When I was in the 9th grade, back in the early 60s, I had an English teacher who insisted everyone in her class was to use only a fountain pen for all the writing we did. Back then, a student grade Shaeffer fountain pen cost about $1.00, and a pack of 5 plastic ink cartridges cost about .35¢.
After I left her class, I quit using my fountain pen. I used a Bic, just like everyone else, but never liked them. Eventually, I preferred a fiber tip disposable pen, but problem with the fiber tips was the tip always spread out with wear, creating a messy and too-broad line. That was ok for drawing, but not for writing. So I went through a lot of half used-up pens.
When the rollerball pens, which use a water based liquid ink, I switched. The ink looked darker and richer on the page, but my hand still cramped up when I needed to write something that took a long time, and the rollerballs tend to feed the ink in globs, not smooth lines, as they are used. By then, I was writing a lot.
In 1989, at Christmas, my mother surprised me with a gift of a Parker Duofold fountain pen, an expensive fountain pen. They look impressive, and they write very well. I began to keep a journal, mostly to justify the cost of such an expensive gift.
Journal #1 began in January, 1990. I am now in #57. I became a fountain pen junkie along the way. We call ourselves "pen heads". I commonly write for an hour or more with no pain, no strain, and no impediment to my thoughts, 3-4 times a week, creating 500 or more words at a time.
I've carried a cheaper fountain around for many years and found most people today have never used one. When I let someone try mine, almost all are totally flummoxed. The rollerball dominates.
But, as all pen heads know, the fountain pen is the best and most versatile writing tool ever invented. A good pen filled with the right ink can write on a paper napkin, at -20º, and produce a document that is forgery proof and archival. With no struggle.
If you like to write, or want to write by hand more, or want to learn cursive writing, or if you have ever wondered why professional writers still use fountain pens so much, read on.
Here's a short primer, along with some unexpected environmental stuff that comes from using a fountain pen. It's all just below the calligrapher's rose, done first with a pen and ink, below.
First- some basics are needed before anyone tries out a fountain pen.
Any fountain pen requires the proper finger grip to hold it properly. Back in the day, I was taught what the proper grip was in grade school, but penmanship and longhand is no longer taught. Using a fountain requires the first, and makes the second easier to learn.
The proper finger grip is simple- place your index and middle fingertips on the tip of your thumb and position them so they make a little triangle where the tips meet. This is the same grip one uses whenever they pick up a small screw.
The pen fits in the middle, where the triangle meets. With this grip, very little pressure is needed to hold the pen in your fingers. The overhead thumb/clamp grip most people use is from early childhood, so it may take a while to become comfortable turning the pen loose, but it's worth the effort to learn.
The other way young kids control hand motions is by a squeezing motion of this tight finger clamp. A letter is formed by squeezing and releasing the fingers. Making any rounded letter is harder than making a line using this grip.
The classic grip mostly uses the wrist and forearm. The finger motions are minimized, and the grip doesn't need to be firmly clamped down by the thumb. Bigger joints are slower to tire than smaller joints. This means less hand fatigue. It also makes writing longhand much easier to accomplish.
Since a pencil is almost always our first writing tool, we all learn early that we have to push the point down hard to make a mark, and to keep pushing hard to draw a line.
Rollerballs, with their water-based inks, require less of this pressure.That's why folks like them so much.
A good fountain pen requires no pressure at all. They are designed to allow the ink to flow very freely out of the pen onto the paper. The ink comes out of the pen as easily as it comes out of a brush.
It takes more time to learn to relax and forget about pushing a fountain pen down hard than anything else about them. Once the unnecessary pressure is gone, so is the hand fatigue.
The writing becomes more naturally expressive, as there's no tight clamp in the fingertips and no restrictive pressure on the hand. No exertion needed. The bigger joints of the wrist and arm do most of the work, and they're built for it.
Handwriting speed increases, because the control is light and easy. The letters are dark and clear because the ink is saturating into the paper. Smearing and smudging are minimized because fountain pen inks are formulated to dry very fast. One word is dry before the next word is completed.
it takes a little time, but the rewards are well worth it in every way.
Now the cool stuff begins to be discovered.
Fountain pen ink is available in a huge array of colors. Many "pen heads" use a color that is theirs alone. The color of the ink becomes as much a part of their individuality as their signature.
Any fountain can be filled with ink that is waterproof, permanent, and forgery-proof.
