Teach Me about Fountain Pens

[Smedley]

Curious about fountain pens and the options available to me. Any suggestions on good general knowledge sites to visit, as well as tips on what important options there are when buying a good quality one. Also, the important choice of ink -- something about the bottle appeals to me, but there are pens with "converters" that let you choose between bottle and cartridge?

It's another AD creeping in, I can feel it.

 

[KenS]

Off of the top of my head comes www.pentrace.net followed by www.richardspens.com Pentrace is a user group, Richards Pens is a commercial site put up by Richard Binder who is one of the premier nibmeisters in the business. Another acclaimed nibmeister is John Mottishaw who's web site is www.nibs.com . All of the sites have a great deal to offer. When you get ready to buy, www.swisherpens.com has good prices, but not as good as buying used off of the Pentrace Green Board (sales board) http://www.pentrace.net/PenMarket.htm
These links should keep you busy and impart lots of valuable information.
Best Regards, Ken.

 

[farace]

AD is right. First of all, the fountain pen equivalent of B&B is The Fountain Pen Network. It's just as friendly. Next, decide whether you're more interested in vintage pens or modern. I've got mostly vintage (right now I seem to be focusing on old Eversharp Skylines, a streamlined design by the same guy that designed the 1938 20th Century Special locomotive; the resemblance is noticeable), nothing very expensive, but I've got a few cheap modern pens on the way. Most vintage pens have lever fillers, where a lever presses down on an ink sac inside the barrel; most ink sacs will have dried out by now and need replacement. Others have aerometric fillers (you open the pen and press a bar), vacumatic, snorkel, and pistons, among others. Modern pens tend to take cartridges, but a lot of folks prefer to install converters so they can use bottled ink. There's a trade-off involved: If you run out of ink away from home, it's a lot easier to carry cartridges than a bottle around, on the other hand you have a lot more color choices with bottled ink.

There are a load of informative websites out there, and it will be easier to focus in on a few if you decide what you're interested in. Penspotters is a good general one, as are Vintage Pens and Richard's Pens. Follow links from the links pages on those sites to find others. Just as here you can get into razors, blades, soaps, brushes, etc., with fountain pens you'll find yourself acquiring not only the pens, but inks, paper, storage boxes . . . it's fun, and you can tell yourself that, just as with how with wet shaving you're saving money by refilling your razors instead of throwing away disposables and getting a better shave besides, with fountain pens you're saving money by refilling your pens, not throwing away disposables, and writing better and more enjoyably. It's a parallel universe.

 

[TimmyBoston]

+1 on www.fountainpennetwork.com. It's a good, friendly source and there are some B&Ber's there as well.

+1 on www.richardspens.com, it's where I purchased a custom ground Pelikan and I couldn't be happier.

 

[Panamag8or]

+1 on Richard Binder. I sold him a passle of NOS Sheaffer parts, and he built me a "brand new" pen out of 50-y.o. parts. I love it, and use it daily.

 

[Taz]

I just started using them but I will tell you Richard was a great help.

 

[Spattznatt]

If you want a selection of inks then bottled inks are the way to go. The inks that I use are Noodlers Inks (http://www.luxurybrandsusa.com/noodlers/) which I feel are the best in colour, saturation, and some of them have the benefit of being "Bulletproof". That is specially formulated to survive checkwashing or other methods of trying to remove ink from paper.

I started using a fountain pen because I found it more dignified and I hated the writing I was getting with all the modern pens. Fountain pens also reduce then number of pens that I go through in a year. Less environmental impact.

My suggestion is visit some of the sites above and make up your own mine.

Spattz

 

[Taz]

David just jump in and buy my M400 and Noodlers ink in the B/S/T Great Pen

 

[Smedley]

David just jump in and buy my M400 and Noodlers ink in the B/S/T Great Pen

That post inspired me to query about general fountain pen knowledge. Thanks for the info, gents, much appreciated.

(Who knows, maybe I will revisit your pen, Taz. )

 

[daniel]

Another good site is Pendemonium.

 

[rickshah]

http://www.stylophilesonline.com/

Great site for information about all things fountain pen (nibs, thicknesses, companies, materials, trends)

 

[hack]

Try nibs.com if you want to explore the possibility of a customized nib. John Mottishaw there works mainly with Pelikan (my pen of choice) and Omas. The site also contains a lot of very useful and interesting information.

 

[Smedley]

Thanks for all the info. I am going to go poke around at one bricks and mortar store today and see what they have. Don't really want to break the bank on my first purchase, so I will be careful.

 

[CapeCodJay]

Thought you might find this article interesting

http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=1675472006

Write well, often, and embrace the Pen AD!

 

[smithno]

I have bought a bunch of pen stuff from http://www.apenloversparadise.com/
and http://www.isellpens.com
Pen Lovers Paradise seems to have the best prices on Noodler's Inks.

 

[hack]

I have bought a bunch of pen stuff from http://www.apenloversparadise.com/
and http://www.isellpens.com
Pen Lovers Paradise seems to have the best prices on Noodler's Inks.

If we're going to talk inks I can talk all day! Inks are the shaving soap/cream of the fountain pen world, and there seems to be just as much variety and alchemy involved with one as with the other. I myself have, to coin a phrase IAD (Ink Aquisition Disorder). Noodler's is very good stuff. My favorite is probably Private Reserve, which like Noodler's has both high quality and a wide variety.

As I gather is is the case with soap/brushes, the stuff that you can easily find in a nearby non-specializing brick-and-mortar store is probably not the best. For instance, Mont Blanc (colloquially known as Mah Blah) has some of the best and most functional bottles, but what's inside doesn't usually receive high ratings. Scheaffer, Parker, Pelikan, and Aurora tend to be pretty good, depending on the particular color--for a good basic black, in fact, Pelikan and Aurora are the best.

For an excellent run-down on incks, check out this link:
http://www.inksampler.com/

hack

 

[exigence]

Definitely check out penhero.com as well as FPH - fantastic service.