Enjoyment of the hobby with inexpensive pens

[eicart0523]

I've been thinking about this lately so I thought I might make a post about it. I am a firm believer that one can enjoy this hobby without buying expensive pens.

I don't buy pens costing over $50 and the majority of my pens are Jinhao, other inexpensive pens. I also enjoy refurbishing vintage lever filler pens. I enjoy this hobby very much.

Do you feel that one needs to have expensive pens to enjoy the hobby?



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[kevmid]

The beauty of this hobby, whether collector, user or a mixture is one can engage at whatever price level you are comfortable with.

There is a great range of pens at the inexpensive level especially from China and India plus the vintage selection one can refurbish.

I suggest it doesn't matter how much a pen costs, as at the basic level one looks at them, collects them, repairs them and uses them and often that is a lot easier and less stressful at the inexpensive end!

[migo984]

No, you don't need to spend a lot of money to enjoy fountain pens. I have a lot of pens; the pen that I use & love the most, & that gives me most pleasure, is a vintage Waterman W5 that cost me under £30.

Nearly all of my favourites, that I use regularly, are very much at the cheaper end, are usually Plain Janes, discrete and classic, and are definitely not blingy, brightly coloured, swirly acrylic, 'designer', custom-made, or over-priced, over-hyped big name labels. They are a mix of modern & vintage. Most lovers of high-end pens would likely consider my old shabby lot as only fit for spares 😉 I guess I am a typical reverse snob 🙂

I do have pens that are expensive, although I don't think they give a better writing experience in the round: indeed most leave me a little cold to be honest, as though they have no character or "soul". I bought them before I truly appreciated what defined an enjoyable pen for me, and I will eventually move them on.

I don't buy Chinese pens, for ethical & environmental reasons.

[SIR]

Simple answer - dip pens; no, they're not fountain pens, but with interchangeable nibs and easy use of one ink after another, they are the most cost effective fix for addictive writing. Also, there are other opportunities for adventure to explore such as frankenpens and vintage pens - vintage pens are a world in themselves.

However... this may be interpreted as warning, threat, or promise, but what you think is your upper cost limit now may very well change later.

[SIR]

I don't buy Chinese pens, for ethical & environmental reasons.

I have a similar perspective, but hopefully, and I have faith; China will soon have control of it's domestic concerns to the extent that they are on a par with, if not leading, international standards for natural and social responsibility.

[RocketRyan]

I enjoy cheaper pens just as much as more expensive pens.

[TSherbs]

I've never written with a pen over $100. My current fave cost $1.50. But I like my custom 74 a lot, too. I don't spend money easily.

[Sailor Kenshin]

I've been thinking about this lately so I thought I might make a post about it. I am a firm believer that one can enjoy this hobby without buying expensive pens.

I don't buy pens costing over $50 and the majority of my pens are Jinhao, other inexpensive pens. I also enjoy refurbishing vintage lever filler pens. I enjoy this hobby very much.

Do you feel that one needs to have expensive pens to enjoy the hobby?



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Nope. I feel very comfortable and happy using my less-expensive pens. They seem to like me back, too.

[penwash]

Sure you can enjoy yourself with inexpensive pens.

But I think limiting interest/ownership to only inexpensive pens, means depriving oneself to more interesting and unique pens.

There are quite a few expensive pens out there that are worth saving for and buying.

[welch]

No. Start with Esterbrook pens: three sizes of their all-time great J series, about a dozen colors and patterns, about three dozen nibs, and any nib can be swapped around to any pen.

I had a great time buying and repairing loads of "third tier" pens from the '30s and '40s. Fascinating to renovate a pen that ordinary people could afford back then. They make a good pen on which to practice re-saccing: lever filler, rubber sac, and if you break the pen you have lost about $5, at most!

[penwash]

No. Start with Esterbrook pens: three sizes of their all-time great J series, about a dozen colors and patterns, about three dozen nibs, and any nib can be swapped around to any pen.

I had a great time buying and repairing loads of "third tier" pens from the '30s and '40s. Fascinating to renovate a pen that ordinary people could afford back then. They make a good pen on which to practice re-saccing: lever filler, rubber sac, and if you break the pen you have lost about $5, at most!

Where do you find these 30's and 40's pens for restoration for $5 ???

On ebay, the good ones (read: worth restoring) are now $20-30 at least, and there are tons of them that are so cheaply made back then that will only provide frustration to anyone who tries to rescue them.

[Silverbreeze]

I've been thinking about this lately so I thought I might make a post about it. I am a firm believer that one can enjoy this hobby without buying expensive pens.

I don't buy pens costing over $50 and the majority of my pens are Jinhao, other inexpensive pens. I also enjoy refurbishing vintage lever filler pens. I enjoy this hobby very much.

Do you feel that one needs to have expensive pens to enjoy the hobby?



Sent from my LGLS770 using Tapatalk

I am a user of ink!!! So I think you can fully take part in this universe with very inexpensive pens...

Of course I find Noodler’s and pens I find on sale at JetPens to be valid Fountain pens.

