What Was Your Biggest Disappointment With An Expensive Pen

[4lex]

After my recent disappointment with an expensive pen I am interested in other peoples experience. What was your biggest disappointment ? Of course what is expensive for somebody is small change for someone else. But if you consider a pen expensive thats enough for me.

[FOUR X FOUR]

I have a large handful of expensive pens that I have screwed up but I can't think of any that were disappointing out of the box

[DrDebG]

I had purchased a $300 Delta. I have had several Deltas and have never had a problem until this one. It wrote very poorly for me, but very nicely for my husband. But he didn't really like the color. So, I eventually solid it.

[NinthSphere]

One that comes to mind is a med E95S. Liked the styling & it had a broad, wet, glassy smooth nib. Inked it up a few times with different inks, tried to like it. Never felt comfortable with it. I have comparably smooth nibs. I have comparably wet & broad pens. I have comparably light pens. For whatever reason, this one didn't do it for me. I recently sold it after deciding it was worth more to me as cash.

[jar]

I really wish I had acquired those I have many years sooner.

[Mr.Rene]

Waterman Liason Stub nib..dry and skipping..

[Icywolfe]

Noodler's Music nib flex pen. 75 USD not the most expensive but expensive enough to be disappointing. Nib is like friction fitted to a point it's stuck. The feed isn't directly on the nib slits. Very hard to flex. Basically a disappointment. I still have it but not sure where it is as I just gave up using it.

[Shaggy]

Pelikan m200.

 

Section too small to hold comfortably,even though I have small hands.

[proton007]

I've had fewer disappointments with expensive pens than I've had with the relatively inexpensive options. They're in the $50-100 range, they should atleast be properly functional even if the aesthetics are not as high quality.

 

Pliot Prera: Flow was too low.

TWSBI: Dried up after a page.

[gerigo]

My Visconti Pininfarina. It was such a pretty pen, and I had such high hopes for it since I paid so much. Imagine my sense of disappointment when I brought it home, inked it up, and it leaked like a sieve! It would empty a full converter in minutes, simply by holding it nib down. Ink would seep out of all the nooks and crannies of the pen. It took me over year of hemming and hawing before I sent it in to get it fixed.

 

I just got it back a couple weeks ago. The problem is fixed. The pen has a new converter, together with a new italic nib. I want to say it writes like a dream, but the pen is prone to hard starts since the nib is quite exposed even with the flappy trap door closed.

[melon]

I bought a Parker Duofold Centennial that skipped and ran dry from new. I flushed and followed every instruction and tip which changed nothing. I took the pen back and got a replacement which was exactly the same. No matter what I tried, I just couldn't get a sentence down without huge gaps missing.

 

Eventually I took that one back too and swapped for a MB146 that wrote perfectly straight out of the box.

 

I still think about the Parker and wish that it had performed but there you go. As one door closes another opens

[mirosc]

OMAS Vintage Extra Lucens Limited Edition

- section leaking

- tines misaligned

- piston leaking

 

took me half a year plus some more money to get it fixed by OMAS; now it's writing too wet, so it will be off to some nibmeister to get it done.

[TLab3000]

Stipula Model T. The cap was chipped and there was no other complete green Model T available at Stipula at that time. Had to send it to Stipula and they've sent it back with a spare cap that fits quite alright, but I keep wondering whether the original cap would have been nicer.
But the much more disappointing bit is the nib. It's a titanium nib that should be flexy. I've just rewatched some YouTube videos about this pen and it seems that my nib is the only one that takes a lot of pressure to flex!

 

Edit: Just read some reviews, for example at andersonpens, and it seems I'm not the only one with a rather unflexy T-Flex nib. I think they've changed the nib for the worse at some point of time.

Edited December 28, 2015 by TLab3000

[Uncial]

Stipula Model T. The cap was chipped and there was no other complete green Model T available at Stipula at that time. Had to send it to Stipula and they've sent it back with a spare cap that fits quite alright, but I keep wondering whether the original cap would have been nicer.

But the much more disappointing bit is the nib. It's a titanium nib that should be flexy. I've just rewatched some YouTube videos about this pen and it seems that my nib is the only one that takes a lot of pressure to flex!

 

Edit: Just read some reviews, for example at andersonpens, and it seems I'm not the only one with a rather unflexy T-Flex nib. I think they've changed the nib for the worse at some point of time.

