|
cobalt impurity posted:It's a spendy hobby full of rich dipshits that are too busy smelling their own cinnamon-scented farts to consider their lovely stances W.R.T. these Chinese knockoff pens. They're a crapshoot and an obvious knockoff, but they're acceptable quality pens for like, two (2) dollars. my farts smell like poo poo
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2015 23:37
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 14, 2024 13:11 |
|
|
cobalt impurity posted:It's a spendy hobby full of rich dipshits that are too busy smelling their own cinnamon-scented farts to consider their lovely stances W.R.T. these Chinese knockoff pens. They're a crapshoot and an obvious knockoff, but they're acceptable quality pens for like, two (2) dollars. Chinese knockoff pens are the epitome of "does what it says on the tin." Sure, you might get one that made it past QC but you're pretty much able to buy them by the pound so having one squib is pretty much the most white-people thing to cry over.
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2015 00:31
|
|
|
Soricidus posted:parker also make some decent pens. Wow look at Daddy Warbucks here. Not all of us have stacks of filthy lucre to throw around! Some of us have to steal geese from the park and make our own pens!
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2015 03:44
|
|
|
Speaking of cheap-but-good fountain pens you can get a Jinhao X450 off of eBay right now for $0.99 shipped.
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2015 04:29
|
|
|
tater_salad posted:I wouldn't recommend this but type in Jinhao into amazon.. they are stupid cheap.. write okay, and have lots of different styles / look like clones of other pens. No Amazon for me, living in the Netherlands they simply have no presence here. So I go to Ebay and then specifically ebay Ireland because the site is in English and currency is Euro's. Using ebay.nl will filter out a fuckton of results because of reasons I do not understand. cobalt impurity posted:But lord forbid we not constantly lambaste a pen for being made outside of either Za Fatherland or Glorious Nippon. Die Heimat? grack posted:Speaking of cheap-but-good fountain pens you can get a Jinhao X450 off of eBay right now for $0.99 shipped. But yeah, likeky there are some crappy pens for that price, my daughters are pretty happy with their fancy stuff tho. And look, 10 standard converters for $1,50 including shipping!
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2015 05:59
|
|
|
Keetron posted:Searching for Jinhao and sorting by P+P lowest first will get you some interesting results. Those pens are the ones I was talking about at the end of the last page. They're Safari copies (obviously) but they write really well, come with a high quality converter and have a damned good standard #5 nib. I've probably given away 10 or 12 and everyone I've given one to loves them. I test them first but I haven't had a bad one yet. This, however, was the listing I was talking about : http://www.ebay.com/itm/Students-Collectable-Vintage-Fountain-Pen-Medium-Nib-Black-Gold-Stainless-/351462897432?hash=item51d4d23718 Edit: And before you mention it, the Safari patent would've run out in 2005, so yes, they're legal. grack fucked around with this message at 07:04 on Sep 10, 2015 |
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2015 06:57
|
|
|
grack posted:This, however, was the listing I was talking about : http://www.ebay.com/itm/Students-Collectable-Vintage-Fountain-Pen-Medium-Nib-Black-Gold-Stainless-/351462897432?hash=item51d4d23718 It seems the chinese vendors keep cutting on each other's prices. Good for us, the consumer. We'll see how long this business model stays sustainable. And the genuine Lamy Safari I bought for my daughter last week started leaking all over the place. Like big drops of ink in the cap and the ink can be shaken out easily over the sink. Is this common? I'll return it anyway to the seller but it is a bit weird. Keetron fucked around with this message at 07:17 on Sep 10, 2015 |
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2015 07:13
|
|
|
The Chinese government has been aggressively devaluing the RMB so expect Chinese products to be super, super cheap for a while. As to your daughter's Lamy, most likely the seal was broken from cartridge/converter to the post inside the pen. Check for cracks on the cartridge/converter, and if there are none reseat it and see if it keeps leaking.
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2015 07:34
|
|
|
grack posted:Those pens are the ones I was talking about at the end of the last page. They're Safari copies (obviously) but they write really well, come with a high quality converter and have a damned good standard #5 nib. I've probably given away 10 or 12 and everyone I've given one to loves them. I test them first but I haven't had a bad one yet. What kind of cartridges/converters do these things take? I'm thinking of picking up 5 or so to keep at the office so I don't have to care when people "borrow" my pen (or grab it out of my hand and jab it into a piece of paper).
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2015 09:35
|
|
|
I got a Jinhao 159 off Amazon some time back. It's a fat and heavy pen, but it writes quite well. The only gripe I have is that apparently it doesn't take standard converters (I ruined a Diplomat converter trying to use it with the pen, cracked the plastic ring on the end) and the converter the pen comes with is not very good. Otherwise I'm 100% satisfied with my purchase.
