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August 8, 2016 / Ken Crooker / Fountain Pens, Reviews / 8 Comments

Jinhao 3005 Fountain Pen Review

The Jinhao 3005 Fountain Pen, uncapped, with the pen resting on the cap

Inexpensive. Chinese. Fountain pens. Some are gems; some are disasters. How does this one measure up? Let’s mess with the…

Jinhao 3005 Fountain Pen

Price: $1.58
Nib: Fine / Extra Fine (Hooded)
Filling System: Cartridge/Converter (Standard International)

About the Company & Pen:

There is a huge number of Chinese fountain pen brands. Some, like Hero and Wing Sung, have been around for several decades. Others, like Duke and Kaigelu, are relatively new, but considered among the high-end of options from the Middle Kingdom.

Jinhao—a property of the Shanghai Qiangu Stationery Co., LTD—is another new-ish pen brand that came storming onto the scene in 1988. Okay, so maybe “storming” is a bit of an exaggeration. But at the present time, Jinhao produces a large number of fountain pens that are considered to be of… Read More

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March 5, 2016 / Ken Crooker / Fountain Pens, Reviews / 2 Comments

Lanbitou 280 Fountain Pen Review

Lanbitou 280 Fountain Pen Capped

For the next entry in my “Inexpensive Chinese Fountain Pens” series, I would like to call your attention to the…

Lanbitou 280 Fountain Pen

Price: $7.00
Nib: Fine/Extra Fine
Filling System: International Standard Converter & Cartridges

Born of an Old Chinese Proverb:

An old Chinese Proverb states “A good memory is no match for a worn pen nib.” It’s lesson: to write everything down…a written account of an event, by its very nature, is stronger (and more accurate) than an oral tale of that account passed down through generations.

In Chinese, “worn pen nib” is translated to lan bi tou (or Lanbitou). What a beautiful name for a pen brand. I love it. It tells me that the company takes writing seriously, and that the pens that bear its name can be trusted to record all the events of my life, all the stories I hold dear, all the knowledge that I want to live on after I’m gone…. Read More

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October 25, 2015 / Ken Crooker / Fountain Pens, Reviews / 14 Comments

Lamy 2000 Fountain Pen Review

Lamy 2000 Fountain Pen in black Makrolon with an EF nib

In my first review of a gold-nibbed pen, I present the beautiful yet slightly frustrating…

Lamy 2000 Fountain Pen

Price: $160.00
Nib: Extra Fine
Filling System: Piston Filler

About the Pen:

So after the saga of the Grail Pen that Wasn’t, I decided to tone it down just a bit and take a stroll down Entry Level of High End Boulevard. Up to now, the majority of my pens have been in the sub-$20 range, with a handful of mid-range pens (about $40-$80) peppered in for an extra dose of shiny bits. Buying a Visconti Homo Sapiens was a thrilling, disappointing, and eye-opening event for me. It was a beautiful pen…oh yes, it was (Lava! It was made from freaking Lava!). But it didn’t work out for me as a useful writer and it was WAAAAY too expensive to be just a showpiece. So I traded it in for three (count ’em THREE) pens that are considered among the first tier of the high-end fountain pens. The first one I’m going to review is this luscious little polycarbonate wonder: the Lamy 2000 (look for reviews for the Pilot Custom 74 and Vanishing Point in the near future).

I was kind of surprised. I had every intention of tearing into the Vanishing Point first, but once I picked up the Lamy, I just couldn’t put it down. So sit down, strap in, grab yourself (insert Beavis joke here) a mug of tea, and read on to find out how good it really is…. Read More

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September 27, 2015 / Ken Crooker / Fountain Pens, Reviews / 4 Comments

Baoer 100 Fountain Pen Review

Baoer 100 Fountain Pen - Capped

As I go tiptoeing through the Chinese fountain pen tulips, I have discovered a true gem…

Baoer 100 Fountain Pen

Price: $4.00
Nib: Fine / Extra Fine
Filling System: Screw-Type Piston Converter & Standard International Cartridges

About the Pen:

I’ll admit, I had some pretty low hopes for this pen. I found it on eBay for just under $4 (including shipping from China). I was lured in by the crazy shape of the nib housing. It’s a hooded nib labeled as a cayman (and another vendor called it a “shark mouth”) design. And it does resemble a mouth…probably closer to a shark than a cayman, but whatever.

In the picture, the pen looked a little ugly, but the section’s “mouth” shape looked cool, so I bought one. It took like 47 weeks to get here (that’s an exaggeration), and the first thing I thought was that the pen looked a whole lot nicer in person than I had expected. It’s a fairly small pen, but very classy and understated looking. I immediately loved the way it looked.

But the biggest surprise was the way it wrote…. Read More

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September 13, 2015 / Ken Crooker / Fountain Pens, Reviews / 6 Comments

Dikawen 839 Fountain Pen Review

Dikawen 839 Fountain Pen Uncapped

My quest for the perfect “Inexpensive Chinese Fountain Pen” brings me to a brand I’ve never touched before…

Dikawen 839 Fountain Pen

Price: $9.50
Nib: Fine/Extra Fine
Filling System: Screw-Type Piston Converter & International Standard Cartridges

About the Pen:

I’ve done a fair amount of cruising around eBay looking for cool Chinese fountain pens. Why? Well for starters, many Chinese pens have interesting and unique designs that are different from more mainstream brands. And the fact that they’re typically dirt cheap doesn’t hurt.

When perusing the world of Chinese fountain pens, you’ll probably notice a huge number of brands available. Some are different brands owned by the same companies (like Jinhao & Baoer). Others appear to be different “translations” of the same brand name (like Wingsung & Yongsheng). I could probably rattle off another 20 Chinese manufacturers (I won’t) whose names are fairly well known.

But there are a handful of brands that seem to fly under the radar. One pen manufacturer that came up every so often was Dikawen, but I couldn’t find any chatter around the Innernets to tell me if they’re any good or not. I found a cool-looking swirly brown and gold Dikawen 839 for under $10, and decided to pull the trigger, despite the lack of information.

The pen itself elicits feelings of both delight and disappointment. Keep reading for the final verdict…. Read More

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September 28, 2014 / Ken Crooker / Fountain Pens, Reviews / 2 Comments

Duke Uranus M25 Fountain Pen Review

duke_m25_01

The next entry in my “Cheap Chinese Pens I Got from eBay” series is the…

Duke Uranus M25 Fountain Pen

Price: $5.90
Nib: Extra Fine, Steel, Hooded
Country of Origin: China
Filling System: Piston (push type)

… Read More

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What’s Next?

You may have noticed that I haven't posted anything in a really long time. Sorry about that. Once we started up the St. Louis Pen Show and the St. Louis pen meetups, most of my free "pen time" started going into those activities.

My goal was always to write very thorough reviews with lots of great pictures, and that takes a ton of time. The writing, editing, and photo editing for one review took up a full weekend, and that doesn't take into account actually using the pens and taking notes along the way. With all I have going on, it just wasn't sustainable to keep this site going on a consistent basis.

Will I ever come back and start doing reviews again? Maybe. But not anytime soon. I am still around, though. You can catch me at the monthly St. Louis Area Pen Meetup & Eats (SLAPME) events, the St. Louis Pen Show, and a handful of other pen shows around the country.

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