How often do you see people using fountain pens?

[darkenedwhisper]

My mom and sister, but not regularly. They use them to write letters that have an antique taste.

I'm getting a friend to use them, but not much...

[seasterl]

I have never in my life seen anyone using a FP except maybe in a movie or on TV.

[bigAL]

I had never seen anyone use a fountain pen anywhere other than me until today. I saw an older gentleman at the grocery marking off his list with what appeared to be a very old pen. I wonder what kind of stories that pen could tell?

[Doc H]

Other than me, never. I suspect the mean density of FP users per capita is similar to that of matter in deep space. This site contains the majority of FP users I know or have heard of, so perhaps it's a sort of mini-black hole for FP users, attracting them from the far reaches of the galaxy and concentrating them in tangible numbers. Then, there could be the "dark matter" of FP users, surrounding us all the time, but not visible, perhaps multi-dimensional. It is a puzzlement, because all these fountain pens are ending up somewhere, and their mass is unaccounted-for in our visible universe....

[redshifteffect]

I got to admit I was pretty shocked when I saw a co-worker I had barely ever talked to using a Carbonesque capless, as well as having a Lamy Safari tucked in his shirt pocket. Needless to say I now talk to him a lot more.

[karmakoda]

Never. Who are all you people and what planet do you come from?

My son has five fountain pens, maybe more, and I've never seen him use them, although I know he does.

Strange.

I suppose Fountain Pen users are discreet.

[Parse Error]

Two Lamy Safaris and one knockoff Parker.

 

For one, I bought him the Safari, and he currently is too lazy to use the converter and the bottle of ink that I gave him (HOD). The other guy doesn't use converters at all and doesn't have any more cartridges. On the other hand, my friend Brandon uses a knockoff Parker that actually works well. Well, at least it's a piston filler and doesn't leak and actually writes decently. (He had his dad buy it for him from China)

[nummies]

I've been in college for 4 years and still have yet to see a person write or carry a fountain pen. Colleagues and friends often poke fun at me (in a playful manner of course) about my pens and other hobbies but whatever, it brings me happiness---that's what's important I guess [i never realize that you can ever follow a word with an apostrophe 's' with another until my last statement (that's followed by what's) COOL. Of course, I could be simply, grammatically incorrect ].

Edited August 4, 2010 by nummies

[lancekatigbak]

I saw my teacher using what I thought was a Parker 51, and when I asked him if it was, he uncapped it and showed that it indeed was. I chat him up about some pens, and have invited him over here, though I don't think it's his thing.

[all_inky]

Teaching at a university, I thought I'd see a lot of FP users, but alas... I think I'm the only one.

[laser8]

Quite often, I must say. No colleagues where I work, but there are a lot of people here that had to use FP in elementary school (me too) and are still using them regularly.

[khymeera]

Only one. And she's a friend that I converted. But I really wish I could meet a fellow FPNer in real life accidentally and suddenly let out all our absessive pen hoarding desires.

[karmakoda]

Just realized my answer of "never" was wrong, sort of.

This Spring, in Manhattan I saw fountain pen users at Art Brown's, The Fountain Pen Hospital, Lee's Art Supplies, Joon's Pens, the Montblanc Boutique and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

If the question was, have you ever seen a Whale, this is the equivalent to answering, "Yes, at SeaWorld! "

Sorry, doesn't count.

[etoyoc]

I had a student that I caught using a Plumix last year. Of course, I only saw her use it the one time and soon afterward her work stopped showing the traits of the italic nib.

[mstone]

I must say that there were surprisingly fewer people with obvious pens at the DC supershow than I expected. If not there, where? :hmm1:

[hecya]

I deal with a lot of customers in the graphic arts industry and in 20 years I never saw one using a FP. When I was at the university nobody used a FP. Nono of my friends use FPs. Still a lot of department stores carry FPs now. I wonder who are the buyers.

 

Thinking about it, when I have been looking at FPs at the stores I have never seen anybody buying one.

 

I guess a lot of people think that they have to spend lots of money buying cartridges or as an alternative, making a mess with ink from a bottle.

[Jimmy James]

Today was an exciting day. I saw one of the judges I regularly appear before in his chambers. He was signing orders with a desk pen that I previously figured to be nothing more than decoration. It appears to be a cartridge filled Sheaffer White Dot with the triumph-lite (or -like) type of nib.

 

I then had a jury before the same judge. My client was so excited to write a note he grabbed my Pelikan M205 demo and seriously screwed up my newly traded for broad nib. After re-aligning it with the feed, it is still pushed in considerably, to where the end of the nib is just barely forward of the end of the feed. It actually writes well this way, but I'll fix it or try fixing it and end up with another broad nib. My client is indigent, so I already spent my money clothing him for the jury. Now I may be out more for the nib. At least we won.

[ImNotSam]

I don't count folks wearing pocket jewelry as users.

ImNotSam,

pocket jewelry = expensive pens?

 

 

Pocket jewelry is a pen that is carried for status, not use, usually as a result of the marketing efforts of the pen's manufacturer to promote the pen as a status symbol. Pocket jewelry pens are expensive, but with the added requirement that the person is "wearing" the pen for its (perceived) effect, and not for its qualities as a writing instrument.

 

All pocket jewelry pens are expensive, but not all expensive pens are pocket jewelry.

[jakespoppy]

I've only seen two people use fountain pens. One was my dad. He didn't talk about them much, and I don't think he considered the pens something he was passionate about. But he was constantly writing (sermons, college course work, letters, notes, etc.) and he surely must have enjoyed using the pens without talking about it, and certainly not making a big deal about it. The other person was a person I used to report to in my job. At the time, it seemed a little pretentious, but looking back with a different perspective, I think he really enjoyed them.

[ximhot]

In the whole college (over 400 people) I am in, only two senior professors (both over 60) and our dean use fountain pens. I am the only other guy (I am in 30s) that use fountain pen. The other day a woman colleague in her late twenties picked up my FP and couldn't write with it and she just threw it in the trash can. I dug in the trash to save it after she left...

 

My eight year old son is starting to write with fountain pen. He thinks the Hero 616 is very good to write and draw with. Even though we write less and less day by day, I still think to have decent handwriting is a must, just as important as to dress or talk appropriately.

 

Today an older lady in the office looked at me with obvious curiosity when I was inspecting the dip pen nibs I just acquired. She is over 50 and probably thinks I am nuts. I could only calmly put them away and pretended nothing happened.

 

I guess less than 0.1% of the population still use FP in U.S.

Edited August 6, 2010 by ximhot