What is your favourite cheap pen?

[Laurie]

Time for a new thread and I am sure that this topic has probably been discussed before but I was using my cheapest pen yesterday and thought it would be interesting to get differing views on this subject as it seems everyone concentrates on their dearest pens

I recently bought a Pilot Plumix with the intention of also buying a Metropolitan and swapping the 1.1 Italic nib from the Plumix. Unfortunately I forgot to order the Metropolitan so I just had the Plumix. Yesterday was the Plumix's turn to be my pen of the day on my usual rotation of my small herd. As the pen only cost about $9 I wasnt expecting much. I was pleasantly surprised and found that it wrote very well without any skipping and reasonably smooth for an italic 1.1. It shows the usual variation of an italic nib and now I am not going to worry about the Metropolitan. My other cheapest pens are the Jinhao X450 I have which I like also because they are big heavy pens and give a very juicy ink flow. Unfortunately they offer no line variation at all so the Plumix gets the nod because of this

[Hawk]

Parker IM. I don't bayby it and it keeps putting ink on the paper (where I want it).

[ac12]

Right now, a Baoer 388
But I'm sure I will find another favorite soon.
I like the IM, but it was just a tad too heavy for me. Nice pen.

[writingrav]

I'd go with the Jinhao 750

[top pen]

My favourite cheap pen has to be the Parker Frontier. I owned 10 different budget pens (sub £15) over the first 2 years of pen collecting and I found some pens that were good many that were not so. However the Parker Frontier was the one that stood out and the only one I ended up keeping. It doesn't have a particularly eye catching design. However it does have a very comfortable ergonomic design and it has a nib superior to any other budget pen i have ever used.

I have 3 of them so I have plenty spare if I was to ever lose one. I consider it my grail cheap pen as since buying my 2 spare ones I haven't bought another budget pen and that was over a year ago.

[Lady Onogaro]

I have a Parker 45 that I bought for $15.00 that I like pretty well. But I am also a great fan of the Sailor Clear Candy and the Pilot Kakuno and Pilot Petit1, all of which are very nice little writers.

[sgtstretch]

Jinhao 159. $13, writes beautifully (after a minor nib tweak) and looks pretty good.

[rdcalhoon]

If we define cheap as $9 or less, then my favorite cheap pens is the Baoer 388. Other favorite cheap pens include the Jet Pens Chibi, the Platinum PTR-200 ($1.50!, smooth fine! (Japanese M)), and the Serwex 1362. I used to be a big Platinum Preppy fan, but not so much these days. If you are willing to add a few bucks, then the Pilot Kakuno is a good choice. Add a few more bucks to that and the stub Pilot 76G and the Pilot Metro come into range. I have a Jinho 450, but I don't like it much.

[caribbean_skye]

jinhao 159

[Kaputnik]

Not the intent of the original post, I'm sure, but perhaps still worth considering, my best cheap pens are vintage models which I was able to buy and restore cheaply (and restoring them cheaply meant doing it myself, in general). Several of the Esterbrook J series for between $8 and $15 US, a nice Sheaffer Flat Top for $18, a couple of Parker 45s (mentioned by someone else earlier) for about $7 and $15 respectively. Of course, what is available for vintage pens must vary by country, and I don't know what is common in Australia.

I barely use my cheap modern pens any more, but the Pilot Varsity is a heck of a deal when you consider that, despite being called disposable, it can actually be refilled. I have a couple which are dedicated to "problem inks" that I want to use occasionally. Also, I'd be somewhat unhappy if I had to go back to using my Pilot FP78G most of the time, but I wouldn't be horribly unhappy. It's really a pretty good pen; I've just moved on to better ones.

[Wile E Coyote]

I'm not sure what it is (there's no identifying marks) but it's a transparent plastic piston filler with a steel nib that was on sale for $2.00 at a local art supply.

[johniem]

Zebra301 which I bought at CVS Drug Store a few years ago for $4USD. It always starts and is a smooth writer. If you consider that I carry it in my planner/journal, it is my every day carry.

[Quantum Sailor]

My favorite cheap pens are the reform I was given as a gift and the metal capped Elite that I picked up from Lexaf which was definitely worth the money.

[Blackhorse]

JinHau 750... pretty major bang for the buck...in terms of fun anyway. If it doesn't write well enough you can always pound tent pegs with it.

Also the Noodlers eyedropper pen you get with the large bottle of Noodlers ink A good pen for free.

Other than that I'd go with a Lamy Safari...near bulletproof, interchangeable nibs, yadda, yadda, yadda.

[Lt. Tom]

It depends on what I'm doing. For taking notes at a meeting or something, the Pilot 78g is a handsome pen. The bigger, heavier, metal Metropolitain uses exactly the same section, but the 78g is available with a 1.1 stub nib. But the section on these pens is a little small in diameter for me to be comfortable for more than a page or two. My favorite cheap desk pen (or at any price, really) is the Pelikano Junior. It looks completely childish (even more so than the Kakuno) and it has no clip, so it never leaves my desk. But it's so comfortable to write with it never leaves my desk. I'll have a much nicer pen in my shirt pocket, but I'll use the Pelikano if I'm at my desk.

[Sammyo]

I have to agree with Lt. Tom, I am at work with a purple Pelikano Junior, loaded with a Edelstein Amethyst cart in my pocket. The way it writes for the money is superb, is it a bit childish and silly... yes, but it always starts a conversation! I also bought a Pilot Kakuno for my daughter... with a pink cap... and I would still use that too! It just write well, smooth and crisp, one of the best Japanese fines I have ever used!

Will these pens give you line variation? No...
Will they look classy in front of the director of a company? No...
Are they classics that you can talk about like a car enthusiast would a 1957 Chevrolet Corvette or a Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona? No...

But that is not the point of these pens, they do exactly what they say they will do and they do it very well.

[reprieve]

The Platinum Plaisir. It has the same reliable, never-dry-out nib as the Platinum Preppy, but the Plaisir has a metal body so it isn't prone to cracking like the Preppy.

I also really like the Pilot Metropolitan and the more expensive Pilot Prera (I don't know that the Prera qualifies as "cheap," but it is on the affordable side and it's a fantastic pen). The Pilot Kakuno and Pilot Petit1 are also nice writers, though they feel cheaper and more like children's school pens to me.

I've had good luck with Lamy Safaris and Al-Stars, and I also like the Logo and the CP1, which I think are vastly underrated pens.

And then there are inexpensive pocket pens like the Kaweco Sport and Ohto Rook.

[inlovewithjournals]

A tie between Pilot Plumix and Jinhao 159.

[Zhivago]

I barely use my cheap modern pens any more, but the Pilot Varsity is a heck of a deal when you consider that, despite being called disposable, it can actually be refilled.

I don't know that it is my favorite cheap pen, but it is certainly the most reliable pen, cheap or otherwise, that I've ever used.

[Waski_the_Squirrel]

I'm a huge fan of the JetPens Chibi. It does not work as an eyedropper, but it does work with cartridges and converters. I hope to be able to do nib work on this pen, and I was thrilled to discover that the Noodler's Creaper nib works in this pen (and vice versa). It has a small form factor, but, posted, it gets bigger. I love it.

And I never expected any of this. I bought the pen entirely on a whim.