To everyone moaning over Noodler’s nibs... I have had similar issues with $200 mass production pens


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[fountainpenkid]

Obviously with subjective considerations like this one you can't know if you're missing anything until you've tried it, but it counts for something that there seem to be plenty of FP users who fully enjoy themselves with inexpensive pens. The more expensive modes of enjoyment simply don't do anything for them--and there is nothing wrong with that. As a middle school kid I had so much fun taking notes with a Parker Vector or Esterbrook J in class--the idea of using a fountain pen alone felt special enough to me at that stage of my life...I didn't yearn for anything more. After years of using them, I'm no longer satisfied by that innocent wonder, but instead enjoy particular qualities that do, unfortunately, tend to come at a price.

[welch]

No. Start with Esterbrook pens: three sizes of their all-time great J series, about a dozen colors and patterns, about three dozen nibs, and any nib can be swapped around to any pen.

I had a great time buying and repairing loads of "third tier" pens from the '30s and '40s. Fascinating to renovate a pen that ordinary people could afford back then. They make a good pen on which to practice re-saccing: lever filler, rubber sac, and if you break the pen you have lost about $5, at most!

Where do you find these 30's and 40's pens for restoration for $5 ???

On ebay, the good ones (read: worth restoring) are now $20-30 at least, and there are tons of them that are so cheaply made back then that will only provide frustration to anyone who tries to rescue them.

I just checked EBay for EPENCO, Majestic, and Stratford. Wow. Sellers seem to believe that if a pen is old, if must be "collectible". Illusions!!

[Kaputnik]

If you in fact do enjoy fountain pens while only buying cheaper ones, then obviously you can.

I don't look at it quite that way. There are pens that interest me and pens that don't. Some of the ones that interest me cost more than I will ever choose to spend for a single pen (whether I have the money or not), so I do without them. You can't have everything.

Speaking hypothetically, instead of concentrating on the cost of individual pens, one could keep track of the total spent, and try to limit that. A single $200 pen might give you more satisfaction than four $50 ones, or it might not. $200 is very roughly my maximum (I've gone a little bit over). A single $1000 pen might turn out to be much more satisfying to own than some group of my own pens adding up to that, but I don't intend to find out. We all have to stop somewhere.

[dam]

There is a lot of fun to be had with cheap pens. Cheapies are a great way of experimenting, tweaking, hacking (nibs, feeds, whatever). If anything goes wrong, it was just a cheap pen and your bank account is intact. You've learned something and you can move on. And if things go according to plan, it is quite rewarding to get a cheap pen to write exactly like you want it to.
Most of my more expensive pens were purchased based on what I learned using cheap pens (size, material, weight, etc).

[picautomaton]

Cheap pens are nice toys to play with but after use for a while I always find a serious problem. For instance a pen looks good and then you leave it for a week and it dries out, compare that to a Pelikan M200, MB 146, Lamy 200 they don't dry out (that easily). It's nothing you can see but a design flaw that the expensive pens overcame years ago. The one cheapie that is very well made is a Hero 616 (Parker copy).

[eicart0523]

I don't have that problem since I don't leave my pens untouched for long periods of time. I only ink what I know I will use. Of I'm not using it I clean it out.

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[dam]

Cheap pens are nice toys to play with but after use for a while I always find a serious problem. For instance a pen looks good and then you leave it for a week and it dries out, compare that to a Pelikan M200, MB 146, Lamy 200 they don't dry out (that easily). It's nothing you can see but a design flaw that the expensive pens overcame years ago. The one cheapie that is very well made is a Hero 616 (Parker copy).

This may be true, but it also depends on a variety of factors: the specific ink you're using, how long the ink has been in the pen, etc. None of my No-Nonsense pens dry up, nor do my cheap Pilots (Metro, 78G), nor do the Hero pens I still use (the 5020)... If they do dry up, I tend to try to fix them (and in most cases, it's simple enough). I guess it depends what you want in the hobby. My pen money is limited, as I've other interests. I could not bring myself to splurge on a MB 146.

[pengeezer]

No. Start with Esterbrook pens: three sizes of their all-time great J series, about a dozen colors and patterns, about three dozen nibs, and any nib can be swapped around to any pen.

I had a great time buying and repairing loads of "third tier" pens from the '30s and '40s. Fascinating to renovate a pen that ordinary people could afford back then. They make a good pen on which to practice re-saccing: lever filler, rubber sac, and if you break the pen you have lost about $5, at most!

Where do you find these 30's and 40's pens for restoration for $5 ???

On ebay, the good ones (read: worth restoring) are now $20-30 at least, and there are tons of them that are so cheaply made back then that will only provide frustration to anyone who tries to rescue them.

I just checked EBay for EPENCO, Majestic, and Stratford. Wow. Sellers seem to believe that if a pen is old, if must be "collectible". Illusions!!

Truth is,most sellers don't do their homework when it comes to selling fountain pens:If it's old--i.e.,vintage--then
it must be worth a boatload of money.


John