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2015 09:39
|
|
|
grack posted:This, however, was the listing I was talking about : http://www.ebay.com/itm/Students-Collectable-Vintage-Fountain-Pen-Medium-Nib-Black-Gold-Stainless-/351462897432?hash=item51d4d23718
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2015 10:03
|
|
|
grack posted:This, however, was the listing I was talking about : http://www.ebay.com/itm/Students-Collectable-Vintage-Fountain-Pen-Medium-Nib-Black-Gold-Stainless-/351462897432?hash=item51d4d23718 Shipping to: worldwide Excludes: Italy Why the loving gently caress  
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2015 10:07
|
|
|
Lost packages, most likely.
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2015 13:04
|
|
|
Italy has some seemingly weird prohibitions on stuff you can ship there. http://pe.usps.com/text/Imm/il_008.htm
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2015 14:37
|
|
|
GoodBee posted:Italy has some seemingly weird prohibitions on stuff you can ship there. I think it is about : quote:Haberdashery and sewn articles of any kind, including trimmings and lace; handkerchiefs; scarves; shawls, needlework including stockings and gloves; bonnets, caps, and hats of any kind. It could also be because of: quote:Human remains.
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2015 16:23
|
|
|
Magnus Praeda posted:What kind of cartridges/converters do these things take? I'm thinking of picking up 5 or so to keep at the office so I don't have to care when people "borrow" my pen (or grab it out of my hand and jab it into a piece of paper). International standard
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2015 17:49
|
|
|
Mikl posted:I got a Jinhao 159 off Amazon some time back. It's a fat and heavy pen, but it writes quite well. The only gripe I have is that apparently it doesn't take standard converters (I ruined a Diplomat converter trying to use it with the pen, cracked the plastic ring on the end) and the converter the pen comes with is not very good. Otherwise I'm 100% satisfied with my purchase. Weird, mine's got a standard international converter. Tested it in a Kaigelu 356.
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2015 18:51
|
|
|
What sizes do Chinese pens go by, Western or Japanese?
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2015 19:22
|
|
|
teraflame posted:What sizes do Chinese pens go by, Western or Japanese? The vast majority of Chinese pens don't have sizes marked on the nib and those that do tend to report in millimeters. What you see on a sales page is someone's best estimate. Most of my Chinese pens come in somewhere between a Western fine and medium.
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2015 20:01
|
|
|
I bought a few Chinese pens when I was first getting back into using fountain pens and have thrown most of them away at this point but the one I still use regularly is a copper Hero 395. It's a bit heavy so I don't write with it a whole lot but it has a soft nib weirdly enough and just looks awesome with the patterned copper body.
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2015 20:16
|
|
|
Keetron posted:I think it is about : Italy if I recall was rather pissed with the lack of cooperation from Chinese banks in money laundering investigations.
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2015 04:34
|
|
|
I've probably gone through several dozen Chinese pens since I've gotten into this hobby. Around half of them were just fine out of the box, another quarter were great after a little bit of tuning, and the last quarter were just absolute garbage. That being said, that's a better success rate than I've had with some "real" manufacturers at this point. If you nerds are looking for a few less common pens, my personal favorites thus far have been: -Hero 565: This is a clone of another Chinese pen that was basically a P51 knockoff with PFM dimensions. It's a bigger, fatter Hero 616. The nibs on all of mine have ranged from western fine to gushing broad. Still, this is my absolute favorite notetaking pen ever; It's incredibly comfortable and it takes a long drat time to dry out uncapped. -Wing Sung 9902: This is a better, metal-bodied version of the Wing Sung 233. It doesn't seem to have the useless inner cap that most Wing Sungs do and It comes with a fine triumph-inspired conical nib that looks pretty good. Unlike my 233s, the nib is actually nice to use without a ton of tuning. -Hero 1000: This is basically a heavier, lacquer-over-bronze Hero 100. In comparison to my Hero 100, I believe that this is a more comfortable pen and its 12K EF nib is smoother and firmer than the 14k one on the 100. These used to be a bit cheaper, and isellpens appears to have them for the same cost as my favorite Chinese dealer. If you want an upscale feeling P51 clone, this is probably as good as you'll find. Also: the Hero safari knockoff has the worst nibs ever made, buy like 5 Jinhao 599s instead. The new hooded variant is pretty drat good.
