A few years ago I got into fountain pens and experimented with them for awhile, then cleaned them up and stored them away. I don’t even remember what I have and which ones I liked. I should have kept notes.
Flashback
I think when I was in my tweens, fountain pens became popular in school. At the time you could buy a cheap Scheaffer cartridge fountain pen anywhere they sold school supplies. I used one quite a lot. I found it was better than a ballpoint for compositions because I could not write as fast with a fountain pen. This allowed me to think more about what I wanted to write.
In High School I reverted back to ballpoints, and somewhere over the years the cheap Scheaffer fountain pens disappeared from the school supply shelves at the local drug stores and super markets.
Now-ish:
Of course the Internet changed everything and niche products like fountain pens got a new, wider, life. They were available again.
I Buy a New Fountain Pen
I decided to rethink this fountain pen thing and try to define what worked for me the last time and what didn’t work. Why had I set them aside? I think I got caught up in experimenting and trying different pens and bottled ink too much. Generally for daily things that I use, the KISS model works the best.
So on this reboot: pick one pen and really use it, cartridge pen, medium nib, reasonable quality, forgiving for beginners. I bought a simple Pilot Metropolitan medium. Still made in Japan. Preliminary tests: it writes well, very smooth - it glides, even on cheap paper. The black ink is very black, dries quickly and does not bleed through too much. It writes well on index cards.
Cartridge ink is more expensive, but a lot less fuss and mess - which is probably a better choice for me. KISS.
Now I have to retrain myself how to write with a fountain pen. Again.
I’m going to use this Pilot as my exclusive fountain pen and if I stick with it, I’ll see what other cartridge fountain pens I already have that I can use, because it would be handy to have a second.
