What Was Your Biggest Disappointment With An Expensive Pen

[elysee]

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.

 

My greatest disappointment was with a beautiful Black and Gold 0.9 mm Delta pencil. I had admired it for a while and, then, decided to buy it. When I got home, I could not get the current piece of lead out of the pencil; I wanted to change the HB lead for 2B lead. Since I could not discharge the lead, I put the pencil back in the box and I took it to the store from which I had purchased it the next day. The owner of the store had a hard time discharging the lead as well and he graciously allowed me to return the pencil for a full refund. It was sad to return such a lovely pencil, especially since it used 0.9 mm lead. However, if I could not get the lead out of the pencil in order to insert a new piece of lead then the pencil would be unusable.

Edited January 5, 2016 by elysee

[Michigan]

My New Old Stock Montegrappa Cosmopolitan Oceanic. Clip bent out of place within hours of arrival to me. Sprung tines of 18k nib trying, in vain, to make ink come out of the thing.

 

It has been nibmeistered and is serviceable as a desk pen. Still, a beautiful thing. More of a mistress than a wife.

[Precise]

The attached photo shows the gapped nib of a brand new Omas Arco Ogiva, purchased from a leading Omas retailer. It was unusable. But, as I've written previously on this forum, I like to fix things. I had to pull the nib to fix this. Perhaps a nibmeister would have fixed it quickly, but I spent over an hour on it. It is the most I've ever paid for a pen.

 

One retailer, who checks nibs before shipping, wrote that 85% of new pens need some nib work. That's about my experience. But I've had to send some new nibs back which were so defective that they couldn't be repaired.

 

Shame on this industry!

 

Alan

 

Edited January 7, 2016 by Precise

[PAKMAN]

My first Lamy 2000 wrote poorly and skipped, my second one however was phenomenal !

[4lex]

My fountain pen history is a history of potential grail pens that at the end failed to reach my expectations.

 

Pelikan M600: too gaudy (but I kept it coz I love the nib)

 

Lamy Dialog 3: You can't see the ink level if you use the converter

 

Visconti Homo Sapiens Lava: no ink window

 

Montblanc M: uncomfortable section, nib creep

 

Lamy 2000: instead of using the O ring as on Lamy 27, design changed to an O-ring with two "spikes" sticking out of the pen; uncomfortable

 

Sailor cartridge/converter pens: ridiculously small ink capacity

 

Montblanc Meisterstuck 146: $400 worth of pen and $300 worth of white star, design stuck in 1950

 

 

While the quality of "higher end" pens today is excellent, looks like no one is interested in making a good writing instrument. It is all about collectors items.

 

My Lamy 27, Pelikan MK20 and P51 I used to have all outperform the above. As does Lamy Al Star.

[JasonKB]

First expensive pen was a Visconti Rembrant, Hard starter, skipping from day one. Returned it to the store for repairs and came back working like a dream.

 

Next bad experience was with a Pilot 823 Custom. Inconsistent ink flow, seemed to skip at random on different parts of the page. Was driving me crazy. I ordered it shipped from a shop in Japan so return was not a good option. Then to make things worse the blind cap fell off. Being a tinkerer I had to take it apart to fix it. Turned out the issue was the nut inside the blind cap was so loose the gasket at the bottom end (near the section) was too far down and not allowing good ink flow. Once everything was tightened up and reassembled all was 'write' again.

 

If you're not familiar with the Custom 823 it is a vacuum filler that is meant to be used with the blind cap 'undone' enough to leave about 2mm gap between cap and pen body. When turned all the way down tight to the body it seals the ink reservoir to prevent leaking when flying.

[rudyhou]

my disappointments so far have to do with the pens in question being either too large or too heavy for long writings. the look of the pens is the reason why i purchased them in the first place. they are Omas Arte Italiana Woods Millord, Platinum Izumo Tagayasan, Sailor Kabazaiku Cherry Bark, and Sailor Susutake Bamboo. love their wooden material, unfortunately not so friendly to my hand for comfort.

Edited January 11, 2016 by rudyhou

[fryguy128]

My Lamy studio. I got it for my birthday and had it for six months. I used it in English class for a final and forgot to make sure I had it. I was so disappointed mostly in myself, I loved that pen. For anybody that uses their pen in high stress situations make sure you still have it when you're finished.

[ivyman]

I acquired this beautiful and expensive Japanese-made Platinum Kamakura urushi pen (see photo below) that comes with a nice and wet music nib. There are only 300 of this pen made and it is the same pen that was presented by the Japanese monarch to General/President Grant when he visited Japan. I was so proud and happy to be the owner of such a beautifully made pen. I write with it everyday, using Mont Blanc's limited edition Honore de Balzac ink.

 

To my great disappointment, the converter that come with the pen leaks from where the converter is connected to the pen. I purchased a brand new converter from Platinum in Japan and the new converter leaks as well, making my fingers inky every time I write with it. The quality of the converter from Platinum is so poor that I am ashamed they actually use it on such a beautifully made, expensive and rather rare urushi pen.

 

This is my biggest diappointment with a nice, beautiful, expensive Japanese-made urushi pen.

This is the last Japanese pen I will ever purchase.

 

Note to Platinum: Please make better quality converters that don't leak and please don;t make pens that use only Platinum converters.

 

 

[vorpal]

I bought an expensive Pelikan for my birthday. It tore the paper on the upstroke. I returned it and bought a Platinum instead. It's ok, but doesn't write as well as my vintage Esterbrook.

