I’ve been meaning to write a fountain pen post, but this AOC instagram screenshot (posted to the /r/fountainpens Reddit) jogged my memory. I’ll bury it because 9/10 of you won’t give a shit.
For me, fountain pens are an aesthetically pleasing way to write notes. Though I’m sitting in front of two computers with 3 screens at the moment, I still have a notepad and a fountain pen where I take notes in meetings. As AOC says, it helps my memory, and other people on my zoom calls don’t need to hear my keyboard clicking.
I started using fountain pens as a kid, but quit. The reason I quit was that the first pen I bought, a Sheaffer Targa, was too broad (it was US Medium, which is similar to a Japanese Broad) and using it on cheap paper caused it to feather and bleed. One of the issues with using a fountain pen is that most paper is cheap garbage, and fountain pens tend to bleed through, “feather” (the ink spreads out as you write) or pick up paper particles in the nib. So, if you’re a fountain pen geek, you inevitably become a paper geek.
Fountain pens come in nib sizes ranging from Extra Fine (EF) to Extra Broad. Just to make things more confusing, European and US fountain pens are all about one grade broader than Japanese or Chinese nibs. So, a Japanese Fine is like a Euro Extra fine. I like a fine nib, so I generally buy a Japanese F or a Euro EF.
The best place to get a fountain pen is at a good locally-owned stationery shop. These are becoming ever more hard to find. My “local” shop is a beautiful place called Wonder Pens in Toronto, but I also shop online at Goulet Pens or Jet Pens. A physical shop will let you try out different pens, and they usually have a big selection of paper and ink.
Fountain pens can be extremely expensive, but a good starter pen that will last a lifetime can be had relatively cheaply. In a later post, AOC identified her pen as a Kaweco Sport in EF. She’s a lefty which is why she prefers an EF, since it dries quicker, so she would get smears from dragging her hand across the paper. That pen retails for $25. You can get a set of 6 disposable ink cartridges for $3 and be writing for months. Or, you can purchase a cartridge converter for $6 and a bottle of ink for $12 and be writing for years.
My recommendation for first-time fountain pen buyers is to go to a stationery shop and try out a Pilot Metropolitan. For $19, it’s a great starter pen, or even a forever pen. I’ll be taking a long trip this year and the only pen I’m taking is a Metro and some cartridges. If you’re looking for the next step up, a gold nibbed Lamy 2000 is a really good pen, and I enjoy mine in EF. Another fun pen is the Pilot Vanishing Point – my EF in that pen is a little too dry for my taste. Both the Lamy 2000 and the Vanishing Point were designed in the 60’s and are pretty much the acme of mass-produced fountain pen design.
I’d steer away from Montblanc (I have one and it ended up leaking) — they’re sold as a luxury good but are overrated in my opinion. If you’re looking for something really cheap but often good, the Moonman and Wing Sung brands on eBay, which are often shipped directly from China, are fun purchases. For less than $10, and a long wait for the Chinese post, you can have a pen that writes as well as any other I’ve mentioned here.
For paper, I like Rhodia for Euro paper, and Maruman for Japanese. In the US, Field Notes generally uses good paper for their notebooks. Once you start using good paper, you’ll never stop. It is just so much better than the junk you get at OfficeMax or Staples. In the case of notebooks, Moleskine is like MontBlanc. It is widely known, but it is terrible for a fountain pen: it bleeds through and feathers. If you’re going to spend Moleskine money on a hardbacked notebook, my advice is to get a Rhodia instead.
One of the nicest places on the Internet is /r/fountainpens on Reddit. They’re as excited by someone posting their five-figure (or even six-figure – they exist) fp collections, as they are for someone who posts their first starter pen that was given to them by a parent or grandparent. They have a good wiki to get you started if you’re interested.
debbie
I love fountain pens and had permanent stains on my middle finger from them, but now I press too hard and my scribble has become inscrutable. My writing doesn’t merit fountain pens; I need black medium ballpoints.
RedDirtGirl
I actually ordered an inexpensive fountain pen last week that is coming today! If I enjoy writing with it I will invest in a better one. Although a cheap one won’t really give me the feel for what a good quality one will be like.
Baud
I have gotten away from writing notes and I agree it has hurt my retention. Trying to get back to it.
I went through a fountain pen period but never settled on one that I liked.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: I went through a Rapidograph period, emulating an admired classmate. That was a mess!
Now I like Pilot precise rolling ball, fine point.
Kim Walker
My dad used to pick up “antique” fountain pen sets (in pretty boxes) at flea markets. He would occasionally gift one to me. I loved them.
zhena gogolia
Do you subscribe to Pen World? A friend of mine wrote an article for them.
narya
Oh my. I started using and buying fountain pens about 25 years ago. I’ve fallen away from using them, and, as a result, have a large collection of pens that I don’t use. (Though now you’ve sparked me to get them out and use some again . . . I do love them for writing, and I love them as artifacts as well.) There are few I want to keep, either because they have special meaning to me (the one I bought myself as a present when I turned 40; the one a friend gave me), but I would love to be able to sell the others, for a fair price. I have NO IDEA what that would be, and I don’t trust either my knowledge or the forums I’ve been able to find, so I’m kinda stuck. I bought them to use them, for pleasure, not as collectors’ items, and later found out that folks get VERY SERIOUS about them.
If you think you might like some, let me know. I probably have a total of 20? maybe? I have a few Parkers, a Lamy, a couple of Waterman including an EF nib, IIRC, a Sailor. No Mont Blanc. A Conklin, at least one Pelikan (and I used to be able to get old Koh-i-nor drawing pens for cheap, a million years ago; likely still have the nibs around somewhere). If you’re interested, I’ll figure out the ones I’m willing to part with.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@RedDirtGirl: Exciting! What are you getting?