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2015 06:49
|
|
|
Speaking of Chinese pens, I'm looking for a way to buy cheap nibs to fit into my Jinhao x750 for nib grinding practice. Any recommendations on the cheapest way to get several #6 sized nibs that fit the x750? Or a cheap bunch of nibs that fit the Metro and Plumix? (Also open to getting several cheap rear end pens that have #6 nibs if the price is right.) Also regarding the recent SF Penshow: If you didn't get enough time on the ink testing stations there, the SF Pen Posse still has them, and intend to keep them around for the next few weeks. Their next gathering is this Sunday at 1pm in Peter's Cafe in Millbrae, right next to the BART/Caltrain station. I went there for the first time last Sunday, and they seem to be a friendly helpful bunch. Squats fucked around with this message at 07:57 on Sep 11, 2015 |
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2015 07:55
|
|
|
The cheapest way to get a bunch of #6 nibs for an X750 is buy a bunch of X450s. They're a buck shipped right now off of eBay. You can also buy the nibs themselves for about $2 shipped off of eBay. Economics is weird.
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2015 08:18
|
|
|
Giant Boy Detective posted:Speaking of Chinese pens, I'm looking for a way to buy cheap nibs to fit into my Jinhao x750 for nib grinding practice. Any recommendations on the cheapest way to get several #6 sized nibs that fit the x750? Or a cheap bunch of nibs that fit the Metro and Plumix? (Also open to getting several cheap rear end pens that have #6 nibs if the price is right.) I greatly resent the fact that Noodler's pens will take any #6 nib, but Noodler's #6 nibs never fit right in anything other than a Noodler's pen. A bag of 10 untipped Noodler's nibs is like $10 from Anderson Pens and awesome for practice grinding. So what I'm saying is buy an Ahab or a Konrad and do that.
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2015 16:34
|
|
|
Is the 599A always the good plastic one and not the bad metal one? My girlfriend inadvertently bought a bunch of J. Herbin standard international cartridges at a stationary store but all our pens are Pilot or Platinum.
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2015 17:58
|
|
|
RichterIX posted:Is the 599A always the good plastic one and not the bad metal one? My girlfriend inadvertently bought a bunch of J. Herbin standard international cartridges at a stationary store but all our pens are Pilot or Platinum. The plastic ones with either standard #5 or hooded nibs are the good ones. The metal ones with Lamy-style nibs are awful and should be avoided. grack fucked around with this message at 19:46 on Sep 11, 2015 |
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2015 18:12
|
|
|
Giant Boy Detective posted:Speaking of Chinese pens, I'm looking for a way to buy cheap nibs to fit into my Jinhao x750 for nib grinding practice. Any recommendations on the cheapest way to get several #6 sized nibs that fit the x750? Or a cheap bunch of nibs that fit the Metro and Plumix? (Also open to getting several cheap rear end pens that have #6 nibs if the price is right.) There are a bunch of Chinese sellers that sell lots of #6 jinhao nibs for like 3 bucks. http://www.ebay.com/itm/5PCS-JINHAO-159-Fountain-Pens-Nib-Medium-New-Free-shipping-/141768666644?hash=item2102122e14 http://www.ebay.com/itm/JINHAO-X450-fountain-pen-5PCS-Medium-Nib-other-pen-can-be-changed-Free-shipping-/221450753923?hash=item338f7e5783
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2015 18:28
|
|
|
While doing all this shopping for pens on the internet and more specifically, ebay, I have found it can be useful to check the different worldwide sites they have. Offerings differ between: ebay.co.uk ebay.ie (Ireland) ebay.nl (Netherlands) ebay.com ebay.ca Also some dipshit keeps bidding over my 50cts (incl P&P) for an X450 and they tend to end up around 1,50~2,00.
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2015 18:46
|
|
|
Is there a verdict on the TWSBI Eco yet with regard to failure rate?
|
|
#
?
Sep 13, 2015 00:54
|
|
|
grack posted:The cheapest way to get a bunch of #6 nibs for an X750 is buy a bunch of X450s. They're a buck shipped right now off of eBay. You can also buy the nibs themselves for about $2 shipped off of eBay. The only sub-$3 x450s I were able to find were ongoing auctions with 3 to 4 days left on them and 4 to 6 bids already. But I'm not going to complain about $2 nibs and $3 pens. Still a great deal. Having never used ebay before, especially not to buy stuff from outside the U.S., are there any bonus fees I have to deal with or forms I gotta fill out? The grammar makes most of the sellers' notes a tad difficult to decipher. NeurosisHead posted:I greatly resent the fact that Noodler's pens will take any #6 nib, but Noodler's #6 nibs never fit right in anything other than a Noodler's pen. A bag of 10 untipped Noodler's nibs is like $10 from Anderson Pens and awesome for practice grinding. The Ahab and Konrad are the pens that purportedly smell awful right? And does being untipped make the nibs different to grid than the round-tipped kind? Still that's a pretty fantastic idea. Don't own a demonstrator yet either. Do the clear ones have any cracking issues like I hear the TWSBI demonstrators and the clear Nemosine Singularity do? (Though, the black versions with the ink window are nice looking as well.) My Man Shran posted:There are a bunch of Chinese sellers that sell lots of #6 jinhao nibs for like 3 bucks. Those links are extremely helpful. It's good that they included the measurements as well. Not owning a x450, I didn't realize their nibs were 30mm longer than the nibs for the 159 and x750. The nibs in my x750 and 159 are already pushed as far in as they'll go, so I imagine the x450 nibs would extend 3cm farther out and possibly hit the cap interior?
