Which cheap pens from your beginner days do you still love?

[NibsForScript]

I still use my Lamy Al Stars. I gave my Safaris to friends when they were interested.

[Lexaf]

I cannot say I'm in love with my Parker Vector.

For me it was 'Not in love' at first sight. The reason I never used them....

[Tiggercat]

I have recently pulled some Lamy Safaris out of storage, and enjoy them quite a bit. I'm considering digging out some Esterbrooks as well. And I regularly keep a group of Kaweco Sports inked.

[Runnin_Ute]

Love is a strong word, but I still have a number of less than $20 pens that I LIKE. Some more than others.

Parker 45 - these have been from around $15 to about $30. And that includes a very nice desk set made of oak with a hinged lid from 1968.
Pilot Metropolitan - seems "soulless" or something. Not sure what it is, but it doesn't really speak to me.
Esterbrook - I have 7. A red SJ, blue transitional J, black LJ, green, gray, copper and black J. Average cost $21 - including the green one which I paid $39 for restored - it was my first J.
The steal of the draft? A Pelikan 120 Merz & Krell, which I bought for $17.50. A firehose of M nib.

[ian1964]

Easy! My first fountain pen, it was an Osmiroid 65 in Burgundy bought in 1974. Just managed to replace it exactly with a 'New Old Stock' for only 16 (Pounds Sterling).

[brunico]

The first fountain pen I ever used was my mum's burgundy Osmiroid 65

[Sailor Kenshin]

Those 65s are great pens!

[penwash]

My TWSBI Mini black cap!

[comixfan]

Can't really beat cheap Pilots (still love my Metropolitans and my Kakuno). And I will always love my trusty ol' Sheaffer school pen and No-Nonsense pens, too.

[pajaro]

Sheaffer red translucent cartridge pens, 2 rounded end version, 2 later pointy end version.

Sheaffer Imperial cartridge pens, inlaid nib.

A lot of the pens called cheap in this thread are actually moderately priced, like Lamy Safari.

[wingwiper]

Forgot to mention those Sheaffer NoNonsense FP’s. All the different nib sizes not to mention you can easily smooth the italics into cursive italics.

Been using them and Parker 45’s since High School.....


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[Lexaf]

Those 65s are great pens!

Yes, they are (were) nice pens indeed. I cannot remember I had those pens in my Highschool days, but, much later, when I started collecting fountain pens in the '90's these UK made Osmiroid pens were quite easy to find at local Market Place sites and flee markets and brocantes. Now, these days, some models are even considered as collectors items. What I liked in particular where the exchangeable nibs. Some times I found these Osmiroids, (the 65, the 75 but also the brand related Íridinoid) with complete sets of exchangeable calligraphy nibs. Soon I found out the nib units were also exchangeable with the USA made Esterbrook pens and, with some tinkering, the German Rotring Tintenkuli stylographic pens.
I had a lot of fun trying out all the possibilities the different calligraphic nibs offered me.

Then there were also the other 'El Cheapo' UK made pens made by Platignum (not to be mixed up with the Japanese brand Platinum). Not only were the Platignum pens of a significant lesser quality, the interchangeable nibs that came with these pens were unfortunately not interchangeable with the Osmiroids.
Another thing I definately did NOT like on either the Osmiroids and the Platignums was the stinky plastic they were made of.

Below some pictures of Osmiroids and an Iridinoid pen. All nibs you see are interchangeable.
The last picture shows an Esterbrook desk pen and a rOtring 'Tintenkuli', the last one was modified to take Osmiroid nib units.

scannen0004.jpg

From left to right:
Iridinoid 75 with medium broad stub nib,
Osmiroid 75 with broad stub nib
Osmiroid 65 with a non standard cap ring and a straight Italic brad nib
Osmiroid 65 with an EF Copperplate nib.

scannen0005.jpg

scannen0007.jpg

Below:
Upper: An Esterbrook Desk Pen with an Osmiroid Copprplate nib
Lower: A modified rOtring 'Tintenkuli' with a medium stub 'sketch' nib

scannen0008.jpg

[Spideysgirl]

All of my pens are cheap pens. I enjoy them a lot. Although almost a year into the fp hobby I'm beginning to buy more expensive pens.

I have everything from Shaeffer school pens to Lesser named Chinese pens.

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[Hand and Pen]

Two I still use are Sheaffer 330, now referred to a quasi-Imperial with fine steel nib and a Parker 45 steel nib. The Sheaffer is filled with Diamine Monaco red for mark-ups and currently the Parker 45 is filled with Iroshizuku Yama budo. Both pulled out of drawer after my long Fp hiatus, cleaned, inked. I think it's great you can bring out something from the 70's and with some TLC, and boom, they work.

