cashew | More thoughts on the fountain pen

Yes, I know I've already wrote a long blah blah blah about the economy of fountain pens and a beginner recommendation for pens, but I keep having thoughts about this stuff as I dip in and out of the fountain pen community and it's not enough just to journal these thoughts at myself.

Also, yes, I might have gotten an expensive pen on a very, very good deal (like 50% off deal) and I have thoughts now, because I've always found the fountain pen community to be a bit...let's say removed from the rest of the stationary world. Anyway, so I'm ranting a bit. I should probably make a new tag for all my fountain pen ramblings at this point.

Fountain Pen Introduction

There's a lot of "hey, here are some terms about fountain pens"-articles that have been put out there, so anyone who is interested can probably go google it. But, at the same time, I find some introductions more useful than others, so here's a list of resources that I think are reliably objective introductions to fountain pens:

Fountain Pen Glossary by Brian Goulet - If you need to look up a fountain pen related word, this list has it.

Anatomy of a Fountain Pen by Brian Goulet - A diagram of all the pieces of a fountain pen. Very useful to know what you're looking at.

In Praise of Steel Nibs by Brian Gray - Proprietor of Edison Pen Company, Brian Gray puts up a strong defense of steel nibs, warning his customers off of the false perception of luxury attached to gold nibs and making the case that yes, you should save $100 and stick with a steel nib unless you have very special needs. Buy a gold nib if you want to, but do so with the knowledge that you're not buying performance.

Why Use a Fountain Pen by John Morgan - Written by the Chair of Berkeley's Haas Business School, I actually found his arguments to be quite convincing and, unsurprisingly, mirrors my attitude towards fountain pens. (AKA, yes, FPs can be an affordable experience, there is no need for people to keep making the luxury argument.)

The Best Beginner Fountain Pens by Ryan @ Jet Pens - This is an extremely comprehensive fountain pen list of entry level pens and their individual pros and cons with an easy comparison table at the end. Honest and helpful.

Now, here are a few points that I personally want to make that I feel a lot of beginner guides fail to talk about:

INK: Fountain pens only write as well as their inks do. Understand that lubricated ink (AKA wet inks) will usually help the pen to perform better than a dry ink. Common cheap lubricated inks brands include: ~~Noodler's~~ (see Noodler's and antisemitism), Monteverde, Parker Quink, Pilot, Waterman. However, if you want colors beyond blue and black, I would recommend ~~Noodler's~~ Pilot or Monteverde. For a premium ink, Pilot's Iroshizuku line is extremely good value. In general, yellows and reds tend to be less lubricated due to the nature of the dye involved.
NIB SIZE: One thing I find frustrating is that people often can't give a good comparison for nib size. Telling a beginner that a Japanese Fine is equivalent to a Western Extra-Fine is pretty useless when a person's response is "I use a Pilot V5, what nib size should I get?" For this, I use a simple concept: Japanese Extra-Fine runs at a gel pen's 0.38mm (e.g. Uniball Signo). Japanese Fine runs at a gel pen's 0.5mm (e.g. Pilot G2). A Western Extra-Fine runs close to a gel pen's 0.5mm, with some tipping slightly into the 0.7mm range (notably the German nibs do this). Japanese Medium and Western Fines run steadily at a gel pen's 0.7mm range. And if you prefer writing with 1mm tips, then I would recommend a Japanese Broad or Western Medium.
General rule of thumb, as a beginner you're not looking into special tipping. Don't let the variety of nibs confuse you with your first fountain pen. Get a pen with a nib that you're going to actually write with before buying a bunch of pens and start looking for an excuse to use them.
PAPER: Obviously, paper quality affects how liquid ink behaves. There are plenty of reviews for which papers work well or not, but honestly, the best you can do for yourself is go with a thin nib and write on whatever paper you have on hand at the moment. No point in investing in a bunch of high quality notebooks if you're not going to be using them. I've had very good experiences with Paperchase notebooks and Japanese Fine nibs. If you're using a Fine or Extra-Fine nib, Paperchase paper is more than passable for note taking. However, once you get deeper, I greatly recommend getting a notebook with Tomoe River paper. Nanami Seven Seas has some of the most economical Tomoe River notebooks in the U.S. If you're in Japan, you're probably already surrounded by great paper because Japan is a nation that gives a shit about paper.