The ink color choices are dizzying. An ink can be black with a blue halo, or a fluorescent hi-lighter color, or a fire orange. Blue and black become options.
At a cost of $12.00 a bottle, on average.
Shelby Foote. Shelby always wrote his first drafts of his Civil War anthology in longhand, using only an olive green ink or multiple reasons. He found the color to be easy on his eyes, and since all his editors and others couldn't use that shade of green, mostly because they didn't use fountain pens, his writing on the drafts was always evident immediately. His particular color is only made by one ink manufacturer.
No rollerball ever made has ink like it. Ink technology made huge strides because inkjet printer ink is based on fountain pen ink, so pen inks got a lot of the advancements. Each ink made is unique.
But not all inks are ultra-modern. The black ink I use comes from a pen company that only makes blue and black ink, and they haven't changed a thing in over 100 years. It is one of a handful of very old black inks that are all excellent and ancient. Pen heads don't abandon the good stuff.
A beginner doesn't need a lot of money to own a smooth writing, dependable and sturdy fountain pen. I haves paid as little as $5.00 for a disposable fountain, but an excellent bottom-line pen costs around $30, and are great for learning.
They are a lot like cars. As the price goes up, so does the quality of materials used, the craftsmanship increases, as do the tolerances, and luxury starts creeping in. Elegance and gold always costs money.
A good cheap pen is actually harder to find now than a mid-grade writer, and the mid range is around $40.00-$100.00.
The upper range starts at around $100, and goes to around $400. For that price, all the pens are visually impressive and employ the best materials and technology.
Past $450, luxury starts taking over, and the sky is the limit. They're all impressive as hell, and are more like fine jewelry than a tool.
Pulling out a $400 fountain pen, with a body that was hand-turned out of a block of subtly iridescent resin, with gold ring accents and clip, a gold and iridium nib with engraving, and filled with Ashes of Roses ink, is guaranteed to impress a banker who is being hit up for a loan more than wearing an Armani suit and pulling out a Bic.
I know, because I've done it. Wearing a pair of jeans and an everyday shirt tends to only increase the bang when the pen comes out. In a stack of documents, my signature is always the easiest to spot. And, most often, the first comment I get from that banker will be "Wow. Where can I get a pen like that one? I didn't know they made them anymore."
So, when a first impression is important, using a tool that leaves a lasting impression (literally) is a real help.
Here are some of the coolest things that come with using a fountain pen...
My handwriting is now a full expression of who I am. Fountain pen nibs come in a huge variety of choices and expressive qualities. I can use a bold tip to lay down a heavy line, or I can use a nib that is so flexible that it's as expressive as a fine brush. Or I can use a stub nib that writes in thick and thin strokes equally, so my writing can be tiny and fine or huge and heavy by simply shifting the angle of the pen in my hand.
If i want to get my thoughts down fast, I can use a stiff steel nib which will outrace my fastest thinking, or if I want to ponder on every word, I can select a nice flexible, medium nib for maximum comfort.
I can write someone a letter in calligraphic lettering, just to show I've still got the chops. In that same letter, I can switch from an iridescent red to a deep green so dark it looks black at first with no fuss or bother, using only one pen.
If I'm all on fire to finish my Never Ending Novel, I can waste a half a ream of paper at one go if I want, and can write until my butt goes numb. My hand won't go numb first. One hour, six hours. No big difference. Stamina comes easy now.
One bottle of ink will last for well over a year with the amount of writing I do. A bottle of good permanent (non-fading) black ink can cost as little as $8.00. One good pen will last a lifetime. It costs me about .01¢ a page to write. If I was to buy the cheapest rollerballs in bulk packs, the cost is 14 times more for the same amount of ink over a 5 year time span, using a much better pen that will last forever.
And nothing I use ends up in the dump except for the cardboard box the ink bottle comes in. Our expendable culture is filling up our dumps everywhere, but I use nothing expendable for writing.
When I'm dead and gone, my thoughts will survive for as long as the paper hold together, and my tools can be used by my children and grand-children.
Like any good tool, all my pens need routine maintenance to keep them at their best. But the maintenance is easy, fast, bio-friendly, and ultra-cheap. If I lived in a place that had naturally soft water, it would be free.
Junkie that I am, I buy another pen once in a while. I own 2 Parker Duofolds, by far the most expensive of my bunch. All the others cost much less. But the Parkers remain my favorites. While I enjoy them all, the performance is the most important for me, not the looks. The Parkers have both.