So I went to school in India and there, once we graduated to pens from pencils, we were only allowed fountain pens. We were never allowed to carry or use ballpoint pens. I never understood why even though I loved using my fountain pens anyway. Everyone used to call them ink pens, not many people called them fountain pens. I was always excited to reach the grade where we made the switch from pencils to ink pens because my dad was a big fan of pens. He had a huge box filled with pens from when he was a kid. He would never let me use his ink pens, and this made me want to use them even more!
I can't say for sure, but I think my first ink pen was a Hero. It was cheap, and so usually a good first pen. Most of my classmates usually also started out with Hero pens. There was just the one model available. Of course there were a few spoilt kids that started with a nice Parker haha. When I was growing up in India, the most expensive pen you could buy at a regular stationary store was a Parker. And again, they only had one model:
My parents did not think I needed a Parker and didn't want to "spoil me" so I had to wait for one of those! I did eventually get my dad to buy me a Parker not long after I started with ink pens anyway. I don't know if these pens had different kinds of nibs, but the first one I ever got wrote very thick and it was super smooth. I really loved how it wrote. There were days I had forgotten to fill ink into my pen, and borrowed a friend's Parker. Again, exactly the same model, but some of them wrote very thin and I hated those. So I don't know if these were just bad pens that wrote differently due to poor quality control, or if the nibs had different thicknesses on purpose. I still don't know haha. Over time I got a whole bunch of these Parkers. All mostly the same except for the color and design. My favorite Parker used to be the same ones as above, but a yellow with a red arrow on the cap and it had the Maggi logo on it. I have no idea where I got it from, but I know I used it for the longest time! Sill have it somewhere in my room in India. In fact I still have most of my Hero pens and other Parkers as well.
As far as ink goes, we were only allowed blue. No black or any other color. I can remember the most common ink there being Camel. I used that and then sometimes something called Chelpark or something. I don't know if you get those here, but they were pretty cheap in India back then. I absolutely LOVED the smell of ink! My favorite part of filling my pen each day was smelling the ink! I also had a little ink rag that I carried around with me in case of leakages and stuff. And my pens leaked a lot since I was a kid, running around with my pens in my bag, pocket etc. So there was a lot of spilled ink! I never really used ink cartridges. Those suckers were expensive. I must have used them maybe 5 times in my history with ink pens. It was always ink bottles for me. I hated filling my Hero pen because the filling system was quite inefficient in my opinion haha. It was this fixed steel tube with a rubbery transparent sack thing (don't know the official name) and then another steel presser thinger that you press to create a vaccum to suck the ink in. But of course, I'm sure you guys know exactly what I'm talking about haha. The Parkers had the more sensible plunger cartridge like thing. Push down, dip in ink, pull up plunger, done! So simple. So effective. I also particularly liked this because you could hold the pen upside down, and keep pushing the plunger to close the gap of the used ink. I use to do that every so often to make my ink flow more effective. Worked good for me!
And then later after I'd been using ink pens for a while, my dad gave me his Sheaffer that I'd always wanted! It looked exactly like this:
Except the body was a burgandy and not silver. The cap was identical to that picture though. I really liked how the nib looked and that made me very excited to use this pen! Also, it wrote thick and was super smooth. So that made it even better haha! I still have this Sheaffer at home too.
Eventually, we were allowed to use ballpens, and being the lazy kids we were, we stopped using ink pens altogether since ballpens were so convenient!
Every now and then I start to think about using ink pens again. And then thinking about the leaking ink makes me give up on the idea. Maybe if I found something that did not leak much. Also I don't think I would run around wildly with an ink pen in my pocket anymore haha so perhaps my fear of leaking ink pens is not warranted anymore. In either case, when I do something, I go all in and start to do a ton of research and what not. And I just got into DE razors so that hobby is taking up a lot of my time!
Maybe someday soon I'll get an ink pen. If only just to smell ink in a bottle again!
So thanks for reading my redundant story! Just felt like sharing. I'm off to bed now.
Night all!
I can't say for sure, but I think my first ink pen was a Hero. It was cheap, and so usually a good first pen. Most of my classmates usually also started out with Hero pens. There was just the one model available. Of course there were a few spoilt kids that started with a nice Parker haha. When I was growing up in India, the most expensive pen you could buy at a regular stationary store was a Parker. And again, they only had one model:
My parents did not think I needed a Parker and didn't want to "spoil me" so I had to wait for one of those! I did eventually get my dad to buy me a Parker not long after I started with ink pens anyway. I don't know if these pens had different kinds of nibs, but the first one I ever got wrote very thick and it was super smooth. I really loved how it wrote. There were days I had forgotten to fill ink into my pen, and borrowed a friend's Parker. Again, exactly the same model, but some of them wrote very thin and I hated those. So I don't know if these were just bad pens that wrote differently due to poor quality control, or if the nibs had different thicknesses on purpose. I still don't know haha. Over time I got a whole bunch of these Parkers. All mostly the same except for the color and design. My favorite Parker used to be the same ones as above, but a yellow with a red arrow on the cap and it had the Maggi logo on it. I have no idea where I got it from, but I know I used it for the longest time! Sill have it somewhere in my room in India. In fact I still have most of my Hero pens and other Parkers as well.
As far as ink goes, we were only allowed blue. No black or any other color. I can remember the most common ink there being Camel. I used that and then sometimes something called Chelpark or something. I don't know if you get those here, but they were pretty cheap in India back then. I absolutely LOVED the smell of ink! My favorite part of filling my pen each day was smelling the ink! I also had a little ink rag that I carried around with me in case of leakages and stuff. And my pens leaked a lot since I was a kid, running around with my pens in my bag, pocket etc. So there was a lot of spilled ink! I never really used ink cartridges. Those suckers were expensive. I must have used them maybe 5 times in my history with ink pens. It was always ink bottles for me. I hated filling my Hero pen because the filling system was quite inefficient in my opinion haha. It was this fixed steel tube with a rubbery transparent sack thing (don't know the official name) and then another steel presser thinger that you press to create a vaccum to suck the ink in. But of course, I'm sure you guys know exactly what I'm talking about haha. The Parkers had the more sensible plunger cartridge like thing. Push down, dip in ink, pull up plunger, done! So simple. So effective. I also particularly liked this because you could hold the pen upside down, and keep pushing the plunger to close the gap of the used ink. I use to do that every so often to make my ink flow more effective. Worked good for me!
And then later after I'd been using ink pens for a while, my dad gave me his Sheaffer that I'd always wanted! It looked exactly like this:
Except the body was a burgandy and not silver. The cap was identical to that picture though. I really liked how the nib looked and that made me very excited to use this pen! Also, it wrote thick and was super smooth. So that made it even better haha! I still have this Sheaffer at home too.
Eventually, we were allowed to use ballpens, and being the lazy kids we were, we stopped using ink pens altogether since ballpens were so convenient!
Every now and then I start to think about using ink pens again. And then thinking about the leaking ink makes me give up on the idea. Maybe if I found something that did not leak much. Also I don't think I would run around wildly with an ink pen in my pocket anymore haha so perhaps my fear of leaking ink pens is not warranted anymore. In either case, when I do something, I go all in and start to do a ton of research and what not. And I just got into DE razors so that hobby is taking up a lot of my time!
Maybe someday soon I'll get an ink pen. If only just to smell ink in a bottle again!
So thanks for reading my redundant story! Just felt like sharing. I'm off to bed now.
Night all!
