9 ms·

I still think that fountain pens are the pinnacle of writing stationery. One lasts generations and there's no consumables that need recycling or disposing of, i

by ktzar 1y ago

I still think that fountain pens are the pinnacle of writing stationery. One lasts generations and there's no consumables that need recycling or disposing of, if you use a rechargeable cartridge and buy ink bottles.

neilfrndes 1y ago
I agree :) My daily driver is a Pilot Vanishing Point. It's a fountain pen with a form factor of a clickable ball point pen.
- bayindirh 1y ago
  Vanishing Points are nice pens. I have an all matte black one. Also, pens tipping gets polished according to your handwriting over time, making it completely yours. I also like Lamys. Most of their pens look simple but they’re work horses. Esp. Safari Umber. I’m a bit too deep in that rabbit hole. :)
- WillAdams 1y ago
  I wish I could find a faceted VP --- still kicking myself for not buying one when I had a chance a couple of years ago.
avian 1y ago
> One lasts generations Multiple Parker Vectors I had typically lasted a few years of use each before the plastic windings between the pen head and the holder wore out or broke. My Pilot Metropolitan did the same just a few months back. I still have the high-end pens my grandfather used that, while mechanically still sound, I am unable to get the ink flowing through them. I love writing with fountain pens, but long lasting they are not in my experience.
- kps 1y ago
  Parker, Waterman, Rotring were all bought by Newell (Rubbermaid) and gutted. You have to go back to 20th-century production to get the real thing.
- bayindirh 1y ago
  I have multiple pens which are a decade old, incl. a Metropolitan and Safari, and write like day one despite being used frequently. I also have a couple ones older than 50. They also work. Clogged ones generally need a good flush with a fountain pen flush.
  - anu7df 1y ago
    Also, if you do not want to spend on any specialized fountain pen flush solution, diluted windex works very well. From the smell I am willing to bet that most fountain pen cleaning solutions are exactly that.
    - bayindirh 1y ago
      Thanks! Unfortunately we don't have Windex here. Many of them here contain alcohol, and some others contain lemon juice to remove calc stains from glass. I wouldn't risk that, actually. I use J. Herbin's flush, which doesn't mind being used over and over. I filled an old Lamy 30ml ink bottle with one, and flush my pens with the same "liquid". From what I feel, it has some soap, some other surfactants, which it doesn't react with the rubber and seals inside the converters and pistons. Alcohol eats them from my experience. The bottle I have gained interesting properties. It's a green-turquoise hue, which becomes reddish if you shine strong light through it :) But it cleans like it's never used, which is nice.
      - Telemakhos 1y ago
        Have you tried ultrasonic cleaning with plain water? I got a cheap ultrasonic jewelry cleaner and started cleaning my pens with it, and they work beautifully.
        bayindirh 1y ago
        I have an ultrasonic cleaner too, but no pens were stubborn enough to necessitate a bath inside it. I generally "power flush" my pens with a syringe: Get a 50ml syringe, cut the sealed end of a cartridge, fill the syringe, mate the syringe, cartridge, pen, and push the water through. After a couple of times, the pen is thoroughly cleaned. Shake a couple of times, let it dry. On the other hand, many (if not most) inks have some detergents in it, and keep your pen clean and clog free as long as you use them. Older inks used Solv-X which was more effective but deemed carcinogen and banned in modern inks.
- noufalibrahim 1y ago
  I disagree. I used a Waterman Expert for a long time. It conked out when someone I loaned it to dropped it. I switched to a Noodlers Ahab (which has a flexible nib) so you can do a little bit of flourishing for headings etc. I've used it for a long time and still do. Recently, I switched to a broad tipped Lamy Safari (which was a birthday gift). My main problem is that most papers can't really handle the inkflow from fountain pens anymore and since the place I come from is somewhat humid, the papers quickly start to bleed ink. So, my more common instrument is a Pentel graphgear mechanical pencil. I do calligraphy as a hobby so I have separate arsenal of dip pens and nibs but those are not for daily use.
  - DrewADesign 1y ago
    I’ve also got a noodler ahab that’s been going strong for years- vegetable resin body, plastic everything else except the metal nib, clip and ring around the opening of the cap.
