Top 5 Fountain Pens for Newbies

hey I'm Brian Goulet of Google offense comm and you know there's not that many people these days that grew up around fountain pens which means that if you're interested in learning about them you don't even know how much you don't know until you learn it from somebody like me so the reason that I shoot videos like this is because I really want to share my knowledge with you new users out there I was a new user and we've all been there ok so there's no judgment here the whole point of this video is to give you a little bit of direction of maybe some pens that you should look into as your first fountain pen because I understand how overwhelming it can be you know you look at these pens online and you don't really even know what you're looking at because you don't know the terminology and all this stuff so I'm going to cut through all that and just tell you what my top 5 pens are if you're a newbie into the fountain pen hobby and you just kind of want a nice clear direction to headed so the first pen that I want to recommend is the pilot metropolitan I freaking love this pen ok I knew as soon as this pen came out a couple years ago that this thing was going to be awesome ok it's a great price fifteen dollars you know if you're coming from the ballpoint pen world fifteen dollars might seem like a lot of money it's really not in the grand scheme of reliable fountain pens it's a really great pen it's a solid writer performs really nicely comes in a fine and medium nib the fine nib in particular is awesome because it's very very fine finer than most other fountain pens you're going to see it's a Japanese pen they grind their ground ground grind whoa they grind they're fine it's really fine whew and they're just really solid performers so I definitely recommend the fine nibs if you are switching over from the ballpoint pen world they got a few different color options and things like that it's really durable pen and it comes with a converter to in a pretty nice box so it's a great gift pen it's great if you're just getting into the thumb hobbie there's only a couple of drawbacks to the Metropolitan and they're really kind of weak drawbacks but I'm pointing them out anyway first one is that there's only two nib options available it used to be worse it used to only be in a medium nib now it's medium and fine so that's a little better and the only other drawback is that the converter that comes with the pen is opaque you can't see through it you don't know what your ink level is until you are basically running out however if you want to get around that you can swap out the converter with a pilot con 50 and that is clear and you can see in there to see what your ink level is you're just going to sacrifice a little bit a little bit of incapacity when doing that next pen that I want to talk about is the Platinum preppy this one is a classic known all throughout the fountain pen world particularly because this pen is included in a lot of the four and a half ounce Noodlers ink bottles so a lot of people just kind of stumble upon them without even realizing what they are at first but even still this pen is a reputation just for being a great writer and it's super super cheap it's four dollar pen under four dollars actually and it's a reliable writer it comes in fine and a medium nib and it's a clear pen so it's kind of neat you get to actually see inside you can see your ink level without having to open up the pen that's pretty cool and it's got a really nice ceiling cap so the nib doesn't tend to dry out very often and you know just adds to the reliability of that pen tends to work really nicely as kind of a first pen just getting into the Hobby it is a cartridge converter pen however it uses platinum proprietary cartridges and converters so Platinum's ink cartridge selection is not that fantastic in terms of their colors they offer that's where you want to use the converter for bottled ink or a cool thing about this pen is you can convert it to an eyedropper I've got a whole separate video on that but basically you add an o-ring and a little silicone grease to the pen and you can fill the whole body of the pen with ink get massive and capacity really enhance the utility of that pen now it's been does have a couple of drawbacks okay it's a fairly durable pen but the plastic can be a little bit brittle so if it's really mishandled it can break if you accidentally drop it on the floor and step on it probably going to crack if you drop it in the asphalt parking lot something it may crack on you it's only a $4 pen so it's not the biggest loss but it's just something you should probably be a little bit aware of it's only got to find a medium nib which you know is a okay range but if you want to get really extensive nib selection you'll need to go kind of beyond this pen and then the last thing is that you know because the pen is so inexpensive the converter to make the pen usable for bottled ink actually costs more than the pen itself you know that's just one thing that some people just have a hard time with one pen that's really kind of underrated in the fountain pen world is actually the pilot varsity the varsity is really kind of designed as like a student pen a school pen it's a disposable fountain pen so the whole situation with the varsity is it's a fountain pen that comes pre-loaded with ink in the pen and it's intended to be disposable because when you use up the ink you toss it you get another one it comes with a decent volume of ink and you can you can you know use it for quite a while and you are actually able to I've seen a lot of people do this hack open the pen once you're done with it and you can refill it with other types of ink if you so are so inclined to do that I wouldn't necessarily recommend doing that as someone brand new to fountain pens but if you like to tinker around you know they play youtube videos out there on how to do that stuff but you know it's it's actually a phenomenal writing pen it's it's it's really a great introduction into fountain pens because you get an idea of how smooth writing how reliable fountain pen can be in the writing experience especially if you're coming over kind of from the ballpoint world it's going to really kind of change your view of fountain pens there are some cons with the Varsity of course it's a three dollar pen and I would say it looks more like a seven dollar pen but it doesn't look like a fifty dollar pen you know it it's a disposable pen and it looks nicer than it could for three dollars but you know there's certainly nicer looking pens out there that's okay it only comes preloaded with seven different colors so if you want a different color or you don't particularly like the properties of that ink well you don't really have much of a choice you're kind of stuck with what they give you it's a actually a pretty durable pen but it's um it's only comes in one nib size and it doesn't come in a box