As long as the feed works and the nib is not bent a cheap steel nib pen will give you as good, or almost as good, a writing experience as an expensive gold nib. One of my favorite pens is a ~$10 Wing Sung rip off of the Parker 51 that I ordered over eBay.
WereBear
Before affordable laptops, I was a fountain pen fan. That’s how I drafted my novels, then typed them into my desktop.
But now… I have a Mac laptop for podcasting and Scrivener, a Chromebook for blogging and commenting, a little rechargeable keyboard for my iPad, and Smartkey on my iPhone. I record voice files and run them through a transcription service. I even brainstorm with MindMeister!
I just hate handwriting and always have. Especially since, with any speed at all, mine is difficult to read. For those with any kind of coordination, I understand it’s different.
But a digital being am I, never an analog person be…
Nicole
This post exhibits extreme right-handed prejudice. ;)
(Yes, yes, I know, fountain pen nibs are better made these days and it’s “possible” for a left-hander to enjoy a fountain pen, but I remember shredding those nibs as a kid, pushing the pen across paper, rather than drawing the ink out, the way right-handed writers do.)
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@zhena gogolia: I don’t subscribe to Pen World, but I once had a Rapidograph and regretted that purchase.
@narya: Sounds like you have a nice collection. There’s a reddit for selling/swapping pens: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pen_Swap/
The Moar You Know
Funny you should post this. I just got my first fountain pen, a $15 Waterman. Box of cartridges was maybe another $10. They’re fun.
You’re not kidding about paper. Boy, you start noticing in a hurry that most paper is literal garbage.
p.a.
I have a couple cartridge style and one reservoir type but have not used them for years. In my desk next to my slide rule.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@Nicole: AOC is a lefty and uses a fp. My wife is a overhand hook lefty and really likes Uniball Jetstreams, which are hard to find in stores but available on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002FSZP5A
Like you, she doesn’t like fountain pens.
Kirk Spencer
What I learned using fountain pens is they required me to pay more attention, and as a result my handwriting improved. Slowing down did the same. I can write legibly or I can write fast. Unfortunately most of my writing needs require fast.
narya
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix: Thank you for that link. Those forums always scare me, though; I have NO clue about all of those details (e.g., condition descriptions); I start reading and kinda freak out. I’d hate to under- or over-sell the condition, and I assume the “fair” price depends very much on that. But I will try to screw up my courage and figure it out, once I figure out the ones with which I’m willing to part.
zhena gogolia
My big problem right now is that students are no longer taught cursive. So I can’t ask for hard copy papers and write my comments on them — they can’t read them (although I have decent handwriting)! It’s very annoying. I have to use track changes, which seems so soulless.
Get rid of all those CRT classes and teach cursive, dammit! (sarcasm)
narya
Also? I love this post and thread. Who knew there were so many fountain pen-loving Juicers?! Also also? I loved my rapidographs; they were my pen of choice for YEARS, and my gateway drug to fountain pens.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@The Moar You Know: Here’s a recent thread on cheap fp friendly paper:
https://www.reddit.com/r/fountainpens/comments/i5ojjk/best_cheap_fountain_pen_friendly_notebook/
Chip Daniels
As an architect, I enjoy having a pen I can use for both writing and sketching.
I sketch and write all my notes with a Levenger Stub Pen which I bought at their Boston store in 2008.
The Stub pen is delightful because it has a slightly blunted end, giving the lines a calligraphic feel where the strokes in one direction are thinner than in the other.
Fountain pens are incredibly efficient- I have been using this same pen daily for 13 years, and there is zero waste- I use refillable plunger cartridge, with ink that comes in recyclable glass bottles.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@narya: Pre-COVID, larger towns had pen shows where dealers would come to buy and sell pens. DC had a big one, Toronto’s was smaller but was growing. That’s another option after COVID.
The pens you mention might still be in production. If you google them, you’ll get the high end of your price range.
raven
@debbie: You asked about attendance, we’re packed.
debbie
@raven:
Thanks. Hard to believe that people around here are being cautious, especially when it’s OSU football-related.
narya
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix: I’m in Chicago, so I’m sure there’s something here, or will be. Again, thank you for this post/thread; it is giving me a lot of joy this morning.
Nicole
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix: So you’re saying you can’t be prejudiced because you’re married to a lefty? ;)
Seriously, though, I’ll check out the pens you linked to, thank you! I am always in search of options that make writing less grueling. I can’t believe I used to turn in ten-page HANDWRITTEN papers, back in the day. Especially pre-gel ink, which does make writing somewhat easier. There’s a lefthanders site based in the UK that has a lot of pens, some gimmicky, some less so. I’ve tried their left-hander fountain pen tip and it’s… okay. Don’t love, though.
Gravenstone
re. hand writing your study notes to improve their recall. In theory that works fine. In practice (at least for me), finding years later that they were written in the jargon of the subject at hand – which was clearly understood in the moment of writing – just makes them useless for coming back to at this later time. If anything, it’s both humbling and embarrassing to realize that “hey, I used to know all this shit!” Now, it’s off to the nearest Google search if I have to revisit most of those subjects.
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
I love fountain pens. Any other kind of pen feels wrong to me. I had a way of losing pens, and that’s what got me onto fountain pens to begin with. I got a really great pen, with a great nib and it has a guilloche barrel and lid under clear blue enamel. I’ve had it for years now, and haven’t lost it, because it was something I spent a $300 on, so I take care of it. It’s like a part of my body now.
As for paper, I like stone paper. Has anybody else tried that? It’s made of ground up stone. Doesn’t bleed and doesn’t tear. It’s great.