Bargain Hunting Fountain Pens

If you've moved past the beginner stage of fountain pens, you're probably ready to buy some mid-tier or high-tier pens to see what's the big deal. Or you just want some really good looking pens. Also, you'd like to not break the bank in the process. The thing I've learned in my many years of stalking fountain pen communities is that there are great deals to be had if you know where to begin looking. There's obviously the standard wait for a sale and use a discount code offered by popular pen reviewers, but here are some deals that people don't often talk about:

The best time to bargain hunt is between November-January. In addition to holiday sales, January is also when most shops start doing inventory clearances to make way for new limited edition pens. These are the times that you'll often see things as much as 50% off for higher end pens.
Japanese pens are especially hard to find a good deal for, but Pen Sachi purchases pens in Japan and ships overseas, so you'll want to do the math and see if you save more by purchasing from them instead. Also, Pen Sachi carries a more varied stock of limited edition pens seeing as they're located in Japan.
Depending on how much money you want to spend, looking at the grey market might save you far more. Ebay, Amazon, Rakuten, Alibaba, Taobao...the deals are there, but you run the risk of unreturnable purchases. Weigh the discount against the certified retailer and consider if the money you save is worth the risk. FPN Market Watch is a great resource for keeping an eye out for timely changes.
Second hand pens are a good deal! Fountain pens on the second hand market are often quite high quality. Since these pens are designed to be used for decades if not centuries, there's no reason not to buy some of the modern pen models off of the second hand market. Both r/pen_swap and FPN Pay It Forward are good ways to find new pens on the cheap or sometimes even free! Pen bloggers also host giveaways, so keep googling bloggers and follow them to see if there's anything they're willing to share.
Vintage (AKA pre-1950s) pen market is a confusing place and the vintage nibs, while great and unique, are often attached to a not so great ink system. There is no question in my mind that modern pens are of better overall quality and are easier to maintain. Get into it if you're a hobbyist, but if you just want a working pen, I'd leave the vintage stuff alone.

To conclude, if you pay more than $100, the extra money isn't buying you a better writing experience. You're spending money on a specific quality, whether that's looking for a bigger ink reservoir, a unique filling mechanism, an expensive nib material, a specific design, a limited edition color, etc. Just walk into this with your eyes wide open and understand that anyone who says a $100+ pen writes better is...well, factually wrong. No, your $20/$30/$40/$50 pen will write just as well as the $100+ pen. In fact, your $50 pen will probably write no better than your $20 pen, but the body might feel slightly sturdier or the balance of the pen feels slightly more comfortable. Make peace if you're going to buy a pen for the looks, otherwise, stick to a good beginner pen that writes well.

And yes, you really can just buy one pen and stick with it. You really don't need more than one fountain pen.

Fountain Pen Myths

These have been talked about a lot, yet I keep seeing these sentiments circling around again and again and again, so I'm going to rant a bit.

