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Worth spending more than a tenner?

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
The Helix Oxford pens really have turned out to be excellent purchases. Wonderfully smooth writers, with a nice heft and "presence". I have a couple of spares inbound now too, but plain stainless, rather than lacquered.

£4 each!!! :eek6:

I was actually looking for a starter pen for my niece, but had to grab myself a couple of these too, while they were on sale.
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
The Helix Oxford pens really have turned out to be excellent purchases. Wonderfully smooth writers, with a nice heft and "presence". I have a couple of spares inbound now too, but plain stainless, rather than lacquered.

£4 each!!! :eek6:

I was actually looking for a starter pen for my niece, but had to grab myself a couple of these too, while they were on sale.

These landed today. I popped a cartridge in one, and once again, it wrote perfectly straight out of the box. With the blue and the strobe silver, that's four of these I have now... for about £20 total. Excellent pens!

A bottle of Quink Black (the permanent type) arrived with them.
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
Quink Black should be called Quink Very Dark Teal. I do like it though. It seems a very well behaved ink so far.

Having tried it in both the Parker 45 Flighter and the Parker IM Premium Geometric, I think I'm going to pair this ink permanently with the IM Premium. Black pen, black ink. Also, the 45 Flighter is my only other converter pen for filling from bottles, and will reach into a 30ml Diamine bottle much easier, plus also fill from a lower ink level, so it makes more sense to leave that to handle the miscellaneous bottled inks.
 

Tirvine

ancient grey sweatophile
I believe that a more expensive pen can offer some very desirable and noticeable benefits. Going to a Pelikan gold nib provides a huge improvement in the smoothness of writing and a very reliable piston. I imagine there are others that provide those things, too, but the lowest cost gold nibbed Pelikan outperforms some far more expensive pens in my personal experience. I have had a few nice pens but am not a pen collector. I stumbled onto my Pelikan ages ago. It has probably paid for itself and always delivers perfect ink flow.
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
I believe that a more expensive pen can offer some very desirable and noticeable benefits. Going to a Pelikan gold nib provides a huge improvement in the smoothness of writing and a very reliable piston. I imagine there are others that provide those things, too, but the lowest cost gold nibbed Pelikan outperforms some far more expensive pens in my personal experience. I have had a few nice pens but am not a pen collector. I stumbled onto my Pelikan ages ago. It has probably paid for itself and always delivers perfect ink flow.

Pelicans are way outside my price range. They are also afflicted with threaded sections, which in itself is a deal breaker for me.

Every new pen I have bought, has been £20 or less. They all write wonderfully, albeit with a bit of refinement. Although I haven't tried any £150 pens (other than briefly handling a few threaded section pens, and quickly handing them straight back), I am unable to imagine what improvements a pen could possibly offer, for me to justify spending that additional £130.

Note: I'm not suggesting that others shouldn't enjoy them. I just can't even begin to imagine what might make me feel that I'd got value for money at those prices.
 

Tirvine

ancient grey sweatophile
Pelicans are way outside my price range. They are also afflicted with threaded sections, which in itself is a deal breaker for me.

Every new pen I have bought, has been £20 or less. They all write wonderfully, albeit with a bit of refinement. Although I haven't tried any £150 pens (other than briefly handling a few threaded section pens, and quickly handing them straight back), I am unable to imagine what improvements a pen could possibly offer, for me to justify spending that additional £130.

Note: I'm not suggesting that others shouldn't enjoy them. I just can't even begin to imagine what might make me feel that I'd got value for money at those prices.
Understood. The standard price for an M200 is 76£. A quick search of eBay gets it to 65£. Better deals pop up from time to time, sometimes significantly better on older models. Another great writer is the Parker Sonnet.
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
It turns out the nibs on the Helix Oxford pens are soft. Very soft. I snagged the nib on one, and bent the tines up a bit. No significant damage, other than splaying the tines a little, and lifting it off the feed slightly. It took a bit of time to get it settled back down again, and stop it hard starting. It was in fixing it that I realised just how soft the nib actually is. Certainly softer than any of the nibs I intentionally splayed a bit.

It's back to writing absolutely perfectly again now though, but it did make me glad that I got myself a spare. In fact it might actually be writing better than before. :lol1: Still nice to have that £4 spare in the drawer in case of more serious accidents.
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
Four months later...

All these pens have been used for at least one complete fill each, and all except the Parker Slimfold, will continue to be cycled through. As and when I change inks, I start a different pen on the new ink, then clean whatever has just come empty, and return it to the drawer. The Parker Slimfold won't see much use, but will be retained though, for one very important function - as a lasting reminder to avoid threaded section pens.

As described earlier in the thread, most of these pens did need a few minutes initial refinement to get them behaving exactly as I wanted, which I appreciate can be off putting or daunting for some. Although my understanding is that pens of all price points might need a little further fine tuning when bought new.

So far, I haven't noticed any significant in-use downsides to any of these pens. One of them (I forget which) did suffer a little with hard starts occasionally, and needed a further clean and fine tune. I think I cured it, as I'm sure all were perfectly well behaved at the end of their respective fills, but I'll monitor and tweak accordingly on future fills. Of course it might just have not been a great match with whatever ink was in it.

It should also be noted that I don't tend to pocket carry fountain pens very often, and so the clips haven't been "tested". The only cap that I specifically wouldn't trust for pocket carry, is the Parker 45 Flighter. Everything else has a reassuring enough click when capped, and reassuring enough resistance on removing the cap.

One nib did get snagged and deformed, but was easily reset, and any accidental drop tests on these were while capped - no noticeable damage. Ergonomics on all but the Slimfold have been excellent. No hand cramps, slippiness, hotspots, etc.

All told, I'm very happy with these bargain pens, and think I should continue to be for a good few years. If calamity or significant failure occurs on anything, I'll try to dig this thread back out and update accordingly.
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
I have enough cheap pens now, as a result of my explorations, that even if one should expire, or get lost, I'll still be writing with fountain pens pretty much indefinitely. I have five spare Baoer 388s, three spare Wing Sung 3008 Demonstrators, one spare Helix Oxford, and a few pens that didn't make the regular line up. In short, I have more spares than users.

However, I didn't have a spare for my Ohto Tasche, and so I ordered one today. I believe the Kaweco Sport is the default setting for most people considering a compact pen, but the threaded section is a hurdle for me, and the Tasche is a little cheaper.

Sadly, I haven't seen them under a tenner, since ditching Amazon, but Cult Pens has 10% off at the moment, and they finally have the stainless version back in stock. I certainly don't resent paying a little over a tenner for this, as the blue one I have has been an excellent pocket pen. I've been meaning to get a back up fir quite some time. Some spare converters, a flushing syringe, and a couple of packs of long international cartridges, coaxed the order up to free shipping.
 
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