- triknomeister 1y ago
  Parker Vectors were cheap Parkers in my experience. They were like the 40 dollar nikes that you used to get. More money was spent in the brand than the quality. I got a Parker Sonnet as a prize in a competition. It is still good, even though I rarely use it nowadays.
  - sudhirb 1y ago
    I've had an ancient Parker 51 for a good decade or so now which I use almost daily, that originally belonged to my great-grandmother. I'd expect there to be a reasonable amount of variation in how long these pens last due to differences in usage, machining tolerances, ink types and materials - though mine has done very well considering how many times I've chucked it into a bag, dropped it on hard floors, etc. (I've probably just been lucky so far).
- tom_ 1y ago
  The stainless steel Parker Vector is much harder-wearing and available for under £15. Same nib unit as the plastic ones. (I found them particularly good when used with the washable ink cartridges, never drying out even after long periods of disuse. The permanent ink isn't as good in this respect and the pens need more regular use.)
jgrodziski 1y ago
Yes definitely agree, I own the Rotring 600 and 800 pencil and they are fantastic, as already said the ballpoint version is dependant on the refill. The construction is sturdy and they feel very robust and heavy. But... I've recently transitioned to Pilot Capless fountain pen and it's night and day with the write feeling: https://www.pilotpen.eu/our-products/capless/ https://www.pilotpen.eu/our-products/capless/ with ink bottle refill. The nib size is important, I found the medium too large and landed on the fine nib size.
radicalbyte 1y ago
They're also horrible to use if you're left-handed and writing English or any other left-to-right language.
- christophilus 1y ago
  Or if you occasionally spill coffee or any other liquid ever. I sometimes hand-write recipes. Fountain pens + sloppy kitchen meal prep are a bad combo.
  - _Wintermute 1y ago
    You can get some very permanent water-proof inks. Platinum Carbon black is my favourite.
    - lb1lf 1y ago
      De Atramentis, too, has a range of permanent inks which are quite fast-drying, too. Happy customer for years.
    - sevensor 1y ago
      Platinum Carbon Black is a wonderful ink. It seems to work very well in cheap fountain pens with flow issues. It’s highly resistant to coffee spills and looks ok on mediocre paper. Only drawback is cleaning it up; it cleans up like used motor oil.
  - mrob 1y ago
    You can get fountain pen inks that chemically react with cellulose for complete water resistance (there may still be a little smudging from unreacted ink washing off the paper). Noodler's Black is a famous example. I like this kind of ink, although it's not without its drawbacks, because cotton/rayon/other plant fiber clothing is also mostly cellulose and will be stained just as permanently.
    - specialist 1y ago
      > inks that chemically react with cellulose I had no idea. Great tip; thanks. I'm looking for alternatives to lamination for posting outdoor flyers & signs. I just received some (alleged) weatherproof copier paper to experiment with. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MQ3UNWL https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MQ3UNWL
pjmlp 1y ago
My go to choice for several decades since high school, even got to collect some throught the years, mostly Parker. However they are also dangerous, beware of hand movents when holding one, otherwise there is quite some cleaning to do, and even document rewriting.
tiniuclx 1y ago
My first full time software engineering paycheque went towards a Lamy 2000. I've been using it for many years now and it's never let me down.
- someothherguyy 1y ago
  That probably costs more than I ever spent on all writing utensils I've ever owned. What makes this cost that much (other than they are owned by uniball)? The material certainly isn't worth that much? And the function would be replicated in the market for less? So, what makes it not some luxury bullshit?
  - sudhirb 1y ago
    I think the budget play is to get a cheap refillable fountain pen and some cheap fountain pen ink (I bought some Diamine bottled ink about 10 years ago and I've still got plenty left). More expensive fountain pens are indeed luxury products - replicas are often available on places like aliexpress. I think it probably feels like bullshit if you don't think you'll gain any satisfaction or derive any pleasure from the act of writing or the aesthetics of your writing instrument.
