Fountain Pens in the Dollar Store

Transcribed below.

While looking for cheap Chinese notebooks the other day, we came across what the package called a “calligraphy pen,” which was clearly an ordinary cartridge fountain pen. But it was a fountain pen that could be had for $1.25 plus tax at a local store. It came with two ink cartridges, enough to do a fair amount of writing.

But would it be any good?

Well, for less than a buck and a half, we could certainly afford to find out.

The answer so far is yes. Here it is writing in a cheap Chinese notebook (we seek out Chinese notebooks because Chinese paper almost always gets along well with liquid ink). The point is unexpectedly fine for a cheap pen: one expects cheaper pens to write a fatter line than this. Yet the ink flows well, and the point slides smoothly across the page. This dollar-store pen is a pleasure to write with.

So it is at least occasionally possible for American writers to walk into a store with a bit of pocket change and walk out with a good writing instrument.



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What Is This Place?

There is a certain amusing dissonance about a site on the Web whose theme is writing by making marks on paper. But that is not the only dissonance you will find here. This is a supplement to Dr. Boli’s Celebrated Magazine, and we’ll have long digressions on random subjects, instructional articles about writing instruments, and even poetry—but everything will be written out on paper, and only then published to the electronic world at large.

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