Another Scott
I used to be a huge fountain pen fan, in late HS through grad school – cheap Parkers. I bought Waterman pens as gifts, and still have a couple that I hope to get working again. But I’ve had fountain pens leak too many times, and it’s a disaster if one leaves one in a shirt pocket when doing laundry… :-/
I typically use UniBall Micro pens now (e.g. <a href=”https://uniballco.com/products/vision-elite-rollerball-pens”>Vision Elite</a>). Almost (but not quite) as smooth as a fountain pen, no maintenance, and the ink doesn’t smear. Progress!
Cheers,
Scott.
Edmund Dantes
@Nicole: it sure does by featuring AOC a damn lefty.
laura
Before he died my dad took me to the local stationary cards and wedding gifts store Corricks to buy me a fountain pen and ink cartridges. It’s a cross and I haven’t used it since after writing out notes after he died. I’ll have to unearth it and give it a go.
I’m taking a drawing class and am currently deep into pencils. I just ordered a Musgrave sample pack and they came in a round box that looks like a pencil’s end with the eraser.
I’ve been a handwritten notes for classes gal forever because I’m a visual learner and just can’t retain knowledge well other ways. I swear the muscle memory in my writing arm is the key and when I’m trying to think of something that just wont come to kind, the act of holding a pen or pencil and making writing like moves is the memory jog that brings it forth. I wish I had my grandfather’s beautiful Palmer Penmanship, but instead have a half cursive half print situation. I married a guy who is crazy about cheap hotel pens that only have an inch or so of ink in the long barrel.
Ramalama
@Chip Daniels: I briefly worked for an Engineering firm (delivering the rolled up plans on sepia maybe that’s what it was called) and had to go all the time to architectural firms. Everyone had such cool handwriting. Engineers, architects. I already had pretty good handwriting, but I stepped up my game while there.
What’s your handwriting like?
Ken
These comments are reminding me of the times I’ve stumbled into a camera discussion. I’ll just sit over here in the corner and smile and nod as terms like “f-stop” and “rapidograph” fill the air.
Central Planning
I agree that writing is helpful for retention. To that end, I recently bought a Remarkable tablet. It’s almost 8.5×11, black-and-white, and uses eInk for the display.
I bought it for 2 reasons:
I like that the stylus gives you a slight scratching sound when you right so it has that pen-on-paper feel.
I didn’t want to get an iPad or Android tablet for this, because I know myself – I would then start doing other stuff with it, like watching movies, checking email, or playing games.
If anyone is interested, let me know here and I can give you a referral code to save 10%. Or, go to reddit and ask on the Remarkable subreddit for the referral code.
Ramalama
@Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.):
I’m the same way with sunglasses. My one pair.
SiubhanDuinne
I love fountain pens, though it’s been a while since I used one. I typically write by hand at least two or three hours a day, and my daily go-to is a Pilot Precise V5 or V7 rolling ball. I detest regular ballpoint pens and refuse to use them unless I’m forced to sign a multiple-copy document.
@Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.): Yes indeed, stone paper is wonderful to write on and, honestly, just to touch. It has a great feel to it. If only one of the disc-binder systems (Circa, TŪL, Arc, etc.) offered stone paper notebook refills, I would be a supremely happy girl!
Ramalama
Also, comic artist, writer, and MacArthur Genius Grant Awardee Lynda Barry is a huge advocate for writing ‘digitally’ …. she said at a sold-out book reading (600 people) during a blizzard in Montreal, said this while holding up her hands and moving her ‘digits.’
Chip Daniels
@Ramalama:
I have several styles of writing since I enjoy doing artwork using text:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CHWSPUwnFml/
I use a simple cursive for notes, but also have the block lettering of traditional architecture, modified into a variety of Uncial.
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
By the way, that pen I was talking about is a 5280 Majestic. I love it. The one thing is that it’s big and it’s heavy. Most people find it too heavy, but I have big hands, so it works well for me. And because it’s so big and heavy, people don’t want to borrow it, so that’s kind of a load off my mind, too. Cost about $250-300, and I’ve never regretted it.
Betty Cracker
I inherited an old fountain pen from my great grandmother and tried using it on the job, but it didn’t take for daily use. It just feels weird to me in a way that slows me down, I guess because I grew up with ballpoints. My go-to cheap-ish ballpoint is a refillable Pilot Dr. Grip. It’s comfy and has a nice action.
I take tons of notes by hand for work, so I go through a lot of notebooks and pen ink cartridges, and I am 100% convinced that writing them out helps me retain the info and nuances of conversations much better than typing ever could, even though I’m a pretty fast typist.
I am old enough to have been taught cursive, but that never took either; I write in print much faster than in cursive for some reason. I used to get scolded for writing my homework assignments in print back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, but the joke’s on those cursive-promoting teachers as I can now write by hand in a way that is intelligible to Millennials and Gen Z. ;-)
Betty
@zhena gogolia: Yes! I firmly believe that learning cursive helps brain development and coordination. What a shame it is being abandoned.
Geo Wilcox
Pre IT degree I used to do calligraphy for wedding invites. Now I can barely write my name. So sad.
RedDirtGirl
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix: I ordered the Pilot Plumix refillable, medium point.
frosty
John Cusack, Grosse Pointe Blank
(I was late to the comments in the last post.)
RedDirtGirl
Ha! It just arrived! No cartridge!
ETA: Never mind! It was hiding!
frosty
@zhena gogolia: Having been a draftsman briefly, I ended up using a Rapidograph for several years; in fact I ordered a set of 4 or 5 in different sizes. They eventually became too much work. My favorite these days are Flair pens, with the semi-wide lines. They were the latest thing when I used them for taking notes in college.
narya
Okay, since we’re all here: what ink(s) do you all use? I have several pens that don’t use cartridges, and the bottle I have is pretty old, and this thread has inspired me to pull out my pens and use them, so I should get some new/good ink.
