Jolltax from the UK says Hi!

[Jolltax]

Hi!

Jolltax checks in

My name is Jolltax (not really) and I am very pleased to join and read the forums.

I live in the UK and am in advanced middle age, I have been a fountain pen user my whole life starting from when it was compulsory at school and we used them as weapons, I have always had an irrational hate for ballpoints, felt-tips and other in-elegant writing hingmies. I even soldiered on at University where people thought of me as some kind of bizarre Victorian throwback.

I routinely sport the traditional FP multicoloured fingers and hands, have ink stains on my desk at work and in my office at home and most of my handkerchiefs have inkstains on them too as a result of various "emergencies". I use FP at work and at home. My wife thinks I am bit eccentric.

I have a reasonable variety of cheapish fountain pens I have collected as I have always taken a very utilitarian approach to them as tools (functional not fancy) and bought them on the high street. It is only recently I realised that FP usage had become a 'thing' and starting to take interest in stuff on the internet.

My jumble of pens is as follows (I wil try and post a picture of some of them) :

• A few cheapy Chinese ones of highly variable quality and performance, I guess the Jinhao x450s are probably the best of these. I gave out 12 of these to colleagues at work at Xmas, hehe, spread the love.
• A Cross FP of some description I was given at work which is also pretty horrible but is a tiny bit flexy (fun!)
• Lots of Lamy SAfaris and Al-Stars which I find functional and effective but severely lacking in ink capacity with the converter installed
• A Lamy 2000 my most expensive pen which I bought on a recommendation and I don't like very much and rarely use
• A Parker corporate gift pen which I largely ignore, nasty
• A basic school type steel nibbed Parker with a converter which is actually quite nice to write with
• A couple of Noodlers piston fill pens, scratchy things that vomit ink and make a bit of a mess and I have given up with but were cheap
• A Pelikan M205 piston filler which I like and writes nicely but is a bit small in the hand
• A TWSBI Vac 700 which I bought very recently when I 'came out' as a FP geek which I like very much, loving the 'pop' when you fill it and the whole transparentiness thing ....

Currently experimenting with different colour inks, getting angry about very poor quality paper at work which bleeds and feathers all over the place and lusting after vintage pens I can't afford / justify buying (I am liking the Parker Vacumatic and Sheaffers PFM atm in my dreams).

I am also 'curious' about premium / expensive pens (in my world that means > £50) and why someone would spend a weeks wages on a pen - no intention of being at all judgemental here - I love nice things too - I just haven't quite got my head round it.

I am also a geek in other ways and with other obsessions which I won't go into here as I have a tendency to ramble and this is already too long as an intro.

Anyway whoohoooo .............. O7 <salute>

Jolltax

Pens.jpg

[View from the Loft]

Hello and welcome.

You are safe and among friends here - most of us routinely sport ink stained hands or clothing. Word of my preferred writing instrument has spread around the building I am based in, and it's not unusual for me to be approached by a stranger saying that they have been told I have a bottle of ink (true, two in fact) in my desk drawer, and could they have a refill.

As for spending multiples of weeks wages on a pen, OK, I might not need it - but it was calling to me, it's beautiful (in my opinion) and fits my hand so well. As it will be passed on to one of my children, the cost per use will be negligible. What I can't understand are the people that spend mutiple years' salary on a car.

View

[cwent2]

[Jolltax]

Hello and welcome.

You are safe and among friends here - most of us routinely sport ink stained hands or clothing. Word of my preferred writing instrument has spread around the building I am based in, and it's not unusual for me to be approached by a stranger saying that they have been told I have a bottle of ink (true, two in fact) in my desk drawer, and could they have a refill.

As for spending multiples of weeks wages on a pen, OK, I might not need it - but it was calling to me, it's beautiful (in my opinion) and fits my hand so well. As it will be passed on to one of my children, the cost per use will be negligible. What I can't understand are the people that spend mutiple years' salary on a car.

View

Good point, they do seem to keep their value, I never thought of the "heirloom" way of looking at it.

