I imagine very few people reading this actually ever had to do so, at least as depicted. I, however, have. Because I’m exactly that type of asshole deliberately anachronistic nerd.
All throughout my school career, I used a Sheaffer Targa from the late 1970’s. I still have it. Here it is.
Mine was not the fanciest entry in the Targa series – by far – but even in its basic stainless steel trim it’s a head turner thanks to its very striking and distinctive nib design.
I can hear the screeching from the pen collectors from here. Yes, I committed sacrilege by grinding my antique pen’s point into an oblique nib but, yes, I also have an unmolested original nib in its as-manufactured configuration. Still in its factory packaging, sealed, unused!
I like a good oblique nib, helped moreso because using this pen for all my assignments absolutely annoyed the shit out of most of my teachers. (And if an oblique is not available, I will make do with a plain italic nib instead.)
Because of that, to this very day, my basic handwriting looks like this. It looks absolutely ridiculous if you put a ball point or pencil in my hand, but let me have one of my fountain pens and I can crank out these serifed italics as fast as most people can scribble a regular printed hand. Now there’s a less-than-marketable skill.
I await with interest what all the armchair graphologists will now tell me what’s wrong with me.
Ooh, nice pen! I love the inlaid nib on this model. I also am a fan of the Triumph type nib (I have a Sheaffer Signature with one).
Here in the US we didn’t use fountain pens in school. But there’s a cult following.
My current daily driver is a Parker 45 Flighter with an Octanium nib (stainless steel with fancy marketing me lol).
I don’t bother with cartridges; I use converters instead. Quink Black works pretty well in this one although I have too many other inks.
Fountain pen lovers – there are dozens two of us!
OoooOOO.
I don’t have any vintage Parker fountain pens. I do have one of the re-release 51’s which is a fine enough pen, and I have a Parker Latitude from 2007 that is so terrible the thing seems to have been memory holed entirely and has negative collector’s value.
Oh, and I have about 67 zillion Jotters, both vintage and modern.
I still have, and occasionally use a pen virtually identical to this. Mine is a Sheaffer “Slim pen” purchased 1988, so maybe thinner than yours. Some years ago, I sent it away for repair. It came back fixed free of charge!
I’m an American, 40 years old. Not only have I never used a fountain pen, I don’t think I’ve ever even seen one used in person. School was all #2 pencils, mechanical pencils, and then ballpoint pens, as I progressed through the years.
I highly recommend changing that. Writing with a fountain pen is a very different experience. You can feel the texture on the paper and it makes my awful handwriting much better. If you want to try for cheap, PlatInum Preppy pens are cheap and decent. Different inks can also impact the feel.
I’ve wanted to try them before, and even bought whatever people were saying was a good starter a few years ago. The issue is that I honestly never write anything in pen. I think the only time I do is when I’m addressing a letter or check, which never happens these days. So the pen just dried out with basically no use…
Nobody in my k-12 had a fountain pen cartrige or otherwise. Now I’m all about them though, r/fountainpens is one if the only things I miss about reddit
Well, it looks like there is a fountain pen community here: https://lemmy.world/c/fountainpens.
It doesn’t seem very active, though. Maybe we ought to do something about that.
Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn’t work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !fountainpens@lemmy.world
I know there’s a lot of hate on lemmy for it, but if you’re missing r/fountainpens there’s some thriving fountain pen communities on discord that have really helped me get over losing the sub in reddit’s fall from grace usability
penposium (Most active, also probably the most misanthropic casual)
r/pens (Most users and a great resource for identifying obscure pens)
pendemic (often do fun group buys and similar)
Stationary Anonymous (General stationary, not just pens)
There’s also Fountain Pen Network if you prefer the oldschool forum feeling, though it’s much less close-knit of a community than the discords (imo).
What nobody is saying is that if you go into a test with a near-empty ink cartridge your hipsterism has outpaced your skill.
Refill that stuff going in or bring a second pen, you pleb.
That particular fountain pen can’t be refilled. It’s a BIC All-In-One disposable fountain pen. Bears striking resemblance to a Pilot Varsity, but the cap is different.
