Your Perfect Edc Ballpoints

[Zookie]

I love classy ball points as well as fountain pens. I'm never without a pocket note book and my favorite bp, an olive green Jotter to compliment my olive green Parker 45. I just love the color!!

[bemon]

I love classy ball points as well as fountain pens. I'm never without a pocket note book and my favorite bp, an olive green Jotter to compliment my olive green Parker 45. I just love the color!!

Lately whenever I see a picture of an olive green pen I really want it. And I don't think I have a green pen yet so...

[CeruleanToAzure]

Pelikan K215 with medium black 337 cartridge. Just love it!

[pajaro]

That reminds me I used to have a Pelikan K400. Which I took outside. And lost. I liked it because if I wanted a gen pen instead of a ballpoint I could just put a Parker gel cartridge in it.

I have lost two K400 green stripe ballpoints and a K200 blue ballpoint in the grocery store somehow. That made me stop taking good pens to the grocery to check off the items on the list. Now I use a Jotter or one of my Papermates.

[bemon]

I have lost two K400 green stripe ballpoints and a K200 blue ballpoint in the grocery store somehow. That made me stop taking good pens to the grocery to check off the items on the list. Now I use a Jotter or one of my Papermates.

I still carry decent pens with me, but I used to keep a ballpoint clipped into my work shirt where the buttons meet. I won't do that anymore now that I lost the K400, but I will carry the L2K in my pocket.

 

It lives in a leather sleeve which makes it a little less accessible, but the sleeve protects my pocket from leaks so I shouldn't loose the pen OR a pair of pants the same way I lost a shirt to a leaky K400.

 

Edited August 18, 2020 by bemon

[DonLeone]

Do rollerballs count? I bring my Visconti Rembrandt purple rollerball with me most of the time in case I need to lend someone a pen. It has not happened yet. It's very nice though. Very smooth.

[bemon]

Do rollerballs count? I bring my Visconti Rembrandt purple rollerball with me most of the time in case I need to lend someone a pen. It has not happened yet. It's very nice though. Very smooth.

They sure do- nice pen. I used to also carry a roller ball, but I found if I was going to sit down and uncap a pen it was always a fountain pen, and if I was looking for a pen on the go then having a one handed "click pen" was always the most convenient.

 

That's why I liked my K400 because I could put a Parker gel insert in it if I wanted to.

[Honeybadgers]

has been - will always be - my one of a kind prototype fisher AG-11 in raw brass.

 

[doriath19]

Zebra F701. The refills arent my favorite but its durable and inexpensive.

 

Rotring 600. Got it for a good price and I love the weight and feel.

Edited August 18, 2020 by doriath19

[TSherbs]

At work, I always have a Uni Jetstream in addition to whatever fountain pen Im carrying....

This.

[doriath19]

Parker SS Jotter vintage

or

Rotring 600 Lava vintage

Ive been wanting a Rotring 600 lava but the prices are a little crazy on eBay.

[sandy101]

Caran d'ache 849 or Parker Sonnet

[NumberSix]

Caran d'ache 849 or Parker Sonnet

 

How is the 849? I really like the looks of it, and for a nice pen it's not so very pricey.

 

I am guessing the hexagonal edges make it easier to grip the metal pen, compared to a SS Jotter? Does it have any refill options besides just the CdA ones?

[sandy101]

It is easier to grip than the Parker jotter - and is an ideal pen to put in a jacket pocket without a case.

 

They are steel and very durable.

 

The fine C'dA refills are good - I have not found an alternative brand, but the C'DA ones last for ages.

[flatline]

Fisher space pen refills will work in the Caran d'ache, but you need a small spacer.

[NumberSix]

Fisher space pen refills will work in the Caran d'ache, but you need a small spacer.

 

The Parker adapter would be too big, or too small?

[NumberSix]

It is easier to grip than the Parker jotter - and is an ideal pen to put in a jacket pocket without a case.

 

They are steel and very durable.

 

The fine C'dA refills are good - I have not found an alternative brand, but the C'DA ones last for ages.

 

Excellent. Just the kind of endorsement I needed.

[markofp]

Pilot Metropolitan ballpoint. Very nice size and weight, cap-less and twists to open. Writes very smoothly. Refills are a little hard to find, but they are out there.

[Retro-user]

My ballpoint EDCs tend to be Papermate or Fisher Space Pens, with some Pentel Energel Retractables thrown in for good measure.

[teeritz]

I've always got a ballpoint with me, even though modern shirts no longer feature a breast pocket these days. For me, a ballpoint pen is only as good as the refill inside it, and I've tended to prefer broad point refills as these tend to disguise the defects in my handwriting a little better than a fine point.

