What Was The First Fountain Pen You've Used?

[2n7000]

Mine was a Parker 51 that was purchased back in the late 80's. That pen resulted in pen, ink, and paper addiction.....It's hopeless

[jar]

Actually, the pen I posted way back there was not the first one I used but rather the first one that was mine.

 

My family had an insurance office and so when I got to go to work with dad I got my own desk to work at, a big blotter and a rocker blotter and two desk pens, one with red ink and one with green ink. I could fill out forms, draw pictures and my dad always gave me an "accounts" page that I had to check for errors.

[sail1942]

A MB VIP I bought in Bonn in the 1980's. I still have it and it's an excellent pen

[BobGast]

I can't recall what my first pen was. I do recall using Sheaffer cartridge pens. The same as many of you. I went through several but I remember mostly green translucent barrels with chrome caps. When I first and quite recently (sometime in this present year) I picked up a Zebra from Walmart. This pen gave me nothing but fits, it wouldn't write to save my life. I think I threw it away. The next pen was a Pilot Metropolitan. I still carry this around with me every day. I have also purchased a few of those old school pens just for the memories.

[PAKMAN]

Parker School pen back in the 70's blue barrel with square ends. That pen is long gone, but I recently bought another just like it. Don't use it much but love having it as a reminder.

[El Gordo]

Parker 45, mid-sixties, black with gold nib, beautiful pen but I didn't realise then. I started nibbling on it until the top was gone and further nibbling resulted in a blue mouth ... . Still feeling sorry that I did not at least rescued the nib. A few years later I got another one, but by far not as beautiful. Stil have it, still writes fine, although it does not look that fine any more (some brassing, probably too salty/sweaty fingers on exams etc).

Edited December 16, 2015 by El Gordo

[PanicAGQ2]

Mine was an Osmiroid 65 box set with F, M and B italic nibs - I was at boarding school in 1979 and those pens were 'the thing' to use, so I paid my $5 for the pen and I think the same for a ream of cheap, thin yellow paper with bits of wood in it and fell in love - the paper was similar to onionskin in thinness and texture, but very very low grade.

 

Regardless, it made a fountain pen lover out of me and taught me to appreciate line variation with that fine italic nib.

 

Terry

[pajaro]

Parker 51.

[AnneLyle]

I'm not absolutely sure, as I was only 11 when I got my first fountain pen - it was compulsory to have one at my school, for homework etc. The first one I remember owning was a Parker 45 Flighter; I don't have it any more, but I bought a replacement in the 1980s and I still have that one. It's a great workhorse pen, smooth and reliable, even if it's not as pretty as, say, a Sonnet.

 

In my teens I also owned an old lever-fill pen with a blue marbled finish. Can't remember where that one came from, or what the brand was, but I bought a very similar pen a few years ago, a vintage 1950s Conway Stewart 28.

[Kelly G]

6th grade,1964, a Sheaffer cartridge pen - red or blue or maybe both, with the chrome cap. No longer have those pens, although I have some just like them. The originals got me in trouble but were fun. My first memories of fountain pens are more about the smell of the ink than the pens, although I do remember my Grandfather's Sheaffer set.

Fast forward 30 or so years and my first serious fp was a MB 144 that my wife bought me for Christmas. I do still have that pen. It was the pen that really started me down the fp rabbit hole.

[Ernst Bitterman]

Mine was a Sheaffer cartridge pen (aka student pen) in clear green with a medium nib, blue ink. It was assigned to me when I was in the 3rd grade, for classroom handwriting lessons. I remember it well, sometimes using it as a tool to flip ink onto the back of other guys' shirts (a little game we played for a the first few days) and eventually "enhancing" the nib by deliberately bending the tines upwards. Somehow it still wrote.

 

It was eventually lost, but when I became obsessed with fountain pens I soon purchased a replacement. Of course it no longer fits my hand and so is uncomfortable to hold for very long, but I'm keeping it for sentimental reasons. And I'm leaving the nib alone.

 

Mine was opaque, but otherwise the same sort of beast. I had a succession of them through to grade 11 (mainly through neglect and ignorance of cleaning) when I gave an Osmiroid a try, and then got a Waterman as a graduation gift.

 

For the past year, all my fiction first drafts have been with a relatively recently acquired clear green Sheaffer cartridge pen rigged as an eyedropper; my hand is a lot bigger than when we first met, but I find it still first brilliantly

 

edit to add picture of an identical twin of The First:

http://dirck.delint.ca/beta/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Sheaffer-0015.jpg

Edited December 16, 2015 by Ernst Bitterman

[margheriti]

My first is the Campo Marzio Forbes fountain pen, which I'm still using right now. I really like it as a first, and it was quite cheap (although a little more expensive than it's value justifies) but you get what you pay for. It writes well and wet, which is beautiful, but you can't use the converter to suck up ink without taking it out of the pen and dipping the converter's nozzle right into the ink. Dipping the nib in the ink to fill leads to the converter only filling about a quarter of the way, leading me to believe the passage isn't air tight.

 

Still, it's a beautiful daily writer, and I wrote a review of it on r/fountainpens I can post it here, if you guys would like.

[Joban]

The first fountain pen I remember was when I was in 6th grade back around 69. The maker is long forgotten but the one had an 8 ball for a cap and looked like a pool cue. Really neat. Unfortunately has been long lost over the years.

[dsolmei]

Pilot varsity.

[Water Ouzel]

First year of high school, 1964-65, transparent blue Sheaffer school pen. Then a couple more, in series, as I'd misplace one.

 

Skip to 1983, and a black Sheaffer Targa, for a few years.

 

Skip to 2011, and the engine finally caught. Pens all over the place, including the Targa.

[Thornton]

Great topic. A family friend let me try out his Pelikan M805 when I was 15 and I fell in love with the pen. My parents gifted me one the following year, but it wasn't quite the same as the one I'd use (I would later find out how important nib sizes are). Luckily our family friend gave me the Pelikan a couple years ago so now I get to use the pen all the time. It's extremely worn, but by far the most special pen in my collection.

[AndyYNWA]

I'm new to the world of fountain pens. My first was a Lamy AL-star.

[FOUR X FOUR]

A Cross Bailey

[sakayume]

Mine were a pair of Pilot Petits (from years ago). They're still working, even when left unattended for months at a time, and I'm still using them.

 

I learnt to write with a pencil, however, and for the first half of junior school that was all I used.

[SpokaneNostalgia]

The very first fountain pen I used was a Pilot Varsity. I bought the three pack but managed to lose the black and blue at work after giving my wife the purple.