Fountainhead
Got a fountain pen. YES! I’ve wanted one for a while, and indeed considered shopping on multiple occasions, but it just never seemed worth it. These pens are expensive, require maintenance and handling, and on top of it special paper may be required depending on the ink. However, just as I acquired some fountain-pen-friendly paper so my gel pens wouldn’t bleed through, I was extremely lucky to score hand-me-downs — my parents had several all along, both gifts from long ago, and didn’t need them! Two are borderline gaudy, expensive M-nibs. They cost too much for me to confidently bring them anywhere, and I’m not the biggest fan of how one of them looks, at least on first glance. But the third… man. It’s a Waterman Hemisphere and I love it.
The body is matte black with golden accents, and is relatively thin and unassuming in a classy way — at least compared to some other pens. The cartridges are international standard, and I might move another pen’s converter into it when I upgrade to ink bottles. Quick web search says there are better deals at that price range, but I got it for $0.00, so for me it’s priceless :)
Now, for the writing experience. First impressions were mixed — yeah, it doesn’t take pressure, but it’s a bit scratchy and the lines are uneven. But then muscle memory improved, and it felt okay. At the end of a day of toying around and apparently managing to exhaust half of the cartridge that came in the box, I picked up my gel pen that I intended to use as my main one for next semester, and discovered it’ll be the backup. Like with 144hz monitors or mechanical keyboards, sometimes you notice the change the most when trying to go back. Pleasantly surprised that the ink wasn’t as long-drying as I feared, and there was actually zero feathering on cheaper notebooks I used previously (though still totally see-through). The M-nibbed pens are a bit worse in this regard, though.
Is it ~$100 worth of improvement? Probably not, and definitely not the $600+ some pens cost. Luckily, there are much cheaper ways to start with fountain pens, and I encourage everyone to give them a shot! In any case, I’m likely hooked, and the first one was as always free. As a side note, been practising writing English in cursive and shopping for a typewriter to get the full combo.
Just wanted to share my excitement, it’s been a while since I wrote a shorter post like this! Stay tuned for the first time a pen leaks on me at the worst moment or I actually try using a typewriter for work.