The Joy of Fountain Pens

As a person who does a lot of writing, by hand and keyboard, I'm pretty picky about what I use to physically write. Fountain pens are my number one choice for handwriting, simply because they provide a writing experience that dwarfs that of all other writing instruments. The pen below is a Monteverde Invincia, which I received as a high school graduation present. I have also owned a Lamy Vista, but that was gifted to a coworker of mine before she left. Now, you may Google either of those pens and be like, "why the hell would you, or anyone, spend that much money on a pen when you can just get a 99999 pack of Bic pens for like a dollar?"

While some fountain pens can soar into the thousands of dollars and are made with any number of expensive resources, those super-duper high end pens are not needed to fully enjoy everything a fountain pen has to offer. Inexpensive pens, such as the Pilot Metropolitan and any of the Jinhao pens, can perform just as well as their expensive Omas and Visconti counterparts.

Some benefits of using a fountain pen include:

-Cheap if using bottled ink. Some pens include what are known as "cartridge converters," that allow the use of bottled ink, and some very inexpensive models can only use packaged ink cartridges, or are even disposable.

-Much easier on the wrist for long writing / note taking sessions

-They need 0 down force to get ink to flow onto the paper

-They look pretty cool

-Can improve your handwriting

-Come in any style you can possibly imagine

-And many more

There are also dip pens, which I have amassed a beautiful and small collection of. They are very similar to a fountain pen, but do not have internal ink storage.

Dip pens are very popular for calligraphy, as they allow on-the-fly nib swapping, and the nibs are generally more flexible than those in fountain pens.

The top set includes two nib holders, one is wood, and the other is glass, and also includes 5 different colors.

The bottom set is made of type of steel, and came with a bottle of black ink.

While fountain and dip pens may be similar, most of all fountain pen inks can be used with dip pens, but not all dip pen ink can be used in fountain pens. This is because dip pen ink commonly has more suspended particles in it that can clog the fountain pen's feed.

Good places to buy fountain pens, as well as other writing accessories, include Goulet Pens; Amazon, if you can find what you want, as well as brick and mortar stores, if one exists in your area.