or anything it's just the pen itself unless you're getting the whole seven pack which does come with kind of a flimsy disposable like pocket protector style case but you're basically just buying the pen another great value pen here is the ginn how X 750 now there are a couple of other models of Ginn house that are similar to this pen like the X 450 and the 159 those are both great pens too but I'm I'm narrowing your scope here to the X 750 so you don't get too confused with all the other similar things X 750 is great it's under two under a $10 pen which is really pretty phenomenal deal it's heavy its durable and it's a pretty reliable writer it's a standard international cartridge converter pen which means that you can use any brands standard international convert or cartridge or converter in this pen so brands like Jer bond I mean Private Reserve they all make cartridges that will fit in this pen which means that your color choice in cartridge form is going to be much more extensive than it would be in a proprietary brand like platinum or Lommy or pilot it does come with a standard International converter it is gin-house kind of own little standard international converter and it's not the most durable converter so you may want to keep in the back of your mind that you want to upgrade it's a $5 upgrade to get like the real standard international converter I'm just kind of keep that in the back your mind or if you have any that are laying around you know you may just want to consider kind of swap in that out then another cool thing about this pen is it's got a number six size nib which is used in several other different pens and even though it only comes with a medium nib you can actually get a Goulet nib or Noodlers nib an Edison nib or a monteverde nib and you can put that in this pen to give you a range anywhere from extra fine fine medium broad 1.1 1.5 millimeters stub so it's an extra little thing that you got to get but it can really an extend the utility of this particular pen so the din has got a couple of cons along with it the converter that comes with it is not amazing so you may want to consider upgrading that it is kind of limited in its nib offerings you can get other nibs for it but as far as what actually comes on the pen it's somewhat limited the pens really heavy so some people may have a hard time kind of adjusting to that especially if you're writing for long writing sessions at a time and then the last thing is that you know it's got limited color options so it does come in a couple of different things and some of the colors are actually pretty neat but it really could be a little more extensive and the last pen that I want to recommend to you is actually the most expensive of the bunch it is the LA me Safari and this is a great pen solid reputation on this pen it's the most expensive of the group at nearly 30 dollars and that doesn't come with a converter either eath converter is a five dollar add-on so why is this pen worth so much more well all the other pens that I talked were like super value pens but this la me man it's got such a solid followings a lot of people that love this pen and it's got some cool things going on with it it's really durable it's what everybody calls a workhorse pen you know a great daily writer you carry it around with you the styling is kind of cool too some people really don't like the styling but other people just absolutely love it it's a German brand really distinctive kind of look to the pen comes in a lot of different cool and fun color options and they do limited editions usually every year every couple of years so there's kind of a backlog of limited editions that are kind of fun to go back and try to collect or you know they keep new colors coming out every year and it's it's really kind of exciting to kind of keep up with that it's got interchangeable nibs so lobby's got their own line of nibs that gives you versatility everything from extra fine fine medium broad one point 11.5.0 meter stub so you're able to get a really diverse range of writing capabilities just with a single pen as a cartridge converter so you can use Lommy cartridges or get a proprietary Lommy converter to use it with bottled ink and other cool thing is it's got an ink window so that you can see the level of ink in your pen whether you're using a cartridge or converter without having to open the pen up so they're on a whole tonic ons with the Lummi but the biggest one would obviously be the price in comparison to these other ones it seems like a much more expensive pen you can certainly spend a whole lot more than this but as a first fountain pen it is a little bit more of an investment and some of the other ones I've mentioned in this video however go start searching online look at some of the reviews of these pens and you'll see that a lot of people think that it's really worth it it does have a cartridge and converter but its proprietary again just like pilot and platinum so your ink choices and the cartridges with Lommy are not going to be extensive you're probably going to want to get the converter and use bottled ink that because you get really open up your options as far as what your ink choices are so those are my recommendations for five great pens that you could start out with when you're getting into the fountain pen hobby it's going to be pens that you not only enjoy right away but ones that you can continue to use as you get more into your fountain pen experience and ones that you hopefully won't really outgrow either I've got quite an extensive pen collection at this point and I still enjoy these pens on a regular basis so if you've got any other recommendations or any questions I would love to hear from you you can leave me a comment on youtube or on you can go and if you like this video and want more like it feel free to subscribe on YouTube and you'll be notified whenever I put more out thanks so much for watching I appreciate you spending time with me today and right on

Channel: The Goulet Pen Company

Views: 1,156,638

Rating: 4.8527465 out of 5

Keywords: pens, writing, Lamy, Pilot, Metropolitan, Jinhao, X750, Preppy, newbie, fountain pens, fountain pen, fountain pens for newbies, Goulet Pens, Jinhao X750, pilot metropolitan, platinum preppy, pilot varsity, lamy safari, beginner fountain pen, affordable fountain pen, inexpensive fountain pens, fountain pens for beginners, fp101, fountain pens for students, budget fountain pens, starter fountain pens, affordable fountain pens, best beginner fountain pen, best affordable fountain pen

Id: Hf4CcluJH00

Length: 12min 24sec (744 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 05 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

I remember watching that when I first interested in pens.

I ended up purchasing a Noodler's Ahab and Creaper.

Then a set of Varsity pens. Then a Pelikan Twist. then a Skilcraft. Then a Lamy Al-Star, Jinhao 250, and a pair of Pilor Metro.