Matt McIrvin
I am going to be the contrarian here: cursive as traditionally taught in the United States is bad, and it’s a good thing we eliminated it. (However, that doesn’t mean stopping at block printing is necessarily good.)
Now, if we all used fountain pens or still used dip pens, that would be a somewhat different story–our cursive is descended from writing styles intended to look good with a nib that can make thick and thin strokes (unlike the pens and pencils that kids actually use in school). But it’s still unnecessarily ornate, and the capital letter forms in particular are just bizarre and hard to distinguish–often they are not even connected, so you’re not saving any time by writing them that way.
Many other countries’ educational systems reformed their handwriting instruction to teach kids rapid connected letterforms that make much more sense, and they just start with that from square one, instead of what we used to do, which was to first teach kids an inefficient block-printing method resembling a sans-serif font, then tell them they’re suddenly not allowed to use that any more and teach them all over again to write in a completely different-looking alphabet. What we have now is just the first half of that, which is not great. But the old way didn’t make sense either.
SiubhanDuinne
@frosty:
Indeed! And Steep mentioned Tarantino…
Mike in NC
Well, we’re not all writing our signatures and altering maps with a frickin’ Sharpie, like the Fat Orange Clown did. Something to be grateful for.
prostratedragon
Three Kaweco Sports (broad and medium, with ink converters) on my desk right now, though I don’t write as much as I used to. Agree that the physical act of writing seems to activate the mind more, for me at least, and making diagrams becomes a natural option. These days I do a lot of my scribbling and puzzle-filling with a P205, 3B leads.
Dakota Expat
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix: Well, it figures that my all time first comment on Balloon Juice (I’ve been a lurker for years; just never felt like getting into the scrum) would be in response to a post on fountain pens by fellow Dakotan mistermix (I’m from North Dakota & have lived away since college and making a living; like you, go back often; enjoy & pretty much always agree with your reflections on the scene to the south of my home territory around Bismarck). It doesn’t surprise me that you’d be a fountain pen guy; nice to know that AOC is one of the tribe, too!
Like you, my early experience in grade school using a Sheaffer & a Big Chief tablet put me off FPs for years. Rediscovered them after grad school, getting hooked by the Rotring 600 line (no longer in production for fountain pens) and discovering Kaweco later. I’m a fan of the heavier brass pens, which are too hefty for some, but work well with my big hands. I have several Kaweco brass FPs, favorite is the Supra with adjustable sizing, but I have fun with the Sport and the Special, too. Always, always need an extra fine nib. And I’m a fan of Noodler’s Ink; converted to that permanent bottled ink after a coffee spill wiped out a page of cartridge ink in my journal.
Couldn’t agree with you more on paper. If you’re serious about fountain pens, you will need to know paper. I’m a fan of Rhodia, too. I also buy hard cover journal books and like the Rhodias there (though they taker a beating in my line of work, which involves living out of a backpack and walking in the back country in Nepal — sometimes the binding in my Rhodia notebooks will break & I’ll lose the cover). If you can stand the price, the notebooks made by Shinola (yeah, the watch guys in Detroit) are the sturdiest I’ve found and the paper is the good 60 lb stock that compares to the Rhodia — these books are stiff at first and take some breaking in, but worth it if you are going for longevity (which I guess I am with permanent Noodler’s ink and acid free paper).
Could go on and on. Any fountain pen person could. And, for the record, my handwriting is awful (according to reports). I don’t care. It’s mine and I read it well enough. All my meeting notes by hand; all my fieldwork notes by hand; and all my writing has a huge handwritten part to it.
Okay. Thanks for bringing me out!
RedDirtGirl
I really like the feel of the Pilot Plumix in my hand. Now I’m just waiting for the ink to work it’s way down to the nib…
geg6
I hate the feeling of writing with a fountain pen. I find it as irritating as scratching my fingernails on a chalkboard. My younger sister loves hers, so it’s obviously not a universal thing; it’s just a me thing. I do love a Pilot gel pen. I forget the model, but it must be a medium. It’s a little more pricey than their lower end gel pens, but it’s a small office supply indulgence that my boss doesn’t mind and he knows I get grumpy when I can’t get them, which has happened a few times over the last year and a half due to supply chain issues, I assume.
smedley the uncertain
Around 1948 my mother took me out of USA and third grade and inserted me into the Scottish school system for two or so years. The school had a unique system of torture! It was called Dictation.
Teacher walked around the class dictating to us little scribes. The instruments of torture?? Ink pens.
A cheap steel (often rusty) nib on the end of a stick and a bottle of thin black ink (lumpy). But the paper… the paper; it was coarser than newsprint and wicked the ink off the nib every where but where you wanted to write. Blotches and blobs and an occasional letter. So you learned spelling, grammar, punctuation and sub vocal cursing in one sitting. Oh, and did I mention, I came from the US third grade where we still were learning how to draw individual letters to a Scottish class writing in CURSIVE.
lowtechcyclist
I had to write with fountain pens in school, back in the day. As a lefty, I fucking hated them. And of course we didn’t have good paper to write on; nobody even suggested that we should, as best as I can recall. We wrote on the standard lined paper for going in 3-hole notebooks. So of course lots of bleeding and feathering and smearing. Thank goodness for ballpoints. Hell, even pencil was better.
And the overhand hook (the only way for a lefty to get that righthanded cursive slant, AFAIK) only briefly postpones the smearing. You may avoid smearing the line you’re writing, but you’ll be smearing the third line above it.