  - tiniuclx 1y ago
    I'd been using the much cheaper Lamy Al Star (admittedly also a step up from the plastic Lamy Safari) for a while, and I really liked the feel of them. To be honest, I kind of just wanted a nicer version of that, and the 2000 did not disappoint. The nib feels much, smoother. Mine is fairly wet without excessively showing through low quality paper. The refilling mechanism is a lot nicer than the cartridge-pump I'd been using on the Al Star. Is it better? Yeah, but it's not 10x better than the Al Star which is what the price would suggest. So it is definitely a luxury product from that point of view.
  - Alupis 1y ago
    Ever buy yourself something nice that you use often? A nice belt, a nice comb, or a nice razor? A nice kitchen knife arguably does the same job as a cheap Walmart special. Sometimes it's nice to splurge on high quality items - especially when you use them every day, like a pen. It's a little thing, but it brings pleasure every time you use it. Not everything is about cost efficiency. You'll never regret buying quality.
dist-epoch 1y ago
I vaguely remember the writing tip getting blunt after a while and needing change.
- WillAdams 1y ago
  That happens on inexpensive nibs which lack iridium (or some similar metal/alloy) tipping. A tipped fountain pen will be incredibly resistant to wear --- while I did significantly wear down the inexpensive Platignum (British brand, but despite the name untipped steel) fountain pen I had when I was younger after a couple of decades, when I finally switched to using more expensive pens with nibs for tipping, haven't had to replace a nib since.
crinkly 1y ago
Oh hell no. I used fountain pens, good ones, for nearly 20 years. They leak, blob all over the place, are difficult to refill, require cleaning, end up with servicing problems when you really need to write immediately. Also difficult to draw complex diagrams with. Absolute self inflicted pain and misery. I use Muji gel pens now. None of those problems and you can take the cartridges back to them and they recycle them. And the pen bodies themselves last functionally forever.
michaelmior 1y ago
> there's no consumables that need recycling or disposing of, if you use a rechargeable cartridge and buy ink bottles. Genuine question: don't you need to dispose or recycle the ink bottles?
- Havoc 1y ago
  They’re usually glass and last years. So maybe Gp isn’t counting that as consumable
quatonion 1y ago
Totally agree. I used a fountain pen all the way through school and university. My all time favourite was the Parker 25 in stainless steel, with a medium nib and blue-black ink. Sometimes I would go for purple if I was feeling a bit raunchy. I know a lot of people liked the 105, and I had one, and a bunch of others, but there is something about the utilitarian functionality of the 25 that I really have a soft spot for. I think there was a year or two where I may have flirted with ballpens, but not seriously. Also even used Rotring and Staedtler Mars technical drawing pens on and off for regular writing. That was always fun in the middle of a lecture with ink everywhere. It's such a shame I don't get to write on paper that much these days. No real need. Such a beautiful experience though.
WillAdams 1y ago
Well, there are the bottles ink comes in --- I left behind a drawerful of empty Sheaffer bottles at a previous job which I've always regretted. Agreed, except I have _not_ been able to get my Aurora Hastil to write/fill reliably for a couple of years now, despite cleaning, and I can't send it in to the manufacturer since the tip was ground to a chisel italic by Gretta Lostkemper (who used to oversee custom grinding at Sheaffer). Guess I need to get an ultrasonic cleaner and try that....
criddell 1y ago
Fountain pens are great but that's only half the equation. You need to consider paper as well. Because I'm usually using low quality paper, I mostly use ballpoint pens so that I can write on both sides of the page. Fountain pens can feel scratchy on cheap paper and the ink bleeds through.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
hangonhn 1y ago
Fountain pen requires some skill to write well. It's amazing in the hands of those who knows calligraphy and just creates extra smudges for those who are more used to normal pens.
- kulahan 1y ago
  It takes no time at all to figure out if your only real goal is "I wanna be able to use this as deftly as a regular pen". Really no more difficult than knowing how not to smudge marker by closing a book while it's still wet, for instance.

