Ooo, fountain pens, pricey hobby!
Behold, a $7 pen that writes as well as anything, purchased from a local stationery shop.
Original ink cartridge re-filled using a re-usable $4 pack of ink syringes, filled from a $20 bottle of ink that lasts for weeks of heavy writing or months/years of casual writing.
Preppies are excellent pens.
They really are! My first FP was a Platinum Plaisir (same core, aluminum shell and cap). Platinums are quite nice and underrated. And for fat nib fans, their EF is a lot broader than your typical Japanese pen. It's actually a teensy bit italic.
And yet, I have spent over $300 on pens, ink, and notebooks since getting into fountain pens. 😱
Still, that's less than I've spent on keyboards.
True, there is no upper limit.
Dang, I think you might have spent more than me, and I've been doing this for a decade. 😄
Okay, so most of that was notebooks. XD
The Traveler's Notebook, particularly, was pricey but definitely worth it to me.
How many pens do you have now?
Four, but two are the cheap Chinese brand my mom got me for my birthday. (She knew they wouldn't be fantastic but with the number of inks she got me it's nice to be able to have more active at once.) The other two are the TWSBI Eco and TWSBI GO, which I bought myself.
Is the Go the one with the spring-loaded plunger/piston filler?
@solusspider @gamerchick02 @rl_dane
(the "keyboards" mention is in a separate branch)
I want pricey pens 😭
What the heck happened to Miser Amin?
I make up delicious and healthy recipes for myself that cost about $1/meal to make up for it. ;)
…and I don't use any streaming platforms. Or have a car to fuel or insure.
Also I said I want pricey pens—I haven't purchased any, yet.
I've never spent more than $35 for a pen.
@rl_dane
I have. Twice this week.
I have some great pens, even some vintage, in the under $35 category. I don't collect. I don't spend more than what it's worth to me. I also have some very nice, more expensive pens.
@rl_dane @amin I have three pens on my side for around ... 440euros I think.
Inks probably around 60/70 euros.
And notebooks, since 2019, 10 x an average of $25 each 😬
Another pricey hobby ... #photography gear 😅
@rl_dane @tallastro I have one pen above that price point (a TWSBI Diamond 580) which is an EDC for me, but other than that, probably the same (if we're talking USD as opposed to CAD).
I'd rather spend my money on several bottles of ink than a single pen.
I wish I had understood about nib tuning and paper quality before thinking that I had to buy an expensive pen. Now, there's no point in going back, but I do recommend them. (Well, maybe Kakunos, because their caps are stronger.)
It's a lost art.
I was given a gold nib FP as a gift when I was a teenager, and I had no appreciation for it, and no idea what to do with it.
Agreed that less and less people know how to use one and don't care if there pen is bad. Then they think the fountain pen is bad when its actually much better.
I feel like the expensive nibs like gold nibs are better but also the rest of the pen the cheaper ones are better
I actually like the cheap pens because they tend to be less temperamental than the really pricey ones (or so I've heard), and if it goes bad (or you drop it on the nib, OWWWW!!!), it's cheap enough to get replacement parts.
My #TWSBI Eco is on its second nib. The nib was about half the price of the pen, but the pen was $30, so.. .;)
@rl_dane
I agree I actually like the cheaper ones because its easier to carry around and I don't have to worry about it much. Also if I don't use it for awhile it will not dry up like my other expensive fountain pen does.
So actually while the nib on the more expensive fountain pen is better the overall pen is not better.
$30 for a nib is expensive but worth it for keeping the pen going.
@rl_dane I love my Preppies. I just wish I could get the fancy Wa editions for that price - they're double that in the UK.
OTOH, they're so cheap that I have aaaall the colours for the plain ones. :-) Plus some Crystal for using with Platinum's carbon ink.
Oops, I didn't realize the preppy I had was one of the fancy, more expensive ones. XD
@rl_dane Says something that the fancy one with the decorative print is that price (or £10 in the UK). :-)
Of course, the really fancy one is the Plaisir, which is basically a Preppy upgraded with an aluminium body and cap. That will set you back a whopping £14 here (unless you're daft enough to buy one of the limited edition graduated colour schemes, which I very nearly did for one I loved even though it was a daft price).
My very first FP was a green plaisir I bought a decade ago.
I actually like the Preppy Wa better. ;)
I was never really impressed with the super-cheap pens I got (Wing Sung 698 or Jinhao).
I've had better luck with Japanese than Chinese pens, so far. Better (extant???) QC. ;)
@rl_dane QC is hit and miss, but improving, and I've had some really nice Chinese pens. And some horrible ones. :-)
I love my WS 3008s, but they're known for having a rust problem with the screw in the cap. Since they're even cheaper than a Preppy and they write just as well if you have a good one, I don't mind. But current love of my life is a Moonman/Majohn A1 retractable.
Ah, I recall many ebullient odes to the Moonman on r/FountainPens back in the day. ;)
God bless the Asians.
If there's a Chinatown near you (and I mean even a Chinatown-like strip mall), there may very well be an awesome stationery store there.
The one I go to is called Kinokuniya. It's literally located inside of an Asian supermarket. ;)
P.S., It's not strictly a stationery shop, they have comic books and, uh, weeabo-wares(?!?) and things like that, too. But their stationery is legit.
R.L. Dane 
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