Cheap pen reviews

From: "Colin B."
Subject: Cheap pen reviews
Newsgroups: alt.collecting.pens-pencils
Summary:
Keywords:

Well, it's been about a year. I've picked up a bunch of cheap (or not)
Chinese fountain pens in the hopes of finding something as good as my old
Sheaffer $2.98 pens (yeah, that was a while ago), with fairly mediocre
results. I'm afraid that luck appears to be the deciding factor in getting
a decent pen unless you feel like spending a chunk of change.

First up: The Hero 660. This is a NICE looking pen--gold filigree on black.
Nice and very attention-getting. Well, at least until the end-cap started to
work itself loose, about a week after it arrived. It was basically wedged in
and the wedge was coming loose, so I glued it down. that didn't last either.
The pen wrote well, but with an end-cap off centre and flopping around, it
was just unpleasant. That pen is now sitting unused in my drawer.

Next we have the Hero 711. Nice looking pen, although a bit cheaper than
the pictures make it out to be. It wrote quite nicely, but wouldn't seal
properly. The plastic liner in the cap wasn't actually fastened to the cap
so it got pulled down by the force of the pen. I tried to push it back in,
but I think it went to far, and now the pen won't clasp shut at all. End
result is that the pen dries out overnight, and is useless by morning. Into
the drawer it goes.

Now up is the Hero 160 in gold. OK now THIS is a pen!!! Maybe a bit small
and dainty for my hands, but it looks good, feels good, and just keeps
writing. I can throw any ink at it and it writes smoothly and flawlessly
until the last drop is gone. THIS is what a pen should do!!! The downside
is that since it's the pen that gets the most use, it's showing significant
signs of wear after under a year. I'm not sure if it's going to last to next
Novemeber the way it's looking now, with significant cracks all around the
barrel. We'll see.

Now that 160 was one of the first Hero pens I'd ordered, and since it was
only $13, it gave me the confidence to spend more money on the famous and
moderately pricey Hero 100, stainless finish all 'round.

Big mistake.

Ink this pen, and it writes beautifully. I mean, it writes FANTASTICALLY!
It's like writing with a wet stylus on a waxed surface--everything about
using this pen feels right to me. That is, until you put it down.

Leave it overnight, and you'll need to spend three minutes to get it
flowing again the next day.
Leave it over a weekend, and you're looking at ten minutes.
Let it sit unused over a long weekend, and it will be dry, gunked up,
and unusable. Like the 711, this pen just doesn't #$&(*@#$& SEAL!!! It's
sitting upstairs right now, filled with dried-up ink, because I'm too ****ed
off to bother cleaning it out. Maybe if I was an insomniac pulp novellist
it would be the greatest pen ever, but I'm not, and as a result, neither is
it.

Time to jump companies: The Kaigelu 300. Nice looking, elegant but
unassuming pen with a fully exposed nib. It's not a bad writer, although
it tends to blotch up easily. On the other hand, it seals and nothing has
fallen off of it. This makes it the second best pen in my collection, and
it looking to outlast the Hero 160, since the only sign of wear is the loss
of the gold lettering on the cap. It's not cracked, it's not flopping around,
and the cap actually caps it. It just doesn't have much...magic.

I've got some other pens around that need a bit of abuse yet, but at this
point I'm just frustrated. When a bic disposable was $0.49, a perfectly
acceptable fountain pen was $2.98. Nowadays the disposables are $2 and
write a thousand times better than their predecessors, but I can't easily
find a USABLE fountain pen for under $40, let alone one that's as good as
that $2 pen.

Disappointment is driving me away from my favorite pens again.

Colin

Do send the Hero 100 back for replacement. I have owned two and both wrote
the instant I put nib to paper, even after sitting unused for weeks. You've
obviously had a bit of bad luck with this one. I've had to return much more
expensive pens than the Hero to their manufacturer because the things either
didn't work or wrote poorly. I agree that it is irritating when any
instrument that exceeds the price of a store bought disposable fails to
perform properly. You would think that a small portion of those precious
dollars would be put toward quality control and testing. I wonder if anyone
has ever inked a special edition, like one of Krone's perhaps, just to see
if it would really write?

Gordon

"Gordon Mattingly" writes:

I wonder if anyone has ever inked a special edition, like one of
Krone's perhaps, just to see if it would really write?

I have wondered the exact same thing. If I had a limited edition pen,
I would not hesitate to use it first, to see if it really wrote. I
wouldn't buy a limited edition that didn't actually write. That's the
whole point of a pen, after all.




--
((name "Aaron Hsu")
(email/xmpp ")
(site "http://www.aaronhsu.com"))

On Nov 9, 6:14 pm, Aaron W. Hsu arcfide@net wrote:
"Gordon Mattingly" writes:
I wonder if anyone has ever inked a special edition, like one of
Krone's perhaps, just to see if it would really write?

I have wondered the exact same thing. If I had a limited edition pen,
I would not hesitate to use it first, to see if it really wrote. I
wouldn't buy a limited edition that didn't actually write. That's the
whole point of a pen, after all.