by ktzar 1y ago

neilfrndes 1y ago

I agree :) My daily driver is a Pilot Vanishing Point. It's a fountain pen with a form factor of a clickable ball point pen.

bayindirh 1y ago
Vanishing Points are nice pens. I have an all matte black one. Also, pens tipping gets polished according to your handwriting over time, making it completely yours. I also like Lamys. Most of their pens look simple but they’re work horses. Esp. Safari Umber. I’m a bit too deep in that rabbit hole. :)
WillAdams 1y ago
I wish I could find a faceted VP --- still kicking myself for not buying one when I had a chance a couple of years ago.

avian 1y ago

> One lasts generations Multiple Parker Vectors I had typically lasted a few years of use each before the plastic windings between the pen head and the holder wore out or broke. My Pilot Metropolitan did the same just a few months back. I still have the high-end pens my grandfather used that, while mechanically still sound, I am unable to get the ink flowing through them. I love writing with fountain pens, but long lasting they are not in my experience.

kps 1y ago
Parker, Waterman, Rotring were all bought by Newell (Rubbermaid) and gutted. You have to go back to 20th-century production to get the real thing.
bayindirh 1y ago
I have multiple pens which are a decade old, incl. a Metropolitan and Safari, and write like day one despite being used frequently. I also have a couple ones older than 50. They also work. Clogged ones generally need a good flush with a fountain pen flush.
- anu7df 1y ago
  Also, if you do not want to spend on any specialized fountain pen flush solution, diluted windex works very well. From the smell I am willing to bet that most fountain pen cleaning solutions are exactly that.
  - bayindirh 1y ago
    Thanks! Unfortunately we don't have Windex here. Many of them here contain alcohol, and some others contain lemon juice to remove calc stains from glass. I wouldn't risk that, actually. I use J. Herbin's flush, which doesn't mind being used over and over. I filled an old Lamy 30ml ink bottle with one, and flush my pens with the same "liquid". From what I feel, it has some soap, some other surfactants, which it doesn't react with the rubber and seals inside the converters and pistons. Alcohol eats them from my experience. The bottle I have gained interesting properties. It's a green-turquoise hue, which becomes reddish if you shine strong light through it :) But it cleans like it's never used, which is nice.
    - Telemakhos 1y ago
      Have you tried ultrasonic cleaning with plain water? I got a cheap ultrasonic jewelry cleaner and started cleaning my pens with it, and they work beautifully.
      - bayindirh 1y ago
        I have an ultrasonic cleaner too, but no pens were stubborn enough to necessitate a bath inside it. I generally "power flush" my pens with a syringe: Get a 50ml syringe, cut the sealed end of a cartridge, fill the syringe, mate the syringe, cartridge, pen, and push the water through. After a couple of times, the pen is thoroughly cleaned. Shake a couple of times, let it dry. On the other hand, many (if not most) inks have some detergents in it, and keep your pen clean and clog free as long as you use them. Older inks used Solv-X which was more effective but deemed carcinogen and banned in modern inks.
noufalibrahim 1y ago
I disagree. I used a Waterman Expert for a long time. It conked out when someone I loaned it to dropped it. I switched to a Noodlers Ahab (which has a flexible nib) so you can do a little bit of flourishing for headings etc. I've used it for a long time and still do. Recently, I switched to a broad tipped Lamy Safari (which was a birthday gift). My main problem is that most papers can't really handle the inkflow from fountain pens anymore and since the place I come from is somewhat humid, the papers quickly start to bleed ink. So, my more common instrument is a Pentel graphgear mechanical pencil. I do calligraphy as a hobby so I have separate arsenal of dip pens and nibs but those are not for daily use.
- DrewADesign 1y ago
  I’ve also got a noodler ahab that’s been going strong for years- vegetable resin body, plastic everything else except the metal nib, clip and ring around the opening of the cap.
triknomeister 1y ago
Parker Vectors were cheap Parkers in my experience. They were like the 40 dollar nikes that you used to get. More money was spent in the brand than the quality. I got a Parker Sonnet as a prize in a competition. It is still good, even though I rarely use it nowadays.
- sudhirb 1y ago
  I've had an ancient Parker 51 for a good decade or so now which I use almost daily, that originally belonged to my great-grandmother. I'd expect there to be a reasonable amount of variation in how long these pens last due to differences in usage, machining tolerances, ink types and materials - though mine has done very well considering how many times I've chucked it into a bag, dropped it on hard floors, etc. (I've probably just been lucky so far).
tom_ 1y ago
The stainless steel Parker Vector is much harder-wearing and available for under £15. Same nib unit as the plastic ones. (I found them particularly good when used with the washable ink cartridges, never drying out even after long periods of disuse. The permanent ink isn't as good in this respect and the pens need more regular use.)

