writing.

[chewytulip]

The only person who would even think about using a fountain pen is someone who writes a lot. Someone who writes a lot would not use a fistfull of giveaway ballpoint pens. You would need to do the comparison with a pen that is somewhat comparable in ease of writing.

When I was in school, students wrote a lot and I hardly saw anyone use anything besides a ballpoint.

At that point in time, I favored rollerballs with liquid ink, because they don't require as much pressure as a ballpoint to write, but they empty out fast enough that I felt it was an expensive habit. I would hazard a guess that fountain pens are cheaper than keeping myself in uniball signos or Pilot Precise V5s.

 

Well, they'd be cheaper if I tried. A bottle of ink would last longer than a dozen liquid ink rollerballs, and they're about the same price.

[Manalto]

 

The only person who would even think about using a fountain pen is someone who writes a lot. Someone who writes a lot would not use a fistful of giveaway ballpoint pens.

 

Beware the breezy generalization.

[ancalagon]

I went looking around the internet for some numbers for ballpoints, and did an experiment with an fp, trying to get enough numbers for a decent comparison.

 

There are a bunch of numbers floating around the internet, many of which are probably at least somewhat mistaken or inflated for marketing purposes. For example, I found the claim that an average wooden pencil can write for 35 miles, and a wooden pencil bragging about how far you can write with it that claimed it could write for 6 miles.

 

The claim for BIC ballpoints is that they write for 2-3 km, but I found a study that gave the average number for a ballpoint as 900m, with the high end being about 1.4km and the low end being about 450m. The Pilot Precise V5 is claimed to write for 2.5 km, which is comparable to the BIC claim, so I assume that ballpoints and rollerballs are comparable. I've seen claims of 500-600 m for gel pens.

 

My fp test was with a Pilot Metropolitan, Medium, with about 1 ml of R&K Salix. Originally, I was going to use up the entire refilled cartridge, but it got tedious, and I stopped early. By eyeballing it, I estimated that I used up about 1/3 of the 1 ml by tracing lines on 7 pages of graph paper. Each page was about 18.1 m, giving 18.1 * 3 * 7 or about 380 m / ml.

 

Comparing that to the numbers from the study (which I trust more than marketing numbers), that gives us 1 ml per low end ballpoint, 2.5 ml per average ballpoint, and 3.5 ml per good ballpoint. Looking at some ink prices from a couple of sites, ink is mostly within the $0.08 to $0.66 per ml range, with average relatively cheap ink about $0.15 per ml.

 

So, we're looking at worst case $2.31 (expensive fp ink vs. an efficient ballpoint), best case $0.08 (very cheap fp ink vs an inefficient ballpoint), average case $0.375 worth of ink for 1 ballpoint pen equivalent. If we use the BIC marketing numbers instead of the study numbers, we get worst case $4.29, best case $0.52, average case $0.975. Keep in mind that these numbers are probably not accurate to more than about 1 decimal place, if that.

 

Looking at these numbers and the prices I found for rollerballs ($1 - $3) and ballpoints ($0.15 - $0.80) from a quick web search, it looks like relatively expensive fp ink is on par for an average rollerball, and average to cheap fp ink is on par for an average to cheap ballpoint.

 

I'm assuming bottled ink (not cartridges or ink samples, which are more expensive per ml), and that the price of the fp itself is not significant, which is only really true if you get a relatively cheap pen and/or you run a lot of ink through the pen. Basically, you need to run enough ink through the pen that the ink costs more than the pen for this to be approximately true, which is pretty easy for a Hero 616 and pretty hard for a Montblanc 149, and of course, that's only if you own just one pen. If you have more than one pen, the average worth of ink going through each pen has to exceed the average worth of each pen. I'm also assuming you use up the entire bottle of ink, which is ridiculously not true for the ink addicts collectors among us.

 

So, basically, fp inks are pretty cheap, comparable to rollerballs (for expensive ink) or ballpoints (cheap/average ink), but only really for workhorse inks and workhorse pens. Somewhat surprisingly, even expensive fp inks aren't that expensive, if you use them up.

[Algester]

FP ink becomes cheaper no matter the price due to the fact your getting mostly 50ml per bottle provided your pens arent ink hungry and or using your FP inks in other media (brush pens and water brushes come into mind)

you should relatively get better over-all mileage with cost efficiency with them

same goes to BP ink (I just wished someone can come up with a .28 jetstream parker shape refill :X better if it was Signo)

[amberleadavis]

I went looking around the internet for some numbers for ballpoints, and did an experiment with an fp, trying to get enough numbers for a decent comparison.

 

There are a bunch of numbers floating around the internet, many of which are probably at least somewhat mistaken or inflated for marketing purposes. For example, I found the claim that an average wooden pencil can write for 35 miles, and a wooden pencil bragging about how far you can write with it that claimed it could write for 6 miles.

 

The claim for BIC ballpoints is that they write for 2-3 km, but I found a study that gave the average number for a ballpoint as 900m, with the high end being about 1.4km and the low end being about 450m. The Pilot Precise V5 is claimed to write for 2.5 km, which is comparable to the BIC claim, so I assume that ballpoints and rollerballs are comparable. I've seen claims of 500-600 m for gel pens.

 

My fp test was with a Pilot Metropolitan, Medium, with about 1 ml of R&K Salix. Originally, I was going to use up the entire refilled cartridge, but it got tedious, and I stopped early. By eyeballing it, I estimated that I used up about 1/3 of the 1 ml by tracing lines on 7 pages of graph paper. Each page was about 18.1 m, giving 18.1 * 3 * 7 or about 380 m / ml.