Also, I tend to like a pen (bp or fp) which has a little weight to it. It feels a little more balanced that way.

My current bp collection in attached photo.

L to R;

- Rotring Rapid Pro 600, a nice pen to use. Very modern design, with a good weight to it. Takes Parker-style refills and it's currently loaded with a blue Schneider Slider 755 XB.

- Parker 75, nice looker, a little light for my tastes, but again, with a broad-point refill, it writes very nicely. The clip doesn't work very well. This pen will slip out of a pocket, and I've not tried to remove the clip to reinforce it in any way. Not a twist-action, this one is a push-action pen, which I prefer to twisters.

- Lamy Logo. Nice everyday pen, very light and, if you put too much stress on the clip, it will come off the pen, but this is easy to fit back together. Not crazy about the black medium-point M16 refill inside it, but this is an easy fix.

- Lamy Studio. A recent addition, this one has a nice weight to it and a beautiful design overall. Can feel a little slippery (to me, anyway) to hold when writing, but I've loaded a broad, blue M16 refill into it and it writes very nicely. Twist-action.

- Caran d'Ache 849. Light, nice to use. Feels a little cheap when you push the button to expose the ballpoint (no 'clicking' sound), but don't let that dissuade you. It's a good all-purpose ballpoint. Steel one-piece body/barrel, you load the refills by unscrewing the button at the top.

- Fisher AG-7. Excellent looking pen, nice to hold, easy to use. Push the button on top to pop the point, press the small button on the side of the pen to retract it. Not a bad writer, but I find Fisher refills require a slightly harder press and the ink/rubber feels like it doesn't run across the page smoothly.

- Aurora 98. Got it in 1974 (communion gift from relatives in Italy) and it sat in its box for the next twenty-five years before I started using it. Loaded with a Schneider Office 575 medium, blue refill and writes very nicely. Light, but just enough weight to it to provide balance. Like the Parker 75, it's a push-action.

- Parker Sonnet. An older model from ten or fifteen years ago, when these were a slightly thicker body. Twist action, loaded up with a Schneider Broad refill. Great weight to it, writes very nicely.

-Mont Blanc Meisterstuck (146?). Like the Sonnet, this one has a nice weight to it. Writes very nicely, especially with Bold refills.

- Vintage Garland. This was a gift from a fellow watch collector who is a huge NASA/Moon-landing buff and he had the matching Garland mechanical pencil, but he gave me this pen because the astronauts used Fisher ballpoints, not Garland ones. The thinnest ballpoint I have, and its refill is dying. I have some Vera Bradley refills on their way, which I'm told will fit this pen. It takes a thin Cross-style screw-in refill and the point is very thin. I've tried loading Cross refills into this pen and had no luck. My only qualm with the refills that are coming is that they're black. I tend to prefer blue ink. And they'll be fine-point refills, so this one will most likely be used sparingly.

- Waterman Expert. Nice writer, nice weight, though a little top-heavy. Twist-action.

- Shaeffer. I'm no expert on this brand. This writes nicely. Shaeffer refills aren't bad at all. This pen is pretty thick. Like writing with a cigar. Still, a nicely balanced pen.

- Shaeffer. Another twist-action, like the Shaeffer above. This one is thinner, probably from the '80s, based on its overall design. Again, a nice pen to write with, though I find its looks a little bland.

- Ballograf Epoca. Sweden's answer to BIC. Got these disposable pens in a few different colours, although I think these are too nice to throw away once empty. You could, I suppose, modify a Parker refill to fit these pens. This pen sits in a little porcelain cup on my desk, along with a few pencils and a Lamy Safari fountain pen. This is the pen I grab when I'm in a hurry.

Currently, I'm using the Lamy Studio for day-to-day jottings. I mentioned earlier that I prefer push-button rather than twist-action ballpoints. This goes back to my waitering days, when I had a notepad in one hand and a pen in the other. I used to use a Fisher Cap-O-Matic and, in the hustle-and-bustle world of cafe/bistro waitering, I got to liking the quick click action of push-button ballpoints. Of course, the classic, disposable BIC M10 was perhaps what helped to shape my preferences, but when you were in a hurry, the push button would sometimes snap off if you pushed it from an angle.
And the beauty of the Cap-O-Matic was that you could hold a notebook against the wall and add to a customer's order.
So these days, wherever possible, I go for pens that require one-handed operation.

In saying that, I'd still like to get a Pelikan M600 ballpoint, to complement the Pelikan fps that I have. Yes, I know. Another twist-action pen.

As for rollerballs, never been a fan of them. Some of my co-workers swear by them, but I still prefer a ballpoint.

There's something 'mid-Century cool' about a decent ballpoint pen.

Edited August 30, 2020 by teeritz