J

[Jeph]

I admit that I did not see the attraction of the more expenive pens at first either. If you are lucky it will not come to you.

[KrazyIvan]

to the Dark Side Jolltax.

[LunaAzurina]

Hello! Thank you for your humorous descriptions of pen mishaps. As a new FP geek, I have not yet had an ink emergency (and hope to continue that way).

[Zanshin]

Hello and welcome from a wet and windy Surrey

[TerraNoir]

I haven't had the chance to sport the multi-inked fingers just yet. Though I have oddly gotten it on my foot. Now! Someone explain that to me. Haha! It seems we have a lot of the same sort of pens. I love them all dearly. I think my Lamys are quite dear to my heart. Currently having a fight with my TSWBI, but smitten with my Noodler's pen. You are amongst friends! I do hope you will like it here!

[VertOlive]

My small white terrier has Sailor Blue spots.

Welcome. Home.

[Jolltax]

Thanks for the warm welcome!

J

[85AKbN]

[Massaya]

I'm afraid I will never see the beauty, value or anything else of a Lamy. I love buying job lots and mending the best of them. I love the submarine shape and celluloid patterns. It all means I have permanently inky fingers. I now keep a jar of bleach by the sink to get my fingers into socially acceptable states.

[inlovewithjournals]

I have always had an irrational hate for ballpoints, felt-tips and other in-elegant writing hingmies.

Ha ha love "hingmies" - I'm stealing it. And I totally agree.

[jfsisler]

Welcome! I'd say that your ink emergencies are more or less standard operating procedure with fountain pens (or at least for me it is). As long as you don't get ink on the wall like I did last week, you're doing well

[Mags]

High Five to you and welcome to the Geeky madness. That is a great start to your collection. Thanks for sharing a picture. Those 450 Jinhaos are awesome little pens a bit fine but the nibs are the sort you can replace and the no 6 nibs out there including off your TWSBI pen make these pens look nice and perform so well.

Like you I have little or no time for Lamy 2000. Don't fret you have trading stock now and you will eventually find someone who wants a 2000 and has another pen you will use more.

We all have to work together to maximize our pen happiness and just get the right pens in to hands of people so we maximize everyone's utility.

Don't you just love the Vac 700 ink capacity?

[Jolltax]

Don't you just love the Vac 700 ink capacity?

Its kind of a love / hate thing with me at the moment! My Vac 700 lasts so long on a single fill that I get frustrated when I want to change colour! Love the fill mechanism though, great fun.

[Lady Onogaro]

Hi, Jolltax,

I am new to the fountain pen community, too. This community is full of friendly, helpful people who have taught me a lot already.

Like you, I have pretty much stuck to pens on the lower end of the $$ scale, but there's a lot of good, fun stuff there. Nobody is a pen snob here, and so far almost everyone I've heard from confesses to liking some little workhorse pen that they can take to work and not worry about. (The more it costs, the more the ouch! when it gets lost or damaged.)

I have mostly Lamys. My most expensive pens are a Pilot Prera (Soft Blue, EF) and a TWSBI Classic Mini (which I love, also in EF). I have a Jinhao 450 which I also like a lot (I bought a Goulet EF nib for that one). I have a Jinhao "Elegant Writer," which is beautiful but a disappointment as far as the nib goes (it's a medium, and I have discovered I really have a preference for those EFs).

[caribbean_skye]

Welcome, welcome.

I'm more surprised when i don't sport ink all over my hands, thankfully the clothes and feet have been safe. Love the VAC 700 but know what you mean re: needing to change the colour ink.

i too tend to ramble, especially when i'm writing. it is all good. Happy to have you here.

[Jon Szanto]

Hi Jolltax,

Welcome to the Fountain Pen Geeks forums! Smaller than the largest pen fora, larger than some, you'll find a comfortable community of pen-centric people here, with a growing body of posts, reviews, and group knowledge. Mostly, you'll find people who are enthusiastic about fountain pens, and fountain pen people.

Join in!

Regards,
Jon