Fountain pens: how it's going

A bit over a month ago, I wrote about picking up some fountain pens and getting converted. Wanted to give a brief update on how the addiction “hobby” is going.

I currently own 6 pens of various makes, quality, and price. Of the ones not mentioned before, the first two were purchased while others were further finds at home. I’d sort them into three smooth but expensive and/or (each variation is represented here!) fragile pens I try to keep home, two that write sub-optimally and require adjustment or repairs, and KAWECO SPORT. The first category make the hobby worth it, while the second reminds me why these types of pens are quaint to some and archaic to others. (though I still hold that many more people would benefit from trying fountain pens!). I don’t plan to buy more in the near future, though I’d love to have a couple models eventually.

But what’s with the KAWECO SPORT, you may ask? Well, it’s probably the greatest pen I own, an impulse purchase after almost dropping a much pricer pen and deciding bringing those to class was reckless. It’s relatively cheap, and the plasticky material feels the part. It’s tiny when unposted, yet in my experience posting it usually leads to a wobbly grip or trouble unposting. The ink capacity is infamous for having short international cartridge as the most you can fit, and it’s an unremarkable writer – smooth enough to make ballpoints jealous, but not winning any awards. Though I don’t make life easy for it by using a pale green ink (in a red pen supposed to be used for daily writing, yes). But man is it a tank. To date, this pen has survived:

While nothing to write home about if we were talking about a gel pen (my Pilot G2s may qualify as astronauts), to me this disperses the idea that fountain pens inherently need to be babied. This small thing went through what killed some “normal”, “boring” pens I had. Sure, if it was a TWSBI (they make transparent acrylic pens filled by a piston!), I’d be looking at a broken pen and a lot of ink on my clothes. But that’s the beauty of fountain pens! You can combine a pen you enjoy with an ink of your choosing, and there are countless choices. Practicality, design, or colour, it’s all up to you. Bringing us to…

It’s not just the pens, it’s the ink. I think that’s the fun part for me. After years of using blue ballpoints in school, even switching to black felt like an unspeakable upgrade at the time (middle school me was mind-blown when teachers didn’t mind it). And so this is a whole new world. What do you mean I can write in sky blue?! This is a purple??? That black looks like blue under light!!! The possibilities are genuinely endless. Can you do this with your ballpoint? Maybe? I believe there are some multi-coloured refills, and most pens come in “red” and “green” for the sake of teachers everywhere. But it’s not the same! My green of choice is a different “green” from someone else’s. And their green isn’t another person’s, and so on. There are usually variations within any shade of any colour you can imagine, down to subtle hue shifts or behaviour. And remember, you can fill any pen with any ink (baring some restrictions for vintage pens and infamously hard-to-handle inks). That’s not even touching on properties seemingly exclusive to fountain pens. Sure, you have how water resistant or light-fast an ink is (for most inks, this is the part where we lose to ballpoints), but there are also shading (different parts of stroke have different colour saturation), sheening (small outline of another colour around the stroke), and so on. They make ink with GOLD SPARKLES in it! What more do you want?!

And even for those who prefer plain old black (or blue-black, if feeling fancy), the experience is still smoother than anything a ballpoint, gel, or even a rollerball pen can offer. With a working nib and proper grip it just slides across the paper. Having gotten used to it, I don’t apply any pressure when writing. For reference, just picked up a gel pen (for the first time in weeks!) to compare and was pleasantly surprised until I noticed I was still subconsciously pushing it against the paper a bit. Do you know the pain one experiences by the end of a 3-hour lecture or a long exam, when your hand cramps and the handwriting has deteriorated to a shell of its former self? I don’t. For me, it’s a distant, fading memory, and I’m all the happier for it. And you can be happy, too!

Because fountain pens are surprisingly easy to get into. You don’t have to start expensive, or ever go there for that matter, to feel the benefits. In fact, perhaps the cheaper “workhorse” pens are where it’s at. Lamy Safari (if the grip fits you), Pilot Kaküno or Metropolitan, TWSBI Eco, KAWECO SPORT (if you can HANDLE it) – these are just a few of the popular starter pens that won’t break your bank. You can go even more budget! Platinum Preppy is a popular budget choice. Pilot have Varsity, which are disposable and cost similar to a “normal” pen. Chinese brands like Jinhao make extremely cheap pens that punch above their weight, though I don’t recommend them to starters due to oftentimes worse QC – first impressions matter, and if I picked up the faulty of my two first pens, who knows where we would’ve been now… It doesn’t take a lot to find a pen. And learning to use it won’t take nearly as much as you’d expect. By the end, you may find out it’s all a nothingburger and I was wrong, ballpoints are enough. You may get a bad nib and decide to just return and forget. That’s okay. But you might also realise that there’s been a better tool for one of the most common and enjoyable jobs all along, and to me that’s worth it. What matters is just writing.