--
((name "Aaron Hsu")
(email/xmpp ")
(site "http://www.aaronhsu.com"))


Next suggestio --- with all those pens, are you using the same bottle
of ink for them all? Is it old? Is it a heavily pigmented color?

I suggest cleaning up one or two of those "failure" pens, and filling
with a thin normal ink -- Skrip, Waterman blue, etc. And see if that
works.
Just, sometimes, the drying up is the ink.

Just a suggestion. ala Frank

snip
I can't easily
find a USABLE fountain pen for under $40, let alone one that's as good as
that $2 pen.

Colin,
I like Lamy Safari's. They are priced in the low to mid $20 range.
One broke, and Lamy replaced it for a small ($7 IIRC) shipping
charge.
Best,
Larry

On Fri, 9 Nov 2007 04:29:40 +0100 (CET), Colin B. wrote:



Disappointment is driving me away from my favorite pens again.

Colin

I've had a dozen and a half of these Chinese pens, and indeed, I've had
some of the same problems - mostly drying up too easily - but one would
unscrew the wrong way and completely fall apart. However, some work and
write really well, if you keep them going. Many do seem to dry up fast.

Try disposable fountain pens if you want cheap fountain pens that write
well. The Pilot Varsity is widely available. Even better is the Itoya Blade
- harder to find but a wonderful writer and nice very fine point. These
disposable pens take a lot of abuse and keep writing, and aren't all that
bad when compared to other fountain pens.

Someone has already suggested the Lamy Safari - 100% agreement with that.
Also, check out the Japanese lower price fountain pens you can find at
jpens.com and jetpens.com (e.g. the Pilot Prera is wonderful if you like
very fine nibs),

I have a Hero 100 with the exact same problem. Sits unused in the
closet. I talked to one of the people who sold these (I don't remember
who) and was told that this was a common problem.



On Fri, 9 Nov 2007 04:29:40 +0100 (CET), "Colin B."
wrote:


From: "Colin B."
Subject: Cheap pen reviews
Newsgroups: alt.collecting.pens-pencils
Summary:
[...snip...]
Now that 160 was one of the first Hero pens I'd ordered, and since it was
only $13, it gave me the confidence to spend more money on the famous and
moderately pricey Hero 100, stainless finish all 'round.

Big mistake.

Ink this pen, and it writes beautifully. I mean, it writes FANTASTICALLY!
It's like writing with a wet stylus on a waxed surface--everything about
using this pen feels right to me. That is, until you put it down.

Leave it overnight, and you'll need to spend three minutes to get it
flowing again the next day.
Leave it over a weekend, and you're looking at ten minutes.
Let it sit unused over a long weekend, and it will be dry, gunked up,
and unusable. Like the 711, this pen just doesn't #$&(*@#$& SEAL!!! It's
sitting upstairs right now, filled with dried-up ink, because I'm too ****ed
off to bother cleaning it out. Maybe if I was an insomniac pulp novellist
it would be the greatest pen ever, but I'm not, and as a result, neither is
it.

JimL wrote:

Next suggestio --- with all those pens, are you using the same bottle
of ink for them all? Is it old? Is it a heavily pigmented color?

I suggest cleaning up one or two of those "failure" pens, and filling
with a thin normal ink -- Skrip, Waterman blue, etc. And see if that
works.
Just, sometimes, the drying up is the ink.

Just a suggestion. ala Frank

Good point. I ran into the same problems with relatively new bottles (the
oldest was still under a year old) of Waterman blue-black, Noodler's
red-black, and J. Herbin Wild Ivy. Naturally, I cleaned the pens completely
between fills of different inks.

Thanks for the suggestion though.
Colin

LF wrote:
snip
I can't easily
find a USABLE fountain pen for under $40, let alone one that's as good as
that $2 pen.

Colin,
I like Lamy Safari's. They are priced in the low to mid $20 range.
One broke, and Lamy replaced it for a small ($7 IIRC) shipping
charge.

Thanks. They're moderately ugly, but they sound pretty consistently good
from what I've heard. I've also got a few nicer pens, but I don't feel like
dragging them through the hell of work.

Colin

"Dilberto" wrote in message
...
snipped Lamy discussion
One inexpensive pen I was disappointed with is the Pelikan PELIKANO,
but this opinion based on the only two I have, used with a
converter. There seems to be significant variability in nib width,
and
these "M" nibs are actually what I'd call a B and a BB respectively.
Also, they seem to have a great tendency to dry up or clog, and
require
frequent fiddling with the converter knob to keep them going between
uses. When they work, they write nicely, though I am not very fond
of 'fat' and 'fatter' line widths. I now use the one pen as a box or
package
marker. Pelikan's more expensive pens, however, can't be beat.

I bought a Pelikano a while back. I've only used it with cartridges.
Mine (supposed to be a medium) didn't seem particularly broad. Ink
seemed to flow grudgingly though, as you say.

They're aimed at the school-age market, users who (I would guess) press
a bit harder than us, so the design might favour that.

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