- Joined
- Monday February 9, 2015
- Location
- California
After having read so much, often very positive, about the Jinhao fountain pens I decided that I had to at least try one. Considering the fact that these pens often sell for under $5 it was a gamble the size of a fru fru drink at Starbucks.
I spent $2.91 on mine and shipping was free from China to California so the cost was closer to a cup of drip coffee.
It took 13 days and it arrived safely in a well padded envelope.
(How do they do this for three bucks shipped? Do I even want to know?)
Taking it out of the padded envelope the very first impression I had was 'wow, this thing is substantial'! It had a very nice, rather heavy weight to it and it felt like a high quality pen just holding it in my hand. Well impressed at this point.
Posted, with the cap on, it lies very comfortably in the hand and feels, as far as my novice self can tell, very well balanced.
It came with a rather attractive looking medium duo-tone nib.
Opening up the pen reveals a converter ready to be filled up.
Really? Not even a new Lamy Safari comes with a free converter
Still, well impressed.
Filling it up with the converter was just like using a Sheaffer converter where you twist the piston down, shove the tip into the ink..and twist the piston up et voila - it's full of ink.
There was really only one test left..how does it write?
Me, I have found that I prefer XF/F nibs and these Jinhao pens seems to be impossible to find with anything finer than a medium. So apart from fearing that it wouldn't write at all - to that the nib simply would be too wide for me - there was a full spectrum of hesitation as I put pen to paper.
With the risk of sounding like I'm being paid by Jinhao (not sure how much they could pay me really though as their pens are $3...) - all I can say is:
"If you haven't had a chance to try one out - do it. Get one tonight"
I spent $2.91 on mine and shipping was free from China to California so the cost was closer to a cup of drip coffee.
It took 13 days and it arrived safely in a well padded envelope.
(How do they do this for three bucks shipped? Do I even want to know?)
Taking it out of the padded envelope the very first impression I had was 'wow, this thing is substantial'! It had a very nice, rather heavy weight to it and it felt like a high quality pen just holding it in my hand. Well impressed at this point.
Posted, with the cap on, it lies very comfortably in the hand and feels, as far as my novice self can tell, very well balanced.
It came with a rather attractive looking medium duo-tone nib.
Opening up the pen reveals a converter ready to be filled up.
Really? Not even a new Lamy Safari comes with a free converter
Still, well impressed.
Filling it up with the converter was just like using a Sheaffer converter where you twist the piston down, shove the tip into the ink..and twist the piston up et voila - it's full of ink.
There was really only one test left..how does it write?
Me, I have found that I prefer XF/F nibs and these Jinhao pens seems to be impossible to find with anything finer than a medium. So apart from fearing that it wouldn't write at all - to that the nib simply would be too wide for me - there was a full spectrum of hesitation as I put pen to paper.
With the risk of sounding like I'm being paid by Jinhao (not sure how much they could pay me really though as their pens are $3...) - all I can say is:
"If you haven't had a chance to try one out - do it. Get one tonight"