Well I must be one of the very few who still does a lot of old fashioned handwriting. Because of this I am quite fussy about my pen.
I sometimes grab the Bic's which are available for free on the ward, but these little plastic sticks are too thin and I have to press too hard to make a mark. I am not a big fan of ballpoint pens in general, so I bought one of these:
... a Lamy Swift. It has a roller ball cartridge, meaning it uses liquid ink (instead of the paste used in ballpoint pens). It feels great in the hand - thick, substantial, and nicely weighted. The liquid ink leaves a nice black mark. Unfortunately it has a few serious issues - the liquid ink runs out after 2 weeks of "average" usage for me, and refills are expensive. Worst of all, the pen does not like writing at extreme angles - if I have to make an entry in a thick book, the pen won't write at the margin of the spine. So I bought:
... a Pelikan M800 fountain pen. Unlike cartridge filler fountain pens, the M800 is a piston filler - meaning the entire body of the pen is used to store ink. As a result it has prodigous ink storage capacity and can write for a whole month. The nib seems to have a pretty large sample to sample variation - I tried out 5 different examples in the pen store before settling on this one, and it is a beauty. Once the pen is paid for, ink is really cheap. A $10 bottle of ink lasts me a whole year. I am really happy with this pen, BUT - if I lose it, I would have lost a $1000 pen which is rather painful. And I am paranoid about dropping it. It was very nice, but it is more a luxury item than something which should be used day to day. So I bought:
... a Parker Urban. Yes, this is a ball point pen, but it can use Parker's gel refill. Gel ink is in between ball point (paste) and rollerball (liquid). It produces a mark nearly as deep as rollerball, but lasts twice as long as a rollerball. Unfortunately it is prone to drying out, even more so than rollerballs and ballpoints. I just found a pack of gel refills in my drawer which were 2 years old. All were useless. And the refills cost as much as a rollerball - you can decide if $7 per refill for 4 weeks of writing is good value or not. Once you are spoilt by how cheap fountain pen ink is, having to pay so much money for refills is a bit extortionate.
I am now considering buying a cheap fountain pen, like a Lamy Swift. I have never liked the nibs on those pens, but I might have to visit a pen store to convince myself
Anyone else do a lot of writing?
I sometimes grab the Bic's which are available for free on the ward, but these little plastic sticks are too thin and I have to press too hard to make a mark. I am not a big fan of ballpoint pens in general, so I bought one of these:
... a Lamy Swift. It has a roller ball cartridge, meaning it uses liquid ink (instead of the paste used in ballpoint pens). It feels great in the hand - thick, substantial, and nicely weighted. The liquid ink leaves a nice black mark. Unfortunately it has a few serious issues - the liquid ink runs out after 2 weeks of "average" usage for me, and refills are expensive. Worst of all, the pen does not like writing at extreme angles - if I have to make an entry in a thick book, the pen won't write at the margin of the spine. So I bought:
... a Pelikan M800 fountain pen. Unlike cartridge filler fountain pens, the M800 is a piston filler - meaning the entire body of the pen is used to store ink. As a result it has prodigous ink storage capacity and can write for a whole month. The nib seems to have a pretty large sample to sample variation - I tried out 5 different examples in the pen store before settling on this one, and it is a beauty. Once the pen is paid for, ink is really cheap. A $10 bottle of ink lasts me a whole year. I am really happy with this pen, BUT - if I lose it, I would have lost a $1000 pen which is rather painful. And I am paranoid about dropping it. It was very nice, but it is more a luxury item than something which should be used day to day. So I bought:
... a Parker Urban. Yes, this is a ball point pen, but it can use Parker's gel refill. Gel ink is in between ball point (paste) and rollerball (liquid). It produces a mark nearly as deep as rollerball, but lasts twice as long as a rollerball. Unfortunately it is prone to drying out, even more so than rollerballs and ballpoints. I just found a pack of gel refills in my drawer which were 2 years old. All were useless. And the refills cost as much as a rollerball - you can decide if $7 per refill for 4 weeks of writing is good value or not. Once you are spoilt by how cheap fountain pen ink is, having to pay so much money for refills is a bit extortionate.
I am now considering buying a cheap fountain pen, like a Lamy Swift. I have never liked the nibs on those pens, but I might have to visit a pen store to convince myself
Anyone else do a lot of writing?