[Sailor Kenshin]

Everybody is reminding me of my NN collection. My first came from an art supply store and I knew nothing about it (pre-innerwebz, certainly), except that it was yellow.

That was onnnlyyy the first.

[old4570]

Sheaffer Reminder Clip ( 444 ) Brushed SS > Was my High school pen ...
Was a confirmation gift ... 1977 (?) - Stolen mid 80's ....

Then ? not sure when , found one on Ebay and purchased it .. Since then I have collected half a dozen ...
Currently should have a 444 Pen Pencil set on the way , + a Coke advertising pen ( Reminder Clip ) White Dot , and another Wingamatic .. ( 1960's )
+ Have my eye on another Sheaffer and Wingamatic ..

What I really like are my mechanical pencils .. Just added a Rotring Esprit Double Push to the collection ( The one with a aluminum body )
I really like mechanical pencils for some reason , especially the 0.9mm .. ( Writes really well )

[jmccarty3]

Sheaffer "School Pens." I have two of these, a medium and a fine, and they write about as well as anything I have.

[Stickler]

Depends on what you call "cheap"

Under $100?
Faber Castell Loom, Shaeffer Prelude, Lamy Safari

Under $200?
Pelikan M200, Pilot Vanishing Point, Vintage Mont Blanc Montarosa

[amk]

Now when I started collecting, for me 'cheap' was under £10 and 'expensive' was over £30! and it wasn't that long ago... I think we all go through that gradual sliding up of what we're prepared to pay - except for the few who remain faithful to Lami Safari or Chinese pens.

[Lexaf]

Depends on what you call "cheap"

Under $100?
Faber Castell Loom, Shaeffer Prelude, Lamy Safari

Under $200?
Pelikan M200, Pilot Vanishing Point, Vintage Mont Blanc Montarosa

Cheap? Some history:
In my schooldays ( 55 years ago ) 'cheap' was DFL10,-- at most. Anything more was not affordable for a 13 or 14 year old school kid - and actually for my parents too.

DFL is Dutch Florins or Guilders ('Gulden' in Dutch). Now we have Euro's from the beginning of this century, January - 1st - 2001. 1 Euro is 2,20 DFL.

I bought my first standard Parker 45 in 1965 for under HFL20,-- at the still existing (and famous) pen shop of P.W. Akkerman in The Hague. I cannot recall the exact price any more but it was surely not more than 20 guilders. Quote from Tony Fisher's outstanding site Parker Pens Penography ( https://parkerpens.net/parker-eversharp.html ):
" In 1962 Parker introduced the $3.95 Parker "45" Arrow cartridge pen. The Arrow was aimed directly at the 22 million young people in high school and college. " At that time the Dutch Guilder / US Dollar rating was about HFL 3,50 for 1 dollar.

But lots of even cheaper pens were available in that time, e.g. in the department stores of Vroom & Dreesmann also known as 'Vendex' or V&D. The firm ceased to exist just a few years ago. Later, when I started to collect pens in the early 1990's, the price level was somewhat higher, but a cheap (cartridge) school pen could still be bought for far less than DFL 20,--. In that time I bought the beautiful Waterman Kultur demonstrator pen at V&D for HFL 17,95. These pens are - apart from their excellent quality -considered as quite collectable these days and you will probably pay more than us$ 75,-- for a mint piece.

In my collection I have several pens from the 1950's and '60's that still have their original price tags, many under HFL 10,00. Among these are celluloid quality pens with 14K nibs.

When we look, in present day, at the price level of cheap pens available on the (internet) market (e-Bay), I find -and bought- several Chinese made pens for well under us$2,-- (two!) + free shipping. Most of them are excellent value for money. No gold nibs, mediocre finishing, but the writing quality usually varies from rather good to very good. E.g. Hero 616 and Jinhao 992, both available for approx. us$ 1,50. So, actually a good functional fountain pen can be had these days cheaper than ever before. Good for you, good for office, good for your kids at school. And some of them are real fun to collect. Who knows how these pens -or what will be left of them- will be valued by collectors and pen aficionado's 60 years from now?

Nothing wrong with the > $200,-- +++ fountain pens. I's just another category. But also nothing wrong with the below $20,-- segment. Maybe some more chance for a bad buy. Who cares? But what to think about a ++$500,-- pen that turns out to be a lemmon?

(edited for typo's)