PEN NEWS November 2017
Pens that aren't Fountain Pens
While sometimes thought as a lesser collectible, there are die hard fans of ball pens, roller and gel options. That is what I will limit myself to here, not touching the soft/fibre tip choices out there.
Once you find the ball or roller pen you like, it really does come down to the refills. They make up so much of the character of pens that can look and be in all kinds of configuration. I have limited my non fountain pens to the illustrious Ballpoint. In particular the Wide bodied Parker style refill of decades and it is so ubiquitous that many pens, from disposable to high end pens come with this refill as their choice of ink. Even niche inks like the Fisher Space pen refill comes with a plastic addition that turns it into a Parker/Papermate style, large barrel refill. And when you compare the thin stick click pen refills, there is none. They just don't offer a nice writing experience.
On of my trivia stories that I learned along the way in collecting pens from Asia was I always wondered why Fountain Pens were always cheaper than ballpoints of rollerballs? It didn't make a lot of sense as most Fountain Pens are innately more detailed and complex by their nature. While cartridge inks make swapping in new ink as easy. There is still a more complex system of parts in these pens. What I learned asking around and researching was that China, the same booming super power nation that has space exploration as one of their notches in achievements, does not have the technology to make micro ball bearings and so it goes they can't make ballpoint tips or rollerball tips and must import such products from Switzerland mostly. Germany is another option. It was odd to find that it was tooling that stopped them from making such frankly common items. But the pen ballpoint is a bridge too far. This is why Fountain Pens are cheaper. They can be 100% domestically made and so costs are reduced in the manufacture.
Finding out the why and how, I also discovered that Ballpoint and rollerball pen refills made in China, tend to have high QC and impressive performance. The refills I sell which go with the pens I have on offer. All work quite well, are very nicely priced and are dependable. One thing that I found in the generics, is they would do just as well against branded products made [apparently] in the same factories. The difference is generally: branding, packaging and a higher price point. One thing that the Generics didn't always have was choices ...
It seems that offering point widths wasn't always an option. Medium was perfectly good enough for the public. This has started to change slowly. Just as ink colour choices in these refills are starting to grow as well? But I have found three nib point sizes available. They don't always come up in the order and many of the vendor call: 0.5mm, 0.7mm and 1.0mm ballpoints, Medium. Where other branded makers will define these as Fine Medium and Broad! I am trying to get more choice and will try to offer very soon, those very size choices. Another new option is that in the past, my most popular refill the Parker/Papermate, the one that comes in all twist pens as well as many click function pens has traditionally been a classic Ballpoint ink. Well I will be getting some GEL filled inks in that refill as well. Can't say a lot more until I test them out in hand, but they will cost more. Since they are out of the conventional Medium Ballpoint mould.
None of this is stellar news, but the queries about this kind of option is one that I have been asked about enough times to respond.