jgrodziski 1y ago

Yes definitely agree, I own the Rotring 600 and 800 pencil and they are fantastic, as already said the ballpoint version is dependant on the refill. The construction is sturdy and they feel very robust and heavy. But... I've recently transitioned to Pilot Capless fountain pen and it's night and day with the write feeling: https://www.pilotpen.eu/our-products/capless/ https://www.pilotpen.eu/our-products/capless/ with ink bottle refill. The nib size is important, I found the medium too large and landed on the fine nib size.

radicalbyte 1y ago

They're also horrible to use if you're left-handed and writing English or any other left-to-right language.

christophilus 1y ago
Or if you occasionally spill coffee or any other liquid ever. I sometimes hand-write recipes. Fountain pens + sloppy kitchen meal prep are a bad combo.
- _Wintermute 1y ago
  You can get some very permanent water-proof inks. Platinum Carbon black is my favourite.
  - lb1lf 1y ago
    De Atramentis, too, has a range of permanent inks which are quite fast-drying, too. Happy customer for years.
  - sevensor 1y ago
    Platinum Carbon Black is a wonderful ink. It seems to work very well in cheap fountain pens with flow issues. It’s highly resistant to coffee spills and looks ok on mediocre paper. Only drawback is cleaning it up; it cleans up like used motor oil.
- mrob 1y ago
  You can get fountain pen inks that chemically react with cellulose for complete water resistance (there may still be a little smudging from unreacted ink washing off the paper). Noodler's Black is a famous example. I like this kind of ink, although it's not without its drawbacks, because cotton/rayon/other plant fiber clothing is also mostly cellulose and will be stained just as permanently.
  - specialist 1y ago
    > inks that chemically react with cellulose I had no idea. Great tip; thanks. I'm looking for alternatives to lamination for posting outdoor flyers & signs. I just received some (alleged) weatherproof copier paper to experiment with. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MQ3UNWL https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MQ3UNWL

pjmlp 1y ago

My go to choice for several decades since high school, even got to collect some throught the years, mostly Parker. However they are also dangerous, beware of hand movents when holding one, otherwise there is quite some cleaning to do, and even document rewriting.

tiniuclx 1y ago

My first full time software engineering paycheque went towards a Lamy 2000. I've been using it for many years now and it's never let me down.

