I love pens. I have tons and always find an excuse to get more. But alas, I don’t think I was meant to be a fountain pen person. It’s not that they are bad, but probably not a good match for me. Where shall I begin?
Pros – Versatility and Customization
There are lots of enticing ideas about fountain pens. If nothing else, the idea that you can choose almost everything separately. You get to choose your pen body, ink, and nibs – what’s not to love? With traditional pens you have to hope someone else made the perfect combination that speaks to you. Example: I see so many variations of the classic blue pen color. I’m not talking about rainbow sets with lights and darks. I’ve figured out I prefer a darker blue. What happens when you find a pen that feels and writes great, but the color seems “off” to what you’re used to? Drat. Fountain pen? No problem. Get whatever specialized ink your heart yearns for.
Cons
Filling your own ink. I can be clumsy. It’ll probably get worse with age and arthritis. Filling my own ink sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. You can get pre-filled cartridges, but then the price goes up, and available choices may go down.
Regular internal pen cleaning required. Again, I’m seeing ink everywhere. Possibly stains that stay on one’s hands for days or else require nasty smelling chemicals to get them off. No thank you. You hear about good pen inks being permanent or archival. Not sure those options come with fountain pens, but yikes.
Price. Oye, don’t get me started. With all this customization, comes increased prices – nibs especially. Let’s acknowledge that a nice fountain pen body can easily cost more than $100. That’s only one piece of the puzzle. The biggest component to smooth writing is the coating on the nib, but it’s all a mystery. The primary material of the nib costs the most. It seems likely the more you spend on the nib material, you’ll have opportunity to get a better coating. If someone points me to a place that will re-coat whatever inexpensive nib you got and transform it into a dream, I’d love to hear about it. Otherwise from what I read, steel nibs are “eh”, titanium are a bit better, and gold are the dream. But at $200 for only the nib, that’s quite out of my price range. All things considered, I’d be the person who wants at least 3 different types of nibs for thicknesses . . . Yeah, that’s not going to happen.
Comfort. This might seem less important, but still worth noting. I tend to prefer somewhat soft cushiony pen bodies. Those narrow hard pen shafts? Not for me. I dare you to find a super good fountain pen with a body like that. There are supposedly a couple “ergonomic” pens at the lower end of the quality scale. I see no reason to spend even $30-60 on a poor quality fountain pen that feels comfortable in my hand but otherwise feels not so great to write with. Then there’s the idea one needs to write with the whole arm and shoulder – not merely the hand and wrist. Idk that I want to re-learn how to write and use that much energy. I’m sure it’s possible, but. . . is it worth it? I’ve tried a cheap disposable fountain pen, and been able to write my traditional way, so it might be possible but . . . When I had my shoulder surgery, it was quite convenient that I could sort of write with only my hand, since that’s the only thing I was allowed to use for several weeks. Had I written in traditional fountain pen style, I would have been out of commission for months. It might still be very uncomfortable writing with the whole arm. Not sure I want to spend money on a pen just to find out I don’t like writing with it in the first place.
Meanwhile, there are still scads of pens I’d like to try and don’t have enough money to. Unless someone wants to sponsor me to review pens and stationary, so every purchase is free or tax deductible, my writing habit is already expensive enough. It was interesting to try the Pilot Precise Varsity fountain pen, but I think I’ll call it good. There are many other low level disposable pens and I probably shouldn’t even entertain the idea of testing those out either.
Anyone else keep score how many more cons there are to pros? I rest my case.
No comments:
Post a Comment