 

Comparing that to the numbers from the study (which I trust more than marketing numbers), that gives us 1 ml per low end ballpoint, 2.5 ml per average ballpoint, and 3.5 ml per good ballpoint. Looking at some ink prices from a couple of sites, ink is mostly within the $0.08 to $0.66 per ml range, with average relatively cheap ink about $0.15 per ml.

 

So, we're looking at worst case $2.31 (expensive fp ink vs. an efficient ballpoint), best case $0.08 (very cheap fp ink vs an inefficient ballpoint), average case $0.375 worth of ink for 1 ballpoint pen equivalent. If we use the BIC marketing numbers instead of the study numbers, we get worst case $4.29, best case $0.52, average case $0.975. Keep in mind that these numbers are probably not accurate to more than about 1 decimal place, if that.

 

Looking at these numbers and the prices I found for rollerballs ($1 - $3) and ballpoints ($0.15 - $0.80) from a quick web search, it looks like relatively expensive fp ink is on par for an average rollerball, and average to cheap fp ink is on par for an average to cheap ballpoint.

 

I'm assuming bottled ink (not cartridges or ink samples, which are more expensive per ml), and that the price of the fp itself is not significant, which is only really true if you get a relatively cheap pen and/or you run a lot of ink through the pen. Basically, you need to run enough ink through the pen that the ink costs more than the pen for this to be approximately true, which is pretty easy for a Hero 616 and pretty hard for a Montblanc 149, and of course, that's only if you own just one pen. If you have more than one pen, the average worth of ink going through each pen has to exceed the average worth of each pen. I'm also assuming you use up the entire bottle of ink, which is ridiculously not true for the ink addicts collectors among us.

 

So, basically, fp inks are pretty cheap, comparable to rollerballs (for expensive ink) or ballpoints (cheap/average ink), but only really for workhorse inks and workhorse pens. Somewhat surprisingly, even expensive fp inks aren't that expensive, if you use them up.

 

Thank you for the analysis.

[RKSMT]

Well I still have some work to do, I haven't yet reached the point that my data is predictable, but here's what I have so far. I started to think that a rollerball user is who would need convincing to use a fountain pen, because they have already determined a ballpoint is just too uncomfortable, so the price difference might be what switches them over to fountain pens. However later I want to just see what the comparison would be for ballpoints.

 

So I took a start weight and end weight for both my fresh out the box Pilot G2 0.7 and my TWSBI Vac 700 with a fine nib, after writing for four and five pages respectively, top to bottom left to right, on a Staples top bound pad and HP Premium Choice laserjet loose leaf paper. The weight difference was .2 and .256 grams respectively, which by using the percentage of gel used (14.8) and a 99 cent per pen cost of the g2 and a supposedly one gram per mL rule for fountain pen ink and a 13.9 cent cost per milliliter for Noodler's Black, I came to a total ink cost of 14.7 and 3.56 cents respectively. Then by dividing the total words written after multiplying an average words per line by the number of lines written, then adjusting to make it appreciable, the cost is $0.95 per 10,000 words for the G2 and $0.19 per 10,000 words for the TWSBI Vac 700.

 

Now I used a fine nib verses a fine nib, but the G2 wrote a fatter line. Is it because the cheap paper is more absorbent which is fine because a rollerball user isn't going to use good paper. Is it because with a rollerball you have to press down harder causing the ink to absorb around the whole ball of the pen not just the tip, because if you write with very light pressure the line is equal to that of the Vac 700. Whatever the cause this is probably not a fair comparison, the problem is my only medium pen is my Loom which is inked up with a ink sample I don't want to throw out, so I have to use that up to then start this test, boy this is a tough, thankfully the joyful part is what has to be redone, the G2 data is still valid, also my TWSBI work is useful for knowing how long a fill will last me. Well I'll update soon and any advice on my approach is welcomed.

 

Also Alcalagon, thanks for your analysis, I guess I'll see if the marketing or study is correct. As for the pen cost and ink collection comment, as far as I'm concerned you don't have to pay too much to get a nice fountain pen, I mean the comfort jump you achieve by going from a ballpoint or rollerball to a fountain pen is a good ten times that a jump from a good cheap fountain pen to a very expensive dream fountain pen, so when you've already achieve so much with so little to spend that much more for so little is at that point something other than a writing experience, you paying for prestige, art, beauty...... Once you gotten that nice fountain pen any other is really a ticket to a different show, which is fine but we are not talking about a cost of writing anymore. Same thing with the ink, once you have that one color you want and will primarily use, any other is playing around and again appeasing something else than a need to write.

[ancalagon]

The 1 gram / ml for fp ink should be pretty accurate. Fp ink is mostly water, and the 1 gram / ml rule for water is part of the definition of metric system units.

 

I suspect there might be a difference between rollerballs and gel rollerballs. The numbers I found on the internet for gel pens were a lot smaller than for rollerballs (although I found very few numbers for gel pens, and they weren't from the most impressive sources), but weren't that different from the study numbers for ballpoints. When I took your numbers and did the math assuming that your handwritten pages contained the same amount of writing as my trace-the-graph-paper-lines pages, I got 489 m / gel pen, which is really close to the 500-600 m / gel pen predicted by the internet references I found.

 

Doing the math for the vac 700, I got 353 m / ml, which is very close to what I got from my test (380 m / ml). I don't know how much of that closeness is coincidence, though, since my pages and your pages were produced quite differently. I'd expect them to be *somewhat* similar, but not quite that close.

 

My comments about collections of inks and pens being inefficient weren't a knock on either of those things; I consider fps to be comfortable, interesting, and fun, which justifies them in spite of any inefficiency they may (or may not) have.