Once you buy one pen, you can't stop!
No, actually. You very well can stop. You really can. If you research well before purchasing, you can buy one good pen and stop there. You don't have to try out a bunch of pens to find the perfect pen. If you want a pen that allows you to use bottled ink, you can definitely stop at buying a single fountain pen and use your beloved bottle of ink and leave it there.
Fountain pen is a luxury.
No, expensive fountain pens are a luxury. Beginner entry level pens most certainly are not luxury pens. A Platinum Preppy or Pilot Petite costs about as much as a discounted Dr. Grip. A Platinum Plasir or Pilot Kaküno costs a few dollars more than Dr. Grip's MSRP ($10), but their refill ink is much cheaper per mL. Yes, even if you use the cartridges, but why would you when you could use bottled ink?
Piston-filler fountain pens are superior.
No, actually, piston fountain pens don't write any better than cartridge/converters, and they don't hold nearly as much ink as eyedroppers. They're also just as prone to burping as any eyedropper pen (that was designed to be eyedroppers, not eyedropper hacks). Also, the Opus 88 pens have valves that seal off to prevent burping from happening. Like the piston filler all you want, but there's nothing inherently better about a piston filler.
Gold nibs are smoother.
Augh! No. No. No. Nib tipping, polish, tuning affects smoothness. The nib material does not affect the smoothness whatsoever. Again, buy a gold nib because you want a gold nib, but not because you think it'll write "better".
Gold nibs are springy.
Augh! While alloy does affect nib springy-ness to a certain extent, steel nibs can also be springy depending on the steel treatment. Pilot steel nibs tend to have a bit more springy-ness than the usual steel nibs. Platinum/Sailor gold nibs tend to be just as stiff as the steel nibs.
Expensive paper is a must when using fountain pens.
Again, good paper makes fountain pen ink stand out, but they can be gotten at economical prices. You do not have to buy a $40 journal for the fountain pen to write well.
Thick paper is a must when using fountain pens.
This is often used a lot and I don't see it talked about as much. The common wisdom is that high gsm (grams per square meter) paper (usually 100+ gsm) will prevent the fountain pen ink from bleeding through. This is not true. The coating of the sizing (AKA treatment of the paper) affects the paper performance more than the paper's weight. A smooth coat will allow inks to show more shading and sheen. A rougher coat absorbs the shading and sheen. A thicker coating will prevent bleed through. A thinner coating is more prone to bleed through.
Filling a fountain pen is difficult.
I don't even know where to start with this one. Stick pen in ink, twist/pull/depress according to the fill mechanism. Viola! Ink filled. Wipe excess ink with a napkin. Here's a 40s video to demonstrate if you're really that confused. And if you still can't figure out your very unique filling system, here's JetPens literally running through every single fill mechanism for you. You'll notice that the entire process takes only a few seconds. It's very, very easy.
Knock-offs are violating copyright.
Pen designs cannot be copyrighted. The end. Moving on.
It's cheaper to buy an expensive pen upfront than a bunch of cheap pens.
Depends on what expensive pen you're thinking about. If you bought a $1000 Urushi Namiki(Pilot)/Nakaya(Platinum) pen, that would buy you 10 $100-pens and 100 $10-pens. Will you really be buying 100 cheap pens if you didn't have a Nakaya? Will you really stop buying pens because you bought an expensive one?
Chinese pens are a QC crap shoot.
It honestly depends on what you mean by crap shoot. If you're buying the sub-$20 pens, such as Moonman and Hongdian pens, the QC is about the same level as the Kaküno and Plasirs. They have a better success rate than some luxury brands like Visconti (absolutely infamous for not working out of the box). If you mean writing quality, most will not see a big jump in quality between a Moonman/Hongdian compared to some common sub-$20 American brands, like Monteverde or Knox pens. And if you're comparing the sub-$5 brands like Wingsung/Hero/Jinhao etc., well, all I can say is they're sub-$5. You're getting basically the fountain pen equivalent of a disposable rollerball. And most likely, they are themselves counterfeits of the Chinese brands, which is why they seem to write so poorly.
Limited editions are worth it.
Uh...worth is a bit subjective, isn't it? In terms of material costs, no, it does not cost the pen maker any more to make a pen with translucent pink sparkly plastic than it does to make it with opaque black plastic. Now, it will cost them more to make custom designs, due to having to produce a new machine base to stamp out the new plastic/nib design, but that will quickly be recouped through volume of sales. In fact, given that the Sailor/Lamy pens basically change the colors and nothing else, I can say with great confidence that a lot of Sailor/Lamy's limited editions are most certainly not worth the extra money they cost and you should absolutely try to wait for a sale or get it on the second hand market.
It's normal for a fountain pen to cost more than a rollerball because rollerballs aren't luxury pens.
Allow me to introduce to you the $270+ Pelikan Souveran 400 rollerball.. The fountain pen equivalent is the Pelikan M400 for $246. The refill for the Pelikan Souveran 400 is $10+ per stick. The refill for the M400 is a bottle of ink that costs $12 for 80mL. You do the math for which pen is cheaper.

TL;DR - Fountain pens can be luxury or remain just another tool in the toolbox. Every fact is based on your frame of reference. And if you treat fountain pens as a luxury hobby, your frame of reference will simply not fit someone who treats fountain pens as just another writing tool.

And finally...

Lastly, I want to point out that there are many reasons a person might want to get into fountain pens. Some because they write. Others because they sketch. Still others because they want to collect a bunch of pretty pens. Everyone's motivation is legitimate, but their perspectives are going to be different depending on why they got into fountain pens in the first place.

I come from a point of economy and improved writing experience. Also, the desire to use bottled ink. I like how a fountain pen nib writes over how a rollerball nib writes. I enjoy using bottled ink. I enjoy the way the fountain pen feels in my hand. And finally, I enjoy filling up my pens from the bottles when I write it dry. It makes me feel accomplished and enjoy the process of writing. I also feel less bad about drafting 200+ pages of fanfic. Oh, and also I journal daily for mental health reasons, so I consume a substantial amount of ink pretty fast.

I believed in getting converters for my pens, but I recognize the inherent economy of reusing cartridges by refilling with an ink syringe. I believe someone called converters over priced branded ink syringes and I can't really disagree. I've got a few pens that are cartridge only pens and I refill with a syringe because I'm too cheap to buy the mini-converter. However, I've had enough cartridges break during the refill process that I just feel better having a converter for the pens that can use them. And when I break all of my cartridges, I'm going to convert the pens into eyedroppers so I can do away with cartridges forever.

So, what I'm saying is, I want economical alternative to an enjoyable writing experience. I want to feel comfortable writing, use many ink colors, but also avoid purchasing a bunch of single use pens and avoid plastic waste. Fountain pens fit what I want. I have everything from $1 pens to $150 pens and they all have a place in where and why I use them. (Hint: my cheap pens are the ones that leave the house.)