Trolling for Hate: "Pens" v. Pens
I recently purchased, on air while recording GGL, a Matthew Martin 400 series pen. I also purchased, around the same time, a Scheaffer Sagaris Fountain Pen. These purchases made me realize just how different pens can be and how the gear community has, for all intents and purposes, gotten the pen thing completely wrong.
My essential problem with the Matthew Martin pen, along with all of the pens of its ilk--the Hinderer pens, the Tuff Writers, the ZT, Surefire, and Benchmade pens is simple--they are not about performance, but instead about looks and branding.
As a community, we are dedicated to focusing on performance. We spend large sums of money on small upgrades in steels or insignificant increases in lumens. But when it comes to pens we are enamored with what is, frankly, a bunch of bullshit.
As a community, we are dedicated to focusing on performance. We spend large sums of money on small upgrades in steels or insignificant increases in lumens. But when it comes to pens we are enamored with what is, frankly, a bunch of bullshit.
Now there are places where these hard use pens are useful. If you are a police officer writing tickets on the side of the road in 110 degree heat or blizzard conditions, get one of pens listed above and call it a day (though even here you can still do better, see below). They will write in just about any condition. But if you aren't, you are settling for a massive downgrade in performance. This isn't the pen equivalent of me railing against silly overbuilt knives. There they are ostensibly still knives. The difference between something like the Matthew Martin pen, even with a good refill, as opposed to the Fisher refill that is the default for all of these pens, and the Scheaffer is essentially an unbridgeable gulf.
I used to think that these ballpoint refill pens were necessary as nothing as prissy as a fountain pen could withstand the rigors of EDC work, but after carrying a fountain pen for two years, I have put the lie to that claim. A good fountain pen, like a Kaweco Sport, Pilot Vanishing Point, or the Scheaffer Sagaris, can handle daily use and lots of travel (air travel is a different story, but with precautions taken, they can handle even that). I get that some fountain pens that don't hold up. In particular, I have avoided Twsbi, but aside from cheap stuff and a few exceptions, the fountain pens I have had have been able to withstand the rigors of hard, excessive daily use.
And the performance increase--the writing performance increase (because, after all, these are pens and their task is to write)--is huge. I switched to fountain pens because I take so many pages of handwritten notes a day that my hand became a claw when I was forcing myself to use ballpoints and gels. You need so little pressure to write with a fountain pen that I can easily take twenty or thirty pages of notes a day, at a high speed under stress, with no problem. I can't say the same for a ballpoint.
But its not just the ease of use that demarcates a fountain pen from other pens. The fountain pen allows for a tremendous amount of variability in the width of the line. You can get very thin lines for marginalia or massively thick lines for underlining important things. With a ballpoint or gel, you can't do these things without a ton of effort. There is also the fact that you can get very precise colors with a fountain pen. I just bought my first bottle of ink (and at the rate I am using it I will still have it in five years), Pilot's Iroshizuku, and it is amazing. The vivid colors and the change in tone from the edges of the ink to the heart of the line are incredible. Your eye drinks it all in and your hand is thrilled at the prospect of continued writing.
In short, the performance difference between a fountain pen and other pens is so great that it is the the same as the difference between a high end ZT and the knife shaped objects sold at Wal-Mart for a dollar. By focusing on things like the body material or the name brand on the pen, the EDC community has become blinded. This is the only place where we accept truly subpar performance. You can put all of the mammoth ivory you want on the body of a pen, but if it runs a ballpoint refill, your still just putting lipstick on a pig.
This is not as simple as fountain pens are better (though they are). In reviewing pens and using them more than probably 99% of the population, I have come to realize that ballpoints are especially bad. Gels are better, with better page feel, better lines, and better colors, but they are still not the same as a fountain pen. I have found that only the Mont Blanc Fineliner refill approaches the performance of a fountain pen. This is a case where I think it is probably worth having a discussion about performance. Comparing a Fisher refill and a fountain pen is pointless. The Fisher refill is awful. 100% total garbage. But with the Fineliner you get something better and something different from a fountain pen. These are real pens. I also think the Sharpie refill is close to being this good. It is just as "write everywhere" as the Fisher, but it gives you real page feel.
The trend in EDC pens is pretty silly--massively heavy, overbuilt pens designed to withstand cannon fire, but can't write worth a lick. If you write every day you owe it to yourself to do better than a ballpoint, roller ball, or gel pen. If you only jot something down once in a while, well, I am sure the EDC pen will work, but it is no better than a Sharpie, even if it is in a titanium body. And really, when as minimal use stopped us from pursuing performance? Very few of us use our knives for hours a day, and yet we have no problem seeking out M390 and ZDP-189.
So it is a mystery--why do we accept clearly inferior performance in our pens? Perhaps it is because we have reached the Baroque Period of the Golden Age of Gear and only bling, not performance, matters. But I also think it is possible that some folks just don't know better. That $600 mammoth ivory pen writes no better than a free bank ballpoint. But for $5 you can get a damn good writer in a Sharpie. And for $25 you can get a truly sublime and durable fountain pen in the form of the Kaweco Sport, Lamy Safari, or many others.