someothherguyy 1y ago
That probably costs more than I ever spent on all writing utensils I've ever owned. What makes this cost that much (other than they are owned by uniball)? The material certainly isn't worth that much? And the function would be replicated in the market for less? So, what makes it not some luxury bullshit?
- sudhirb 1y ago
  I think the budget play is to get a cheap refillable fountain pen and some cheap fountain pen ink (I bought some Diamine bottled ink about 10 years ago and I've still got plenty left). More expensive fountain pens are indeed luxury products - replicas are often available on places like aliexpress. I think it probably feels like bullshit if you don't think you'll gain any satisfaction or derive any pleasure from the act of writing or the aesthetics of your writing instrument.
- tiniuclx 1y ago
  I'd been using the much cheaper Lamy Al Star (admittedly also a step up from the plastic Lamy Safari) for a while, and I really liked the feel of them. To be honest, I kind of just wanted a nicer version of that, and the 2000 did not disappoint. The nib feels much, smoother. Mine is fairly wet without excessively showing through low quality paper. The refilling mechanism is a lot nicer than the cartridge-pump I'd been using on the Al Star. Is it better? Yeah, but it's not 10x better than the Al Star which is what the price would suggest. So it is definitely a luxury product from that point of view.
- Alupis 1y ago
  Ever buy yourself something nice that you use often? A nice belt, a nice comb, or a nice razor? A nice kitchen knife arguably does the same job as a cheap Walmart special. Sometimes it's nice to splurge on high quality items - especially when you use them every day, like a pen. It's a little thing, but it brings pleasure every time you use it. Not everything is about cost efficiency. You'll never regret buying quality.

dist-epoch 1y ago

I vaguely remember the writing tip getting blunt after a while and needing change.

WillAdams 1y ago
That happens on inexpensive nibs which lack iridium (or some similar metal/alloy) tipping. A tipped fountain pen will be incredibly resistant to wear --- while I did significantly wear down the inexpensive Platignum (British brand, but despite the name untipped steel) fountain pen I had when I was younger after a couple of decades, when I finally switched to using more expensive pens with nibs for tipping, haven't had to replace a nib since.

crinkly 1y ago

Oh hell no. I used fountain pens, good ones, for nearly 20 years. They leak, blob all over the place, are difficult to refill, require cleaning, end up with servicing problems when you really need to write immediately. Also difficult to draw complex diagrams with. Absolute self inflicted pain and misery. I use Muji gel pens now. None of those problems and you can take the cartridges back to them and they recycle them. And the pen bodies themselves last functionally forever.

michaelmior 1y ago

> there's no consumables that need recycling or disposing of, if you use a rechargeable cartridge and buy ink bottles. Genuine question: don't you need to dispose or recycle the ink bottles?

Havoc 1y ago
They’re usually glass and last years. So maybe Gp isn’t counting that as consumable

quatonion 1y ago

Totally agree. I used a fountain pen all the way through school and university. My all time favourite was the Parker 25 in stainless steel, with a medium nib and blue-black ink. Sometimes I would go for purple if I was feeling a bit raunchy. I know a lot of people liked the 105, and I had one, and a bunch of others, but there is something about the utilitarian functionality of the 25 that I really have a soft spot for. I think there was a year or two where I may have flirted with ballpens, but not seriously. Also even used Rotring and Staedtler Mars technical drawing pens on and off for regular writing. That was always fun in the middle of a lecture with ink everywhere. It's such a shame I don't get to write on paper that much these days. No real need. Such a beautiful experience though.

WillAdams 1y ago

Well, there are the bottles ink comes in --- I left behind a drawerful of empty Sheaffer bottles at a previous job which I've always regretted. Agreed, except I have _not_ been able to get my Aurora Hastil to write/fill reliably for a couple of years now, despite cleaning, and I can't send it in to the manufacturer since the tip was ground to a chisel italic by Gretta Lostkemper (who used to oversee custom grinding at Sheaffer). Guess I need to get an ultrasonic cleaner and try that....

criddell 1y ago

Fountain pens are great but that's only half the equation. You need to consider paper as well. Because I'm usually using low quality paper, I mostly use ballpoint pens so that I can write on both sides of the page. Fountain pens can feel scratchy on cheap paper and the ink bleeds through.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

hangonhn 1y ago

Fountain pen requires some skill to write well. It's amazing in the hands of those who knows calligraphy and just creates extra smudges for those who are more used to normal pens.

kulahan 1y ago
It takes no time at all to figure out if your only real goal is "I wanna be able to use this as deftly as a regular pen". Really no more difficult than knowing how not to smudge marker by closing a book while it's still wet, for instance.