And cursive itself can become the domain of calligraphers and other kinds of art work, AFAIAC. The main point of cursive v. printing, as far as I can tell, was that you could write a good deal faster in cursive. But since most of us can now type way faster than we can write in cursive (not to mention the much greater ease of correcting and editing), I can’t see a reason why cursive should be taught outside of art courses.
Nelle
@SiubhanDuinne: Pilot Precise 5 here. I write by hand at least an hour a day.
I encouraged students to take notes by hand. I do think there is something to muscle memory.
I was also the odd composition teacher who had the class spread around the edge of the classroom, turn to the wall, and read their essays aloud simultaneously. Loudly. Total babel. If they were whispering, everyone stopped and the whisperer had to read their essay to the class, so no worries. It was loud. But they found all sorts of errors before they turned them in. I hated thinking I needed to teach something they already knew.
dm
I’m a terrible human being: I use disposable fountain pens, though I suppose I should up my game, since I can’t find my favorite disposables any more (Itoya Blade).
Besides, I need to switch over ink that won’t fade after a few years — which is not really something one can control with disposable pens.
prostratedragon
@narya: Noodler’s black (there are several variations), zhivago (actually an extremely dark, almost black green), or sequoia (a sort of hunter green). The zhivago might be a bit thick for fine nib pens.
Under pens, I’ve also had a couple of Lamy Safaris that I like, inexpensive and smooth-writing pens.
H.E.Wolf
It never occurred to me that fountain pens were an option, until a few years ago. Someone gave me a Pelikano Junior (a “starter” fountain pen meant for kids) with a left-handed nib, and a Parker Vacumatic from the 1940s with a nib that worked for lefties.
I have to be mindful of smearing, but that’s true for me with all ink pens, and some pencils.
I like several of the inks in the J. Herbin brand. They have a large color range, and sell both ink cartridges and bottled ink.
When I bought postcards for GOTV, I made sure the card stock was fountain-pen-friendly. :)
Bobby Thomson
Since this technically is an open thread …
Is it good or bad that I heard (or at least noticed) nothing about the latest missing white woman story until after a body was found?
lowtechcyclist
@Betty Cracker:
Same here! I wasn’t able to always do that, but somewhere around ninth grade I started printing real small (like 2 lines of printing between each line on my lined paper), and the reduced movement for each letter allowed me to print faster than I could write in cursive.
Since then (nearly 55 years ago), my signature has been my sole use for cursive.
Steeplejack
Big JetPens fan here. One of the tragedies of my life is that I love fountain pens but I’m left-handed. You’re pushing the nib and then immediately dragging your hand through the wet ink. No bueno. I have consoled myself with really good, quick-drying gel pens.
lowtechcyclist
@Matt McIrvin:
I’d like to see what that looks like. Sure sounds like it makes more sense than our system.
BC in Illinois
I never got into fountain pens [see us.bic.com: 1958 – BIC enters the North American market] but AOC’s comment about taking notes and then typing them up reminds me of my time in graduate school, back in the last century, during the pre-personal computer days (cf. portable typewriters).
I had two friends going to the same classes I was, who would go back to their rooms in the evening and type up their notes. I got my degree. They ended up as professors.
I won.
Another Scott
@zhena gogolia: I don’t know if cursive writing is special in learning and retention, but I’m convinced that it’s important to involve as many senses as possible in learning. Read+write+listen+sing/speak is ideal. We’ll never forget our ABCs, at least in part because of the song. ;-)
My mom took dictation via shorthand back in the day. I remember looking in one of her Gregg shorthand books. She was a lefty, so it must have been a challenge for her, but she did it well. It just looked mostly like scratching to me, but like anything it takes practice.
Cheers,
Scott.
dm
@Matt McIrvin: At some point, early in my education, we switched from one cursive style to another (one was called Palmer, I don’t remember if that was the from- or to- style).
At that point, I said: “This is absurd“, and I just stopped with that cursive nonsense. I don’t remember what reaction I got from my teacher, but (a) it was late enough in the teaching-cursive nonsense that we really had better things to spend our time on, (b) she probably hated torturing children with that particular meaningless drivel, and (c) the next year I learned to touch type, so it wasn’t that important.
Several years later, I did a summer-school in Austria (an organized foreign-language tour arrangement). I remember one of our instructors being puzzled as to why none of the class used cursive.
Old School
@Dakota Expat: Welcome to the comments section!
Leto
Avalune is a fountain pen aficionado, both for everyday writing/note taking as well as drawing/art. She has a range of nibs, pens, different color inks, and a wide range of paper (notebooks as well as drawing tablets of all sizes). There are a lot of artists on Instagram that draw almost exclusively with fountain pens and of course their work is just amazing.
She’s currently at work but I sent her this thread. Hopefully she come and nerd out with you when she gets a break.
Dakota Expat
@Old School: Thanks! Now that I’m out of my shell, will probably do more from time to time.
lowtechcyclist
@Nelle:
I agree with this. Also, I think a roomful of students taking notes on laptop keyboards would have enough clicking and clacking that it would interfere with being able to hear the lecturer.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
The only thing my father used cursive for was his signature. He could write as fast as anyone and his printing was extremely precise. I’ve never seen anyone else do this.
I used to use fountain pens but I don’t think I could today as my tremor makes any kind of hand writing hard for even me to read if I don’t go very slow and that makes hand writing not my go to.
Sure Lurkalot
Great thread, brings back memories. For me, hand written notes improve retention and if a meeting or lecture gets redundant or boring, there’s doodling.
I had many fountain pens as a kid, both fill and cartridge. I particularly liked peacock blue ink. In college, I had several rapidographs, but being lefty and pushing the point over rough paper made them short lived and I bailed. In my professional life, I got hooked on mechanical pencils for a while.