|
|
#
?
Sep 13, 2015 02:27
|
|
|
Giant Boy Detective posted:The only sub-$3 x450s I were able to find were ongoing auctions with 3 to 4 days left on them and 4 to 6 bids already. But I'm not going to complain about $2 nibs and $3 pens. Still a great deal. All of the vegetal resin pens smell kind of gross; you'll get a lot of Indian pens made of the same stuff (a lot of Nathan's design is inspired by/lifted from Indian pens). But yes, they do have a distinctive stink although the smell has grown on me over time. What I like about the untipped nibs is that I can cut them down and make big huge wide italics if I want. Rather than being limited to only working with the iridium tip I have a lot more flexibility that way. On the other side of that, they'll always be sharper since they're just straight up steel with no tipping material; they're more sensitive to pen angle and writing speed because of it.
|
|
#
?
Sep 13, 2015 02:38
|
|
|
You only smell noodler's pens if you're literally sticking them up to your nose and taking a whiff, you aren't going to smell them during normal use.
|
|
#
?
Sep 13, 2015 02:40
|
|
|
NeurosisHead posted:All of the vegetal resin pens smell kind of gross; you'll get a lot of Indian pens made of the same stuff (a lot of Nathan's design is inspired by/lifted from Indian pens). But yes, they do have a distinctive stink although the smell has grown on me over time. Yeah any of the celluloid-like resins smell kinda funky. It can be pretty strong if you sniff the pen but unless your face is super close to your page it's not really an issue while using it normally.
|
|
#
?
Sep 13, 2015 02:44
|
|
|
pienipple posted:Yeah any of the celluloid-like resins smell kinda funky. It can be pretty strong if you sniff the pen but unless your face is super close to your page it's not really an issue while using it normally. That's absolutely true. The first time you smell it it's distinctive and alien enough to seem like A Big Deal, but it's not in regular use. A lot of Noodler's ink is way stinkier to write with than the pens. The bulletproof varieties in particular have a sort of detergent smell to them that you'll always smell when you're using them.
|
|
#
?
Sep 13, 2015 02:57
|
|
|
mirthdefect posted:Is there a verdict on the TWSBI Eco yet with regard to failure rate? Dunno about failure *rate*, but it's confirmed that they break in all the ways we already know TWSBIs break.
|
|
#
?
Sep 13, 2015 03:34
|
|
|
That's somewhat reassuring, as I hadn't noticed any sort of smell using the (semi)water-resistant Noodler's inks I own. (Navy, Green Marine, Galileo, and Black Eel.) Science demanded that I sniff these inks. So sniff these inks I did. You're right. If you bring your face really close to bottled ink, they all have a fairly strong smell that I did not notice during normal usage. And they weren't even that unpleasant for the most part, just strong. So, if the Noodler's pen's stink radius is less than that of many of their inks, maybe I will get that demo Konrad (or maybe the black). But sadly Anderson is currently out of stock of those two colors (as well as most of the other Konrad colors), and I'd rather not have to pay shipping from two different stores.  I'll wait until those get back in stock.
|
|
#
?
Sep 13, 2015 04:27
|
|
|
Remora posted:Dunno about failure *rate*, but it's confirmed that they break in all the ways we already know TWSBIs break. A quick glance at the fountain pen Facebook groups confirms the usual: pens snapping at the feed, leakage into the section and so on.
|
|
#
?
Sep 13, 2015 06:26
|
|
|
Kessel posted:A quick glance at the fountain pen Facebook groups confirms the usual: pens snapping at the feed, leakage into the section and so on. One would think that TWSBI could have figured out a fix by now...
|
|
#
?
Sep 13, 2015 14:00
|
|
I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
|
|
| # ? May 14, 2024 13:11 |
|
|
Why? People are pretty clearly happy to pay money for pens that break, so why fix it?
|
|
#
?
Sep 13, 2015 14:04
|
|