And try as I might I can't find anything even close to the performance of a Vanishing Point, thanks to its best in price bracket gold nib, for around $125.
If you care about performance, if you want the very best, or if you care about value, stop kidding yourself with these three pound, ugly monsters and get a pen used by adults. Get a fountain pen, or at least something that runs a Mont Blanc Fine Liner. Or hell, get a Sharpie in a metal body with replaceable refills (they are like $7).
And if you can't bring yourself to do that, at least drop that Fisher refill in the garbage and get a Schmidt EasyFlow 9000, the best writer that is compatible with Parker style refill (which is what the Fisher is).
I'll keep reviewing the ballpoint pens because they can be useful, they do write longer (though a large refill fountain pen lasts quite long as well), and people are interested. But I think any person interested in EDC and performance should have a fountain pen in their daily carry arsenal.
And the performance increase--the writing performance increase (because, after all, these are pens and their task is to write)--is huge. I switched to fountain pens because I take so many pages of handwritten notes a day that my hand became a claw when I was forcing myself to use ballpoints and gels. You need so little pressure to write with a fountain pen that I can easily take twenty or thirty pages of notes a day, at a high speed under stress, with no problem. I can't say the same for a ballpoint.
But its not just the ease of use that demarcates a fountain pen from other pens. The fountain pen allows for a tremendous amount of variability in the width of the line. You can get very thin lines for marginalia or massively thick lines for underlining important things. With a ballpoint or gel, you can't do these things without a ton of effort. There is also the fact that you can get very precise colors with a fountain pen. I just bought my first bottle of ink (and at the rate I am using it I will still have it in five years), Pilot's Iroshizuku, and it is amazing. The vivid colors and the change in tone from the edges of the ink to the heart of the line are incredible. Your eye drinks it all in and your hand is thrilled at the prospect of continued writing.
In short, the performance difference between a fountain pen and other pens is so great that it is the the same as the difference between a high end ZT and the knife shaped objects sold at Wal-Mart for a dollar. By focusing on things like the body material or the name brand on the pen, the EDC community has become blinded. This is the only place where we accept truly subpar performance. You can put all of the mammoth ivory you want on the body of a pen, but if it runs a ballpoint refill, your still just putting lipstick on a pig.
This is not as simple as fountain pens are better (though they are). In reviewing pens and using them more than probably 99% of the population, I have come to realize that ballpoints are especially bad. Gels are better, with better page feel, better lines, and better colors, but they are still not the same as a fountain pen. I have found that only the Mont Blanc Fineliner refill approaches the performance of a fountain pen. This is a case where I think it is probably worth having a discussion about performance. Comparing a Fisher refill and a fountain pen is pointless. The Fisher refill is awful. 100% total garbage. But with the Fineliner you get something better and something different from a fountain pen. These are real pens. I also think the Sharpie refill is close to being this good. It is just as "write everywhere" as the Fisher, but it gives you real page feel.
The trend in EDC pens is pretty silly--massively heavy, overbuilt pens designed to withstand cannon fire, but can't write worth a lick. If you write every day you owe it to yourself to do better than a ballpoint, roller ball, or gel pen. If you only jot something down once in a while, well, I am sure the EDC pen will work, but it is no better than a Sharpie, even if it is in a titanium body. And really, when as minimal use stopped us from pursuing performance? Very few of us use our knives for hours a day, and yet we have no problem seeking out M390 and ZDP-189.
So it is a mystery--why do we accept clearly inferior performance in our pens? Perhaps it is because we have reached the Baroque Period of the Golden Age of Gear and only bling, not performance, matters. But I also think it is possible that some folks just don't know better. That $600 mammoth ivory pen writes no better than a free bank ballpoint. But for $5 you can get a damn good writer in a Sharpie. And for $25 you can get a truly sublime and durable fountain pen in the form of the Kaweco Sport, Lamy Safari, or many others.
And try as I might I can't find anything even close to the performance of a Vanishing Point, thanks to its best in price bracket gold nib, for around $125.
If you care about performance, if you want the very best, or if you care about value, stop kidding yourself with these three pound, ugly monsters and get a pen used by adults. Get a fountain pen, or at least something that runs a Mont Blanc Fine Liner. Or hell, get a Sharpie in a metal body with replaceable refills (they are like $7).
And if you can't bring yourself to do that, at least drop that Fisher refill in the garbage and get a Schmidt EasyFlow 9000, the best writer that is compatible with Parker style refill (which is what the Fisher is).
I'll keep reviewing the ballpoint pens because they can be useful, they do write longer (though a large refill fountain pen lasts quite long as well), and people are interested. But I think any person interested in EDC and performance should have a fountain pen in their daily carry arsenal.