Unlike many, I don’t have any loyalty towards brands or types. The last place I worked, everyone got to order whatever they liked to write with and I liked trying everyone’s favorites.
Kristine
I know several fountain pen junkies. I may get one just so I can get a bottle of “Writer’s Blood” ink to go with my bottle of “Writer’s Tears” whiskey.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@Dakota Expat: Welcome. We grew up very close to each other.
@narya: Pilot Blue is a great everyday ink. If you want to have some fun, look at the Colorverse inks. https://www.gouletpens.com/collections/colorverse
Some of them come in elaborate themed packages. Pilot Iroshizuku inks have collections of three inks in smaller bottles if you want to sample different colors.
@RedDirtGirl: I’ve never used an italic nib. Good luck, and remember that a fountain pen is just a controlled leak, so use it someplace where you can clean up!
narya
One last comment: Even though I’m a very fast typist, I still greatly prefer taking notes with pen and paper. I find that it slows down my thinking, but also speeds it up, as I need to abbreviate/summarize as I go, which means I’m already “chunking” the information. And if I’m writing something heartfelt–either to myself or to someone else–the act of writing, as opposed to typing, truly brings out different thought patterns for me. They’re all valuable in their own ways, but there’s still something about writing, and, especially, taking notes, by hand, that improves my thinking
ETA: thank you for the ink recommendations–I’ve written them all down with my newly-refilled Lamy!
trollhattan
Have a couple nice ones, a Montblanc Meisterstuck and a Namiki, both bought back when gold wasn’t a zillion dollars/oz. The Namiki (now owned by Pilot) is cool because the nib retracts, no cap to mess with, plus its slender.
Used a fountain pen back when I edited hard copy, which I now seldom do. Toting a several-hundred dollar pen commuting and whatnot can be a source of unwanted stress, one needs a foolproof system for not losing the thing.
Mathguy
Of course I don’t see this post until I’m late to the party.
My wife and I are fountain pen junkies with a large collection of many types (well over 100). Pens I love for everyday use: Lamy 2000, Auroras of various types (not cheap!), Pelikans, especially the m600 and m800 models (again, not cheap). Paper: Tomoe River paper from Japan is by far the best fountain pen ink paper extant. White Lines from Sweden is good, as is Rhodia. Inks: Diamine is great stuff. There are a lot of others that are excellent, but I typically default to Diamine because of the great colors and that it flows well. One word of caution: I have found green inks tend to be slow to dry (hence smear) and will develop a crusty deposit on your nibs.
Steeplejack
In addition to my blanket endorsement of JetPens, I will note that they have a section with very useful guides on pens and related topics—paper, pencils, inks, planners, cases and whatnot. A great site to browse.
Tenar Arha
@Central Planning: ooooh, I have no absolutely reason to get a Remarkable bc I use mostly A6 MD Notebooks from Japan right now to keep track of lists etc. but that’s so cool.
Gravenstone
@Ramalama: Back when I had delusions of becoming an engineer early in my college life, I had an intro engineering graphics class where you had to very neatly letter in your information regarding the drawing. That printing style stayed with me a couple of decades (I’d given up on cursive in 6th grade after an overseas penpal complained about not being able to read my scribbles). Unfortunately, my writing now a days looks more and more like the proverbial MD scrip signature. Sad thing is, it’s approaching the point where even I have trouble reliably deciphering it.
Ramalama
@Chip Daniels: OMG Gorgeous. Your own personal font making machine (pen in hand).
frosty
@narya: I use eBay to figure out market prices. Check the “sold” items. The ones currently for sale are usually marked up like crazy, looking for newbies who will bite.
Steeplejack
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix:
Like your wife, I am a classic “overhand hook lefty” and also like Uniball Jetstreams, although I have gravitated to Pilot G-2 pens because they’re easier to find and because I found a cool model that has a rubber stylus at the other end, which I use for plinking away on my cell phone and tablet. Seven bucks for a two-pack. I hot-rod them with blue fine-point refills and have them stashed all over. And they’re fine for as little writing and notetaking as I do. On the approximately three occasions a year that I have to write a check, I am appalled at how awful my handwriting is. I can barely get through my own signature.
Ramalama
@Gravenstone: Yeah my handwriting is an abomination these days too. Which reminds me as a kid I used to play with lettering that looked like computer writing. For example, my father worked at a place that did all kinds of things but also ran a computer football game by a computer the size of, I dunno, a few refrigerators bound together by twine. Huge. A printer would print out narrative in courier font about what down it was, and gave me options in the form of numbers. I’m not sure where I saw the ‘computer lettering’ that I was obsessed with, that wasn’t the football game lettering of courier. Hmm.
dp
@Nicole: Same. Now, being left-handed is exacerbated by essential tremor, so if I used a fountain pen (which I love), my writing would just be a blue mess
Thus, i endorse the Pilot rollerball endorsement above.
Tenar Arha
I still have my 1st Waterman pen (plastic & steel nib) I bought in France to take notes & write papers with. The French were still accepting handwritten papers for university classes when I spent a year there. I got a much more expensive Waterman a few year later with gold nib, but I always preferred the weight & handling of the plastic one better (less tiring). I picked up a lovely inexpensive Kaweco Sport a couple years ago bc I preferred the weight.
Unfortunately I don’t use them often currently, though I do prefer writing with them. I’ve found that the erasable Frixion pens are somehow easier for me to write with because they have the all the advantages for me of the quickly erasable pencil & the darker legibility of a pen (& they come in multiple colored inks though right now I only have blue, black, & red).