 

It seems like they can be very variable. The T nib on my Orient Express has line variation, but I wouldn't call it flexy. The Model T is seriously flexible, almost to the point of a wet noodle; a completely different experience. I was actually a little disappointed when I first got it because I was hoping for a firmer nib, but it's fun to use.....on the right paper.

[Sandy Fry]

Have not been disappointed in any of my "expensive" pens.

 

They all do what they are supposed to do.

 

David

[dogpoet]

Probably my ebonite Konrad: I was very unimpressed that it retained the classic Konrad "nib dries out because the cap doesn't seal properly" fault, while adding an insufficiently sealed viewing window, so you'd have a pen with a nib that wouldn't write covering your fingers with ink from the leak betwixt section and barrel. Interesting combination, really.

It wasn't that expensive, I suppose, but it still cost more than the biodegradable Konrads.

[inkstainedruth]

Slightly disappointed in the Pelikan M 400 Café Creme. The nib needed some tweaking because it had a bad skipping problem at first (I could't tell whether it was because there was a problem or it was just that I wasn't used to a B nib). Had it worked on and it's much better now. Not my most expensive pen (especially since I saved a bit of dough buying from Rolf Thiel on Ebay, even with the extra shipping charges from Germany) and it's absolutely a dream otherwise. Gorgeous pen, perfect size and weight, and even a bit of springiness to the nib (yeah, on a steel nib...).

My two most expensive pens are also Pelikans, but those are both older/vintage. Those were not a disappointment at ALL....

But then, I tend to buy vintage and semi-vintage pens, and the nibs just tend to be better to start with. Okay, by the time I pay for the celluloid repairs on a Vac Shadow Wave it will be likely be my most expensive pen and since I haven't been able to really use it that's been a TOTAL disappointment. And another Shadow Wave that wasn't exactly cheap just doesn't fill well -- I've had it repaired (the second time was under warranty, about three months after I got it fixed) and it just doesn't hold a lot of ink for some reason. I keep wondering if I should have the breather tube replaced with a longer one, but that doesn't seem to be the problem -- it just doesn't take up ink the way it should (the repair person couldn't figure out what the problem was either).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[El Gordo]

Pelikan Epoch P360: disappointing or rather a fairly expensive lesson to read all details, reviews and fully test before buying. The pen did not write well out of the box, we repositioned the nib, with a crack as consequence. But it does not leak and actually wrote way better afterwards. But the disappointment comes actually from the filling system. I guess someone on this forum commented something like: it is not because engineers can make something, that it is wise to actually let them do so. Still have the pen, but have others as well, so it stays out of rotation, present as a permanent reminder to do better next time (helped thus far ...)

Edited December 28, 2015 by El Gordo

[dogpoet]

Vintage is a whole other can of worms, Ruth. Maybe my PFM, if we're broaching that one: lovely weight and feel in the hand, beautifully smooth nib, a working snorkel, but... it hardly holds any ink at all. I suspect an internal seal is gone, so I've stopped using it until I can get it serviced, in case I'm filling the internal mechanisms with ink that'll cause problems when it dries as it's likely getting into parts of the pen that won't be cleaned by a flushing.

(I am, though, preferring to think of this as "something to look forwards to" rather than "a disappointment"...)

[Buzz_130]

My biggest disappointment also turned into my greatest opportunity.

 

I bought a Visconti HS Bronze Age as I loved the thought of the material, the Italian craftsmanship, and the thought of a great nib. The pen is much thicker than I anticipated, the power filler is the most unreliable system I own, the lack of any indication of ink level combined with an inconsistent filling operation leaves me wondering how much ink I have left even after a fill, the nib writes extremely wet for a F (and has become my dry-ink tester), and the material is no better or worse than any of the plastics used in modern and vintage pens. Simply put, the Visconti is my least-used pen.

 

However, after facing this disappointment, I started taking a serious look at vintage pens. I found new excitement in a nice "51", 75, 61, Balance, Snorkel, J, etc. When I moved to Japan, I also found I could enjoy the Japanese craftsmanship of Pilot, Sailor, Platinum, and Nakaya in a different light. I'm pretty sure that if I let the disappointment of the Visconti end my journey, I would have missed out on the new opportunities still available in the writing world.

 

Buzz