[VivienR]

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

 

Kind of similar my case. My Doufold International was my first expensive pen I brought, than I put my favorite ink (Diamine Imperial Purple) in it, and its skipped like nothing before (except the non working Chinese waste)... Imperial Purple was newer let me down before. Sadly it feels that my Duofold is really selective about inks I fill. Seems can work well with a wet ink.. but should work well with anything. Sonnets are never had these problem. At least not those which I own.

 

My mot expensive pen is Montblanc Princesse Grace its working amazingly. My only problem with it: its price.

[nvbrennan]

I spent a long time lusting after an OMAS Arco brown. Finally picked one up at the LA show one year but it never jived with me even though I had the nib swapped and set up by John mottishaw. Didn't feel right in the hand and the nib had this feeling I get with some nibs where it just doesn't seem to engage the page well. Away it went. Interestingly I have never had that nib engage feeling with any pen pre 1970s.

[inkstainedruth]

I acquired this beautiful and expensive Japanese-made Platinum Kamakura urushi pen (see photo below) that comes with a nice and wet music nib. There are only 300 of this pen made and it is the same pen that was presented by the Japanese monarch to General/President Grant when he visited Japan. I was so proud and happy to be the owner of such a beautifully made pen. I write with it everyday, using Mont Blanc's limited edition Honore de Balzac ink.

 

To my great disappointment, the converter that come with the pen leaks from where the converter is connected to the pen. I purchased a brand new converter from Platinum in Japan and the new converter leaks as well, making my fingers inky every time I write with it. The quality of the converter from Platinum is so poor that I am ashamed they actually use it on such a beautifully made, expensive and rather rare urushi pen.

 

This is my biggest diappointment with a nice, beautiful, expensive Japanese-made urushi pen.

This is the last Japanese pen I will ever purchase.

 

Note to Platinum: Please make better quality converters that don't leak and please don;t make pens that use only Platinum converters.

 

 

 

Wow. That is a really beautiful pen. It's too bad about the converter.

I have a question (not remembering offhand). Is Platinum one of the brands that takes International standard cartridges, or are they one of the proprietary brands, the way Parker is? If it's a case of the former, you may have better luck with another brand converter. If the latter, it sounds as if there may be an issue with either the converters or the back of the feed. How does it do with cartridges? If you have a problem with them as well, the issue is with the pen.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[william2001]

My dad got me a very expensive Montblanc LeGrand to celebrate my admission, but the clip was defective...

 

William

[BamaPen]

My biggest disappointment by far was a Montegrappa Extra 1930. I was very fortunate that I did not buy it myself, but got to use it because I was President of an organization that owned it. It was a beautiful pen, but the clip, which was sterling silver, was so soft that it bent if I looked at it wrong, and the pen was hard starting and skipped frequently. I was relieved when my term of office was over and I could pass it along to the next officer.

 

Really, I have many pens that cost 5% of the cost of the Montegrappa but write much better in every way.

[jar]

 

Wow. That is a really beautiful pen. It's too bad about the converter.

I have a question (not remembering offhand). Is Platinum one of the brands that takes International standard cartridges, or are they one of the proprietary brands, the way Parker is? If it's a case of the former, you may have better luck with another brand converter. If the latter, it sounds as if there may be an issue with either the converters or the back of the feed. How does it do with cartridges? If you have a problem with them as well, the issue is with the pen.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

Ruth, Platinum does use proprietary converters ( although of the many Platinum converters I've used over the decades in their pens and also my older Auroras none have ever leaked) Platinum also offers an adapter that allows the use of International Standard cartridges and converters.

 

http://www.fototime.com/1B3C251F4CFB161/xlarge.jpg

[sakayume]

I've yet to be disappointed with an expensive pen that's been bought new: I tend to do lots of reading and "research" beforehand. I suppose I'm the overthinking kind? And my most expensive pens have all been purchased in person after testing or ordered from places that check the pens they send out.

[ridiculopathy]

The first Nakaya I bought was a beautiful Piccolo. I loved the look and feel of the urushi, the light weight of the ebonite.

 

But!!!

I made the rookie mistake of wanting a "special" nib for a special pen. I wasn't very adventurous back then, so that just meant a broad instead of my usual fine or medium I enjoyed the extra shading, but it made my handwriting look sloppy because I don't write large enough. So sadly, it's been sitting in storage. I finally (it took a few years ; ) got the bright idea to have the nib reground, so now I'm planning to go to the next pen show to have it worked on by a nibmeister

Edited January 28, 2016 by bananaclaw

[Hedonism]

Don't know if this qualifies as "expensive" enough, but I recently got a Pilot Custom 823 B that had issues with starting and skipping. Extremely smooth and the weight/length/girth feel perfect to me un-posted however. The filling system is really cool and holds tons of ink (though it's a real hassle to clean unless you want to risk taking the vacuum system out with one of those TWSBI wrenches).

 

Luckily I bought it from Amazon, and they have a "no questions asked" policy in regards to returns/exchanges. I'm going to exchange the pen. Also, I got it for about $150 USD with free two-day shipping, so I really can't complain. I don't even like broad nibs, but this was too good of a deal to pass up!

 

So, I guess just out-of-the-box nib performance issues.

[sidthecat]

I bought a Platinum 3776 with a Music nib - at least ten years ago - but it's never been right. It's always been a dry, scratchy writer and I've never really found the sweet spot. Pity.