Geminid
I haven’t used a fountain pen in decades, but I do get a lot of good use out of four-color ball point pens. I can click in black, blue, red or green tips. I think public schools still use them, and they can be found at Kroger’s.
A four-color pen and some quarter-inch graph paper can be very useful for landscape and other contruction design.
Robert S
@Mathguy:
I’ve got a small pile, too. I really wanted to like the Lamy 2000, but it the smooth barrel always slid through my fingers. The Kawecos were too scratchy for me. The best writer was a vintage, gold-nib Pelikan. Now I only use my Lamy Al-star with a (1.1) calligraphy tip. I write larger, but it makes a nice line and the calligraphy tip gives it some nice definition.
J R in WV
@Dakota Expat:
Always nice to get a new
victimsuckercompanion.;~)
Steeplejack
@trollhattan:
I had a Namiki that I loved! Foolishly gave it to a girlfriend to “try out for a while” and was soon told that I would have to pry it from her cold, dead hands. I figured she would use it more than I would, but I still miss it.
Steeplejack
@The Moar You Know, @Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix:
JetPens has a guide on paper for fountain pens.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
My wife is the fountain pen lover in our house, and some of the best are German-made. When we were in Germany a couple of years ago and found a fountain-pen section in a department store, she was in heaven.
I agree with that study tip up top. I have usually found that it’s somehow the process of writing the notes that cemented it in my memory.
Marie Kondo of all people mentions this in her book. There’s apparently a popular tradition of Japanese women taking self-improvement courses and then having their lives cluttered with the materials from those courses. She makes the case that it was the writing of the notes that provided the learning and that nobody ever goes back to read those notes.
Mathguy
@Robert S: My favorite pen is Classic Pens (now Lambrou Pens) model that is now called the LB5 with a IM nib. I love the calligraphic, stub and italic nibs. The Lamy Joy with a 1.1 is a fun pen to play with.
Feathers
I love fountain pens! Got a Lamy Safari and haven’t looked back. Although I do have several colors. They keep putting out such pretty ones.
On ink: Noodler’s is great, but the owner is a RWNJ and gives his inks awful, freedum names, so I haven’t even looked at their stuff in ages. I pretty much stick with Private Reserve now, Copperburst and Sherwood Green are faves. I like colors that are non standard, but don’t jump out at you either. Pilot Iroshizuku is my splurge, although they do sell small bottles, which makes it less pricy to try a new color. Can buy a full bottle if you use a little one up. J. Herbin is French, and lovely, but I am always a little disappointed in their lack of vividness. However, if delicate is what you are going for, I’d start there.
matt
Handwritten notes are best, but I find for speed and clarity the Uniball type pens work best for me.
gene108
My grandfather bought me some fountain pens around when I started high school. I found fountain pens to be more demanding than ballpoint pens. I had to be more precise with how I wrote, which is tough because I’ve never had very good handwriting and fountain pens made it harder for me to be legible.
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
Reading all these left handers talk about how hard it is to write without smearing everything makes me thankful as hell to be right handed.
Michael Cain
@Mike in NC:
I used a drafting pen in my lab notebooks for years and years. Eventually had to switch to an e-notebook format because there were just too many links, images, small files and such that had to be embedded. After that I was writing too little and the drafting pen was always clogged when I needed it. Today I keep black Sharpie fine point pens around — very smooth, acid-free non-bleeding water-resistant archival-quality ink.
bluefoot
I recall reading a review a couple of years back that called the LAMY the “Honda Civic of fountain pens” – not super exciting, but high quality and will always get the job done no matter the circumstance.
My favorite pen is an old Parker 45 which I’ve had for 45 (?) years. I also have a Lamy Safari, a gold-nibbed Sheaffer and a gold-nibbed Parker. I also have a couple of old-school calligraphy pens which I use from time to time. I used to use fountain pens exclusively until I was required to use ball-point for lab notebooks at a job. Since then fountain pens are strictly home use for me.
bluefoot
Though a lefty, I don’t do the hook thing. I usually have my paper turned about 45 degrees so I don’t smear. It took me a while in my youth to figure out a combination of hand position, pen grip and paper orientation that would work consistently for me.
no comment
@Geminid:
I used to love taking notes with those types of pens! At one time, I also had a four-ink pen with pink, purple, & teal as the alternatives to black.
I much prefer taking notes by hand. As well as being better for learning, they have other advantages. I didn’t have the option of using a laptop back when I was in college, but I used one sometimes for a class I took several years ago. It might be quicker (or about the same time) to type, but it took longer to edit using a computer. Just getting the cursor to insert in the exact spot you need it takes longer than a quick edit by hand. Not a big deal if it was a minor typo, but if you left out a whole word, or misspelled something in a way that could change the meaning of your notes… ugh. Also, I tended to use a lot of symbols I picked up from different subjects to save time taking notes. Not exactly shorthand, or code, but it helped. Can’t do that quickly by typing. Not to mention the dreaded fear of accidently erasing an entire paragraph or file. Not that I did that, but the fear was real.
As for kids learning cursive today, I’m kind of middle of the road on that debate. I didn’t have huge issues learning it & ended up primarily using cursive for my note taking. Other kids struggled with writing in it. As for kids that have grown up taking notes on a computer, I don’t know that learning cursive will change the way most of them take notes for class. On the other hand, I think it is important they learn to read cursive. There is still a good chance they will see cursive writing often enough in their lives that being able to decipher it is helpful.
Obvious Russian Troll
Dead thread, but let me second the Pilot Metropolitan. I have a nicer pen that I haven’t used as much.
The tricky part for me is training myself to write more lightly.
pluky
@zhena gogolia:
If they’re not taught cursive how are they supposed to sign their names?
