Too Many Choices

[GaryTha]

I have 24 Jinhao Shark and Swan pens. Twelve medium points and twelve fine points. I also have three other pens for a total of 27 pens. I also have four types of ink. I only use one type of paper. Each pen writes a little differently even though they are the same type of pen. The black ink won't flow through one. Blue ink flows too fast. One writes well with the back of the nib. One won't allow green ink to flow through the Nib. One likes one kind of blue ink, but not the other. If I've done my math right, there are 216 different combinations. But I also want more ink colors.

Now to make a spreadsheet to log the results.

Maybe I should go back to the Bic Round stick. Unfortunately, the performance changes throughout its life as the ball wears or something.

My point is recommendations from others are pointless, so I'll go through one cartridge in all the combinations and see what I learn.

 

[tankerjohn]

LOL, the joy and frustration with fountain pens. I like a little variation in my pen quiver - drier writers for work where I might be writing on cheap copy paper, etc and wetter writers for greeting cards or journaling where I can control the paper to allow for lovely thick lines without feathering. It also helps to pair dry inks with wet nibs and wet inks with dry nibs to keep them tamed. Finally, some basic nib tuning helps a lot with particularly stubborn nibs. Jinhaos are the perfect pens to experiment with. Happy writing!

 

[dojpros]

If wish to continue to experiment - by all means OR

you could buy
1. Pilot Metropolitan for 20ish USD which ships with a cartridge and a converter
2. A bottle of an iconic and well behaved ink i.e. Waterman Serenity Blue/Pelikan Black
3. A Black and Red Notebook

And your system will just work. Add more Metropolitans and more inks from Pilot and simply drive on.

You could go crazy and repeat 1-3 with a Lamy Safari/Al-Star (Pen & converter 40 ish max)
and also have a system that works as well. Lamy has 15+ colors of ink and at least that many colors of pens.

I am affirmatively pushing away from anything made in the PRC when its functional equivalent can be had, even for more money. I fully acknowledge that this is difficult to do in certain spaces i.e. cell phone, computers etc.

Life is way to short futzing with a 5.00 pen when a 20.00 metropolitan will work indefinitely presuming the use of a quality ink and the occasion rinse out with room temp water etc.

 

[Tomo]

I have three pens and three inks. I could easily drop one or two.

 

[razorboi]

I am affirmatively pushing away from anything made in the PRC when its functional equivalent can be had, even for more money. I fully acknowledge that this is difficult to do in certain spaces i.e. cell phone, computers etc.
Life is way to short futzing with a 5.00 pen when a 20.00 metropolitan will work indefinitely presuming the use of a quality ink and the occasion rinse out with room temp water etc.

I agree.
Life's too short to bother with cheap rubbish from PRC [The People's Republic of China]. A country that has to create a deceptive euphemism for itself, should be avoided at all costs.
Besides, we are spoilt for choice these days with so many fine pens made in Germany, France, Italy, the U.K., Japan, the U.S.A., and so many other countries...
You get what you pay for.

 

[GaryTha]

Now that I know how to use my Jinhao shark pens, they all work well with either green Monteverde or Blue Shaefer Skript. In time, I may order more colors of the Monteverde, but probably not.

I use the basic business Palmer Method. I write about 48 pages a day (there are two pages in the picture), and it's important not to use the finger muscles. Note the size of the writing by the penny.

 

[Tirvine]

Although I have, over the course of the years, had Parkers, Mont Blancs, Watermans, Shaeffers, Lamys, and others, for the last twenty or thirty years I have fallen in love with Pelikan. Now in retirement, I no longer need red ink to edit documents. So my collection is down to two pens and one ink, an M200 with fine nib that writes a little on the wet side (I find Pelikan nibs to be slightly broader than their labels indicate), an M400 with extra fine nib that writes moderately but not extremely dry, and a half a bottle remaining of Pelikan blue black ink for both. It is a perfect "collection" for me.

 

[razorboi]

...I use the basic business Palmer Method. I write about 48 pages a day (there are two pages in the picture), and it's important not to use the finger muscles. Note the size of the writing by the penny.

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Exceptionally nice hand and eminently legible. Do you credit Palmer or your grammar-school masters?

 

[GaryTha]

Exceptionally nice hand and eminently legible. Do you credit Palmer or your grammar-school masters?

Thanks. Palmer. I was a slow finger writer up until about six weeks ago. I followed this book.

 

[musicman1951]

Although I have, over the course of the years, had Parkers, Mont Blancs, Watermans, Shaeffers, Lamys, and others, for the last twenty or thirty years I have fallen in love with Pelikan. Now in retirement, I no longer need red ink to edit documents. So my collection is down to two pens and one ink, an M200 with fine nib that writes a little on the wet side (I find Pelikan nibs to be slightly broader than their labels indicate), an M400 with extra fine nib that writes moderately but not extremely dry, and a half a bottle remaining of Pelikan blue black ink for both. It is a perfect "collection" for me.

I am also a Pelikan fan. I only have 4, but find myself gravitating to the Ruby Red M600 most days. I sent it to Pendleton Brown and it writes like butter.

 

[Tirvine]

 

[AimlessWanderer]

As I explored different pens and inks, I found the variations between them frustrating... so I eliminated them.

My dry inks, that wouldn't play nice in some pens, got a teeny addition of soap to make them wetter. I refined any nibs I wasn't enamoured with, using cheapo nail buffers. Pens that didn't flow as well as others, got either their nibs or feeds tweaked. Anything I couldn't tweak to my tastes was disposed of. Now, I seem to be able to use any ink, in any of my user pens, and be content with the performance. If there's any residual incompatibilities, I haven't found them yet.

As for too much choice... well yes, but only when it's refill time. Until then, I tend to keep three inked and available. One with blue or black ink (primary), one running another dark colour, maybe brown, green, or purple (secondary), and a third with a red or brighter ink in (contrast/highlight). When any of those pens is empty, I will either refill it with exactly the same ink, or flush it, and grab a new pen to take the new colour.

I do try to coordinate my pens and inks, in that I have specific pens for the primary, secondary, and contrast inks as mentioned above, so I always grab the right pen for the intended purpose. It also has the advantage of meaning I am choosing a pen and ink from one of three sub groups, which reduces the decision fatigue.

Primary inks and pens on the left, secondaries on the middle, and contrast inks/pens on the right.



This is all my ink, but I do have a few other fountain pens, however they're mostly duplicates/spares, and I don't keep those to hand in the pen drawer. I do have pencils, ballpoints, and marker pens in that drawer though.

My writing won't win any beauty contests, but it's quite legible for most people. System? Nah, we weren't indoctrinated into a system 40 years ago. We were shown several examples of what we might use, but encouraged to develop our own hand, so long as it was efficient and legible. I see no reason to change my handwriting now.

 

[GaryTha]

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