Michael Cain
@pluky:
Every time I get into an online discussion about vote by mail, and the subject of signatures on return envelopes comes up, I am astounded by the number of people who assert their signature is a capital letter or two and some length of squiggle, not actual writing at all. “Make your mark,” I guess, with a possibly distinctive mark.
I don’t remember any job that I held for long enough to have some responsibilities where I didn’t need a legible signature. It’s a real pain when a purchase order comes back a week after you sent it in with a note from the clerk that says, “Disallowed, your signature is illegible.”
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ken: f-stop is pretty easy, it’s just how big the opening in the lens is, the higher the number the smaller the opening, the smaller the number the bigger the opening. You’re welcome.
dopealope
@Steeplejack:
I, too, am left handed and find a brand of pen named yookers perfect. They are basically refillable fiber point pens. You can refill them with any fountain pen ink in any color. After using them for over a year, my fountain pen collection has mostly been idle.
stinger
@Chip Daniels: Nice — both styles!
dopealope
@bluefoot:
Julie Roberts is left handed, and she turns the writing page so the long side is top and bottom, and then writes from top to bottom, right to left. She’s learned to form her characters such that when the page is turned to it’s “proper” orientation, the text looks perfect.
I’ve been practicing this for a couple of months, on and off. I wish I had discovered it in my youth.
dopealope
Not to mention, it seems like we’re in a hay day of available inks and colors.
Ruckus
@Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.):
I am right handed as well but still remember in elementary school learning to write and watching the teachers attempt to make the left handed write with their off hand. If looks could kill the mortality rate for early grade school teachers would have been off the charts. It was an asinine attempt to make everyone the same. Thankfully it didn’t work well. White people can be ridiculous about everyone being equal to the lowest common denominator.
WaterGirl
Balloon Juice. Come for the politics,
stay for the snark.Stay for the pets.Stay for the gardening.St
ay for the recipes.Stay for the political activism.Stay for the fountain pens.
I would never have predicted that!
dimmsdale
After a solid month of crap news every day, every hour, and sabotage from the right and from the “center” (HA) of the democratic party, this thread is manna from heaven; I can feel my blood pressure dropping as I read the comments. I have a few fountain pens and the reason I like them is the way they make writing a sensory experience: the flow of the ink, the smoothness as it leaves a trail on the paper, the smell and even the color of the ink, taken together they all make an ordinary shopping list a “creation.” I have a Parker 51 (my mom wrote with one), a big light-green speckled broad-nib Sheaffer with matching pencil from the 30s (my dad’s), a Parker Duofold from the 80s, and a black fine-nib Sheaffer from the late 30s (just had the bladder replaced). Haven’t had a chance to read the comment thread completely so I’lll do that now, but THANKS for the thread!
dimmsdale
@narya: I brought my Duofold into the shop (Fountain Pen Hospital on Warren St. in NYC) complaining that the piston was shot, it wouldn’t draw ink into the reservoir. The guy told ME that ink loses viscosity after a few years, and he filled my pen with fresh ink, and voila! I’ve got maybe ten bottles of ink (used to mix my own to get the colors I liked) but they’re easily 20 yrs old. All gotta go.
PaulB
I used a fountain pen for a while when I was in school but ultimately gave it up, even though I loved the pen itself and loved the way it wrote. I’m left-handed and it just got to be too much of a pain to avoid smearing the ink as I wrote. After one too many accidents, I put it away in a drawer and never pulled it out again.
bluefoot
@dopealope:
I sometimes do that too – it depends on what I’m writing with, and what I’m writing on (in a notebook, piece of paper, etc). I noticed Kermit the Frog does similar! (He is also left handed.)
Aardvark Cheeselog
I’ll necro this thread with a couple of observations off of OP:
No mention of the Sailor High Ace for beginner pens? I like it better than the Pilot Metro or the Platinum Plaisir, which are the other two usually mentioned in the same breath. The High Ace + Sailor blue-black ink carts is a great writing tool for the price.
With respect to Montblanc, if you can get an old (i.e. 1980s, before they went pure status-symbol) Montblanc, they are good writers. Maybe the best writer I have is a 1980-ish Mont Blanc slimline.
Juju
@Geminid: I grew up using the thick four color ball point click pen made by Bic. That pen was easy to keep track of, and you had back up ink if you ran out of your primary color. I always started with green. It worked for me in junior high school.
I have a Mont Blanc that became mine when my father died. It’s around a 40 year old pen now, and the ink that was leftover is also that age. I never took the pen out in public. I was always afraid of losing it or it being stolen. I did use it to write checks for about six months, but I stopped doing that and now the pen and ink are in a safe place in my desk. I prefer ballpoint or gel ink, or weird pens that students, if they do borrow my pen, know who it belongs to and are sure to return the pen. I have a collection of fruit and vegetable pens just for that very reason.
burnspbesq
Those Kawecos are bulletproof and a great value, but my favorite inexpensive FP is definitely the Lamy Safari. I have them in a billion different colors.
dimmsdale
@Aardvark Cheeselog: I have one of those, a Montblanc slimline, maroon, bought it back in the 80s when everybody was flaunting Meisterstuck ballpoints (IMO that’s like buying a 300SL with a Chevy engine). Nice writer indeed.
Mostly I’ve been using a dazzling multicolor array of Zebra Sarasa gel pens, got turned on to them via John (Leverage) Rogers, who’s evidently a fountain pen guy.
apocalipstick
I had a left-handed student who had the most ingenious workaround: turn the paper 90 degrees and basically write top to bottom in a column. She was a gifted visual artist and her penmanship would bring tears of joy to the eye.
Steeplejack
@dopealope:
Thanks for the tip. Will check out Yookers.
DAGFOTO
Who here uses piston filled pens? What do you suggest? TSWBI?